Just Say Why

This issue has been beaten up enough on the blogs, as of late, that I hate to be just another post, but there’s one issue that I feel has been tragically missed.

In the August 20th USA Today, Tom Krattenmaker’s article was down on the secularists for being, well, so much like the overboard theists — close minded. But, his rant started from a comment he had made that garnered a not-so-open minded reply, in his mind.

Tom says, “… religion should leave scientific research to the scientists and devote itself, along with the fields of ethics and philosophy, to the mighty issues of the human condition: good and evil, the meaning of life, the nature of love and so forth.”

The handbook for the Christian religions, the Holy Bible, is thick with unethical and immoral recipes for living our lives. There are dozens of recommendations to own and rape our slaves, and our women’s slaves, to rape our daughters until they’re pregnant, to sexually abuse young men, to rape, pillage, plunder, and destroy entire races.

Yes, Tom, these are the people who should be spending their time on such wieighty issues as the meaning of life, love, and so forth. No point in expecting to see any morals from someone who doesn’t pattern their lives after the Good Book, now is there?

For a quick run-down on the true nature of the Holy Bible, read it yourself, or spend 5 minutes on the Internet looking it up. Here’s a good place to start — The Annotated Bible. Check out the categories on the right hand side of the page, for example of the things condoned by the Bible.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Don’t pretend that I’m saying all religious people are sickos. I’m not. I am a spiritual person, myself. However, we need to pay attention to what we’re being fed. Religion does not teach us morals. If we don’t get them from within, the Bible will only corrupt us.

Hi All,

In case you’re wondering why the postings have been so light this week — I’m out of the area until Friday. But, oh, there’s so much to cover. Al beat me to a response to a Krattenmaker about the bad old securlarists.

14 more of our soldiers have died today, in Iraq. “IT’S NOT A QUAGMIRE!” My heart goes out to the families and friends.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scrambling to change his investments after a Herald report that he holds stock in companies that perform embryonic stem cell research –a practice that clashes with his conversion to an anti-abortion presidential candidate. As he faced questions on the campaign trail yesterday, Romney denied specific knowledge of the stem cell investments, but said he expects his money will be pulled from firms whose work conflicts with his beliefs.

“The trustee of the blind trust has said publicly that he will endeavor to make my investments conform with my positions, and I am confident that he will,” Romney said during a stop in Georgia.

The Herald reported yesterday that Romney, considered a top-tier candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, owns stock in Novo Nordisk and Millipore Corp., which use human embryos to conduct disease research.

Romney, who holds assets worth between $190 million and $250 million, also invests in casino operators, an oil company that does business with Iran and a firm with cash linked to the genocidal Sudanese government.

( Link )

Rudy Giuliani talks tough in South Carolina, promising that “we can end illegal immigration. But an aide to one of his rivals leaked a video of the former mayor taking a much more pragmatic stance:

 ”We’re never ever going to be able to totally control immigration to a country that is as large as ours,” Giuliani said in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1996. “If you were to totally control immigration into the United States…you might very well destroy the economy of the United States because you’d have to inspect everything and everyone in every way possible.” While adding that it’s important to get a better sense of who was coming into the country, Giuliani said “you’re never totally going to control it.”

I’ve caught myself a few times making the mistake of using the framing forced on us by the Corrupt Conservative Media. They like to refer to themselves as the Mainstream Media or the MSM. What a joke!

We, here, in cyberland, are the mainstream media. We still rely on the well-funded corporate corruption to get some of our stories, but then have to do the real research ourselves.

So, what, exactly does representing the 35%ers  do to make them think they’re mainstream? Nothing, obviously. When we say Mainstream Media, we need to start realizing that it is us.

Now, what, exactly makes the Corrupt Corporate Media such a failure? Why are they hemorrhaging from every wrong decision?  Do you think maybe it’s because they keep using the same worn out Conservative apologists, the same old chicken-hawks, the same old disproven arguments? If our authors were wrong as often as the Corrupt Corporate Media journalists, they’d be looking for another venue.

Maybe the Corrupt Corporate Media has an opening.

So, if Cheney knew so well exactly what was going to happen when we invaded an unarmed nation which didn’t attack us, why did he tell us the opposite?

Check out this interview with the liar.

So, what exactly changed? Oh, that’s right, Iraq invaded us. Umm, wait, maybe not. Oh, I can’t remember with all the propaganda.

…

I was amused at a bumper sticker this afternoon. It read, “Freedom Isn’t Free”.

Yes, indeed, our forefathers paid a tremendous price for our freedom. The same freedom we’re letting Bush destroy. However, freedom doesn’t mean invading an unarmed nation. That’s what you call immoral.

When a government gets too invasive, and too secretive, and too demanding of our freedoms, it’s time to pay up and risk our safety to help keep our government under our control. That’s what’s not free. It’s not free because we have to work every day at keeping our country free. We must oppose the forces of the unfree.

