Should Religion be Abolished?

A friend of mine posted an article on his Facebook page earlier about how the self-proclaimed caliphate Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is beheading Christian children.

Sadly the article's source was from a "Don't Tread On Me" website, so I am not sure just how accurate the "Christian" part is as these groups often marginalize the facts to make it more offensive to their audience. Groups like ISIS are usually nondiscriminatory in which infidels, anyone who doesn't believe the same way they do, they assault and kill.

Another friend who has become quite anti-religious due to behaviors like these and others in the name of the local "god" has often asked if maybe we should abolish religion in general as it seems to be the cause of so many of these atrocities in the world today.

I say no, not because I support any of the hateful and despicable things that man is capable of doing to his fellow man, but for two basic reasons:

1. The Truth of religious text and practices is still there, even when people manipulate and destroy the original intent for their own selfish and manipulative reasons.
   
   
2. The problem is not Religion, it is just the tool that is being used to justify and validate the evil in the hearts of these people. Take religion away and they will just find some other way to make such atrocities "OK" in their minds.

Survival of the original "Truth"/Message

Śhruti (श्रुति), the Sanskrit name for Scripture or Holy Texts, seems to hold on to its core Truths even when people and organizations attempt to change it for their own purposes; we find it in many traditions. 

I have spoken with several Imams that are sickened and disgusted with how the Quran and the Sunnah/Hadith are manipulated by many of their brothers to become this current cesspool of hatred and violence we have seen through much of the Middle East in recent years. Yes, the documents allow for fighting and such, but have you looked at the Old Testament and some of the things that it calls for and justifies? But these are things that I find have more to do with the cultural contexts of the places and times for which they were written and never actually intended to be the laws for eternity.

The Jewish Torah has laws and rules that are designed to explain a moral life from the perspective of the tail end of the Bronze Age, about 3500 years ago, from an Egyptian/Nomadic point of view. The Christian New Testament does the same thing from the time and culture of the Roman Empire and the Quran, and particularly the Sunnah and hadith, are the Arabian culture of the Seventh century.

On a personal observation, I have always found the Abrahamic traditions to be interesting in that they all find it necessary to deify some aspect of their founder or the founder's principles and the following prophet/teacher tends to decry the deification.

Tradition	Deified Aspect
Judaism	The Law of Moses
Christianity	The Founder/Teacher
Islam	The Culture of the Prophet

No matter how much manipulation has been done, the core Truth of the documents is still there and can be gleaned by careful study and contemplation thereof.

Religion is not the problem

If I thought for just a moment that the destruction of all the world's religious documents and the disbanding of the practices would solve the world's problems for even as little as five minutes, I would jump on the bandwagon and lead the burning parties myself. The hard reality is that it would be a waste of time and energy on all fronts.

Religion is not the cause of the problem, it is the scapegoat used to justify and proselytize one man's judgment and hatred for another while attempting to authorize it by calling it the "will of God."

If there were a way to remove religion from the equation completely, you would find no change, other than the validation used. Knowing most of man, I would suspect that gender, orientation, cultural ancestry, financial status or any number of silly ways we humans find to break ourselves up into "Us'" and "Them's".

By using Religion, the manipulators convince us that "God is on OUR side" so it is not only justified, but the right thing to do. The operative word above is "manipulators"; they are not concerned with anything but their own goals and objectives and the means are only the theater by which they project them upon the masses. If you took the "God" out of the equation, do you honestly think those who want power or control would not find another way to acquire it?

Blessings in Disaster

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson
As citizens, we often look at the documents of the founding of our country as if they are not part of the world that we live in, they are separate from our day-to-day lives. Yet, it is the direct and simple truths of many of them that make them so special in the annuls of time and writing.

Recently I have been going through a life lesson that has been a direct assault on some of my personal biggest fears. I saw it coming, I knew I was going to need to deal with it, and yet, I put myself through two years of, probably, unnecessary pain and anguish.

Nearly three years ago, I panicked. I was in a place of no money, about to face the real possibility of eviction and a car that was not currently functioning.

In late October two things happened; first, a friend wanted to leave a living situation with two other friends and on paper, well, it looked like it would cut the expenses nearly in half (later I would find out the difference in the utilities would demolish that theory). I had also been looking for a job, and though I really did not want to reenter an industry that I had been in previously, I can always get a job in it. If the job had been acquired just two days earlier, the fiasco of the living arrangement could have been completely avoided.

I was aware that the new employer was a good man, but, as we all do, had a few issues and was known to be a bit volatile. With my past experiences, I thought I could handle it, right…

The new roommates were friends and while living with others always has its challenges, worst case, you go hide in your room for a bit and let whatever pass, sure…

If I had known what the Universe was planning for me, I would have run away screaming like a maniac and considered finding a pretty monastery to cloister myself in.

Instead, I was in a self imposed illusion of safety, at best. The fools paradise started to show its true colors; one roommate was a disaster, so much so that when they gave notice before Christmas, I was elated and thought about throwing a party at the very idea (you know those moments, polite behavior requires you to say "are you sure this is what you want?" But, inside you are doing the Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy-Dance).

A few days later, during a discussion of what we wanted in a replacement, the other roommate gave me notice that he was moving as well, well that sucks! Now there are any numbers of reasons I could list that would make it obvious that neither was going to be any help finding replacements and I was working my butt off on the new job.

So on February 1^st I was holding the bag on just short of $1900 a month in rent, work was showing what the reality of the situation was, but I was now stuck. I was working six days a week, plus taking in extra work whereever I could get it.

It was not a complete disaster, the electric bill dropped from over $300 to about $45 (LA DWP stock dropped substantially), a friend ended using one spare bedroom to finish recording an album, some other friends rented the other bedroom for a couple of months while visiting from Europe. It was hard work, but it had some great times.

It took seven months, but when I moved out, I paid the final rent, 1^st and last on the new place, and for the first time in my life, paid movers instead of doing it myself, I consider that to be a major success!

Now that Phase One was complete, it was time to learn the other part of the lesson, Oh, you did not get part one? Stop freaking out! The Universe knows what you need and will provide if you will just let it.

Phase Two was going to be more than just working through it, it would require entering the dark caves of my being and facing some of what have become surprisingly powerful issues with me, the Job (cue dark dramatic music)!

I was quickly aware that this was not a good situation to be in, there were major clashes between my personality and that of my employer. As it was to turn out, it was to be a question of how much a "paycheck" was worth and just what was I willing to participate in to acquire one. As it turned out, I have become quite surprised at just how much!

In the last few months I have been trying to work on other projects while dealing with the issues at work (I really do think "work" should be added to that list of four-lettered words not used in polite society). I saw things deteriorating around me and I began desperately looking for alternatives, should I just get another job in the same industry, pays the bills but not likely to be particularly fulfilling. Should I go into another industry, or maybe the Universe has something else in mind.

