I am not without spirituality. But the religious mania in today’s world is cause for concern. If a pilot on a commercial aircraft can suddenly ask the passengers to raise their hand if they are Christian, that is frightening. One would wonder is this guy a religious nut with a plan for a fast route to the afterlife, or is he just an over zealous and insensitive jerk? . That means one person has religious freedom and the rest must wonder what is going on. Religious freedom means you don’t hound me on an airplane. Religious freedom means if “you found the way” keep it to yourself when operating aircraft.

But what do you expect. Forty percent of Americans claim to be “Born Again Christians” and our President professes belief in a religion that preaches a concept called Rapture. You know, Rapture, that big event that evangelicals believe every true-believing Christian, and every child under the age of 12, vanishes in an instant to a better place. All others will face the Tribulation. Such fantasy seems as believable as Santa going down every chimney on Christmas Eve, except not nearly as much fun.. In this world the Christian and Muslim Gods seem to be a blood thirsty bunch! Convert or kill seems to be the war cry. The Muslims would call me an infidel and the Christian might say a heathen. I guess the golden rule is do unto others as you would have them do unto you provided they are willing to wrap themselves in the same idiotic dogma. And we have a growing acceptance of public money going to religious charities. So I can only get a bowl of soup or medical care if I want to listen to your dribble about Jesus and salvation. This is what we mean by Faith Based Help. You know, like Hawaii, where we brought in the bibles, along with disease, guilt, and a total lack of understanding of the native life.

The religious right wants government out of religion, but not the other way around. They are obsessed with converting you to their way of thinking. I recall that some time ago, I was sitting on my porch and two of God’s crusaders appeared riding up on bicycles. They were from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As they approached me, it did not take them long to reveal their mission. They quickly got to the meat of the matter and asked the big question: The Mormon equivalent of “Was I Saved?” I reflected a moment, and then told them this was not the appropriate question. Looking curious, they asked me to explain. I said, well, because it was not me that has 30 seconds to vacate the porch or meet my maker. And so they quickly departed and my opportunity to be assured a spot in the afterlife was again forsaken.

So along comes Wacko Mel Gibson to spread his version of the truth. And the sheep flock to absorb the gore. Adolph Hitler visited the 1934 performance of the Passion Play , giving it his eager blessing. In the words of the leader of the Third Reich “It is vital that the Passion play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the time of the Romans,” Hitler continues “There one sees Pontius Pilate, a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands out like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry.” So there you have it, the Passion play as seen by the man responsible for the biggest Genocide in history. Of course Mel’s father denies the holocaust ever happened! And today’s Evangelicals are happy to promote the movie to anyone that will listen. I heard one minister say it is a film everyone must see. Now I say that is rubbish! “The Bear” is a film everyone must see. It promotes compassion for nature and life. It is warm and kind and its message is respect for nature and living things. In spite of what the Jesus Freaks say this world was not put here for man alone. The world is not a garden solely for man’s exploitation. “Gorillas of the Mist “is a movie everyone should see. It says there are beautiful things in this world that man, in his hurried and self centered ways, is only too eager to destroy. And of course “Cloud, Wild Stallion of the Rockies” is for sure a movie everyone must see. It shows that in spite of all their struggles with nature, Man remains the wild horses’ greatest challenge to survival. These movies really tried to do some good and Mel Gibson was not in any of these. But I heard one person say it is good this movie came out when it did, the devil was making us all talk about gay marriage and Mel got us off that subject!

But the world will go on spending an inordinate amount of energy on disseminating hate and calling it the religion of Jesus or Mohammed. Religion is and has always been more about Power than Truth, more about Control then Compassion. It has often been used to propel one people against another. Religion has stifled both the Arts and the Sciences. Remember how long it took to accept that the Earth was not the center of the Solar System? Remember the price Galileo paid for being a free thinking human being? In the past a man might kill and maim thousands of people and yet become the Pope! So it seems crazy to call him the Holy one! Even today the Pope goes into an impoverished, over populated country and preaches against birth control. On the other hand we have raving lunatics calling themselves Christians making sport of shooting at abortion doctors. And then there is Jerry Farwell who feels compelled to worry if some cartoon character is gay and is so worked up over gay marriage he put up a site onemanonewoman.com. Sounds to me like Jerry needs a woman himself. Of all the serious problems in the world, for a grown man proclaiming to be in touch with God to get wound tight over the sexual preference of a cartoon character seems, well, a tad trite! It encourages the kind of idiots that gave the movie “Good Boy” a horrible review because one of the dogs lived in a home with two men. Seems that Religion and Peace on Earth are in total contradiction.

