Is Life really all about a God that demands total submission?

In one of Bob Dylan's Christian songs, he says to God, "You have explained every mystery, what can I do for you?"
So I say to myself, "What? What mystery did Jesus explain?
The religious answer is "everything."
He explained everything.
Basically the Christian says, "God made everything. He gives you free will.
He has the power to shape and create matter and events, so, whatever you don't understand, Jesus, or God, or Allah are responsible for, or the Devil or guardian angels.
Turning it over to God, or as Carrie Underwood so eloquently and movingly put it, "Jesus take the wheel", is in some respects eqivalent to the Taoist practices of non discriminatory  perception.
It can be helpful in the sense of  producing  serenity

Participating actively in our own destinies is as magnificent and glorious as acting out aspects of someone's interpretation of mythical beings.
Knowledge for the sake of learning is of value.
"The further you go, the less you know" Lao Tzu

The further you go into the high country of the mind, and thought, and logic, and awareness of the magnificence of life, the more you realize what you don't know.
In the meantime, while exploring the wonder of your own life, some things are, (so I maintain, anyway) absolute truths, such as the value of love and selflessness and so on.
While finding or looking for your own individual view of the immensity of all things, you can refrain from doing things to others that you don't want them to do to you, as is said in the Torah.
You can accept that you are a part of everything, as significant as all other parts, but no more so.

When we teach a child that life is really all about a God that demands total submission  and these are his rules, we  may well be teaching something that has no basis in fact, at all.

Teaching a child about sleeping beauty  as a parable, teaching about the triumph of good and beauty, is harmless unless one teaches that the moral of the story is that people that "look like witches" have a prediliction to poison beautiful young women.
It really was not that long ago, in historical terms, that women were indicted as being witches, and hung after a "fair trial", in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Any of the variations of Yaweh, Yeshua or Allah, have historically lead to bloodshed.
By way of contrast, there have been no Buddhist or Taoist wars.

Children should always be taught that Christianity is not considered factual, and that their behavior should be  based on laws and kindness, not a fairytale.

John Edwards, Please come home.

This blog supported John Edwards in the primaries.
He addressed the issues that many in America believe are among the most important issues facing our country today.
Homelessness, Poverty and so on.
Joy Behar is covering the story in depth on her new show.

Elizabet Edwards is a cancer victim.
She has been close to death, and she may die from cancer.
Having this knowledge, John Edwards made a mistake.
He had unprotected sex with someone he was not married to.
He may have, "Fallen in love with her."

John Edwards is a good looking man.
John Edwards "oozes charm".
He has money and power.
Everyday some of the most gorgeous women in America
strive to win his attention, and many, let's be adults here, want to get him in bed.
Some want to get pregnant.
It's a career move.
Ms Hunter, the mistress, has earned a fortune, literally, by sleeping with a wealthy man.
Her life will be what most Americans dream of.
Freedom, independance, freedom from lack of anything she desires.
Edwards spread his genetic material with an incredibly beautiful woman, and the woman, like sleeping beauty will live happily ever after.

listen.

We are animals.
We have different thought processes from other animals, and other mammals, but we have certain basic behaviors which are part of our physiological make-up,  we are animals, mammals, primates.
To the extent that Edwards behavior violated some primitive or otherwise taboo, his punishment should be social, not political.
It is patently ridiculous for anyone to claim that they couldn't make the same slip that John Edwards and Ms Hunter made.
Ask yourself, if an incredibly attractive and intelligent and desirable member of the opposite sex became an acquaintance then an irresistible sexual attraction developed, that there could be no possible chance under any circumstances that you would not "slip"?.

The number one activity of life is survival and reproduction.
To borrow a phrase from a noted scholar, Rabbi Hillel, "..the rest is just commentary."

What John Edwards and Ms Hunter did is as natural as evolution and the grey ocean.
Let's dispose of the excitement of this "scandal" and ask,
'What else ya got, John Edwards?"

As a culture, we are evolving, as a society we are having more sex than at any time, maybe ever, certainly here.
We have to remember, or become aware, that sex is not bad.
We can and should educate ourselves about it, and be aware that religious views of sex have often been very harmful.

Let's judge John Edwards on who he is, not on a sexual episode in his life.

Game, Set, ....Match?

The President's dismantling of the Republican leadership today at the Republican Caucus  displayed the deftness, honesty and wit that I remember from JFK.
After Carter and Clinton, I admit a reluctance to trust politicians, but Obama is threatening to change that.


Text of Meeting with GOP leadership

Republicans Hoping Obama Fails

President Obama is speaking to the American people as I write this.
His earnestness and honesty as always mark his appearance.
Unlike Reagan, who appealed to people's innate greed, Obama appeals to our compassion and sense of decency and community.
20 minutes into the speech, the only time the Republicans applauded was when Obama mentioned that not everyone agrees with the facts on global warming.
As the leader of the Republican party, hate-monger Rush Limbaugh, has said, "I hope Obama fails.".

The best revenge the American people can have against this group of atavistic politicians in the Republican, or as I like to refer to them, the "No" party, is to succeed.