I must have been ready, not that I necessarily realized it, as the whole situation finally collapsed in on itself, or in laymen's terms, I got fired. When it happened, I was pissed! After I cooled down, I was predominantly relieved and now a couple of days later, I actually want to thank my former employer for it, I am off the fence, a direction toward tomorrow has been placed at my feet and I will see where it goes.

So back to where we started, The Declaration of Independence, or more directly, when the Universe or Spirit guides you toward things, be willing to pursue them for often one has to declare independence from the now to create tomorrow. The alternative can be a very uncomfortable drop kicking, just saying.

Syria, 9-11 and Growth

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

“A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interests in the present.”

George Santayana
In our own national pride and belief in American Exceptionalism we refuse to look up from our narrow view of the world and realize that we just cannot fix the world. Oh, we can punish, maybe we can slow the problem for a moment, but create a long term solution, not with guns or rockets, troops or covert missions.

The problems of the Middle East have been brewing and stewing for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and the festering of what started as local issues has become a collection of cultural hatreds that can only be solved by the people involved.

Look at the aftermath of the Iraq war, peace is not really known there, Shia and Sunni are still fighting, cultural minorities are hardly safe and welcome in the country, was this the goal of all those years of blood on our hands as a nation, is Iraq better than it was before?

Now we have Syria. We are banging the war drums and it is beginning to look like the politicians may just give the go ahead, will it solve the issue?

Bashar al-Assad, presuming he authorized the chemical attacks, has shown that he is a desperate man and is not interested in any kind of justice. You can attempt to punish men like that but they just get more desperate, and desperate men are capable of atrocities that our minds cannot wrap themselves around.

Sadly, as much as I mourn the loss of life that has and is likely to come, if you hand power to someone else without them being actually ready and prepared, you have not solved the problem, at best you have put a Band-Aid on it. The problem will return in a cultural conflict, it cannot do otherwise.

It seems that if power is handed to someone, they are rarely aware of just what a potentially dangerous and deadly responsibility it truly is. Sadly it takes going through the crucible to burn away the lust for power and make one appreciate peace, not pretty, but true. By going through the crucible, the emergent leader(s) are in a much better place to know the value of what they do, their friends and comrades were sacrificed to "win" the goal so the power has an extremely personal value.

When countries like ours insert themselves into the conflicts of others, especially cultural ones, we create an illusion we like to call stability, but our history of cultural insertion has not shown that we make good choices. Our people who supposedly "know" what they are doing actually come off in the rear-view of history to appear something akin to gullible.

Just because someone supported us in fighting their battle, does not mean that they are the leader that needs to rise, or that they have any interest in following the path that we would want them to, not that I find that to be a particularly brilliant motivation. Look at our history of imposed leadership in the Middle East, the Shah of Iran (that turned out well), Saddam Hussein (another success).

We like to say that our involvement is over the support of Israel, and somewhat it is, but if we take an honest look, it is about money as oil. What is really sad, is that about a hundred years ago, the people of the region felt, 'Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans'^[1] and now we have become the selfish and duplicitous.

I like to think that under all the greed for oil, that part of it is that as a nation we see a collection of our fellow humanity in pain and are just clueless how to help them, but instead of sitting back and figuring out the big picture and actually creating long-term solutions to the benefits of the residents, we see a place where we can charge in like General Custer and in our pride just make it worse.

Every time someone talks about the US entering some country's civil war, I think of an old "Doonsebury" cartoon from the Vietnam era. B.D., our pro Vietnam War Conservative has managed to get lost in the rice paddies of a foreign country and be taken prisoner by Phred, a Viet-Cong "terrorist". In the strip I am thinking of, they are discussing the early years of the war and B.D. just is not getting why Phred doesn't see American involvement into the war his way, so Phred asks him, what would he think if the Vietnamese had shown up in Gettysburg and started handing out chocolate and chewing gum?

Now we have Syria, as much as the questions being asked are about chemical warfare and the response that should be made, once again America is threatening to react instead of thinking. For sure the Military-Industrial Complex is lobbying hard for the war, war is BIG business. What frightens me the most is that being so close to the anniversary of September 11^th, can our slow minded politicians separate the two? I would love to be able to say that I am sure they will make the right decision, but now all I can do is hope.

What is that decision? That is the question. Do we really currently know enough about what we are getting into? Are we seeing, or can we see, the big picture? What happens if we take the path being placed before us and President Assad does it again, are we ready to go round two, or three or all out war?

Large chunks of the Middle East are going through amazing growth now, it is violent and painful to be part of and to watch. If we have any hope of lasting success in the area, I think we may just have to sit back and let them do it, on their own, without big-brother walking in and forcing solutions that they are not ready or willing to accept. Left to themselves, they will likely come to them on their own. Can we have the faith, that as human-beings, they will learn an extremely hard lesson on their own, as it should be.

Footnotes:

1. Fawcett, L. (2005) The International Relations of the Middle East UK: Oxford University Press p 285

A Eulogy for Ms. Birdie

OK, this is not the blog entry I was planning to write today, I will finish and publish it later, but today, I am in a dark space, I saw it coming, but I ignored it, we all tend to.

There is one thing that we all tend to avoid, the passing of friends, loved ones and family. Many do not accept the idea that pets can be friends, loved ones and family, they obviously have never loved an animal that does nothing but love you back, even when you probably do not deserve it.

My oldest, Ms. Birdie, is on her way to her next life.

I find myself going through all the questions about what to do, how to react, what to respond as we all do when these times come up. It is a fact of life, as Wayne Dyer quotes Deepak Chopra:

“Life is a sexually transmitted incurable decease”

All living things in time pass to be returned to the star-stuff of which their bodies are made and Spirit continues to advance on its journey of education and experience on its way back to Source.

I ask myself if I should do this or that, what is most helpful, what is respectful and appropriate? My two girls are the closest thing I expect to ever have in the realm of children and at my age, possibly the closest thing to a lover.

I have a good day and they are waiting for me to share it, I have a bad day and they are waiting to help me get a grip and give me an outlet for whatever I need to expel.

It is a shame that people spend so much time "not loving", it is such a gift. I am currently working on an inspirational piece and in one of my notes I was contemplating the difference between angels and humans;

Angels are designed around Service at their core while Humans are designed around Love. For an Angel, fulfillment is found through the performance of whatever task has been handed to them. Humans find fulfillment through the manifestation of the Love that is at their core.

I spend so much time writing and talking about how much time and effort we put into judging EVERYTHING! Imagine how much joy we would have time for if we lived life like our pets, loving everything and just being what we are at our core?

Oh, I know that the religions like to tell us that we are evil at the core, that darkness is our nature, and that God will only love us if we live by ideals that even most of his teachers (little less their followers) can live up to. Even Jesus has his moment of doubt, look at the Garden of Gethsemane. If that were not enough reason to question the "official" proponents of the assorted gods of hatred, sadly, that is where a lot of the followers are taught to take their religion.

