Are we all equal in God's eye?

In March, I heard a lot of ignorant people saying that Japan deserved what they got with the earthquake, now that the Bible Belt of the United States has been ravaged by the worst outbreak of tornadoes and storms in nearly 80 years, the same ignorant fools are racking it up to "shit happens".  Why is it that we as a species are so quick to judge one another?  Why do we have to feel superior to our neighbor and one up them with a bigger TV, bigger porch, better car so on and so forth?  I passed a convoy of utility workers and volunteers heading into the ravaged parts of Alabama yesterday.  These are people that are dropping what they do for their everyday lives to help out their fellow brethren.  Believe it or not, the same thing happened in Japan.  We work better together.  Our best shines through when we are united.  Why can we not be united as a species, as a planet, creating a global society of good rather than hatred and spite towards people that may not have the same beliefs as us?  I've donated to the relief efforts of both the devastations, I urge you to do the same by texting "REDCROSS" to 90999.  $10 will be added to your cellphone bill, and you get the option to have your donation to go towards the Japanese or Alabama efforts.  Do what's right by humanity, not by a few words man put on a page in a book.

A Game of Chance in this Thing Called Life

Yesterday, the Pope gave lead his Easter Vigil in Rome and said that humanity is not a random product of evolution.  He said it was wrong to think at some point "in some tiny corner of the cosmos there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it."  I pose this question to you all; when you play the same numbers every week in the lottery hoping to win and never do is insanity, so if we all go based off the same story of creation that God put us here just because is sort of the same concept.  When we look at the cosmos there are billions upon billions of stars out there that we have no idea what is going on around them.  I don't know about you, but I like those odds.  What is the chance that we're on this measly little planet orbiting one of countless stars in this universe and we are the only specimen of life that exists?  That is just about as absurd as saying that Jesus buried dinosaurs to test our faith.  Then to argue that evolution happened but did not impact us humans is an invalid argument.  Based on Genesis, all creatures, including man, was created by God, so why would humans be the only ones left out of the evolutionary process?  Each culture throughout time has its own story of creation ranging from "In the beginning..." to a turtle walking out of the sea with the world on its back.  All have influence from a greater power.  Why can't that greater power be math, physics and chemistry?  All living creatures on this planet have the same genetic material in their DNA, showing that we all come from the same pot that the soup was cooked in.  Mutations occurred over millions of years allowing changes to happen to create different species in this unique ecosystem.  Evolution is not a matter of faith like creation is.  We have evidence in the fossil table showing changes occurring over millions of years to different species leading us to where we are today.  Genesis is words on a page, no proof; this does require faith.  Think of Santa Claus.  We all know that Santa is not real, but he is an idea that we use to commercialize the holiday season and get kids to go to bed early one night of the year.  Yet, despite the falsehood of the concept of the jolly old fellow in the red suit, we continue to tell our kids generation after generation that Santa is real and it requires a belief system, when in fact, we as adults know better.  Stop letting yourselves be blinded by the fallacy of fear.  Religion is fueled by fear; the fear of not gaining the ultimate prize in heaven and burning in eternal damnation.  Look at the evidence objectively not subjectively.  Yes, my ancestors were tree climbing, fig eating, poop slinging chimps and I'm proud to say that.

Think before you speak

Recently I saw a post on someone's Facebook wall ranting about how the United States is providing relief funds to Japan after their devastating earthquake and now impending nuclear tragedy.  The reasoning behind this was that we as a country should not offer our assistance to them because they were the ones that bombed Pearl Harbor.  That may be true, but that was settled with the end of World War II.  They also provide us with the majority of the electronic devices we so enjoy today and millions of imported vehicles we drive on our American highways.  If we are going to use past actions to justify present day actions, let's look in the mirror and Anglo Saxon and Christian activities throughout history.

1) The Holocaust
2) The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
3) The Spanish Inquisitions
4) Jim Crow Laws of the South
5) Whites displacing Native Americans for westward expansion (never take a blanket from a white man)
6) European Colonization of the world

I know that these are not in any chronological order.  Honestly, I'm writing this blog trying to stay awake in class.  What we can take from this is that one horrible incident that the Japanese did almost 70 years ago should not have any influence on the action we take today.  If Pearl Harbor offends you as an American, read up on Nanking and the atrocities that took place there by the Japanese.  This alone should offend you as a human being.  Before you make any comments referring to historical events, think before you speak; put it in scale of other events that your culture, religion or government may have been part of.  When looking at history, you have to look at it without bias to be able to argue a valid point.

What this world needs is a voice of reason

Everyday on my way into work I pass a billboard that says "What this nation needs is an awakening to God".  I'm sorry, I could not disagree more.  What our nation needs, as well as the world as a whole, is a voice of reason.  All we see on any of the news networks or in print are the stories of the extremists on either side, this is what is polarizing society as a whole, not just politically in our country, but in nations and societies around the world.  There are roughly 1.5 billion Muslims in the world as well as Christians.  Combined that is half of the world's population.  Now for me to sit here and say that every Muslim in the world has evil intentions is rather ridiculous.  We can take the Bush Administrations position with that they saved America from further attacks from Al Qaeda, but we will never know.  What we do know is that there were attacks in Spain and England that Al Qaeda was responsible for.  Please notice I said Al Qaeda, not Muslims.  Lets say that Al Qaeda has 1 million recruits out of the 1.5 billion Muslims inhabiting this planet.  If that were the case, only 0.067% of the Islamic population would be a true terror threat, I don't know about you, but I feel comfortable with those odds. But this is what we are doing with that percentage.  We continue to live in fear nearly a decade after the SECOND attack on the World Trade Center, we give up our rights with the Patriot Act, we allow our fellow citizens to be groped at TSA checkpoints in airports because it is a "necessity" and we are publicly voicing our opposition to the freedom of religion.  Now let's flip the script; Americans in general are viewed as unethical heathens by the extremists, like Al Qaeda.  They believe we have no morals to live by, and how can we blame them with the crap running on MTV?  Now, we have extremists over here just like our cohorts do in the Middle East.  Look at the crazy parishioners of Westboro Baptist Church that protest funerals of dead soldiers because they feel that our country tolerates homosexuality.  Look at the door to door sales people trying to sell you on their beliefs when you're at home watching daytime television.  Look at Waco, Texas 18 years ago this week with David Koresh.  All of these Americans went, and go, to an extreme to defend their way of life and faith.  One of the great things about our country is we can agree to disagree and at times we should leave it at that.  Religion and faith should be a personal and spiritual relationship that you have with whatever greater being you pray, meditate, worship or sacrifice to.  We ALL have this luxury in this nation and is secured under the First Amendment to the Constitution of these United States that the government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.  You may say that our nation was founded on Christian values.  Christians got their values from Judaism, so is it safe to say that we are a Jewish state?  The Ten Commandments are shared by both religions and the Koran has its own set of rules to live by as well comparable to the Ten Commandments.


The point I'm trying to get to with this rant is that we are all inhabitants on this planet living in a symbiotic relationship amongst each other.  We need each other's cooperation to truly live in peace and harmony.  Don't let yourself get blinded by the negativity out there.  There is always good around you.  Show your goodness to the world, do good by your standards and as it says in Ecclesiastes 3:17 God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.  So if you don't go to church or you don't have the same beliefs as your neighbors, don't let them judge you, if they're judging you, they're being hypocritical to their scripture.  They are free to believe what they want, we cannot take that human right away, but if they truly believe in the scripture, they will have to atone for the judgement they just passed on.