The Parable Paradox - Jesus Deliberately Misdirects

 

Maybe my first parable should be about your planning ahead next time...

        After reading the bible or hearing a sermon about Jesus, have you ever wondered why he spoke in so many parables rather than just speaking directly about matters that affected something as serious as an immortal soul and the life to come? You’d think he’d want to be as precise, unambiguous, and crystal clear on this issue as he could be. So why all the puffery, misdirection, and charades in the parables when it could have been so simple with a direct message?  

The Bible offers few clues as to why Jesus couldn’t plainly say what needed to be said. For starters, the bible is not exactly a good source for anything given its own dubious history. (Don’t bother asking Christians what it says in the very first, original bible. There isn’t one. The earliest complete bible dates only from the 600s and is reputedly in a vault beneath the Vatican. How do the faithful know what the first bible said?)  

So, are the stories in the bible recording times when Jesus was trying to entertain those who were listening, or did he have some other darker purpose in mind with his parable ploy?  

According to Mark:4 verses 11-12 “He (Jesus) said to them, unto you is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables. That seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” 

That sounds like the function of Jesus’ parables was to confuse. He was speaking to his disciples, telling them THEY are given to know what God wants. If others listen in and try to divine the message, well, screw them. They may see and hear it, but they won’t perceive or understand it. Jesus wants them kept ignorant. They can’t be converted and forgiven their sins by direct message. They must filter it out through a multi-layered parable that was MEANT to confuse and ultimately damn them. And it’s THEIR fault if they fail. 

Apparently, Jesus didn’t want a large group of Christians gathered in Heaven when it was all over. He wanted to baffle the audience via the parable so most of them would end up in hell. The parable was Jesus’ misdirect into the everlasting fire, and he KNEW it was. Why would anyone worship such a monster? 

John 3:16 Corrected

       Jesus spoke in code or in riddles as sort of a “this is a wheat separated from chaff test” for his followers - to see if any could decipher them. If they couldn’t, well, Jesus literally didn’t give a damn if they failed. That was the whole point of the parables. They were an early manifestation of what satirist George Elliott wrote in his piece about Calvinists who claimed to be “the elect”: “We’re the Lord’s elected few, let all the rest be damned. There’s room enough in Hell for you. We don’t want Heaven crammed!”  

Would you have learned spelling, math or a foreign language if it was taught to you only via parable and it was up to you to discern the reality of those subjects? Would you have known where to turn for an answer? Would being given ambiguous information repeatedly have motivated you to seek greater answers?  

This is what the Bible teaches about Jesus and his reliance on parables. It is useless information. No one needs to follow such a deranged and bizarre cult as Christianity. 

Parables are fairy tales. They are stories meant to entertain little children. They have no place being presented as truth and the perfect repository of knowledge, information, and instruction. 

The Swarm

Maybe Donald Trump’s anger is justified, or at least understandable in a primitive, insect kind of way. He is accused of covering up his misconduct…but he doesn’t recognize his bumbling actions, his threats and distractions as a cover-up anymore than a bug considers the consequences of eating a field of a human’s crops. To Trump, he is being himself because we all knew he was a coward, a con-man, a bully, a liar, and a tax cheat when he was running for the presidency. He figures since we knew what we were getting, why are we surprised? He doesn’t understand our anger and disgust because he’s still the cowardly, bullying, lying, cheating, con-man who got elected for at least a four-year term thanks to Russian interference (he even tweeted his admission that they did, it's just that he wasn't involved), so what right does anyone have to complain?

Trump’s supporters got exactly what they wanted; an unbridled wrecking ball who would shake things up in Washington. The first few weeks of his presidency when he started to display gross incompetence, those supporters and his cheerleaders in the GOP insisted that Trump would eventually “grow into the job.” No, of course, they didn’t expect him to make enemies with the world, threaten war against North Korea, Venezuela, Mexico, Iran, expand fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Niger, Yemen, ram through a massive tax cut bill that primarily rewarded him and his billionaire friends, renege on his promise that manufacturers like Carrier, Ford, and Harley Davidson would stay open and expand when all three companies have laid off their workforce and closed down or moved operations overseas, initiate a trade war with China, Mexico, Canada, the European Union, and other trading partners. But they crossed their fingers and hoped he could somehow look presidential while still "being Trump."