Love just is, it has no strings attached, no rules to be followed, no "things" that earn it, it is eternally free and is not only abundant, but in unlimited supply. The more of it that you give away, the more that it will find its way back to you and the more avenues you allow it to enter, the more unique places you will find it.

Like a pet who is at the door, love just wants to be let in, love will never desert you, it will never turn its back on you, only you can turn your back on it and I think the biggest travesty is that those who should be telling you this, instead, hold it out like the gold ring on a carnival ride. That is not love, that is a power grab.

So Ms. Birdie, please forgive me for those days I was not the loving being that you were so trying to teach me to be. Thank you for spending such a large piece of your life trying to get through my hard-assed head and thank you for sharing my life, know that you go with love.

How “Religion” can save the world

The current destruction of the world as we know it IS actually due to our turning our backs on Religion and/or God.

OK, I will be the first to admit THAT is something I never expected to write, but in some ways it is very true; though not in the way most people think of it.

How many times have I heard some "Hellfire and Brimstone" preacher go on about how the decline of America is due to our lack of reverence to God and our evils in allowing such things as abortion and homosexuality (kinda sounds a lot like Rev Phelps and his cast of [self-censored]). Sadly, he and his like in Christianity are not alone as we have all heard it from certain angry Muslim teachers as well.

“Just look at your life, everything is backwards, they call darkness light and light darkness. Abomination is overflowing just as it was in Sodom and Gomorrah.”

an unknown Street Preacher
Similar statements are heard from many of the world's religious fundamentalists and though not as they meant it, surprisingly true and accurate. Things are backwards, we spend our lives ignoring the Truth within ourselves and instead chase after money and things that cannot and will not make us happy in the long run.

Malcolm X really summed up a lot of this reversal in his quotes:

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

I find it funny that from a Jewish Mishnah (traditional scriptural interpretation) perspective, the Sodom and Gomorrah portion is right on target, but not because of "the Gay Agenda", but do to the hardness of men's hearts and the crime of Sodom and Gomorrah according to the Mishnah was the violation of the Hospitality Code, caring and compassion for others.

Whenever the times get tough and it becomes more difficult to get by, we try to figure out why, it is human nature to search for answers. There is always someone out there that has no issues with creating a "wicker man" for you to throw your hatreds at, to pile all your frustrations into and set ablaze to take them away.

The ego of man is one that will happily look outward for another responsible party instead of looking within and taking on the truth of what it has created.

So just how is it that turning our backs on religion and/or God/Source may the cause of the destruction of the world around us?

Those with a smaller world view, are inclined to say that the difficulties of the day are a collection of punishments from this judgmental deity that seems to take great pleasure in collecting the evidence to condemn its creation to an eternity of separation and damnation. Now this is just my not so humble opinion, but what a harsh place to live, no wonder they tend to be so angry.

A basic central tenet of all "Religions" is that there is a higher ideal that mankind can and should strive for and through one way or another can achieve. Though by turning our backs upon this idea, we become selfish and myopic onto our own lives and concerns and often do not care about how our actions affect the rest and this tends to make us extremely short-sighted in the long run.

This is the seed by which our destruction will be brought forth if we do not awake soon. The destruction of the world will not be the punishment of God on his creation, but the aftermath of OUR lack of forethought and attention.

As an example, we have a world economy that is based on something completely unsustainable, petroleum; a finite resource that we cannot create in a lab that poisons our environment and may eventually make this planet unable to support our life form.

Without even going into the whole "Global Warming" argument, we are knowingly poisoning ourselves, if you don't believe me, let me ask you this: "Would you sit in a running car in your garage with the garage door closed? Of course not, you know it would kill you." So you know you are putting poison out into your ecosystem that you NEED to survive.

This is only one of an insane number of ways we are setting ourselves up for our own self-destruction, and we do it for such silly reasons, like money, convenience and just not beng willing to be bothered.

We live in a collection of cultures that have always felt reasonably safe due to physical distance from the "other". With the birth of modern information and communication technologies, those barriers of safety are quickly disappearing and many are panicking. If our interactions were just limited to "Cultural Contamination" it would be one thing, but we have entered a world where the actions in one place can have direct consequences on the opposite side of the planet.

Has Religion and/or God/Source given us a way out?

When you sit down and look into the teachings of the greatest teachers in history, Krishna, Moses,  Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius, Thoth/Hermes, Jesus, Muhammad, Guru Nanak Dev and Bahá'u'lláh, they all share something in common, the expression of a higher state, called ethos, morality, spirituality and/or God.

Religions are the codification of the teachings that are left by the founder in an attempt to keep them alive, but sadly, those who come later rarely understand the original source and the teaching goes from a living expression of Truth and into traditions, theologies and dogmas.

When ego becomes the driving force of religion, Truth is put aside for numbers, power and glorification.

Religions relate to God/Source in the same way that facets relate to a diamond, every facet shows you the glory of the whole, but the whole will always be more than any one, or collection of some facets. Yet we are willing to judge, condemn and kill in the name of our particular facet.

Underneath these schools of thought is a general idea of interconnectedness of all of us to each other, to all life on this planet, the cosmos and eventually to Source, Deity or God. This is where our self-imposed separation has begun to manifest our destruction.

Oxymorons pt2 - The "Why"

I reread my last blog entry and I realized that it expressed some of my frustrations with the world of 21^st Century America (the rest of the world is jumping onto the bandwagon as well), but I did not really express why I was putting them out into the world.

For all the altruistic reasons that I can think of, the simple fact is that there were (and are) only three reasons.

1. Those items are some of my personal favorite facepalm moments. We are supposedly an intelligent species, I keep wondering when we will begin acting like one.
   
   
2. A warning of things to come.
   
   
3. I had a plate of cheese and crackers nearby and wanted to have a bit of a wine fest, so I let it rip (next time I will just stick with a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, a better buzz).

The Universe is actually an exceedingly just and balanced place, with both the good and the bad that happens being deserved. People get the reactions to the thoughts and actions that they put out into the world (consciously or otherwise), as well as nation-states getting the leadership (or lack thereof) the people deserve or, more accurately, create (scary thought that).

Many people do not like this philosophy and as often that I hear the examples of good things happening to bad people, as well as the reverse, I find it to be the only way that the Universe and/or Bob (God) could be anything resembling good. Add to this the idea of reincarnation, that multiple lifetimes are involved, and it makes for an excellent and fair system from the big picture, while not so much from the smaller, self-induced amnesiac, perspective.

I spend a lot of time contemplating the likely reaction to the actions of the world today. We are on a path of self-destruction and I cannot help but wonder if George Carlin was right when he reminded us that "Saving the Planet" is an arrogant self-indulgent statement, the Earth will definitely outlast mankind, it's us that needs the saving if we wish to continue to live here.

Life will always exist on this planet, the question is if it will be compatible with our current form, homosapien.