Here’s a reply I received from Ensign regarding the corrupt and criminal Bush White House. Can you really say that this man is this stupid or is he a pathological liar? Obviously, to some, Bush is the second coming of Christ. Here’s his reply:

August 14, 2007 : Thank you for contacting me regarding your concerns about President Bush and his Administration. I value the opinions of every Nevadan and am grateful for the opportunity to address your concerns. The job of the President is demanding, and this Administration has faced some unique challenges. The circumstances of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the downturn in the economy would present a significant challenge to any leader. In light of these international and domestic conditions surrounding his presidency, I believe President Bush has proven himself to be a leader capable of making difficult decisions and that he has generally been able to rise to the challenges that he has faced. The U.S. economy is healthy, growing, and creating more opportunities every single day. Some of the tax reforms that have passed in the Senate and that the President has signed into law have fueled our economy and driven it to new heights. For example, we created over nine million jobs in the last five years, and there are more Americans working now than ever before in our nation’s history. In addition, tax revenues are at an all-time high. Further, there has not been a single terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. I believe that the President deserves credit for his leadership on these issues. Over the past five years, we have taken steps to enhance Americans’ safety while respecting our civil liberties. In fact, the United States and our partners have disrupted at least 15 separate, serious al-Qaida terrorist plots. Fortunately, thus far, we have managed to stay ahead of determined, resourceful, and adaptable enemies, but this could not have been accomplished without important programs that allow our intelligence community to access terrorist networks. Allowing wiretapping of suspected terrorists, tracking terrorist financing, and interrogating enemy combatants has yielded credible information resulting in the capture of still more terrorists, the break up of sleeper cells, and the prevention of further attacks. Removing these tools from the men and women fighting to protect our freedoms would only give the terrorists advantages they do not have now to effectively destroy our way of life. We have stayed on the offensive, fighting terrorists in places like Iraq and Afghanistan instead of waiting for them to take the fight to our homes. There are people who have criticized the Administration on spending and the size of the deficit. As a fiscal conservative, I too am concerned with the level of spending, the deficit, and the legacy of debt we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. Some people have blamed the tax cut packages of 2001 and 2003 for the increases in the national debt. It is important to remember that, during debate on these bills, Democrats had similar tax cut plans, but their proposals would have targeted tax cuts toward different policies. Thus, at the time these bills were passed, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that tax cuts were necessary to encourage an economic recovery; however, Republicans preferred to target tax relief toward small business and activities that would drive the economy and help create jobs. Given that tax receipts are at an all-time high, it is clear that Republican policies have helped grow our economy. The real cause of the deficits is the level of federal spending. For example, from 2001 to 2005, federal spending has increased 45%. Given these facts, I hope that you will be pleased to learn that I have been very active in working to improve accountability as to how Washington, D.C., spends your hard-earned money and that I have also worked to reduce unnecessary spending. For example, I, along with several of my Senate colleagues, introduced a measure in February 2006 that would change the Senate rules to help eliminate Congressional earmarks in appropriations bills. As you may know, earmarks have increased significantly over the last several years, and our measure is a necessary step to reduce overall federal spending. I also introduced the Spending Money Accountably to Rebuild After Tragedy (SMART) Act to reign in federal spending to help pay for the costs of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. I felt that it was important to help the people that were devastated in the Gulf Region but to do so in a way that prioritizes spending rather than adding an additional $120 billion in spending above the level permitted by the budget. Further, I introduced legislation that would create a publicly searchable, online database to bring transparency to the process of federal spending. I was pleased to see legislation similar to mine signed into law by the President on September 26, 2006. Once again, thank you for contacting me on this very important issue. If you should have any further questions or comments or would like to sign up for my monthly newsletter, please feel free to write or e-mail me via my website at
http://ensign.senate.gov. Sincerely, JOHN ENSIGN United States Senator
JE/u1

Why hasn’t Nevada done something about this abomination? “Don’t distract me with the facts, right now, I don’t have time to recall the moron, Dancing With The Stars is on!”

Balkinization has an interesting read regarding the possible religious foundation of morals. It was eerie to follow the link and read the review of Michael Perry’s Toward a Theory of Human Rights.

Balkinization’s Brian Tamanaha does a good first stab at analyzing the view, but seems to be approaching Perry’s fallacy with kid gloves. Perry’s perspective is that all morals come from religion and a lack or loss of religion would spell a break-down of our rights, laws, and courts.

Now, let me state that I haven’t read Perry’s works, here, and am only going on the review and on Brian’s blog, but both seem so obviously lacking. The most obvious destruction of Perry’s religious morals perspective are the facts in our every day news. Look at how much more religious our government and especially our courts have become in the past few years. It is not a coincidence that this is one of the most immoral governments that we have seen. Again, this is not a coincidence. Any time over the history of mankind that has been controlled by religion has been a time of immorality.

How could these two arguments be so devoid of this knowledge? Of course, the naive excuse would be to say that all the examples are just coincidences.

Is there really any reason to spend more time listening to biased authors explain how their world view is fact, regardless of all the facts to the contrary.

Time magazine published a survey showing that 59% of American voters would vote against an atheist because of his religious view. Where does this 59% get this twisted notion? Who has been feeding them lies?

Like the religious fanatics, it’s easy to believe that homosexuality is a choice, in the absence of any facts. However, anyone who has really known a gay person knows that this is a stupidly ignorant perspective. It is not a choice.

If you’re interested in knowing if religious people are really less moral than atheists, get to know some atheists and use that knowledge to decide who is immoral and who is improving the human race. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to know that there are a group of people out there doing a much better job than those church-goers you and I know from church.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Karl Rove will be resigning at the end of August.

This may be an improvement for the criminal administration or it may be a forewarning of the hardening of the unitary executive before the coming non-elections, “unexpected” terrorist attack, and martial law. Let’s all hope it won’t come to this.

These may, indeed, be happier days, ahead, for America.

At Crooks & Liars, there’s a very sad and frightening article about Conservative media censorship, alive and well. Check out:

A few days ago, the problem because [sic] crystal clear. AT&T censored political speech over streaming video by Pearl Jam at a concert.

If we don’t fix our media soon, it will be too late. If anyone remembers back in the 60s, there were endless examples of anti-war music on the airwaves. This war, it’s all suppressed. This is not good for America. The only solution is to retake the airwaves. Write letters to your local newspapers, call into talk shows, just get involved.

America is crying to you for help. Do something.