Trump takes his job so seriously that the “I-won’t-have-time-for-golf president has spent fully one-fourth of his time in office at one of his resorts or golf courses…usually playing golf. We the taxpayers have had to pick up the bill for over $100 million to provide security for him at his own golf courses…you know, those places he mentions at his rallies that make him a billionaire. But his supporters did expect him to be different. Vive la difference, huh?

They look around and gasp “but what about our economy, look at all the new jobs, the low unemployment numbers, a booming stock market...that has to be Trump's doing. Yes. Look at all those - but peek behind the curtain to see what is really happening. Bloomberg, MarketWatch, and even the Wall Street Journal admit that Trump’s massive tax cut bill in December 2017 hasn’t done anything the Trump administration predicted it would. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service confirms it has had no effect on the economy, other than driving the federal deficit $2 trillion further in the hole. Are prices coming down? No. Are jobs paying more? Only a few of the high tech, limited access jobs. Low-income job numbers have risen but not the pay. If you’re in the stock market, you’ve had a hell of a roller coaster ride, which is not what the market is supposed to do, but it has gone up in the past two years. However, a simple check of the Dow Jones chart for the past 10 years will show that due to policies enacted by Obama, there has been a steady bull market since 2010. When Obama left office, the jobless rate had dropped to 5%. Under Trump, it has gone down to 3.8. How has that 1.2% drop improved things for you personally? The most honest answer I’ve heard on that from a Trump supporter was “it makes Trump look good.” If that’s your bar, then the bar is sitting flat on the ground.   

The laughable part (if there is anything to laugh about) is that all along the Republicans have kidded themselves into thinking they could contain and control Trump and his horde. They found out it is like trying to herd locust. That is a pretty good metaphor for the Trump administration…a criminal enterprise that operates like a swarm of locust. Locusts usually gorge themselves on whatever is in front of them and to hell with anyone or anything else.

You can see Trump and his hand-picked “best people” fit the locust comparison perfectly, like Elaine Chao, Alex Acosta, Michael Flynn, Tom Price, Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke, Jeff Sessions, David Shulkin, Rex Tillerson, Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, Rick Scott, Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Kirstjen Neilsen, Rob Porter, John Bolton, William Barr, just for starters. Plus, consider the people who have been forced out or deserted this bizarre White House like rats abandoning a sinking ship: John Kelly, H. R. McMaster, Jim Mattis, Gary Cohn, Nikki Haley, Don McGahn, Rod Rosenstein…etc. How have they made anything great again when they leave their job after only a year, or are forced out by the guy who said they were his best people? Remember, the GOP supported and approved of every one of them.

What these human locusts amount to are the flotsam and jetsam that stuck to the bottom of the hiring barrel and had to be scraped out of the corner with a sharp stick in order to be considered. Trump has filled up the Washington swamp with a massive swarm of locust, because every one of these “acting directors,” Cabinet yes-men and yes-women serve Trump and Trump only, not the American people. They are enriching themselves at our expense while they encourage, enable, and run constant interference for Trump to cover up what he does. They know what he is doing is wrong just as they know what they are doing is wrong. But Trump provides camouflage. And like a good cult leader, Trump has convinced not just his administration but his supporters that they are not seeing the whole picture or the real world. Only Trump knows all and sees all. So they believe his lies and this helps them continue to support Trump because who can now tell who is telling the truth anymore. They believe it is better to simply support Trump and his lies than to search for the truth of a story. That’s too much work.

Trump supporters, when did intelligence, decency, and character in a president stop mattering to you? Why do you approve of the Trump swarm picking America clean?

How Trump Can Further Show Just What an Extraordinary Military Commander He Is

               There’s a caravan walking at about 2 to 3 miles an hour through Mexico at this moment made up of primarily impoverished families who are escaping the violence and lack of job opportunities in the Central American countries where they are from. Donald Trump is insisting at his rallies, at press conferences, and at brief encounters with reporters outside the White House, that they are a brutal invasion force. They are still over 800 miles from the southeastern border of Texas, but the general direction suggests they are heading toward California which is over 2000 miles from their present location. (They are near a strange place in Mexico that Fox’s Lou Dobbs called ‘Juar-ll-daaaaaaa.' I haven’t been able to find it on a map of Mexico either.) At the rate they are travelling, it will take them at least 2 weeks to a month to reach the U.S. if they come here at all. But to Trump, the danger is now, today, immediately, so he has told Defense Secretary James Mattis to send armed troops…5000, 5200, 10,000, no 15,000…to meet the threat. That’s more than the U.S. has deployed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS.