It is out of compassion that I bring these things to your attention.

Compassion of this type is like telling someone they are about to step into a bear-trap, it is rarely appreciated, but, in my opinion, is preferable in that it allows the avoidance the oncoming pain. Sadly, we tend to be so focused on our perspective that we dismiss the warning, step into the trap and then blame the person who warned us for not being more forceful(?) with it (a no win situation for sure, now you know why prophets tend to keep their mouth shut).

It reminds me of the old joke:

The river is rising and Mrs. Smith's house is flooding, a truck comes by and offers to take her to higher ground, "Oh, no thank you, I have faith in God to protect me."

The water rises higher and a boat comes by an offers to take her to safety, and once again, the response is, "Oh, no thank you, I have faith in God to protect me."

Finally, the water is up to the roof and a helicopter drops a ladder to her and still she says, "Oh, no thank you, I have faith in God to protect me."

Eventually the water rushes over her and she drowns in the swollen river. Mrs. Smith comes before God and asks, "I had faith in you to protect me, why did you allow this to happen?"

God looks at her and says, "I sent a truck, a boat and even a helicopter, what more did you expect?"

So I ask you, what more do YOU expect and what will it take to motivate you to change things, or do you like where they are going?

Of course, there is the off chance that I am just a bit pessimistic and Politicians and Corporations really do have our best interest at heart and I am just to short-sighted to see it (sure, and donkey's fly).

Oxymorons of our day

I hear people complain about what they see as wrong with the world (I am amazed how much of this time is spent with the dog-and-pony show presented by the media), but the vast majority are not willing to actually DO anything, they would rather go hang with there friends at the club or watch TV until their brains turn into something with the consistency of tapioca.

If we continue our current path of apparently shortsighted and selfishness as a people, what does that say about us and where will it take us?  So I hereby place a few of the most obvious (to me at least) political/cultural oxymorons of our time;

1. How have we convinced people that their children do not need an education while at the same time discussing the dumbing down of the nation and its inability to raise children who cannot compete in the global marketplace?
   
   I hear people talking about the privatizing of basic social services, from schools to even police and fire departments. Should I be happy when I see a child carrying a textbook that is labelled as "sponsored by Company-X?" Can I count on it being accurate?
   
   
2. How was it that the poor and middle-classes have been convinced that any social safety-net should be done away with during a difficult economic time, but the mega-rich deserve to keep tax cuts that would have paid for it all, not new taxes but the expiration of a temporary easements, that's why they were called "tax cuts" to begin with. Has anyone noticed the Reagan's "Trickle Down Economics" seems to have been dammed somewhere between the mega-rich and the middle-class, not to mention the lower-class.
   
   
3. I remember being told that "Freedom of the Press" was what made us so much better than them, but the press in this country is no longer free, I would propose that it is currently less free in America than it was in the former Soviet Republic's "Pravda".
   
   In today's United States, the slavery of the press is not to the government, but to the corporations that either own the media or pay for and extort the media through advertising.
   
   
4. When people think Rush Limbaugh is a reporter, he's a political commentator (analyst at best) last time I checked, and Fox News actually compares itself to political satirists as proof of its validity to be claimed as news, (let's not even discuss "fair and balanced"), what does it say about where we have gone as a nation?

This is by NO means a complete list of issues in this country, but it is a beginning, a place to begin.  The simple fact is that if you think things are bad now, without some course correction, it gets a lot worse.

The longer things are allowed to follow their current path, the harder it will be to not only actually institute change, but the barriers placed by those who have accumulated power will be all that much harder to remove.

So I will leave you with some favorite quotes from one of the Founding Fathers;

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Thomas Jefferson

History Repeats Itself... again

I am often amused by watching the statement from George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" happen again and again.

We are getting ready for mid-term elections in the US and the same old tricks are coming out, I sometimes wonder what it says about a country that falls for the same trickery every two years?

One REALLY obvious example is in California with Prop 19, an initiative to legalize marijuana and tax it along the same lines as alcohol and tobacco.

Most people are unaware that pot was criminalized in the 1930s at the behest of the cotton industry that did not want the competition from hemp. Sadly, the hemp plant is both hardier and less detrimental to the fields unto which it is grown and can yield several crops per year where cotton tends to leach the soil of its nutrients and being notoriously difficult to grow and process. The other use was an excuse.

I often think of George Carlin's famous discussion of pot use in one of his acts where he posed the question, "What's the worst crime a pot-head is going to commit? Steal a Twinkie?" The crime attributed to drugs is most often either victimless, use or possession, or due to the unavailability by criminalization and that raising the cost.

We have apparently not learned the lesson of 1919 with the prohibition of alcohol with the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution and the subsequent 1933 repeal with the 21^st Amendment. As a nation, the US should have learned a lesson that you cannot prohibit anything as long as there is a demand for the product. Apparently not.

We spend millions and billions pursuing the illegal drug trade in this country and the D.E.A. admits that illegal drugs are more available now then at any time, in other words, it has been not only a complete failure but a waste of resources that could just as easily been put to much better use.

On top of that, we have made many people excruciatingly wealthy as the suppliers and overloaded our jails with non-violent offenders that did nothing more then be in possession of a substance that as adults should be their choice.

I am neither for nor against drugs from a moralistic point of view, people will do what they want no matter what I or society says, history has shown this to us repeatedly.

Know what the largest killer of illegal drugs is? Overdose. This is most often caused by the lack of regulation and quality/quantity control. People are used to getting some drug at some level of potency and then they get something much more potent and die.

If people want it so badly, let them do it, or take away their alcohol and nicotine as well. Maybe Canada has a good idea with tobacco. They tax the hell out of it to pay for the additional costs of dealing with the later health effects caused by its use, maybe some variation could be used here.

For me it breaks down as follows, why can we always come up with the money to do something that history has repeatedly shown does not work. Since we are so busy spending money on these wastes, we cannot fund education and public programs that could benefit all society. I get so tired of hearing how children and the ill are constantly getting funding cuts when we throw away this money.

I am waiting for someone to explain the logic of this to me as I just do not get it.

The site for the Proposition

To be willing...

There is an old Indian story that I have heard told many ways, but I tell it like this:

The sage Narada was walking through the forest when he came across a yogi who was sitting under a tree deep in meditation. From the look of things, he had been there for quite some time as his hair was matted and the birds had also made their nests in it and there was much growth around him.

As Narada approached, the sage recognized him and asked, "Oh great sage, what are doing this beautiful day in the forest?"

"I am on my way to visit Lord Sri Krishna in his abode of Krishna-loka" he replied.

The yogi became hopeful and asked, "Oh sage, when you see Lord Krishna, would you be kind enough to ask him how many lives I must complete until I reach enlightenment and am freed from this world of illusion?"

Narada replied, "It would be my pleasure" and then he continued on his way down the road.

