Judaism

The True Causes Of Poverty, And Do Not Judge Harshly Nor Forget Our Responsibility To Those Who Are Poor!

Ronald 6 Comments

Despite all of the condemnation and harsh judgments that are too often expressed toward poor people, it is a sin of the Judeo-Christian ethic to have such thoughts, and to forget our responsibility to the less fortunate among us!

We must never forget the true causes of poverty, which include:

Job Loss
Single Motherhood
Working a Minimum Wage Job
Major Medical Illness Or Tragic Accident
Outsourcing into a lower wage job
Disability
Death of Spouse
Divorce

All of the above can happen to anyone, no matter how much fortunate people try to deny it. And to abandon people in trouble by cutting food stamps, wanting to get rid of the minimum wage rather than raise it, trying to deny health insurance to those who need it, not trying to make housing conditions better for the needy, and basically dismissing them as an annoyance to be avoided, is to work against the basic tenets of what Judaism and Christianity promote!

There is no greater contribution one can make than to work to deal with the scourge of poverty, and in America, there is no excuse for its continuation, affecting one out of six Americans!

Religion And Prejudice: Again Evident In Reaction To Boy Scout Decision to Admit Gay Youths

Ronald 11 Comments

The news that the Boy Scouts Of America will allow gay youths as members is a half step, as it still bans gay youths once they reach 18, and gay scout leaders, and that will have to be adjusted over time.

But it is extremely disturbing to see Religion being utilized to promote prejudice, bias, hate and discrimination against gays, as if they choose to be gay!

So we see the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, and evangelical Christians employing very “Unchristian” values, and also Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Muslims, refusing to recognize how many of each religious group are gay, including some of the protesting leaders, who are “in the closet”, and are true hypocrites!

And it is disturbing that one family, as an example, with five sons, is removing all of them from scouting, as, supposedly, the children asked to be removed, and if that is so, that means they have been taught to hate and to despise gay people, when they will have to cope with plenty of them over a lifetime!

And who can be sure that some of these kids, or others, are secretly gay, and totally paranoid and fearful of being found out, and might cause them to commit suicide because of their guilt and their burden that they know they will NOT be accepted by their own parents and other family members?

This is all very sick and disturbing, but after all, we all know that elements of organized Christianity were infamous for nativism, racism, sexism, and antisemitism in american history! So what else is new?

Fortunately, the number of young people who accept gays is a clear majority and growing, and organized religion is losing adherents rapidly, so when the more devout and older bigots in society pass from the scene, we will have a much more tolerant and open minded society, free of their prejudice, hatred, and bias!

The Founding Fathers And Religious Intolerance

Ronald 4 Comments

Having spent the past few days touring Presidential homes of the Founding Fathers in Virginia, it becomes ever more clear how they viewed organized religion.

All of the great Founding Fathers were born of the Christian faith, one sect or another, but all were skeptical of organized religion, being very educated and learned about the history of Christianity, which had included mass murder, bloodshed, violence, and holy wars against Islam, and promotion of antisemitism against Jews.

So George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe all were not regular church goers, and in many respects were Deists, having given up on organized religious trappings.

The Adamses, John and John Quincy, also had similar views, as did Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton.

If they had been here in today’s world, witnessing the bias, prejudice, and hate promoted by SOME Christian groups in the name of Jesus, they would be totally disgusted for sure!

The Frightening Conflict Between Science And Religion In The Republican Party: The Threat To America’s Future!

Ronald Leave a comment

As the Presidential campaign of 2012 evolves, a frightening conflict between science and religion is developing in the Republican competition for President, as it has already in the party in Congress.

On the issue of global warming and climate change, only Jon Huntsman consistently, and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in a wavering way, endorse there is a problem. Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain totally deny it, even with the oncoming Hurricane Irene, on top of drought, floods, tornadoes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters worldwide at a rapidly increasing rate, and the warmest temperatures continuing to set records, along with extremes of winter weather which also indicate the earth is changing rapidly.

Only Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney accept evolution over creationism, another example of the refusal of Republicans to accept the knowledge offered by scientific evidence. Instead, they accept that the earth is not old, and that mankind walked with dinosaurs only a few thousand years ago, a totally preposterous concept!

The Republican Party is becoming more beholden to evangelical Christianity and its anti science mentality!