If you don’t look too closely, the men in that caravan are…(maybe they’re Middle Eastern, who knows?)…of military age, strong and virile (but unarmed, except for some rocks they might be able to throw). Reporters actually travelling with the caravan describe them as mostly thin, underfed young fathers, and teenage boys who are desperately trying to avoid being forced into joining a gang. Trump along with Fox news claims the women are being cowed into marching in the front of this invasion force in order to form a human shield for those men. And even worse, the women are keeping their babies close to themselves, and the young children nestled around them to provide an extra layer of bodies for the mass of terrifying invaders behind them, and those kids are riddled with diseases like smallpox, leprosy, aids, tuberculosis, and even STDs. According to Fox news hosts, Fox news guests, and many Trump supporters, they are all being paid by billionaire George Soros or the Democratic Party. How do they know? They say it is just so obvious and hinting that members of our own congress must also be going down there and urging them on, encouraging them to sweep into the U.S., and make sure to vote for Democrats…so they can rip health care away from law-abiding white Christian Americans, take over our cities, take away all our jobs…and kneel when the National Anthem is played!

These are the dangerous invaders Trump is warning about

From the Oval Office Trump admitted that “nobody knows for sure” whether there are gang members, ISIS soldiers, or Middle Eastern terrorists in among the caravan, but it’s possible…anything is possible. Why he doesn’t say that their pockets are all stuffed with millions in gold coins and they are coming to give it to Americans, free…is unknowable. But isn’t’ that also possible if anything is possible? He says he “tries to tell the truth” but the qualifier is he “tries”, not “does.”

If Trump really thinks this is truly a dangerous invasion force, why doesn’t he use the same tactic that has worked so well for him in the past? The tactic that makes disreputable news anchors wax poetically about how beautiful their launch is, how their use makes him appear more presidential to certain members of Congress, how Ivanka thinks it makes him…I mean, how Melania thinks it makes him more manly and desirable, how the use of them showcases what a strong, powerful, forward-thinking leader he is, all from the safety and comfort of one of his golf resorts?

Launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at them.

Trump insisted that Syria, a country far, far away and no threat to us, deserved to have cruise missiles launched at them…twice. If they were a threat, how much more is a threat just 2000 miles away and getting closer to our border? Since Trump is using the language of war, why not use our weapons of war? Just don’t distract him with a beautiful piece of chocolate cake or he’ll forget at which country he was supposed to launch them. We don’t need to wake up and find we’re now at war with Uruguay because Trump can’t tell the difference between that country and Mexico.

Not just cruise missiles either. Trump has no problem having our military and CIA launching missiles from drones over countries we are not at war with. If U.S. Predators and Reapers can send Hellfire missiles into wedding parties in Pakistan and schools in Yemen, then he can ignore Mexican sovereignty and launch missiles at the migrant caravan, too. Yemen, Pakistan, Mexico…what’s the difference?

But he mustn’t stop there. The world needs to see how tough Trump is. So send U.S. carrier groups into the Gulf of Mexico and down the Mexican Pacific coast to launch air attacks on the caravan. Maybe Trump can even ask for help from the Saudi Arabian Air Force which has lots of experience blowing up kids on buses and in schools in Yemen using U.S. weapons and hardware Trump sold to them. They’ll be able to show our pilots how and where to lay down ordinance to cause maximum damage. U.S. submarines can be included to add their missiles and firepower to the defense of the nation from this dangerous hoard of…poor people trying to escape the same war-like setting in their own countries.

Our F-117s, F-35s, A-10s, B-1s and B-2s can gain valuable experience dropping bombs on them or flying in low and slow and machine gunning them as they are strung out along Mexican roads. Sure, there will be some collateral damage and unintended casualties of Mexicans who happen to be too near a drop zone or target area, but innocent dead Mexicans is the price we have to pay to be free. Last year, Trump claimed he authorized our military in Afghanistan to drop a 21,000-pound non-nuclear bomb called a MOAB onto a suspected terrorist site. It was never confirmed that it was, but that’s immaterial. Plus, two innocent Afghani civilians were killed by it. However, dead Afghanis mean about as much to Trump as dead Mexicans. He can do the same to these violent migrant people. With a blast radius of over a mile, a MOAB will kill a good one-quarter of the first wave and make the rest of them think long and hard about wanting to come to the U.S. for anything.