Several miles further along, Narada came across a young neophyte who was having some difficulties getting accustomed to his meditations but he was trying and beginning to have some successes.

The neophyte monk also recognized Narada and also asked him for the favor of asking Lord Krishna the number of lives before reaching enlightenment and of course Narada agreed.

Several years passed and once again Narada was on the road when he came across the yogi. When the yogi saw Narada he was overjoyed and asked, "Oh great Sage, per chance did you make it to see Lord Krishna and did you get the moment to ask my question?"

Narada looked at the sage and informed the yogi, "Lord Sri Krishna sends his blessings and asked me to inform you that after the completion of only three more lives, you will join him forever in his home of Krishna-loka."

The yogi was taken aback and began to rage, "Three more? Does Lord Krishna have any idea how many lives I have dedicated to meditation upon his lotus feet and I still have three more lives?"

As the yogi went on, Narada slipped away and continued his way down the road.

When he made it to the neophyte monk, it was apparent that he had begun to have some success in his efforts to go beyond the discomforts of his body. Upon his arrival the young man asked, "Oh great sage, May the blessings of Lord Krishna be upon you! Did you have success in your earlier journey to visit the great Lord?"

Narada, knowing what was coming addressed the young monk, "His Greatness gave me the following instructions for you. Do you see this great tree that you are sitting under? Each leaf represents a life that you must complete before you will acquire perfection through your meditations."

The young monk glanced up into the tree above him assessing the leaves and what Narada had said and replied, "That is not so many, I thank you Narada for your message."

At this, there was a flash and Lord Krishna appeared next to Narada, holding his hand out to the young monk inviting him to join him in his chariot.

The young monk was amazed and asked, "Oh great Lord, I thought I had many lives to fulfill before I would find enlightenment."

Lord Krishna smiled at the young monk and said, "Yes, many lives were before you, but you were willing to perform them in love and faith."

As with many of the lessons in life, we often do not necessarily have to through all the experiences, it is often just enough to truly be willing to do so.

On many occasions in my life, I will see a path before me that is not where I want to go and would not choose it for whatever reasons. When I have have stopped fighting what appeared to be unavoidable and accepted that this may be a path I may have to walk and truly been willing, suddenly alternatives have availed themselves and the unwanted path has fallen away.

When you are presented with areas of your life you wish to avoid, remember that old saying that "what you resist, persists." On some occasions you may have to go through the experiences, but often it may be enough to just be willing and not fight it.

Only 2 Questions from Freedom

William Shakespeare wrote "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." What an amazing idea and such a shame that most of us cannot or will not.

In my practice as a Life Coach one of the first things we delve into usually is "what do YOU want?" I am very often amazed with just how much of what I get back is negative wants, no debt, not my current job, to lose ten pounds.

When I restate the question and ask for what they want, I keep getting the same types of responses. It seems that we, as humans, have become quite adept at defining our world by what is wrong with it, what we want to change about it.

To truly know yourself, little less to use the Law of Attraction (LoA), you have to know what it is you actually want, even if only in generalities to start with. As sad as that might sound, the other half of this query is probably THE most important question in all creation: "Who are YOU?"

As a Life Coach (and often as a Spiritual Teacher) this becomes a place to start working with my clients since they usually want to make change, but without knowing what one actually wants what do you change and into what?

I suspect a lot of the difficulty comes from our ingrained human need to be accepted and we have been acclimated to the idea that anything out of the "norm" will make us into an outcast. We have a natural want to be liked and wanted and most of the decisions we make in this life is about "looking good."

The largest part of my practice truly comes down to helping people become happy in and with their lives. So we have to start with figuring out who and/or what we are and then what it is we want. To know these alone will put you ahead of the vast majority of your fellow residents on this planet.

As much as we want to be liked and accepted, I find that the VAST majority of people, in the long run, are much more attracted to the real you versus the you that you have become to appease others. Those who do not are most often threatened by your strength to be real and their fear of following your example.

It reminds me of something that happened to me several years ago. I had been on General Relief and out of work for a bit. I had a collection of friends and acquaintances that I had been hanging out with pretty regularly. When I found a job and was no longer always available, most of those people parted company and some were extremely nasty about how they went about it.

The issue was not something I had done, I later found out, but the fact that they viewed me as trying to be better than them, not something I had even considered.

Once you get to know who you are and what you want, presuming it means something to you, you are going to want to pursue that person and as that person brings joy into your life you are not going to be willing to create falsehoods to pretend to be something else.

So to finish off the quote we started from, once you are true to who and what you are, you cannot help but be the true with all those in your life. Imagine the simple freedom you can attain by just being who you already are, if you will just let yourself!

A tough answer to Why?

When I talk to many people that either do not believe in God, in any form, or are doubting their faith, I often get the questions of why the world is the $#@*-hole that it appears to be and why would a loving God allow it to happen?

The part of these questions that always strikes me as a touch funny is that they presume a responsibility of God and a complete lack of our own. God gives us freedom of choice and where we take it is our responsibility and our problem.

If you look through the history of the Spiritgeek blog, you will find an entry called "Judeo/Christian Paradigms: Karma vs Salvation" where I explain the idea that "original sin" is the forgetting of our spiritual nature and the illusion that we are our bodies. Reminiscent of the quote, "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a physical experience."

Things in this world happen by OUR will and action.

If original sin is actually forgetting our true identity and relation to the Source, then that Source would not be concerned with the actions that occur within the delusion as it has no REAL reality from the ultimate perception.

So the name we call that which lives in this space is often God. From that perspective it is a given that all things will eventually return from where it originated and the in-between is just the show, a Saturday Matinee.

Now I know this sounds a bit harsh, but if we are going to blame a deity for a lack of action, maybe we need to switch our perspective and in the process start to regain the awareness that the world can become a #@*-hole only if we let it. It truly is up to us and God will just wait at the other end of the process.

Unless you wish to give up freedom of choice and self-determination, but I would not suggest holding your breath... But, it is your choice!

Power of Word

The world is going through so many changes around me, and I have to say I am enjoying the hell out of it.

Spiritgeek.com is now "officially" open for business and the "job" has gone the way of the Dodo and though I am concerned about a few things, the simple fact is that I'm happier now then I have been in YEARS.

I am always teaching my clients that if they are not happy with their lives, there is only one way to make it better, change it. Sounds simple, but that old analogy is pretty true about ruts. Sadly, as I've said before; "the difference between a rut and a grave is only a matter of depth."

When I decided to leave my job, I wanted to do it with integrity, I gave 60 days notice and worked each and every shift and was willing to work any extra that I would have before I gave notice. Nothing changed on that front, except I now had an date of expiration and could see light at the end of the tunnel.

When we talk about the Law of Attraction (LoA) we discuss how simple it is. But, it has a few basic requirements that we have to follow to truly make it work. Honesty, integrity and following through on ones word are SO important as a basis to work from.

