Abuse In Church/State Separation Case

From Bastrop Louisiana

Wow! That's a Good Question.

Answer: For the same reason that Americans descended from Europeans and there are still Europeans.
Question: If rational people descended from Christians, why are there still Christians?

Awesome Onboard Video Of Shuttle Boosters Falling From Space

Skip around if you want to but you're not going to want to miss a single second of this amazing footage.

The Bigots Are On The Wrong Side Of History Once Again

"Blacks are 3/5ths of a human being" -DESTROYED (1865)
"Females are too fickle with their uteruses and such to be trusted to vote" -DESTROYED (1919)
"It's worth it to spend the extra money building a negro-only restroom" -DESTROYED (1964)
"Racial mixing is against my...I mean.. God's will!" -DESTROYED (1967)
"The queers' wrists are too limp to fire a machine gun" -DESTROYED (2010)
And once again it seems that the arc of history in a free and open society favors equality for all. (coming soon to a state near you)
One Man, One Woman; Americans Disagree

On the 34th Anniversary of Star Wars

Happy Anniversary George Lucas! And may the gods strike you with syphilis if you ever come within 100ft. of a movie camera again!
34th Anniversary

Paul Ryan Wants Your Grandma to Eat Cat Food!

Nothing like a little hyperbole in the morning. But seriously, freshman teahead Paul Ryan's budget plan which already passed the House looks like it will be dead in the Senate. Maybe its unpopularity has something to do with the fact that it cuts Medicare, a program that provides healthcare to millions of America's ailing seniors, and uses the money to buy 100 pizzas for every single citizen in the country! Hazzah! Except instead of pizza, it really hands the money over to the wealthiest people in the country. Here are some places where you can read up then discuss:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/88984/the-root-cause-the-gops-huge-mistake
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55691.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-republicans-stand-by-plan-to-overhaul-medicare/2011/05/25/AG4LKZBH_story_1.html

Everyone in the comments should suggest one thing that we could spend the money on besides John Kerry's new yacht. How about a coast to coast floating monorail? Or; a beer volcano that covers the entire state of Ohio?

On Obama Creating His Own Army

                                                                 (Image unrelated)

Media Matters is an excellent website that documents for posterity the proof that there was a time in America in which someone could say the most outrageously false and absurd things on national television and be taken seriously by more than two nutcases in tinfoil headgear. Case in point: the idea that Obama is creating a civilian military force to do his bidding.
Ailes And Beck Agree On Lunatic "Civilian National Security Force" Conspiracy Theory

Data Raps About His Cat

I love Star Trek and sci-fi in general. Besides politics history and religion, I'll be posting sci-fi stuff too. This is in no way serious just funny if you're into TNG.

He Loves Me? He Loves Me Not.

I am in love. 

Hopefully, everyone falls in love in their lifetime. Because it is the most intense human emotion, being in love can be the most wonderful and most agonizing experience imaginable. People do incredibly stupid things when they are in love. It allows a person to completely deny their own needs in favor of someone else's. True love is completely selfless. True love is illogical. Think about how you feel when you love someone. Whether it is romantic love or familial love, the seemingly inescapable feeling of love is a by-product of human beings' social nature. It binds us with every other person on the planet. To love is to truly be human. 

Growing up, I was taught that God loves us. And we, as Christians, were supposed to unceasingly thank him for that fact. We are His creation after all. Almost everyone has heard "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." It's a favorite of Christians and almost universally across every denomination. However, unlike a large percentage of Christians, I am familiar with the book from which this quote is taken, and nothing about the character "God" it describes strikes me as loving. Even though I didn’t always see it clearly, I've always felt at least a slight discrepancy in the back of my mind with the lack of sense this statement makes. 

"God loves you!" is an endearing assurance uttered by almost every Christian on a regular basis. In fact, Modern Christians trump up this aspect of their theology as a way to distinguish it from other religions and to prove that theirs is superior. However, saying that God loves you and then handing you a Bible is like saying the planets and Sun go around the Earth and then handing you Galileo’s Mechanics. Even without knowing anything about the Bible, the basic facts of Christian theology do not demonstrate that.

Let’s go back to John 3:16. I suppose sacrificing the life of someone else for the sake of another might be considered a loving act. But what did God really give up by sacrificing his son? Not a damn thing. Jesus isn’t dead and God doesn’t have to deal with the pain of losing someone he cares deeply about as so many millions of us go through every day. Jesus didn’t sacrifice anything significant either by dying “for us” because not only is he not dead, he’s the ruler of all creation! He didn’t even pay the supposed price for our sin. If the wages of sin is death, then Jesus would be in Hell being tortured forever like everyone else God has condemned! If someone made me an offer: you can be tortured and crucified and it’s a 100% guarantee that you will end world hunger - I’d take it in a heartbeat, even if I didn’t get to be God afterwards. So in trying to make us Christians feel guilty, we are sold the idea that God is giving up something incredibly dear to him when a child can figure out that He loses nothing.

Here’s a question that I’ve never in my 20 years of being a Believer gotten a satisfactory answer to: Why did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t the God that can do anything just forgive us without requiring a human sacrifice? If any Christians end up reading this I’d really like to know an answer to that question. Please leave a comment.

 Would you lock your own children in the basement and torture them forever simply for not loving you back? Would you require your spouse to submit to your will every day or threaten them with punishment if they failed to do so? Would you refuse to speak to your true love directly and instead have others speak for you? The truth is that calling God’s relationship with humanity, as described in the Bible, "love" is to pervert the meaning of the word. I love my wife, Nicole. And one thing that I would never do is to constantly remind her of her unworthiness of that love. Yet, this is the basis of the Christian religion! It’s a classic pattern of paternal abuse to constantly tear the other person down so that they will feel unworthy of the little they are given. God is worse than an abusive father. He judges us guilty of a crime committed by a stranger long before you or I were born, then demands we spend our lives groveling for his love and thanking him for his mercy. We must be thankful He does not do to us what we really "deserve". God is not a loving father, He is egotistical. He is a sadist. He is a tyrant.  

Love is giving of yourself completely. Love is sharing everything of yours without needing anything in return. Love is being hopelessly devoted; not demanding, on pain of eternal torture, hopeless devotion. Love does not insist upon obedience. Love is given freely; not earned. To love another is to be human. To require blind worship is to be God

Mission Statement

I've decided to give blogging a shot. I think it will be a good thing to get some thoughts of mine out there even if no one reads it for the sake of my own catharsis. I'll be blogging about random things but I want to focus mainly on politics and religion. I'll also post a huge amount info links to stuff I think is interesting so even if you don't care for what I write, there will be a plethora of information available here for anyone who is interested in these subjects. I'll try to post everyday. Here we go!