Life is a Journey, Why Not Share it?

The proposed Mosque two blocks from ‘ground zero’, originally named “Cordoba House”, has stirred quite a debate across the country. I have expressed my opinions here previously, and I have shared some enlightening videos from Pat Condell who I think really hits the nail on the head with this issue. However, there have been some extremists chiming in on the debate, and I feel the need to clarify my own position.

I am personally, morally opposed to the construction of this mosque, and I find it’s presence to be deeply offensive. I should point out, that I would also be offended if people were building a Church there. I am aware that there are Mosques that exist in the area, and that several of them were there well before the World Trade Center was erected. I have no real issues with the preexisting religious institutions in the area. However I do take great offense to adding more.

I am also aware that my personal opinion means little, and I would NEVER advocate trying to take away these people’s right to build their Mosque, but at the same time, I fully intend to exercise my right to voice my opinion on the subject. I have been hopeful that enough of a public outcry would dissuade their actions, but it seems we’ve not cried loud enough. 9/11 should stand as a reminder of what religion, and unquestioning devotion to a god leads to. It was the act of RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS, which is why I am offended by the notion of ANY religious institution being constructed on the site. I stand by my belief that religion can ultimately only serve to divide us as a people. The fact that the religious institution being built happens to be one representing the most repressive, backwards, intolerant and evil religions practiced today only makes it worse.

Christianity, is itself a pretty heinous and demented belief system if you actually read the Bible. It too advocates outright evil, like stoning your daughter, just as Islam does. Christianity also has many strange rules such as not eating shrimp, and it makes strange claims, like rabbits chew cud. But there is one difference between Islam and Christianity that makes Islam far more dangerous… Christians cherry pick the bible. They only “believe in” and “practice” the nice bits, and the pieces they like. Whereas that certainly makes Christians incredible hypocrites, it also makes them far less dangerous. Islam is the largest religion in the world that is still openly stoning women, convicting women as criminals for having been raped, and that practices genital mutilation (only on women, of course).

This leads to my next point… People like to mention the “moderate Muslims”. Should we offend them? Should they not be given credit? My answer is simple. You are not guaranteed any protection against being offended in this nation, and I can not give credit to any group of “moderates” that are not actively denouncing the hateful actions Islam takes against women around the world. Their silence serves as quiet condoning of such actions.

I do not believe religion deserves respect. It should not have the special protected status it seems to in our world. Why is it we can poke fun at people’s race, sex, disabilities, ignorance, etceteras, but once we poke fun at religion we are told we “have gone too far”? Why should we be concerned about offense given to anyone who can read books such as the Bible or the Koran and believe they are Holy and infallible? Or worse, why should we be concerned about giving offense to those who follow these dogmas without having read the books all the way through?

Religion in any form is rapidly becoming a greater and greater blight on our society as a whole. It is high time we stop cowering behind political correctness and stand up and demand reason. I do not understand how anyone with half an education can be anything less than outraged at the construction of nearly any new religious institution, much less one intended to hail the glory of an extreme and violent religion that seeks to oppress those that stand in its way.

There comes a time in the life of every parent that they must welcome their newborn child to the world. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of damage that religious parents can unwittingly do to a child in the name of “love” with the teachings from their various “holy books“. There is no such thing as a Christian child, or a Muslim Child or a Buddhist Child, etceteras… there are simply children of Christian, Muslim or Buddhist parents. A child is far too young to comprehend the intricate details of a religion. I strongly feel bombarding a kid with religious mythology at such a young age is a form of child abuse, it is mental abuse. I believe it is better to remain neutral in teachings related to religion and allow the child to make his / her own decisions when they are old enough. I am an Buddhist (which is an Atheistic religion), but my children may choose to be Jews, Christians or Rastafarians… the choice is theirs. And I will support it, so long as it is informed, and well thought out.

Once again, Pat Condell hits the nail on the head with in his discussion of the ongoing problem of Islam, the supposed “religion of peace”.

Our continued dedication to being “politically correct” has made us turn a blind-eye to that which is happening right in front of us.