                   Monkey see...monkey do!

It is certain Trump’s base will love this idea. Nothing makes them happier than to think Trump is killing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of non-white, non-English speaking people. They get giddy with the thought that, even with the massive tax cut that added $1.5 trillion dollars to the national debt - and there’s now GOP talk about gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to make up for some of that debt - that there’s still plenty of money laying around to throw at a military solution to the immigration issue…specifically these immigrants. What difference does a few billion dollars added to that deficit make if Trump can get a couple thousand dead immigrants out of it?

And as a last resort, if any of them do happen to reach the Rio Grande or the New Mexico, Arizona, or California border, and if they can be goaded into throwing a rock, Trump has ordered the 15,000 deployed soldiers there to consider that a weapon and then can now shoot-to-kill the migrants. Because in Trump’s way of thinking, a hand-thrown rock is as lethal as an AR-15 and deserves the return fire from one. That is what happens when you don’t serve in the military and make wild assumptions based on your feelings.

Military genius such as this can only come from someone who avoided service altogether with five draft deferments, suffered from a painful bone spur (or spurs…who knows for sure) in his foot, has never spent a day in the military, but overcame all that, and, using his vast military school background, has deployed the world’s mightiest military force to kill unarmed immigrants walking toward our southern border. We see this in every great military leader down through history. Leaders like…………..well, they must be there because how else would we know how great a military genius Trump is?

Remember, on June 16, 2016, Trump told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News that “No one is bigger or better at ‘the military’ than I am.”

If these migrants really are part of an invasion force, show us you are up to the task of defending the nation by the application of your Constitutional and presidential powers to stop them. Here is your chance to prove you understand it, Trump.

Orlando massacre reaction

      

         

          For a Sunday afternoon in Orlando, it is unusually quiet. By now, normally the roads and streets are bustling, lawn mowers are humming, sidewalk joggers rush by in pairs, and there is chatter in the air; from neighborhood grill outs, get togethers, and pool parties. But today, the silence is eerie. The whole area seems to be stunned by the news that 49 people were murdered and even more injured in this morning’s shooting at the Pulse nightclub in downtown Orlando. 49 people dead! These are battlefield numbers. These are casualties that occur when at war. So this isn’t a tragedy. It’s an atrocity.

          The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, called 911 reportedly from within the club around 2 AM with a message of support for ISIS just minutes before he opened fire. He decided, on the basis of his avowed faith in Islam, that killing people was what Allah wanted. A Texas pastor used the occasion this morning to declare the Christian god was in complete agreement. He is saying that Yahweh or Jehovah sides with Allah, and that justifies the slaughter. Would Mateen have killed if not motivated by a religious belief? Would a Christian minister have sided with an Islamic jihadist if not for his religious belief? These men are evil. They are the face of what is wrong when motivated by their holy books. When was the last time someone killed because of what they read in a Harry Potter book?

          Like that Texas preacher, a longtime FORMER friend on Facebook (who will remain nameless as I will never acknowledge them as a member of the human race again) decided to show his love and understanding of the situation this morning by quoting Galatians 6:7 from the bible: “Don't be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap.” When I read that, I went to his Facebook page and was astounded that he had published even more vicious, gay-bashing, and biblically-oriented rantings and ravings all in support of this mass killing. I did not bother sending him a message or ask for clarification. I immediately unfriended him. If I see him at any upcoming national meetings that we have attended together in the past, I will not shake his hand or even nod in his direction.