I know that it's a bit of a comedy, but the movie "Dogma" gets something completely right. The universe of creation functions on one premise, the word of God is absolute. One of the Hebrew names for God translates as "the Great Amen" basically, one who's word is absolute. It is in this authenticity to word that allows Him/Her/It to utter forth, "Let there be light" and it comes into being.

We give away our power whenever we are less than complete with our word, when we settle for less than we started for, no matter the reasoning and justifications that we give ourselves to make it OK.

When we are not willing to stand for our words, how can we expect to create by them?

My life has been changing because I have created possibility for change and I am standing up to pursue it.

My job made it VERY easy to have stepped back from my word and continue working there for a longer period of time. This might have been a good idea on the surface, but in the two-months that I had given them notice, I achieved depressingly little toward the path I was taking, this had been a major part in why I finally decided I had to cut one path out before the other could begin, I had been trying to make this change even before I took the job to begin with.

What would make me think that I would suddenly begin to accomplish in a few extra weeks what I had not been able to accomplish in over a year? For me the safer and more universally responsible path would have been a dead end for my Spirit.

Where do the choices in your life and the lack of substance in your word and being hamper you? Look into it, see it for what it is but do not judge it; you are human and sadly have been trained in this behavior. You can change it though, the first step is to look and become aware.

Some cheese for that whine?

As much as I enjoy people sharing with me, I find that I get a bit short with them when all they are doing is whining about this, that and the other.

People in general seem to be predisposed to whining and complaining and not really being interested in actually doing something... I sometimes wonder where we learned this, I don't think it is our nature.

---

I was having a somewhat heated conversation with a friend about ways in which we can make the world around us a better place and become responsible members of society.

As often happens, the question was raised as to what difference a single individual can make against six-billion uninterested persons and corporate neglect in the search of short-term profits?

The question was recurrent, in many forms and from several direction, the general underlying perception seemed to be a collection of how terrible things truly are and a plethora of excuses as to why there was little to no reason to actually act and a general justification to be just as selfish as the "rest of them."

Somewhere we learn all about what we do not want, we will fight against this or that "wrongness" but we never seem to be similarly motivated to act for some right or good thing.

Over the last 9 years we have seen a collection of protests (probably a sign it's headed in the wrong direction right there) against the wars in the Middle East, against the passage and court ruling that allowed California Proposition 8 to stand (a curious question that is almost as bizzar as the US Supreme Court case of Bush vs Gore in 2000).

Mother Theresa understood the idea that I am alluding to, when she said, "I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there."

When we talk about the Law of Attraction (LoA) one of the concepts that we MUST become familiar with is that the Universe is vast and grand, but in some ways, not so bright.

The Universe assumes that if we don't want something, we would not put any energy into it. Sadly the opposite is usually true, we spend the majority of our thought and energy on exactly that, what we don't want, hence we keep manifesting what it is we don't want.

For example, many years ago I took a class in Beginning Witchcraft, during which (Sorry, I couldn't pass it up) one of my fellow students asked me to help her with a "Money Draw" spell. The teacher of the class was a bit miffed, as it was the full moon and she asked how I was going to do this type of spell during a waning moon.

For those not familiar with what I'm talking about, traditionally, one does magic that causes growth at the New Moon so that as it waxes, gets larger, the object also enlarges. Conversely, banishings are done at the Full Moon so that things get smaller along with the Moon.

I told the teacher that what I was planning to do was actually a Banishment of Poverty. She was fairly impressed, she never thought of it that way. Today, I probably wouldn't do it this way, since we were focusing on what we didn't want, but it made sense at the time.

---

So the next time you find yourself sitting around and complaining about what is wrong in the world and your life, take a moment and figure out what cheese to serve with your whine, I like Gouda and Feta.

Talk about timing (Bad)

Tuesday last week, I wrote an entry about simple ways to practically start empowering yourself and to begin the creation of a world you want to live in. The basic starting point was like the ice crystal analogy:

Do you know how ice forms? A single crystal will form and that starts a chain reaction as more and more crystals form adjoined to the first.

We tend to want to change the world since we see SO much wrong with it, just as we do with out other issues and our serious spiritual growth, we are always looking "out there" instead of looking where all the answers lie, within.

One of the issues I made reference to is becoming informed and the lack of real news that we get on television and many radio stations, and it struck me as an interesting coincidence that I would run into it headlong that very evening; enter James Arthur Ray.

James A. Ray is a fairly well know teacher of the Law of Attraction that I have been aware of for a couple of years. A friend had loaned me CDs of a couple of his talks and I had seen him on "The Secret" but other than that I was not really a fan. So the very night I wrote the last entry I went to to the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey to see him in person.

I really enjoyed the couple of hours that I spent there, but I had become curious as to something that had happened recently that seemed to be troubling him terribly. As the evening progressed, I wondered if he had recently been diagnosed with cancer or something or if his family had been in an accident or some other personal tragedy since he did make reference to the press and how they have been spinning "it."

As I left the Ritz, my friends and I ran into a television reporter from a Phoenix television station who answered the question that had been buzzing around my head.

For those like me, who don't watch the "news" very often, Mr. Ray had been leading a retreat in Sedona, AZ when 2 people passed away and several others became ill. Later a third person passed.

The reporter did what he was expected to do; ALL his questions implied that James had done something wrong, his failure to grant interviews on the subject was suspicious. I asked the reporter if there was any information or evidence of any wrong doing at the event, he was hesitant to admit "no."

In today's world, the police tend to assume guilt, news agencies are in the business of selling news (gotta raise those ratings for more ad revenue) and sadly the masses eat it up whole since it must be true if it is on TV.

Do I know what happened in Sedona? No. I wasn't there but I will wait till there is some actual evidence before I jump to a salacious conclusion.

What do I know? The fasting and sweat lodge techniques are very powerful but also potentially quite dangerous, care must be taken by both the coordinators and participants.

Hold the families that lost loved ones in your hearts as well as the people who became ill and also hold James Arthur Ray, the trials of being in such a situation is extremely difficult and as much as the others are looking through things with a microscope, I am sure that he is doing even more to himself.

Good Days that Hurt...

For the most part, I love life.

Life is such a wonderful gift from God, if you believe in He/She/It/Is, and for those that don't it's an amazing trick of entropy that I could spend several eternities thanking random chance since it is obvious that I won that lottery. (We'll talk about California Lotto later)

But there are days, strangely, they are the days that I truly become convinced that there has to be something behind it, something greater and apparently far wiser than I could ever hope to be behind it all.

Is it God? Is it a super-intelligent being that actually knows the purpose for all that is happening and is either taking one hell of a crap-shoot with creation or has the great hope that since it came from perfection that it must eventually (that can be an awfully long time) return to the source from which it came, perfection.

In the Sanatana-dharma, or as most westerners call it: Hinduism, there is a story of Mother Maya. Mother Maya is the manifestation of creation and she loves her children, us. She feels for us because she knows the pain that she must inflict upon her children so that they may learn and eventually grow beyond her. As with all parents, that is her hope, that her children should surpass her.

