Religion

Actions like this enrage many not only those they are directly pointed at! In this case, just like if others were to announce then do a burning of another's religious teachings book, it would enrage many of different faiths or even not following an established faith or beliefs. This past decade has had nothing to do with religious ideologies except by those extremist preaching the total opposite of all the established religions beliefs and those who support same while claiming they are members of the true ideology.

Afghans burning an effigy of the Florida pastor.

September 9, 2010 - There is always an angle worthy of discussion in this megalomania of “Burn al Quran Day”. May be that is why so many comments have been voiced and they are all against this disgraceful and stupid plan by a discredited pastor who can’t get the support of his mother church in Germany nor the sympathy of his own daughter.

I hate to contribute to the man’s psychic lust for publicity- for that’s what he is after- and join the flocks of writers who have penned many articles on the subject.

By John Grant

Last Saturday, I pondered America’s soul.

I was in Portland, Maine, attending the annual Veterans For Peace convention, which featured Chris Hedges as its keynote speaker. Hedges, a Harvard divinity graduate who worked for many years as a war correspondent in El Salvador, Bosnia and other very violent places, gave a take-no-prisoners speech that prophesized the end of America as we know it.

The way Hedges saw it, the forces of militarized capitalism organized a coup in America, and that coup has been successful. The party’s over and things are going to get a lot worse. He spoke of a land fallen into barbarism and a dictatorial state in power.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2010) — There's something beyond plain old ignorance that motivates Americans to believe President Obama is a Muslim, according to a first-of-its-kind study of smear campaigns led by a Michigan State University psychologist.

The research by Spee Kosloff and colleagues suggests people are most likely to accept such falsehoods, both consciously and unconsciously, when subtle clues remind them of ways in which Obama is different from them, whether because of race, social class or other ideological differences.

These judgments, Kosloff argues, are irrational. He also suggests they are fueled by an "irresponsible" media culture that allows political pundits and "talking heads" to perpetuate the lies.

[A version of this essay appeared on the Texas Observer website at http://www.texasobserver.org/thewholestar/item/16898-glenn-becks-redemption-song.]

About halfway through Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally on the DC mall, I realized that I was starting to like Glenn Beck.

Before any friends of mine initiate involuntary commitment proceedings, let me explain. It’s not that I really liked Beck, but more that I experienced his likeability. Whether or not he’s sincere, I came to admire his ability to project sincerity and to create coherence out of his incoherent rambling about religion, race, and redemption.

As a result, I’m more afraid for our political future than ever.

Remind the beckers and hockey puck herds, Today, what they want to go back to is the Total Incompetence of the previous administration and the repub congresses then and before which brought the Example of Katrina's Devastation, in this Country, to the people of the Gulf!!

That they were blaming everyone else as they Supported that Incompetence, not only as to that but the emptying of our treasury, two wars and occupations of choice, tearing apart the constitutional rights of this country, the destruction of the economy {though that was coming with the con of trickle down capitalism anyway, the affore mentioned just hastened it and made it worse} and Oh So Much More.........................................!!

On August 22, I was in Manhattan for the counter-protest to support the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. My friend Elaine Brower gave an impassioned speech, talking about the “gentlemen’s" club by the site, and a huge Century 21 clothing store (shop, shop, shop), emphasizing the Constitutional right to freedom of religion and reminding the gathering that 15 of the hijackers who used planes as missiles on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, that the US continues to conduct business with that country, that we buy oil from Saudi Arabia, and that bikers, who roared in, joining the bigots to protest the Islamic center, most probably, filled their tanks with gas from Saudi Arabia.

by Linda Milazzo

Photo by Hagen for News Blaster, NY Daily News

I've always believed in unions. I come from a long line of union members: steel workers, sanitation workers, office workers, police, fire, you name it. They're all in my family. My American family typifies the American working class. In fact, if all the unions represented by my family were to strike for a week, the whole country would suffer. Construction would stop. Crime would go undeterred. Fires would go unextinguished. And in my case, students would go untaught. Yes, I, too, am a union member. I'm a teacher.

Timothy McVeigh, convicted of killing 168 people in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, was parented by Irish Catholics. He referred to himself as agnostic yet wrote to a friend, prior to his crime: “I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause.” McVeigh didn’t explain his concept of God. He did, however, request a Mass and a Catholic chaplain as his execution neared.

