INDIANA: A religious right to discriminate?

The recent hubbub in Indiana against its recently past law protecting the freedom of religion right of individuals and institutions but in actuality granting these same people and institutions the right to discriminate against gays or whoever or whatever disagrees with their religious beliefs, has put forth an interesting question: IS THIS ISSUE A CONSERVATIVE ATTACK AGAINST GAYS OR A LIBERAL ATTACK AGAINST RELIGION.

For some time now, states under the control of Republican conservatives have been trying to find a way to stop the country from approving gay marriage, homosexuality and all that goes with this new national trend.

Not to appear as if they are somehow trying to discriminate against gays or their rights, these Republicans have decided to discriminate legally by clothing this discrimination as a religious freedom.

Many religions (Catholic, Baptist, etc.) consider homosexuality a sin. They consider it a sin because they still buy into the absurdity that to be homosexual is to choose to be a homosexual; they have not realized that people are born homosexual and therefore (if you are religious) are a product of God who cannot do anything bad.

Since religion is good and discrimination is bad, would a religiously sanctioned discrimination pass muster. By juxtaposing a right to practice your religion as you see fit with discrimination against gays, you get a pass to legally discriminate.

Obviously the country is wise to what is really happening here and the huge backlash against Indiana including possible economic sanctions by many national businesses, is having the governor and the legislature scrambling to make things right.

I feel only an outright repeal of the law will satisfy the country and get the spotlight off the state while simply adding language is just complicating an already complicated law; the First Amendment protects our religious rights…that should be enough protection.

CNN'S FINDING JESUS: The Bone Ossuary...

The most interesting episode of CNN’s FINDING JESUS series is the one on the OSSUARY OF JAMES.

CNN is still looking for any physical evidence of the existence of Jesus and here is a bone box (ossuary) that has writing on it saying JAMES, SON OF JOSEPH, BROTHER OF JESUS.

There were no bones in the box but the box was carbon dated to the time of Jesus. Also statistically to have those three names in a single family at that time in Jerusalem made it more probable that this box did belong to the family of Jesus called the Christ.

The authenticity of the box has been a hot topic of debate in the scholarly community for many years now with no absolute consensus reached but the box has raised some very interesting questions about Jesus and Christianity.

Many Christians do not know anything about JAMES; he was called the “secret” brother of Jesus. The reason is that since the Catholic Church views Jesus’ mother Mary as a perpetual virgin, they tried to hide the fact that Mary and Joseph had a number of children which meant that Jesus had brothers and sisters. The Catholic Church has maintained that those siblings are Joseph’s children from a previous marriage…really?

The Bible does mention that Jesus had brothers and sisters and JAMES is not only mentioned in the Bible but is a “historic” figure which means that unlike Jesus, he was mentioned outside the Gospels because he played a role in Jewish history.

Another reason Christianity “hid” James is the fact that not only was James the leader of the community Jesus left behind when he died but he also remained a very, very devout Jew till his death. That means he was not preaching a new religion or trying to establish a new religion (Christianity) but believed firmly that Jesus and the community he left behind were and would continue to be observant Jews.

Another reason for Christianity to dilute and hide James in their religion was the fact that James opposed PAUL and his teachings. In earlier blogs, I have mentioned that Paul is the actual inventor of the Christian religion; it was not Jesus or his followers. 

Many Bible scholars now realize that since Paul never met Jesus and did not know the teachings of Jesus, it was James that represented Jesus and his teachings after Jesus was crucified and not Paul.

CNN’s purpose for this series FINDING JESUS was to find and authenticate any “physical” evidence that proved Jesus existed.

I think the box, even though not formally authenticated, is proof that Jesus existed. Even without the box, knowing that James is a documented historic figure from non-Biblical sources and that he had a brother named Jesus is proof by association.

What CNN did not get into is the calculated obfuscation that Christianity engaged in for thousands of years when it came to James and the Jesus community. The reasons are plain to see and should be quite troubling to Christians; Jesus was not a Christian and he did not found the Christian religion; he died a devout Jew predicting the coming of a new kingdom.

CNN FINDING JESUS: The Gospel of Judas

I have just finished watching another CNN program in their series on FINDING JESUS as part of their pre-Easter schedule. 