It seems almost unthinkable, but Islamist groups are, as we speak, hard at work creating Muslim states-within-states in the U.S. Indeed, this process has been unfolding for a long time across the Western world, through the creation of isolated Muslim enclaves in both rural and urban areas, as well as through the designation of “no-go zones” where governments admit to having little authority over Muslims living there, essentially leaving them to function as autonomous regions. (Read More Here)

But we don’t have to stand-by and just watch as we allow Muslim extremists commit atrocities around the world… We need to demand that “moderate Muslims” begin to actively speak out against the actions of the extremists. We need to write to our legislators and tell them that it is not okay with us that there is a Mosque being built at ground zero in New York! We need to be proactive.

If you think this is all extreme, then you should read about the Saudi Billionaire who boasts about getting Fox News to change their news reports. Or perhaps you should read about the movement to create a Muslim only enclave in the city of Philadelphia. Their movement is real, and must not be ignored or taken lightly.

Read the Book:

It was 1977 in Miami (Dade County) when former beauty queen and singer Anita Bryant launched her infamous “Save Our Children” campaign to repeal a local anti-discrimination ordinance.

Her successful religious and political crusade against gays and lesbians led to repeal of Dade County’s non-discrimination provisions, and later that same year led to the Florida legislature’s passage of a ban on “homosexual” adoption.

Once her anti-gay campaign went national, Bryant helped set a nasty, narrow, prejudiced tone for the entire anti-equality backlash movement, which widely publicized quotes such as:

“As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduced children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters.”

Her efforts were not without backlash as she famously took a pie in the face during a TV interview.

But she was also quite effective.  Her rhetoric and viewpoints are still cited today in political “debates” not only in Florida but nationwide. In fact, the roots of modern political homophobia and the foundations of the campaigns to ban same-sex marriage can all be traced back to Bryant.

And after years of self-imposed seclusion, Anita’s back on the national anti-gay stage – this time helping headline a “Reclaiming America for Christ” rally in Oklahoma with Focus on the Family, the Liberty Council and even former Colonel Oliver North.

Anita’s re-emergence as a icon of bigotry has prompted us to ask you – who would be the best national leader to refute the Anita Bryant types?

Despite the apparent deficit-cutting solidarity that emerged from the recent G-20 meeting in Toronto, it is clear that the great powers of the industrialized world have not been this philosophically estranged since the end of the Cold War. Ironically, in this new contest, the former belligerents have switched sides – the capitalists are now the socialists, and vice versa.

We now are witnessing a struggle between two new factions that some might call the “Stimulators” and the “Austerians.” Both seem warn that a worldwide depression will ensue if governments now make the wrong choices: the Stimulators say the danger lies in spending too little and the Austerians warn that the true danger lies in spending too much. Each side also has their own economic champion: the Stimulators follow the banner of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, while the Austerians are forming up behind the recently reformed former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. (It is cold comfort to witness “The Maestro” belatedly returning to the hard-money positions that characterized his earlier years.)

In a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, Greenspan argued that the best economic stimulus would be for the world’s leading debtors (the United States, UK, Japan, Italy, et al.) to rein in their budget deficits, a strategy dubbed “austerity” by the press. Greenspan explains that because lower deficits will restore confidence, diminish the threat of inflation, and allow savings to flow to private-sector investment rather than public-sector consumption, the short-term pain will lead to gains both in the mid- and long-term. Rather than redistributing a shrinking pie, this approach allows the pie to grow. Greenspan’s Austereian view has been echoed loudly in the highest policy circles of Berlin, Ottawa, Moscow, Beijing, and Canberra.

Meanwhile, in several articles for his New York Times column, including one recently, Krugman has argued that those who push for austerity in the face of recession are either doing so for political expediency or out of a “crazy” fealty to archaic economic views. Krugman has apparently judged inadequate the trillions of dollars worth of deficit spending unleashed by the United States and European governments in the last 24 months. He believes our only remedy is to spend more – no matter how much debt results. Absent this, he claims, millions of workers “will never work again.” Unfortunately, Washington has clearly aligned itself with Krugman and the Stimulators.

Reading straight from the Keynesian playbook, Krugman argues that cutting government spending now will simply send the economy back into recession. He asserts that by flooding the economy with money, i.e. “stimulus,” governments can encourage consumers to spend. Once the spending creates better conditions, so the argument goes, the economy will be better positioned to withstand the spending cuts, tax hikes, and higher interest rates necessary to address the staggering deficits left behind.