Are you wondering where I’m going with this?

Straight to Ground Zero and the Cordoba Initiative’s proposed building of an Islamic center within a couple of blocks of the huge hole where the World Trade Center once towered. Straight to confront the firestorm of opposition to a plan that includes a prayer room, an athletic center, culinary school, and art studios.

What if members of the Catholic Church wanted to build a center within a few blocks of the Oklahoma City National Memorial? I doubt there’d be a problem.

But we are living a problemathon.

This photo essay could have gone on and on, just on the so called religious ideologies some preach and demand others must follow, as to All the intolerance episodes that have plagued this Nation since Europeans came over and took from the Natives what was theirs for thousands of years prior!

With recent episode of inflaming hatreds we're playing right into the hands, we already have during the previous decade, of those that used extremist ideologies as many here have picked that up and respond just as those they condemn!

These folks are by Far much more Faithful then the hypocritical so called christians speaking out in the extreme negative and showing just how Intolerant they are for many others. not just Muslims!!

Young Muslims Pray for Understanding - Video - TIME.com

20 August 2010 - Young students and professionals who pray at the Park51 mosque, two blocks from Ground Zero, defend the controversial site

Air Force Academy Faculty and Students Go Public against Evangelical Christian Bias in the Military

August 18, 2007 - Three faculty members from United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, Colorado--one of whom is also a former cadet--have gone public today with their criticisms of evangelical Christian proselytizing at the USAFA. They are joined by another former cadet now serving in Iraq. One faculty member has been reassigned to the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

AMEN to this, from a Not Phony Christian, those who only follow the teachings of that suit an individual lifestyle while discarding the rest and doing same for Countries Constitution! Nor am I of a cultist mentality!!

Nothing frightening about mosques in America

12 August 2010 - Islam, the religion of more than 1.2 billion people around the world, does not frighten me.

I also have no fear of Muslims, those followers of the teachings of the prophet Muhammad who call God "Allah."

The words imam, Quran, mosque or even jihad do not cause me to tremble or to run in search of a hiding place.

What does scare me in these perilous times are the bigots, many of them zealots wrapped in religion and flag, who find it easy to spew their venomous hatred toward any person or group that is different from them.

Using examples such as the protests against the proposed Islamic education center containing a mosque near Ground Zero, Sally Steenland puts recent anti-Muslim ranting into perspective and encourages Americans to look at the religion based on reality, not distortion.

More: The Distorted Lens of Islamophobia: We Need to Assess Islam Based on Reality, Not Rants

Ground Zero Mosque Not at Ground Zero and Not a Mosque : Veterans Today

Exchange among civilizations is a tremendous source for the creation of value and most of all, the value of diversity and tolerance

The above seems Not to be the ideals nor following the {re}written teachings of the so called self labeled 'christians' in the U.S. in this New Century carrying over from the previous but with louder whining and obscene hatreds, then they wonder why others shun them!!

This is just the recent but think back these years and all read and heard or watched, this is what a big part of recruitment looks like {and rise of hatreds and thus blowback}, add in the killing, maiming, destruction and creating refugees from their homes and countries, and while in these theaters demeaning those that live there and their neighbors and not only in theater but across this country!

By Matthew Harwood, Truthout

In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to quote it, knowing full well he's crossed the line into a bloody-knuckle brawl. Over the past year, Weinstein and his organization have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces.

In January, the MRFF broke the story on the Pentagon's Jesus Rifles, where rifle scopes used in Afghanistan and Iraq were embossed with New Testament verses. In April, he got the military to rescind its invitation to the Reverend Franklin Graham to speak at May's National Prayer Day because of Islamophobic remarks. Most shockingly, MRFF received its second nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in late October. These high-profile victories have earned him the enmity of the hardcore Christian Right and the mentally unstable. And the crazies are getting crazier. Weinstein and his family are bombarded with hate mail, from the grammatically incorrect and easy to dismiss - "I hope all your kids turn out gay as hell, take it in the ass, and get aids and die!!!!" - to the kind of threats that immediately make you leap out of your chair and double-check that the doors and windows are locked. (MRFF has referred multiple death threats on Mikey, his family, and MRFF employees to the FBI.)