          This is the face of 21st century Christianity. This is what he really thinks Jesus meant in Luke 19:27 when he supposedly said “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”

          I’ll state my reaction plainly….WHAT HORSESHIT! You, FORMER friend on Facebook, are the reason more and more people find your religion not just stupid, but wicked. And YOU are stupid and wicked for quoting it. You give the word HATE a whole new meaning. The Orlando victims did not sow death and destruction anywhere. They did not reap any godly justice for any sin. It’s like saying because people were buying fatty foods at a San Ysidro California McDonalds that James Huberty has a right to come in and gun them down on July 18, 1984…or that if you watch the movie The Dark Knight Rises, you should expect someone like James Holmes to pop in and open fire as he did in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012, because clearly watching a movie or eating McDonalds food is worthy of death. And now Christian bigot, loudmouth, and homophobe Pat Robertson has claimed that this is God's judgment on our nation because same sex couples are allowed to marry. As I stated at the beginning of this paragraph...WHAT HORSESHIT!

The source of evil.

          Why did it happened? Some are already claiming that it’s the atmosphere of hate created by candidates like Donald Trump. I doubt that. I think it has more to do with holy books and people’s interpretation of what they read that led to this massacre. This is a logical extension of the Huguenot slaughter perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1100s, the wholesale murder of Mormons by Christians in the state of Missouri in 1838, the Cave of Patriarchs massacre by Baruch Goldstein on Muslim worshipers February 25, 1994 near Hebron Israel, or the mass shooting in Peshawar Pakistan by Islamic militants at a school crowded with children on December 16, 2014. The common denominator is religion. In each case, the killers indicated god told them, through their holy books, to kill. Christopher Hitchens had it absolutely right. Religion does poison everything.

Insanity meets Insanity in the Orlando Sentinel

Insanity - The dictionary describes it as a relatively permanent disorder of the mind, state or condition of being insane; a defect of reason as a result of mental illness, such that according to the law, [the defendant] does not know what he or she is doing or that it is wrong.

Keep that in mind when you read the Opinion column in the Orlando Sentinel on February 9, 2016 written by Pat McFarland, a member of the Orlando Sentinel Advisory Board. Her letter is titled “Learn to Recognize Insanity and Face your Fears with Faith”. What she is suggesting is facing insanity with another form of insanity.

After listing several issues that reflect insanity on the part of the perpetrators…from the woman in Las Vegas who used her car to drive over and kill people on the city's sidewalk, more soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and Climate Change denial to a 12 year old being gunned down by Cleveland Ohio police, a retched wealthy teen who’s affluence blinded him to right from wrong as he killed four people, spending more to incarcerate people than educate them, and Donald Trump’s latest blathering…she goes completely off the track by then quoting from the bible as a stab at Trump. Quoting from a book that promotes genocide (you know...the flood, the destruction of the Amalekites and Midianites, etc.), slavery, talking serpents and donkeys, and a blood sacrifice as an effective method of salvation is not just wrong, it is delusional, a mental illness, and it defends a being who appears to not know right from wrong.

How could Ms.McFarland have such a firm grip on the baffling events (or as she calls them, the madhouse, where disordered minds exist…an insane asylum) happening around the world, and then quote from one of the most baffling and insane books ever written as a way to face down her fears over what all the insanity represents? She claims she is “helped by the bountiful love and compassion that God allows all of us to receive daily”. How does she know just WHERE that comes from?  She indicates it’s the same God whose “bountiful love” created a place called hell to send us to if we don’t love him back enough, a compassionate God who, according to the Genesis account of Noah and the flood, drowned virtually EVERY LIVING THING in the world…toddlers and babies, all the animals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, even the plants. What did any or all of those do to offend God? Only an absolute lunatic with a complete defect in reasoning…the very definition of insanity…could do that. Yet, it's that very same vile monster that Ms. McFarland says is filled with “bountiful love” for us. By threatening us with hell? That’s what a terrorist does. Do as I say or I’ll throw you into a lake of fire and leave you there FOREVER! By allowing the torture, slaughter and supposed death of his son in order to forgive us for being exactly as He designed us? Why resort to this kind of insanity when he could just forgive us. Or, when Adam and Eve are in the garden, don’t put the tree you don’t want them to touch where they can find it? How hard would that have been, especially given God KNEW what was going to happen but allowed it anyway, knowing 99.99999999...% of all the people who ever existed will end up in hell? That sounds like someone with a permanent mental disorder. It’s insanity on a universal scale. And it can all be laid at the feet of the being Pat McFarland says we should call on in order to face our fears. That beast sounds like something to fear far more than the stupidly insane things people do every day on this planet.

