Things that "conservative, literal" Christians and Jews do and don't follow.

There is a lot of talk against gay rights in the United States (and other Christian-majority nations) where their only argument is "it's in the Bible, so it's wrong." I am going to make a list of all the prohibitions and laws in Leviticus that I have not seen done by any Christian or Jew who opposes Gay marriage (See Orthodox Jew).

• Burnt offerings
• Animal offerings
• Offer an animal when you sin.
• Offer grain.
• The guilt offering
• Do not eat blood (yes, rare meat is out of bounds.)
• Do not eat fat
• Do not eat pigs
• Do not touch carcasses of unclean animals
• Do not eat shellfish
• Infectious skin disease rules.
• Mildew regulations
• Women's menstraul secretions make her unclean for 7 days.
• No work on the tenth day of the seventh month.
• Do not plant two different types of seeds in one field.
• The fruit of a tree is out of bounds for the first three years of its life.
• Do not mistreat aliens in your land.
• Feast of Tabernacles on the 15th day of the 7th month.
• Stone blasphemers.
• People who kill others are to be killed.

There are all these rules that Christians are supposed to follow, and none of them do.  They do not follow all the rules. Yet they get upset at people who are gay. I see a double standard. If a Christian wants to follow every law in the Bible, than they should try it for a week and see if they make it. In today's world they probably won't.

Would you want all those laws above the law in the United States as many far-right people call for? I don't. That would be the death of our country. As the Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" which the ACLU defends daily from the onslaught of the far-right. It would be illegal and these so-styled "Constitutionalists" would do well to read the constitution and key judicial decisions on this subject. Also, read the whole text, not just the part that you find fits your current views, which often change without reason or notice.

The Ultimate Christian Argument for Love for All. Following A Tradition of Standing on the Side of Love

At the core of every religious tradition is love of humanity and love of creator -- not hatred for your neighbors. 

Please stop exporting hate in the name of religion.

Follow your book. You are blaspheming against your professed religion and breaking what Jesus said to be the greatest law when challenged by his servants:
Matthew 22:34
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

You are not loving your neighbor, which is part of the highest law of the religion you profess to follow. Stop hating or stop calling yourselves Christian. You can not do both in good faith.

Another story that is commonly used to say that gays should not love is Sodom and Gomorrah. This is a misuse and misapplication of the story. They had been homosexual for years and God had let them live. They were only smitten when they had gangraped their visitors, breaking the ancient value of respecting your guests. This is a misapplication and hence should be discarded.

The final place in the Bible that is used against Gay Rights is in Leviticus saying how men will not have sex with men. This is in the chapter preceding the rules for offerings, which is not followed, not mixing seeds in a garden, not followed, rules of fruit of trees, not followed, respect for strangers in your land, not currently followed in America by the far right, and in 23:8 you are supposed to give fire offerings. They have picked and chosen for political convenience. This is immoral and blasphemous.

It seems like in order to follow Jesus and read the entire Bible there is now nothing that goes against gay rights... however, there is one commandment, the second-highest commandment, that instructs all true Christians to love their neighbors. You are blaspheming and must stop your assault on love. Jesus would disagree with your actions. Stop Hate.

On the NPR Firing of Juan Williams.

There has been a lot of controversy over the past few days about the firing of Juan Williams after saying, "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." [source] This is scapegoating. There are one and a half billion Muslims in the world. Muslims follow the Quran today like Christians followed the Bible 600 years ago, and that means that women will wear headscarves. The terrorists are definitely a small minority of Muslims, and saying this shows him to be explosive and not clear-thinking. If an African-American said a similar thing about European-Americans in the 1960s because the person thought that they would be a member of the KKK, they would become inaccurate immediately because it shows an unclear method of thinking and explosiveness. If I was a news station manager I wouldn't want to have someone who is saying inflammatory things on my station because it would be giving the wrong message and I would want people with a clear head on my airwaves so that I would be 1) as accurate as possible and 2) giving non-hateful messages. Because of this, I must support NPR in their decision to have people with time slots be clear and respectful towards everyone. It once was called cultural respect.

Another thing is that NPR is being accused of bias. I disagree with this. NPR does have radio shows that appear to obviously have liberal bias to many people, like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and it is an immensely popular radio show, but people know it is biased, and people listen to it for a good laugh at anybody political. When you listen to them they will bash any politician. Hardly liberal bias, they will poke fun at anyone, from Obama to Limbaugh. That is the only radio show on NPR that is consistently accused of having bias (for a somewhat understandable reason). They have the BBC on the air, and when they air their own news, they will interview people from pro-choice to pro-life and sometimes have a debate between the two side. This is hardly bias at all because they have interviews with not just someone who is hired to give a conservative or liberal spin on it, the people are from groups like Focus on the Family, Westboro Baptist Church, Republican Congresspeople, AND people from PFLAG, Freedom to Marry, and Democratic Congresspeople, ALL IN THE SAME HOUR, SOMETIMES THE SAME TIMESLOT! Now if that is biased, there is no neutrality. This movement applies to all other issues. The people they bring on believe strongly in their cause, are the best speakers for the movements, and are not interrupted. I disagree completely with this accusation.

These two arguments tell me that the far right is just looking for anything to bash other people on, no matter what. They need to cool their jets and start thinking before they say that someone who is saying something incredibly racist is right. That FOX is hiring him now after showing how unstable he is makes me distrust their method for hiring people.

Things I want to see.

I want to see the Right-wing talking heads respond to three propositions

1. Mississippi has just outlawed marriage between black and white people.
2. Protesters march on building of Church in Atheist community.
3. Tax officers in Beverly hills are stopping white people for hopes of getting the money they lost.

Wouldn't that just be entertaining or what? Terrible, yes, entertaining, definitely.

How to win the War on Terror

The most pressing issue today is how to defeat terrorism. Personally, I am not a Christian and don't want to be, I'm UU so I feel that while the Terrorists are treating people in my country as Christians that what I say here is not trying to expand any religion, but to save lives. People have the right to worship
The radical so-called Muslims at the top have perverted their religion and have distorted it to where they worship one out of 5 pillars, Jihad. Jihad means "struggle for the faith." One American Religion, Mormonism has a practice that I believe is supposed to be what Jihad is meant to be, to spread the faith and word of God. The Quran says in the Cow: "62. Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." The Terrorists conveniently forget this all the time. By fighting the Western World, which is mostly Christian, they are going against the very religion they say they are part of. They are no Muslims. The Quran has all the major figures of Christianity and Judaism. Becausethey believe in what Jesus taught, than they technically believe in "love your neighbor," which means that by fighting they are further Blasphemizing against their professed religion. There is also the fact that if they scroll the Quran they will find that some parts bash Christians while others don't, just like any old religious book that was written by multiple people.

This brings me to my major point. Because the people of Afghanistan and other nations where they get there recruits from mostly can't read, the way to defeat terrorism is for peace-loving nations around the world to send people to those places to teach people how to read so that they can read the Qur'an and the Bible so that they can know that by going with the terrorists they are blaspheming against their religion. If this is done thousands if not millions of lives will be saved and Peace can be on Earth and the Human Race may prosper and this type of Evil may go off the face of the planet. It won't stop all of them, because there are people who are mean and unintelligent who don't ask questions and want to mean things in many places. But if more people in the Middle East and North Africa who are Muslim are able to refer back to the source of their religion, more people will decide to follow their religion and do what is right to every good person's perspective, no matter what his/her religion is.

Originally posted on January 3, 2010.