This particular episode was about the supposedly recently discovered GOSPEL OF JUDAS even though scholars knew about its existence for some time; this was an actual copy written in COPTIC an Egyptian language that combined Greek letters with an Egyptian language.

I am not sure how the discovery of a copy of the Gospel of Judas serves as some type of evidence that Jesus existed or evidence of what Jesus really did here on earth.

As many scholars will tell you there is no non-Gospel evidence of Jesus in existence because there probably is none to be had. This actually makes some sense since only 3% of the people on earth knew how to read and write and certainly there were very few if any of those in Palestine at the time of Jesus so a written record describing Jesus and his life to have been written at this time would have been quite inconceivable.

The other reason why such a written record would have been inconceivable would have been that the life of Jesus, at that time, would have been nothing to write about even if someone could write something. There were many people like Jesus talking about the end-times coming and yes, many people also performing miracles; Jesus did not stand out as someone special or even someone that mattered to history unlike John the Baptist who was a historic figure because he had been beheaded by Herod who was a king in the region that Roman historians knew about.

As to the Gospel of Judas, CNN just told about the discovery and translation of this Gospel while dramatizing again the Gospel story about Judas Iscariot.

It is interesting how many people and organizations jump on any new discovery with “Biblical” implications. Even the mighty National Geographic Society jumped at creating a documentary which later was shown to be flawed as the person translating the Gospel from Coptic made some serious errors.

We know that there were/are many so called Gospels in existence but only the ones we are familiar with made it into the “canon” as sacred scripture. All the Gospels tell stories about Jesus and his life and all are purported to have been written by Apostles who as historians will tell you were illiterate as was Jesus.

All these Gospels were written by people who obviously knew how to write and they were composed according to what the author wished to tell about Jesus. Some were based on oral history and others were based on what the author wanted us to believe and this included the Gospel of Judas which was an indictment of the Christian leadership at the time of the writing.

Basically it tells us nothing about Jesus the historical figure and just adds to the myth.

It is important to remember that people wrote books for a reason and usually that reason was to push their version of what they wanted the truth to be.

CNN by creating this series and trying to sell it as some type of documentary has lost its credibility in my eyes as an organization trying to bring historic light into a myth knowing full well there is no historic light to bring; they are just trying to attract viewers with a bullshit come-on.

As far as the Judas story for those seekers of truth among you, historians generally discount the belief that Judas merely led the authorities to Jesus since Jesus was not hiding from the authorities. The “real” betrayal that Judas may have committed was to tell the authorities that Jesus told them (the disciples) that he is the future king of the Jews and that is something the Romans did not put up with.

Some historians speculate that Judas was merely trying to force Jesus’ hand into action against the Romans. Judas felt that if Jesus was truly the messiah he would raise up against the Romans and destroy them…we will never really know since there is no video.

IS SPEECH REALLY FREE?

A recent article in the Detroit News titled: FREE SPEECH LIMITS NOT BLACK AND WHITE; Some offensive speech protected, some punished in the U.S. by David Lightman of the McClatchy Washington Bureau prompted to write something about a subject that has been rattling around my brain for some time now.

Lately, we have had a bunch of incidents where people said something that appeared offensive to our current culture. I say current because our culture has changed as to what type of speech is accepted and what type is not.

In this country we have a First Amendment right to FREEDOM OF SPEECH which we treasure highly as a founding principle of our country.

I have always been taught that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment and an example that has stayed with me throughout the years is “yelling FIRE in a crowded theater” just for the hell of it. I also remember the ACLU stating that even Nazis have a right to speak just as we have a right to speak against their speech.

Our Supreme Court has been asked on a number of occasions to “define” freedom of speech. Mainly the definition was needed to distinguish between “free speech” and “hate speech”. The court has tried to decide which type of speech is designed to “harm” as in intending to incite a riot and therefore is a “threat” to peace and well-being.

A lot of speech can offend but does not actually break the law as “actions” do. 

What speech offends us has changed through time and it is interesting, as the article points out, to gauge the new sensitivities to certain speech our society now possesses.

I think there is a propensity in our society to prohibit or limit speech we do not agree with. This I have seen in universities that historically have been havens where any and all speech was tolerated. 

To me, people do not have to go listen to a speech they may find offensive, but the speech should not be stopped from being given no matter how disgusting the subject matter. In cases like that, speech in opposition to that type of speech is what is called for and not banning a speech altogether.