READ THE REST at Truthout.

Charles Krauthammer's propaganda
By Glenn Greenwald | Salon

It's anything but news that Charles Kruathammer is a rank propagandist, but his column today is particularly egregious, though quite illustrative of how these issues are discussed. He lambastes the Obama administration for what he calls its "absurd and embarrassing refusal . . . to acknowledge who out there is trying to kill Americans and why." Krauthammer -- needless to say and for reasons too obvious to require explanation -- wants to claim that the True Cause of Terrorism is "radical Islam" by itself, and thus accuses the administration of dishonesty because it "has banned from its official vocabulary the terms jihadist, Islamist and Islamic terrorism." His primary evidence is this recent statement of Faisal Shazhad, when he pleaded guilty to attempting the Times Square bombing: "I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier." See, Krauthammer argues, even Shazhad admits it was Islam that caused his Terrorism, so why can't Obama admit it, too?

Except to make this accusation against Obama and Islam, Krauthammer hides from his readers what Shazhad actually said, because it completely negates his claim. When pleading guilty, Shazhad explained that his attempted bombing was in response to the violence and wars which the U.S. is perpetrating in the Muslim world, telling the court that violence aimed at Americans will continue unless and until the U.S. stops waging wars and spawning violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other Muslim countries: Read more.

Explosions at famous shrine in Pakistan kill dozens | CNN

The death toll climbed to 50 on Friday after a pair of suicide bombers detonated their explosive vests at one of Pakistan's holiest shrines, police said.

More than 200 people were injured in the blasts outside the Data Darbar, a famous Sufi shrine complex.

Lahore Commissioner Khusro Pervez said the remains of the bombers -- a man in his 20s and another in his late teens -- have been recovered. Read more.

Perilous Studies: Americans in Pakistan's Islamic Schools
By Rania Abouzeid | Time

Mohammad Abdullah, a shy, skinny American in his early 20s with a wispy black beard and knitted white skullcap, is just a month from finishing an eight-year course in religious studies at a Karachi Islamic school, or madrasah. He plans another year of study before returning home to New York to teach Islam at a university or mosque, and the Pakistani American knows that he'll probably be taken for a terror threat. In fact, most of the 60 Americans studying at Karachi's Jamia Binoria (which historically has a higher enrollment of foreign students than other madrasahs in the city) declined to be interviewed, citing fears of being pegged by Homeland Security upon their return to the States. But Abdullah quietly insists he and his schoolmates shouldn't be stigmatized. "Not every university is considered the same. Just because of a few people you can't just say everyone is the same. Just because some students are radical doesn't mean we are."

In theory, however, the overseas students shouldn't really even be in Pakistan. In 2005, then President Pervez Musharraf ordered all foreigners studying at madrasahs, including dual citizens, to leave the country, and banned new students from arriving after claims that several of the London suicide bombers had spent short stints in the Islamic schools. However, the enrollment of foreign students was "insufficiently regulated," enabling many to remain, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in its most recent report on the schools. The civilian government that succeeded Musharraf in 2008 apparently tried to maintain the restrictions by drowning applicants in paperwork. Students must obtain valid visas and security clearances as well as a no-objection certificate (NOC) from their home countries, the Crisis Group says. Read more.

United Methodists Vote to Divest From Companies That Benefit From Occupation of Palestine | Press Release | Peace With Justice Coordinators

ST. CHARLES, ILL. June 15, 2010 – At its annual conference, the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted to divest all holdings in three international corporations that profit from the occupation of Palestine. This action is in response to a plea by Palestinian Christians for action, not just words.

Divestment is a nonviolent form of economic protest long-used by churches and other shareholders to encourage companies to end unjust practices. By selling its investments in Caterpillar (CAT), General Electric (GE) and Terex (TEX), the NIC expresses its commitment to do no harm with its investments and affirms the call of the UMC Book of Discipline to "avoid investments that appear likely, directly or indirectly, to support violation of human rights” (Paragraph 716).

These three companies are among 20 targeted by UMC conferences across the country because they (1) have a presence on occupied land, (2) are involved with the physical settlements, checkpoints and the separation wall, or (3) support activities of the Israeli military in the occupied territories.