Krugman proposes an enticing argument that is nevertheless built on rubbish. Economies do not grow because consumers spend; consumers spend because economies grow [for a detailed explanation of how this works, read the book: How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes]. Investment capital comes from savings, and when governments borrow, savings are diverted from private investment. While it is possible for governments to invest as well, it is much more likely that the money will be spent on entitlements or “invested” in projects that may be politically advantageous but economically useless.

Any money spent by governments is not available to the private sector to invest. The Stimulators don’t make this connection because they believe money grows on trees and that a printing press is a legitimate creator of wealth. However, printing money merely encourages people to spend their savings now rather than wait for it to lose value through inflation. This is okay to Stimulators, because stimulating “demand” by any means necessary is the only goal they can see.

What really grows an economy is not more demand, but more supply. The Austerian argument is that reductions in government spending will allow the private sector to generate the additional supply of goods and services. Europe seems to understand this; unfortunately, the US does not. Judging by the recent weakness of the dollar – not only against gold, but other fiat currencies, including the pound and the euro – the markets are coming to the same conclusion.

As sovereign-debt worries initially spread throughout Europe, the dollar benefitted. However, now that Europe has demonstrated a willingness to reduce its debts, while we have committed to make ours even larger, the sovereign-debt worries are moving west.

If Greenspan and the Austereians are correct, the stimulus will fail and leave us in a much deeper hole. As long as governments create bigger deficits, we will never have a sustainable recovery. Instead, we will be chasing our tail, and wearing ourselves out in the process. When we finally realize the folly of this approach, the austerity measures that we will then be forced to adopt will make those currently proposed by the Europeans seem relatively painless.

My guess is that before the end of Obama’s first term, our stimulus-induced recovery will falter, prompting Obama and Congress to administer even more stimulus. After all, the Stimulators have no other answer. However, given the adverse reaction this will produce in the currency and debt markets, this next jolt will likely vindicate the Austerians, as the world witnesses its greatest power careen into an inflationary depression.

This year, the United States proudly celebrated 234 years of independence. I partook in that celebration in the birthplace of that independence, the great city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city where I grew up. As I sat there, I could not help but reflect upon how much our great nation has grown and changed in the last 234 years. I say I could not help it, not because I was in some deeply insightful, introspective mood, but rather because I was surrounded by ass-hats. The same sort of moronic people my beloved city, and indeed, our great nation, have become world famous for being the home to, I was surrounded by. Perhaps it was the two, unattended, nine year-old ghetto girls sitting behind me who would scream “green is for the mo-nay”  every time the color green flashed across the sky, or perhaps it was the two morons to my right who kept screaming “Happy birfday MER-CA! WOO! MER-CA!”

It was these same two morons, who after their own moment of quiet introspection stood up and decided to rally the crowd by giving the following rousing speech…

The Fireworks were beautiful, despite the ignorance all around.

“Hey ya’ll, aren’t you guys happy to be Americans? I mean think about it… We ain’t never been slaves, and we ain’t never been poor, because we are the greatest country on Earth! MER-CA!” Followed by more woots and incoherent semi-patriotic yelling.

It seems to me our country has become completely overwhelmed by the uneducated, and the stupid. It should have been a sign decades ago, when entertainment became our number one export that we’d become a global cancer managing to box up and ship our ridiculous “culture” en masse around the globe. Perhaps it is time we stop and ask ourselves if our founding fathers would be proud of what had become of the fruits of their labor? Perhaps it’s time we begin working on cleaning up our own mess here at home and stop worrying so much about spreading our wars for profit around the globe. We obviously need to work on our education system…

Happy Independence Day America… Let’s hope it hasn’t all been for naught.

I don’t often pay a lot of attention to the crazy political conspiracies my mother frequently rants about, but she recently shared a theory with me that is just too good not to share. It’s especially surprising that it comes from my mom, seeing as she is normally EXTREMELY right wing.