The interesting part of days like this for me is that though my heart aches to see the pain that we create for ourselves and for others. I weep to feel the hardness of the hearts of men and I sometimes wonder if I wish to continue on my path towards whatever it is I and everyone else truly is.

There is an old adage that says "ignorance is bliss" and I can agree with that at times, the bliss of sleep is something I sometimes wish for, if only for a moment. But then I awaken to the fact that unless I wish to condemn myself to that sleep of illusion and lies, I have to be willing to awaken and go through the pain.

The pain is an illusion as much as everything else, it's an illusion we create by denying the truth of who and what we are. Because part of our awakening is to become intimately aware that we are all part of the whole, without any part, no matter how small, the whole is not whole, how could it be.

So today my heart is open, my soul is free and I feel the pain that my fellow students are going through. As much as I want to shake them awake, I know that I can only help those who want to be awakened, many are not ready or willing, to them I will wish peace and joy in whatever measure they can handle.

So today is a good day and strangely, it is a day that is likely to hurt, but it is in the depth of that pain, that compassion for my friends, family and the rest of creation, that I know that I have Spirit and that I am getting closer to truly being in Spirit at every moment.

Tweeting is not just for Tweety

I recently signed up with Twitter and have made about 80 updates so far. You can click below if you want to check my tweets out... (God, talk about sounding gay...)


I had a few minutes today of calm during an otherwise crazed day of dispatching and was looking over my list of tweets and it got me to wondering...

When I first heard about Twitter, I was told that what made it so interesting was the fact that by being so short, only 140 characters, that people would have mini-blog entries and that the small size and ease of entry would give people an insight to the aspects of people that they don't usually get to see.

Looking through mine, I find some that are really interesting insights into things, my collections of interesting things overheard throughout my day and/or life and sometimes my slightly wicked sense of humor shows up (irreverence has been a calling card of mine for quite a while...).

One of the people that I list on my website as a teacher is Joyce Meyer, to be honest, I have kind of fallen out of like with her... Since she changed the show from "Life in the Word" to whatever it is now, she has lost that down-home feeling I loved and started taking herself to seriously as a "TV Evangelist." Bummer...

Several years ago she made a comment that really struck home with me that most Ministers (remember the source) tend to only show one side of themselves to the public, hiding that which is not befitting one in their position.

I decided then to make a concerted effort that in whatever I do, I would just lay things out there and no matter what the cost was, just be who and what I am. It has not always been well received, but I have found that Dr. Seuss was right when he said:

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

which is why I have it on my blog. I would think to do anything less would be nothing short of hypocritical and completely at odds with what I teach my students. How can one take responsibility for everything that happens to them if they won't even accept themselves for all of the facets of the jewel they have made?

So, when you read my tweets, judge if you must, but realize that no matter what I might write (I admit it can go off the deep end on occasion) it is a small snapshot of a momentary state of mind. Many of them are just little blurbs of random moments, I kind of look forward to seeing how they change in time...

Catch the nuggets of insight and/or spirit when they appear, try to appreciate the comedic lines and understand that even at 44 years of age, for the most part, I still find this existence to be a fascinating place and I go to such amazing places in my head... 140 characters probably does not do it justice but with enough pieces, you can get a pretty good idea just what I "is" in my totality.

Gay Pride vs Robert's

Warning:
The following contains some language that may offend some...

It's officially Gay Pride Sunday in Los Angeles... The festivities are in full swing and the parade starts in about 10 hours and I am going with a group of wonderful friends.

But as much as I enjoy Gay Pride, there are two aspects of it that really yank my chain.

1. I've never exactly understood what it is that I am supposed to be so proud of. To me, being gay is like being Caucasian, it's just who and what I am.
   
   I'm not proud of being 5'8" (172 cm), I'm not proud of naturally blond hair (though it's now turning grey/silver) and I'm definitely not proud of a genetic tendency to be short and stocky... If I'm not proud of those genetic traits, why should I be proud of the one that makes me gay?
   
   Those who think it is some kind of choice are either too stupid to awaken to the fact they didn't choose their heterosexuality and they obviously have never been on the receiving end of one of their rants of hatred, thinly veiled behind a "philosophy" of love, you know, the hate the sin but love the sinner... Right...
   
   To wake up one day and say to oneself, I think today, I will make myself a second class citizen, a pariah of society and unwanted by my family... If that truly were true, I would DEFINITELY be in need of a therapists help.
   
   The simple fact is that God made me the way that I am and he shows this particular paintbrush of uniqueness all over nature, so it is only "unnatural" as far as people judge it.... Screw 'em!
   
   Many people tell me that I should be proud of having survived everything being gay has brought into my life, while it is true they actually had a lot to do with me becoming the person I am today, but what a sucky way to go about it (guess I may be a spiritual drama queen after all).
   
   
2. The other aspect of Gay Pride that gets to me is that I am so not the typical fag. I cannot dance, I couldn't care less about fashion (I actually found out that Jimmy Choo is a designer and not an accent issue for "Jimmy's Shoes" from "The Devil Wears Prada") and I am completely un-color coordinated.
   
   All the things people seem to think I should be as a gay man are completely outside my genetic makeup, I just don't have those genes...
   
   I don't know much about them, but I like cars, I also like computers, stereos and tearing stuff apart to see how it works.
   
   As far as sex goes, the straight-boy fantasy of the gay-sex-life is something I have NEVER really been either capable of, little less comfortable with.
   
   I live in LA where 9's and 10's run around like crazy and I am a 40+ cute, but nothing that's going to grab your attention and lets face it, men are visually stimulated creatures.
   
   There are times when I see the guys in the clubs and I feel like an alien visiting from another dimension since NONE of it makes any sense to me.
   
   As much as I would love to get laid more often, like a few times a decade, I just cannot become part of the 2AM discount sale at the local gay watering hole, I can't stay up that late and I want to choose or be chosen, not stuck with as the best option left (this isn't third grade dodge ball team selection).

So, I guess I will enjoy the Pride Parade, torment a few fundies by knowing their Bibles better than they do, and celebrate that we had the courage to tell the judgemental assholes out there to just go fuck off and be what we were made to be.

The simple fact seems to be that gay or straight, we all have our issues.

I think I got the gay genes that turn into shamans and others of service to their community, kind of lonely a lot of the time, but ultimately rewarding in the long run, even when it seems futile...

Guess God does have a sense of humor after all.

Do Humans Prove or Disprove Evolution?

I recently put the following up on my facebook page; "Are humans REALLY a viable proof of evolution? My cat seems smarter than most..."

I was specifically referring to how people believe themselves to be the ultimate form of life that exists on this planet, but is just as likely to destroy himself as to survive this adolescence our species is going though.