Recently, a video appeared of a bunch of Oklahoma students singing a racially offensive song on a bus. They were fraternity students and as soon as the video went public the students were expelled and the fraternity banned from campus.

Yes the song was offensive and harkened to a time in our past that many of us thought was gone for good. The students insisted they were not racist as did their wealthy parents but yet they sang the song with gusto as if it was the most normal thing to do.

Watching the new generations, I am always impressed with the fact that among our young people, skin color/race does not appear to be an issue. I attribute that to us as parents making sure our children grew up color blind with no racist tendencies which after all, come from the parents; kids are not born racist.

Now because of incidents like the one in Oklahoma, I feel I must have been duped into thinking that things have changed when they have not at least in certain parts of the country.

Racism has always been associated with the poor and uneducated but in Oklahoma the students were children of the wealthy and supposedly educated members of society…so what gives?

As to freedom of speech…No they did not break any laws with their speech but they broke the unwritten laws of our current societal norms and as far as the university is concerned, the school is free to do what it deems proper for its reputation.

Ironically, their speech is protected and they had every right to sing that song but the words to that song exposed them as people that the university did not want on their campus.

I guess what I am saying is that I do not want anyone to feel that they cannot express themselves but if what they say makes people uneasy or mad than the person expressing himself must be prepared to be socially ostracized for the views and opinions stated.

A CALL TO REFORM ISLAM...a book and a discussion.

This Saturday’s Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article titled: THE REFORMATION OF ISLAM and was an essay adapted from a book titled: HERETIC: WHY ISLAM NEEDS A REFORMATION NOW by a young, female author AYAAN HIRSI ALI.

What struck me about this article is the fact that it went right to the heart of the matter; WHAT MAKES UP THE RELIGION ITSELF.

Recently, President Obama as well as many Islam apologists have tried to distinguish between the true ISLAM that preaches peace and justice and the ISIS and al-Qaeda Islam that preaches Holy War (Jihad) against the West and even against those who share their faith but are somehow infidels and apostates.

The problem with this idea of two Islams is that it just isn’t true; there is only one Islam and all Muslims are united under the same belief system and this needs to be pointed out in no uncertain terms.

What is interesting is the fact that Judaism and Christianity have been in the same position Islam finds itself today; it too preached war and destruction.

The Old Testament is filled with violence and calls for violence. The Old Testament God was a very violent God and prescribed death for many transgressions which in today’s world, we would find absurd.

Yet, even though many faithful still consider the Bible as the true word of God and some in a most literal sense, many have learned to take the violence found in the Old Testament with a grain of salt meaning that they recognize that the days of the Old Testament were from a totally different culture and historical setting.

The Jewish and Christian religions have gone through many reforms or reformations throughout their history to arrive at this point in the present manifestation of the religion; Islam has not.

Christians and Jews never denied that words of violence exist in their sacred texts; they just chose to look at them in a different way.

The Muslim religion has undergone some changes or better yet, additions throughout the ages especially in the stories outside the Quran like the HADITHS which eventually formed the rules of SHARIAH LAW.

The problem here is that these so called “rules” were written many, many years ago and just like the Old Testament stories, were written by people from a different age, different culture who looked at things in a very different way than we do today.

The author, Ayaan Ali feels that Islam must reform to be accepted into the modern world and she offers a point by point way that this can be accomplished. 

Well, that is just not going to happen since the Islamic terrorists use the “sacred” words in their religion to justify their terrorism and the millions of poor and uneducated Muslims, who have been brainwashed from birth to believe that their God demands this type of violent behavior, will never allow someone to challenge their belief system.

Muslims in the West and especially those in the United States, take pains to tell us that Islam is a religion of “PEACE” even though the words in their sacred texts are words of violence.

In fact, many mosques here in Canton, Michigan where I live have many regular “open houses” or “coffees” open to non-Muslims for the purpose of interacting with the community and answer any questions that those in the community have about the Muslim religion.

They do this as a means of showing that they are true Americans and that their religion can absolutely co-exist within the American community of religions and non-religions. I will try to attend one this week to see what I can learn.

I want to see how they explain the violent language in their sacred texts and how do they explain the actions of the terrorists who use the same sacred texts to justify their terrorism.

I think the reformation of Islam needs merely to treat the violent language in their sacred texts with a modern understanding of why that language was used and why it does not apply to our world today.