A key disturbing factor is the notion that Man is made in God’s image. It is the ultimate rationale for treating all other creatures as something God put here for man to use as he sees fit. I guess the wolf, the elephant, and the buffalo are not in God’s image and if we see fit to hunt them to extinction, then that is cool with God.

But as bad as the Christians have been, I have yet to hear of them strapping a bomb to their body and blowing themselves up in the name of God. I think we have entered another Dark Age where Religion Rules.

Here’s a great passage about this very thing:
SOURCE http://www.equip.org/free/DA241.htm

Some abortion-rights advocates, in response to pro-life arguments, emote such bumper-sticker slogans as: “Pro-choice, but personally opposed,” “Don’t like abortion, don’t have one,” or “Abortion is against my beliefs, but I would never dream of imposing my beliefs on others.” These slogans attempt to articulate in a simple way a common avenue taken by politicians and others who want to avoid the slings and arrows that naturally follow a firm position on abortion. It is an attempt to find “a compromise” or “a middle ground”; it’s a way to avoid being labeled “an extremist” of either camp.
…One cannot appeal to the fact that we live in a pluralistic society (characterized by moral pluralism/relativism) when the very question of who is part of that society (that is, whether it includes unborn children) is itself the point under dispute.
The pro-abortionist’s unargued assumption of moral relativism to solve the abortion debate reveals a tremendous ignorance of the pro-life position. For the fact is that if one believes that the unborn are fully human (persons), then the unborn carried in the wombs of pro-choice women are just as human as those carried in the wombs of pro-life women. For the pro-lifer, an unborn child is no less a human person simply because the child happens to be living inside Whoopi Goldberg or Cybil Shepherd. Ideology does not change identity.

Pro-choicers ought to put at least some effort into understanding the pro-life position. When they tell pro-lifers (as they often do) that they have a right to believe what they want to believe, they are unwittingly promoting the radical tactics of Operation Rescue (OR). Think about it. If you believed that a class of persons were being murdered by methods that include dismemberment, suffocation, and burning — resulting in excruciating pain in many cases — wouldn’t you be perplexed if someone tried to ease your outrage by telling you that you didn’t have to participate in the murders if you didn’t want to? That is exactly what pro-lifers hear when abortion-rights supporters tell them, “Don’t like abortion, don’t have one,” or “I’m pro-choice, but personally opposed.” In the mind of the pro-lifer, this is like telling an abolitionist, “Don’t like slavery, don’t own one,” or telling Dietrich Bonhoffer, “Don’t like the holocaust, don’t kill a Jew.” Consequently, to request that pro-lifers “shouldn’t force their pro-life belief on others” while at the same time claiming that “they have a right to believe what they want to believe” is to reveal an incredible ignorance of their position.

Contrary to popular belief, the so-called “pro-choice” position is not neutral. The abortion-rights activist’s claim that women should have the “right to choose” to kill their unborn fetuses amounts to denying the pro-life position that the unborn are worthy of protection. And the pro-lifer’s affirmation that the unborn are fully human with a “right to life” amounts to denying the abortion-rights position that women have a fundamental right to terminate their pregnancies, since such a termination would result in a homicide. It seems, then, that appealing to moral relativism (or moral pluralism ala Mario Cuomo) to “solve” the abortion debate is an intellectual impossibility and solves nothing.