Connie Baker from the End the Occupation Task Force of the Board of Church and Society which brought forth the resolution stated: “We are resolute in our support of peace for both Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land and the rights of each to co-exist according to the principles set forth in the Geneva Conventions. It is a small step, but an important one.”

The conference will also send a list of the 20 offending companies to the nearly 400 local churches in Northern Illinois and encourage them to consider divestment from any corporations on the list.

For the list of targeted corporations, which was compiled by the New England Conference (UMC) Divestment Task Force, click here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

More videos in Chris Matthews' report "Rise of the New Right" "below the fold." Click "Read more" bottom right.

I know it's not Friday anymore, but I'm running late and don't want to miss a $5 Friday.  This week I've supported the Secular Student Alliance.

Had enough of Americans coming out of school believing humans lived with dinosaurs, environmentalism fails to properly value the afterlife, wars against people who believe the wrong nonsense are justified, and Bible-thumping morons make the best legislators?

Do something about it:

The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger
By Chris Hedges | Truthout

Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on "biblical law," and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as "nominal Christians"—meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged.

The followers of deviant faiths, from Judaism to Islam, must be converted or repressed. The deviant media, the deviant public schools, the deviant entertainment industry, the deviant secular humanist government and judiciary and the deviant churches will be reformed or closed. There will be a relentless promotion of Christian "values," already under way on Christian radio and television and in Christian schools, as information and facts are replaced with overt forms of indoctrination. The march toward this terrifying dystopia has begun. It is taking place on the streets of Arizona, on cable news channels, at tea party rallies, in the Texas public schools, among militia members and within a Republican Party that is being hijacked by this lunatic fringe. Read more.

By David Swanson

On Saturday, June 5, I took part in an event organized by Jeff Nall of Humanists for Peace, together with Nall, Armineh Noravian, and Debra Sweet. Nall had organized a panel at the national conference of the American Humanist Association to talk about the need to work for peace. And the room was packed.

By David Swanson

I'm at the American Humanists Assoc. conference in San Jose at which Annie Laurie Gaylor is recounting how her Freedom from Religion Foundation won a court order requiring the president to end the National Day of Prayer.

I'm here to speak about peace and humanism. We'll see how it goes. Apparently peace is a majority but not universal value among "humanists".

Gaylor is here to receive an award as a Humanist Heroine, which I think is well deserved.

The case began with a complaint from an individual in Wisconsin about state funds being used to promote a prayer event with a state supreme court justice. When FFRF looked into it, they decided that the people to sue were President George W Bush and his press secretary and Shirley Dobson.

Raised to Hate: Kids of Westboro Baptist Church
Coached by His Dad, 7-Year-Old Says 'Gays, Fags, Hundreds ... of Jews' Are Bound for Hell
By Glenn Ruppel, Kelsey Myers and Eamon McNiff | ABC News

Boaz Drain, a seven-year-old from Topeka, Kan., and his six-year-old sister Faith are the picture of typical American children, chock full of energy, fun and imagination. They watch movies like "Shrek" and enjoy playing with the standards like "Star Wars" light sabers and ray guns.

Yet ABC News' Chris Cuomo was shocked to hear some of the things Bo told him when he visited the Drain family recently.

"I don't think you'll go to heaven, I think you'll go to hell," Bo told Cuomo, adding those who were destined for eternal damnation included "gays, fags, hundreds and hundreds of Jews," among a wide swath of other people that Bo has been taught since birth were hated by God and bound for Hell.

Bo's family belongs to the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, led by Pastor Fred Phelps. Members believe the Bible is the literal law of God, and the penalty for violating the rules and lessons put forth in the scriptures is eternal damnation. Read more.

Catholic Church Excommunicates Nun Who Helped Provide Life Saving Abortion | LezGet Real

The Catholic Church is so determined to enforce a ban on all abortions that they have recently punished a nun for providing an abortion in order to save a woman’s life. The woman who had to have the abortion to survive was gravely ill and the abortion was the only way to save her life. What compounds it is that, without the abortion, it is likely that they would have lost both mother and fetus.

Sister Margaret McBride was a nun and administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. After helping to provide the abortion, she was automatically excommunicated from Catholicism. She sat on the ethics board that included doctors who agreed that the woman, who was eleven weeks pregnant, should have an abortion. They agreed that without it the woman would die. Read more.