I think Douglas Adams put it very well when he wrote something like:

Man thinks he is the most intelligent of creatures because he has developed agriculture, civilization and cool little LED watches.

Dolphins know they are the most intelligent since they just did not worry about it.

My dad is a creationist. As I understand it, they believe that the world was literally created in 6 24-hour days approximately 6,000 years ago and that such theory should be taught in schools along with the Theory of Evolution as the source of life in this universe. I accept evolution as a process of life adapting and changing which can be seen around us to a certain degree.

It brings up 2 points for me:

1. When I was in school, it was technically called the "Theory of Evolution" but you would have thought it was proven law if you dared to raise anything that questioned it. Ben Stein recently discussed this in his documentary "Expelled"
   
   The simple fact is that there is as much evidence to call the Theory of Evolution, as THE source of life, into question as tends to support it...
   
   Many items used to prove only work to a certain degree. One example that I remember was the creatures used to show the evolution of a horse' hoof. The hooves looked convincing, but I was dismayed when the skeletons were constantly changing size and other aspects of the animals had nothing that looked related, like ribs that changed number randomly.
   


2. As much as I believe in a Creator that is outside of creation, to teach it in a science class would be questionable.
   
   Sadly, those who are somewhat anti-religious have a perfectly valid point when they point out that there is little to no direct evidence to support or disprove a creator.
   
   Also, since the above is somewhat true, I tend to think that such things truly due belong in a philosophy rather than a science class

So I begin to wonder if Darwin's theory, as far as Origins of life is concerned, may be disproving itself through human beings.

If we did evolve up through the species as Evolution claims, it would seem to me that we would have a more closely guarded relationship with the world around us.

As I told my dad once, my cats have enough sense to clean themselves, co-exist with their environment and not take a poo in their food dish, can we say the same about people?

We have been the indirect and sometimes direct cause of several of history's plagues though our beliefs in "dirt is from God and to wash it off would be offensive" to cats being the familiars of witches, destroy them and let the rat population grow unchecked and spread the Black Plague.

We rampage through what we KNOW to be limited resources, pollute the environment of the only place we have to live, for the time being at least, and in the name of convenience and profitability poison ourselves even if we bury our collective head into the sand like an ostrich.

So I'll ask it again, are we proof of the evolutionary origins of life or must we be something different?

How do U solve a problem like Maria?!?

There are many things about me that seem to confuse people, cope... but it does make me an "interesting" character to get to know and if there is one thing that is true, it's that I am true to what I am, no matter what... :)

One of the things that a friend used to tease me about is the fact that I have quite the video collection. Some are excellent movies that either are or are likely to become classics and a few that should though they likely won't.

One of the reasons I collect my films is that they are fun way of provoking either an emotional state for myself or they have a memory attached to them. One such collection of films are the following:

• "The Wizard of Oz"
  The devine Judy Garland, can you believe they really wanted Shirley Temple for the role of Dorothy? Cute, but no...


• "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
  Other than just being fun, it was also my first introduction to Benny Hill, he played the Toy-Maker.


• Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments"


• "Ben Hur"
  Actually had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Heston back in the 80's, nice enough, shame he turned into such a dick later... Oh well.


• "The Sound of Music"
  it won the Oscar for best film the year I was born...

The one thing that these films all have in common is that when they would be on TV when I saw a kid, my mother and I would ALWAYS watch them together so they carry some of my best memories as a kid.

Lately, I have had the song "Maria" running through my head and after a conversation I had yesterday after work,it really started to hit home...


I had a conversation with a friend about religion in general but specifically about the mistranslation of scripture and ideas from the sources into the modern day.

Now as happens in many of these conversations, his perception was that his scripture, in its original tongue, was closer to the original than any other. It's not one of those discussions I particularly love since you can either turn it into a fight or ask the obvious question of how one proves such a claim, almost always a dangerous proposition at best.

It has started to become painfully obvious to me that trying to teach be re-aligning a current system with a universal underlying philosophy is going to be an extremely difficult way to go about it. We get so caught up in our paradigms and how we relate to them.

I am going to have to start creating at least a basic structure for explaining things that can be used to explain concepts that are in all the assorted scripture but not taught or directly understood.

For example, one of the questions that I get asked a lot is why God would go to all the trouble and allow all the pain that comes in creation? I tend to agree with Neale Donald Walsch when he describes it as God knew himself (pardon the gender there) to be the totality of all that is, was or ever would be but that knowing something is totally different from experiencing it. Creation is God experiencing being that totality.

I usually ad the analogy to prove the point of this of when we were children, our mothers told us the stove was hot and this would burn us, so we knew it, but after the first time we actually touched it, it went from a piece of datum to an experience.

This in many ways is one of the easier questions.

There are so many of these questions that I tend to answer in differing ways based on what my intuition tells me will speak to the current recipient, but that's not likely to work in larger groups or when trying to write something for mass publication.

So I would ask the same questions the nuns ask in the song:

• How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?


• How do you keep a wave upon the sand?


• How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

Politics, Religion and I – pt 1.5

I have been kind of procrastinating on doing this second part... I am really not that interested in it.

I also realized that even though I have my issues with both parties and their apparent merger into variations of a single theme, the problem really is not the politicians, the special interests or the corporations. The simple fact is that even though they may pay lots of cash to a candidate, they cannot vote. So in the final analysis, the blame for the current state of affairs in this country truly is the population for their complete lack of involvement.

Those who do not understand, or do not want to understand, the relationship of man and the universe enjoy being victims of the world, you can only be a victim if you choose to be, it cannot be thrust upon you. It can be very comforting to pretend to be innocent victim, but we truly are neither.

The simple truth is that countries get the governments they deserve, not by being good or bad, but by what they allow to be carried out in their names.

As much as many, if not most, people want to blame those in "charge" the simple facts are that the American populace has dropped the ball and may soon find themselves without any voice in the government that originally was of, by and for the people.

If the disenfranchised majority in this country were to get off its backside and would work together as a unit, there could be a complete revolution in this country without a single drop of blood being shed. All the fighting would be in the voting booth and within six years, everything could be different.

Sadly, in this country, we are more interested in voting for our favorite American Idol candidate than political figure.

I am reminded of the story of a young student and teacher talking about the difficulties in finding God when they come to a river.

As they are crossing, the teacher grabs the head of the student and plunges it under the surface. The student starts to struggle for air and after a few moments the teacher releases his student's head.

When the student catches his breath, he looks up at the teacher with astonishment in his eyes, not understanding why his teacher would do such a thing.

The teacher looks at his student and tells him, "When you want God half as much as you wanted air, then you will find Him."

When the American people want change more than they want mind numbing excuses for entertainment, then they will get it. It takes work, but not nearly as much as many feel, first we wake up and then we start to awaken those around us.

So go out and make some noise and start waking your friends and neighbors. Become involved for if you do not, freedom and rights can be taken away from you and many might be surprised just how close we are getting to loosing it already.