As often as this point is brought up by pro-choicers, what about rape victims and pregnant children?, I don’t think most people actually think about it. I was raped when I was twelve. I’m seventeen now. I can’t imagine having a five year old. I’m in high school, I wouldn’t be able to take care of a kid. I didn’t get pregnant, but I could have. It definitely would not have been because I spread my legs and was too thick to use protection. People don’t always have the ability to make sure they’re with the right person, women aren’t always asked whether or not they’d like to have sex. Kids get raped. Women get raped. Incest happens. That’s life. It’s not some far removed concept that people touch on to make a point. It happens. Alot. Way more than anyone is comfortable with admitting. Even if I’d gotten pregnant and gone the adoption route, I can’t imagine the psychological damage of being 12, in 7th grade, and spending nine months carrying around my rapists baby. And since sexual abuse had already made me pretty emotionally unstable I imagine I would have tried killing myself. Guess that wouldn’t be the greatest thing for the fetus either.

I think that a fetus is more than a bundle of cells, but not the same as a person. I think that a woman’s life is worth more than a potential one. And as for the argument that your adopted friend is afraid he’d have been aborted, he wouldn’t care. He’d have been aborted. I guess that sounds callous, but there are so many potential babies. Everytime you use protection you have taken out the potential of a human being. It’s all just chance whether or not you come here, I don’t see that argument as valid.

So yeah, keep abortion legal ’cause life ain’t a fairy tale.

I am, I guess you could say an example to this whole discussion.
Im 20 yrs old and have gone through 4 abortions already .. And guess what ??!!!?!???

Yes, if you guessed im pregnant again then your right. There was no broken condom though i just woke up to a dick inside of me, Im not justifying my previous abortions because if i could go back in time knowing that in all reality you dont need the father to raise your baby, i would. But the fathers were .. well like someone had wrote
“bad person = bad father” not saying every bad man is going to be a bad father but they were’nt trying to make room in their life for improvements or change and I felt why bring a baby into a wreck like that.. I didn’t wait long i made my decisions within the first 2 months ..
Its crazy when you go through it. You, as a woman, find this joy that you have a mini-you growing inside of you, but when consequences, reality and finance kick in thats where your happiness gets crushed .. and as well as whatever the situation might be on how you got pregnant.
Its just my opinion but I must agree that it is unfair to take away one of the choices women have no real control over .. WOMEN CANT HELP IT GOD GAVE US THE GIFT OF BIRTH, YES. BUT AS WELL HE GAVE US WISDOM TO KNOW WHAT IS WISE. WITH THE CHOICE OF ABORTION BEING TAKEN AWAY WOMEN WOULD PROBABLY TAKE IN MIND THE CHOICE THEN OF HAVING THEIR OVARIES REMOVED TO AVOID HAVING TO GO THROUGH A WAREHOUSE ABORTION.
Like my situation .. im pro-choice but as well as knowing it hurt me alot, and yes all 4 times for any wise-asses, to go through the abortions and give up my babies. But it was something that had to get done.And for those who hate abortion so much and say there’s the option of adoption ..
Whens the last time you fuckin went to an adoption clinic .. Helped out an adoption center .. Sent some money.. since you care soooo much about what happens to a life. The government cant even stop world hunger and they choose to talk about and take away abortion .. Whats worse killing a embryo or watching a 9 yr old boy die slowly from starvation. All seems a bit hypocritical to me!!

I personally don’t think that abortion is taking a life (mainly because of the “can’t survive theory”, even though, after the first trimester, it obviously is taking a life, and even then, they can’t survive outside the womb, but whatever); but since you raised a good point, that babies can’t survive without care givers, then perhaps those that are so pro-life will be willing to provide for those children that are unwanted. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, and most of the time, pro-lifers are the same people that spend all of their time and energy trying to prevent gays and lesbians from giving those children homes and care givers, as well as spending lots of time trying to prevent single parents and indigent parents from receiving the assistance they need to raise the children they were sometimes “forced” to have. That is something to think about; everything has a consequence, and I just don’t think that many of the pro-lifers think about the consequence of being denying a choice of what you can do with your (and your potential baby’s) own life.

If all the babies conceived should be born, step up and take some responsibility; make sure they have a chance, and don’t turn your back on them as we historically (and continually) have and do.+