The Pledge of Allegiance

        

        I pledge allegiance to the flag…of the United States of America…

Is that something everyone should be forced to recite, even if the flag represents, say, despicable acts done by people working or fighting under that flag? For example, the repeated killing of innocent civilians by CIA-controlled drones in the Middle East, at My Lai in South Vietnam, No Gun Ri in South Korea, killing the original Americans during our westward expansion from the 17th to the 20^th centuries, or importing, enslaving, and mistreating millions of human beings forcibly taken from the African continent? Pledging allegiance suggests a ‘my country - right or wrong’ attitude implying that no matter what was done under that flag, it's okay; American exceptionalism means we'll gladly spill ours, or someone else's blood, for it regardless of what it may be.

If this is such a great country, (I think it is, but not because of the flag) why do we even need to pledge our allegiance to it? Wouldn't we simply love it or form a deep emotional attachment to the nation  - not because of a compulsory alliance?

Why not…”I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, a republic based on democracy, which offers liberty and justice for all…?

        That, to me anyway, makes far more sense than pledging allegiance to a piece of fabric. Because that is what it actually is demanding? Read it. It says “I pledge allegiance to the FLAG.”

The flag is several pieces of colored cloth sewn together. But that doesn't imbue it with any special power. It is no more the United States than the Statue of Liberty or singing Yankee Doodle. 

       Some advocates try to get around the flag pledge by claiming it follows the first line with …”and to the republic for which it stands…” But that follows the pledge to the FLAG; the “to the republic” business is an afterthought. It’s used as a stand-in for the sewn-together fabric banner. It’s one thing to align one’s self with an idea, or a nation. It’s quite another to an auxiliary imitation. The wisest thing I ever heard regarding the flag came from a retired World War Two Marine Corp Captain (Marshall Caitlin - who flew F4U’s over Bougainville and the Solomon Islands.) who said he “went to war to defend what America stood for, not what stood for America.”

        Nor do I think the word ‘indivisible’ should be part of that pledge. The Declaration of Independence clearly gives citizens of the states the right to break away or abolish the government if they feel it no longer represents them. Check the second paragraph of it if you doubt that. Clearly our Founding Fathers granted us the right to be divisible.

        People have forgotten how and why we even have a “Pledge of Allegiance.” The idea can be traced back to Daniel Sharp Ford, the owner of Youth’s Companion magazine. In 1892, he wanted to put American flags in every school in the country and sensed that the nation needed a dose of patriotism to heal the wounds from the American Civil War. So the sale of American flags was his initial the motivation. Sharp gave the assignment to write a patriotic pledge to a staff member, a former Baptist minister and Christian Socialist, Francis Bellamy. In Bellamy’s original Pledge, he expressed the egalitarian idealism of the French Revolution. He also drew on the socialist Utopian novels of his cousin Edward Bellamy, the author of Looking Backward and Equality. The pledge was also written to honor the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus setting foot in the New World. Most today do not recognize Bellamy’s original Pledge.

Bellamy originally included 'equality, fraternity' after liberty.

        Bellamy organized a school program around a flag raising ceremony including a special gesture called the Bellamy salute while saying his 'Pledge of Allegiance.' The salute consisted of each person extending their right arm straight forward, angling slightly upward, with fingers pointing directly ahead at the flag. Does it look familiar? 

Let me juxtapose it with a similar salute…

        Yes, the fascists and Nazis began using the same gesture less than 30 years later, but from the beginning, the act seemed exploitative and authoritarian, even before there was such a thing as fascism.

        In the 1923 and 1924 National Flag Conferences, the leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution changed the Pledge's 'my Flag,' to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy heartily disliked this revision, but his protest was ignored. Over a year after the U.S. became embroiled in World War Two, the Bellamy salute was finally dropped because it look like Americans were expressing solidarity with Nazism. 

        In 1954, Congress added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge making it now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer. It is reported that President Eisenhower ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ this change but it turned out he was more concerned with being called weak on Communism or being labeled a ‘Communist” thanks to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare, and reluctantly went along with the change. Bellamy passed away in 1931 but his granddaughter stated he would have hated that change as well. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons but he would have considered making an appeal to God in his pledge a type of sacrilege.