My mother posed the idea that the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon may have been a deliberate plot against President Obama. She pointed out that during the election the Republicans pushed hard with their whole “Drill baby drill” slogan, and it seems awfully convenient that the explosion happened the day after the President agreed to allow further off shore drilling. If nothing else, it does seem ironic that almost immediately after giving into one of the demands of the Republicans, it comes back not only to bite the President in the ass, but the entire nation.

Now when you consider that our last President, and his daddy, are both big Texas Oil men, and are certainly not terribly fond of President Obama, would you put it past them to be willing to sabotage a rig in order to sabotage Obama’s Presidency? After all, Bush is the man who was willing to send thousands of our troops to their graves for oil profits, what makes you think he’d hesitate to kill 11 oil rig workers to ruin Obama and help the Republicans regain seats in the House this November, if he had the means.

I am not saying this is a credible conspiracy, and I do not seriously think Bush had anything to do with it, but it is a fun thought experiment, and it is doubly fascinating to me since it all came from my mother, who is the last person you’d ever expect to say something bad about Republicans.

What do you think? Leave comments below.

A pedophile priest, not an atheist, claimed he was only giving his victim anatomy lessons.

Muslims in Pakistan stoned a Christian man to death.  His crime?  Drinking tea at a roadside stall that was designated for Muslims only.

When a Christian church that tortured a gay teen via an exorcism to rid him of his faggy demon was criticized for their stupidity, Dr Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission slammed the critics, accusing them of intolerance.

An Oregon couple let their 15 month child die of pneumonia, refusing medical treatment and praying for her instead.  If her parents had been atheists she would be alive right now.

A orthodox Jewish couple are suing their neighbors, claiming that an automatic hall light, which is triggered by people entering the hall, imprisons them in their apartment.  This, they claim, prevents them from leaving on the Sabbath.  If they were atheists instead of idiots they could leave whenever they want.

Eight people drowned a 22 year old mother of two trying to lift a curse from her.  She would have been much better off with atheist friends.

An Islamic woman starved one of her children to death, after torturing her, because she thought she was possessed.  Her other five children were seriously malnourished.  Too bad her mother wasn’t an atheist.

Fr. Alphonse de Valk has declared that Atheism is a threat to civilization.  If he were an atheist he’d be smarter than that.  Not to be outdone, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor has declared that atheists are not fully human.

Opening a dialog between religions may not be a good idea.  Ernest McCullough, a Christan, got into an argument about religion with a Muslim, who ended the debate by shooting him in the leg.

In Maryland, a woman starved her son to death because he wouldn’t say Amen.  She’s expecting him to be resurrected.  That hasn’t happened so far.  Yet another child who would have been much better off with atheist parents.

In India at least 50 people went blind staring into the sun looking for an image of the Virgin Mary.  Atheists are never blinded by the light.

When a woman with an atheist boyfriend asked Pat Robertson for advice about finding a middle ground with her atheist boyfriend, Pat told her to break up with him because he’s “serving the devil.”

In India a “Hindu Taliban” is attacking women for drinking in bars and dressing inappropriately, including those wearing bathing suits at the beach and t-shirts with pictures of their deities on them.  There are no reports of atheists beating up women over religion.

In Afghanistan a Mullah who spoke out against suicide attacks was murdered by other members of his “religion of peace”.

In Russia two Jehovah’s Witnesses went on a murder spree killing 13 people to rid the world of sin.  (They should have just become vampires.)

In India two seven year old girls were married to frogs to prevent the disease outbreaks in the village.  Atheists don’t advocate girl-frog marriage.

A pretty sixteen year old girl was stabbed to death by her Muslim brother for listening to rock and roll and wearing makeup.  He stabbed her 26 times.  He was preserving the family honor.

A close friend, Darlena Stratton, is adopting a beautiful little girl named Ivanna from Eastern Europe. As you can imagine, the process of adoption is not at all an easy task. It’s made even more complicated and expensive when the process is being done across borders. Darlena is an amazing woman, and will provide a wonderful and very loving home for Ivanna, but she needs all the love and support she can muster to help her through this process. Please take a moment to check out her blog, and if you can, please donate to her cause by clicking the link below or clicking the same link on her own site. Even if you cannot donate, I am sure her family would appreciate any words of encouragement or attention you can bring to their cause.

Bring Ivanna Home

Courtesy of the First Coast Freethought Society in Jacksonville Florida.