What Christians see when they say the pledge 

        

        The Pledge was dreamed up to sell flags, to promote the discovery of the continent by a man who claimed it for his God - while taking several of its inhabitants and riches back to Spain, and to bind the wounds from a recent war that still divided the country. All you had to do was make a commitment, not to the American idea or its Constitution, but to a piece of representative fabric...sort of like pledging allegiance to the Bald Eagle.

        How about making this commitment: I pledge allegiance to the universe and all the life which it supports…one cosmos, in our care, irreplaceable, with sustenance and respect for all.

Criminal Christian goes Free

Hey vandals, lawbreakers and other scofflaws, come on down to Florida. Not only can you hone and perfect your craft, the state will actively support it.

Let’s say you discover you don’t like the color of your neighbor’s house, or any house for that matter…splash it with your choice of paint. Or use spray cans to create artistic graffiti to give it a ‘pop’ feel. You’ll get off the hook by claiming religious freedom. Maybe a store has something you want, but you can’t afford it. No problem. Pick it up and walk out with it. As long as you tell law enforcement ahead of time, there will be little difficulty. And the best part again is you can say it is your religious right. Or, let’s say you don’t like someone else’s belief or spiritual presentation. Here in the Sunshine State you have carte blanche to trash it and pay no penalty.

What's the difference between the thug on the left and the thug on the right? The thug on the right only trashed himself.

On December 24, 2014, Susan Hemeryck, wearing a t-shirt with ‘Catholic Warrior’ on it, entered the capitol building in Tallahassee, pre-apologized to the two Florida Capitol Police officers near the door, walked to the Christmas exhibition area and vandalized the display erected by the Satanic Temple (which featured an angel figure falling into hell-fire, per the bible), then attempted to walk out of the building with what was left of the display. 

It seems that, like many bigoted conservative Christians, Ms. Hemeryck couldn't tolerate the biblically-correct scene so she took it upon herself to destroy it. Amazingly, even though she was filmed by capitol surveillance cameras, was caught red-handed by law enforcement officers as she tried to remove it from the building, and freely admitted to the press that she “yanked that little devil off the fishing line” and “should have just done a better job and finished it off for good,” state prosecutors decided not to pursue the case.

Why?

Hemeryck’s attorney said doing so is “basically putting an attack on Christians.” (Note: An attack on something non-Christian is okay though.) State prosecutors agreed and dropped charges because of a lack of evidence. In a statement issued by state prosecutors, they claimed “The defendant is simply carrying the display. No damages are apparent. It is simply disassembled.” There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Hmmm, must have fallen off the table and gotten torn up by itself.

See, you aren't held accountable for criminal activity in Florida. Desecrating some other religious display is a perpetual “Get Out of Jail Free” card. If an atheist had vandalized a Christian display, prosecutors would have sought the maximum punishment, but because Hemeryck is a “Christian” who destroyed a non-Christian display, she gets to walk without facing any consequences at all.

Strange as it seems, Susan Hemeryck’s religion wouldn’t have any reason to exist were it not for Satan, Lucifer, the devil, or whatever you want to call the ’Prince of Darkness’ in their holy book. Her religion NEEDS Satan to justify its existence. But vandalizing the Satanic display is like destroying water fountains wherever found because water was used to drown everyone in Noah’s flood...even though water was necessary to the story.

Remember, the almighty is impotent and can’t do anything in this world, so it is up to you to do the interpreting for it. But whatever you choose to do, do it with the confidence that it is what god wants. Besides, why would it come here to do anything anymore? That's what all the believers are for. All religions claim that at some point in the past, god left a book of instructions behind and that’s what we have to guide us. Yes, for some reason, one group calls the book the Qur’an, others say it is the Bhagavad Gita, another group claims it is the Book of Mormon, others assert that it is the Sutras, while millions of others say it’s the Bible…and on and on and on. But take heart that god certainly works in mysterious ways, and in mysterious guises, allows people to do whatever they like and then claim they did it for god.

The mystery is, why do people still believe it?  

Public Spectacles

While watching the local news Labor Day weekend, there were two stories that make me wonder if people really understand our Constitution and why we separate church and state in this country.

Brighthouse Network’s Central Florida News 13, or CFN13, repeated the two stories every hour for about 12 hours. One involved Apopka football players being led in a Christian prayer before and after their games. The prayers made some of the players and fans, who were from different faith backgrounds, uncomfortable and they asked school officials to refrain from saying them. CFN13 covered the story from the outraged-Christian-point-of-view with interviews of people all but damning freethinkers and non-theists for interfering, and for what they perceived as “stopping kids from praying”. The people who objected to the prayers were only asking that school officials and coaches not instigate or give the prayers recognizing only one religion.

Can you imagine what would have happened if one of them began saying an Islamic prayer, started chanting a mantra to one of the Hindu gods, or conducted a Voodoo ritual? The same people who think there is too much fuss being made over simple prayers at school events would be livid, and would insist that only Christian prayers be allowed at these functions. In their view, prayers to Jehovah/Yahweh are acceptable but prayers to other gods are wrong. Yet Christians have the same evidence regarding their deity that other religions have of theirs. Zero!
        I’m looking forward to the day one of the cheerleaders does this at a football game: 

Several parents were quick to point out that atheists were in a minority in this country and insisted Christians had the right to pray anytime, anywhere, with the insinuation that atheists should keep quiet since they were outnumbered. A free society is one where it’s safe to hold an unpopular view, which makes me wonder if we're a free society anymore. Christians might want to consider that sometimes a majority only means all the mistaken are on the same side. Ignorance has become a point of view.

Winter Garden City Council opening the meeting with a Christian prayer

The second story involved a man named Joseph Richardson who attended a Winter Garden city council meeting. Winter Garden Mayor John Rees told Richardson that he “may rise or leave the room” as they gave the prayer and the Pledge.

“I don’t believe I have to do that, thank you,” was Richardson's response.

After the prayer in the name of Jesus was concluded, Richardson was again ordered to rise. “Now, sir, please stand while we do the Pledge… please stand. Children have to do it in school, too,” Rees said. "You don’t have to say it. Please stand.”
       Richardson stood his ground, responding “I don’t have to do that.”

Rees seemed to take this as a personal affront rather than a citizen exercising his rights.

Richardson was abruptly told, “You have one of two choices, sir. I'm asking you to either stand or be escorted out [as we do] the Pledge. It’s just not fair to our troops and people overseas, sir.”

When Richardson still didn’t stand, the Mayor turned to the Chief of Police and said, “Chief, ask him to either stand or please escort him out 'til we get through the pledge,” the mayor said.

The officer walked over and asked Richardson, “What do you want to do? Do you want to stand or leave?” The man was quickly escorted out of the room.
        As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in 1940, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us."

Mayor Rees should know that citizens are within their rights to remain seated for the Pledge and that it does not reflect a lack of patriotism. The fact is, refusing to stand and repeat it is more patriotic and respectful of our secular constitution than rising and declaring us to be ‘one nation under god.’ That 'god' part was only inserted in 1954 when Congress wanted to demonstrate the nation's piety as compared to Communism's godlessness.

The pledge seemed fine up until 1954

The mayor and those city council members should spend a lot more time studying the Constitution and its meaning. Nowhere is there anything that states 'not standing' is considered disrespectful to military personnel. The flag does not equal the military, nor is it written they, or any American, needs to be respected just because they are posted on foreign soil.

The Mayor’s judgment really needs to be scrutinized when he insists American citizens should stand when he makes an appeal to the Christian god.

Some Americans think this should be our flag.

Anyone who doesn’t see a threat in religion had better take notice of these events. When Christianity and politics were previously blended together it was called the Dark Ages and Europe eventually suffered over 600 years of the Inquisition. In nations where politics and religion are one in the same today, you have places like Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. 
     People insisting that Christianity is harmless are deluding themselves. It is not harmless once someone in power decides to do exactly what the bible says, as the Crusades, the witch trials, the killing of heretics, the slavery issue, and even opposition to gay marriage shows. If the new Christian-politicos gain control of the government, the old Inquisition will pale in comparison to what they will do with that power. These 'religion trumps secularism' events are happening more and more frequently. Those who believe a wall should permanently separate church and state need to stand their ground. Our future depends on it.
       Don’t misunderstand; anyone has a right to their beliefs, but they don’t have a right to force it on anyone else or to have them respect it. We might acknowledge it, but we also then have the right to say “Are you kidding me? Your belief is stupid.”