We discover now that Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are connected to a “Dominionism” movement, which claims there are demons affecting the arts and entertainment, business, the family, government, media, religion, and education.

The recent Perry religious rally was led by ministers who believe the above. The aims of these activists is to promote anti gay rights, anti abortion, anti Islamic policies, along with opposition to social safety nets, which take away the domain of Christianity. Also, part of their agenda is to convert Jews as part of the process of the “end times” when Jesus will return to the earth. The same group has been involved in anti gay activism and retribution against gays in Uganda in East Africa!

Face the facts! Christian Dominionism wishes to replace American law with the strictures of the Old Testament, including support for the death penalty for homosexuality, abortion and being a non believer!

It is no different in its extremism than other religious fundamentalist movements, such as Shiite Muslims in Iran or Sunni Wahabis in the Arab world!

The Christian Dominionists have also promoted a justification of slavery in the South, and have distorted history through a Confederate view of the Civil War and race relations!

Under the name New Apostolic Reformation, the movement is on to elect Perry or Bachmann to promote a theocratic state!

This attack on science and promotion of an extreme strain of Christian fundamentalism is an assault on all of the tenets of the Bill of Rights and the meaning of the Constitution. Instead of separation of church and state, instead, we could be facing a future of a theocratic fanaticism led by a reckless, dangerous leader such as Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann!

And don’t think for a minute that Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, or Newt Gingrich are any better choices, as they also are promoters of theocracy in different ways!

It is ironic that only the two Mormons in the race–Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney–considered not to be Christians by these theocratic zealots, actually believe in science and separation of church and state!

What a crazy, whacko situation this nation faces in this clash between science and religion for the hearts and minds of the American people, in the midst of an economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression!

50th Anniversary Of Berlin Wall: The Ultimate Symbol Of Oppression Remembered!

Ronald Leave a comment

Today, a half century ago, the East German government in lockstep with the Soviet Union, its master, started construction of the infamous Berlin Wall, which became the ultimate symbol of oppression, the true image of what Soviet Communism was all about!

For the next 28 years, until the evening of November 9 and day of November 10, 1989, the Berlin Wall became the center of the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, evoking the worst images of the Cold War.

Many people died trying to ram through the checkpoints with their cars; or attempting to climb over the wall with its barbed wire top, or jumping over the wall from nearby buildings at the location of the wall, or digging tunnels under the wall in a multitude of locations.

President John F. Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan were remembered for their condemnations of the Berlin Wall and what it represented.

When the wall came down suddenly in November 1989 during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, it was a sign of the end of the Cold War, and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet system of government in 1991, after all of Eastern Europe was liberated from the yoke of communism in 1989.

It was a great moment of rejoicing, still in many ways hard to conceptualize, that the wall had actually come down, with East German border guards assisting in the destruction themselves.

It made many think that there would be peace in the world, and that the United States would be the only super power, with no realization that we were entering a new era, in many ways more dangerous, the era of Islamic Terrorism with those engaged in that terrorism having absolutely no limits, including suicide, in their fight against the Western world and Christianity and Judaism!

So today is a day to celebrate, but with great sense of the challenge that we still face in the future, and at a time when America has so many domestic complexities and lack of cooperation by the two major political parties, endangering, therefore, America’s future!

Religious Leaders And Bigotry: The Hypocrisy Of Some Clergymen Of All Faiths! :(

Ronald 5 Comments

Whatever religion one professes to believe in, one of the basic tenets of religion is not only to save humanity from its sins, but also promote tolerance and open mindedness toward those who do not share your beliefs!

On that test, many clergymen have failed miserably, and the problem is not only that these are their personal shortcomings, but that it has such a dramatic impact on their congregants, and often on the society at large! 🙁

Hate and prejudice is unacceptable rhetoric from a clergyman of any faith, and yet it prospers in American society!

For example, we have Franklin Graham, son of the the famous evangelist Billy Graham; and we have Terry Jones, pastor in Gainesville, Florida, both of whom spew forth anti Islamic rhetoric, which poisons the body politic, including the threat before September 11 that Jones would burn Korans at his church! 🙁

Then we also have Jones; the Reverend Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas; Pastor Eddie Long of Atlanta; and Rabbi Yehuda Levine of Brooklyn, New York as examples of religious leaders who promote hate and prejudice against people who are gay in their sexual orientation! 🙁

We also have the Catholic Church promoting anti gay sentiment, at the same time that many of its priests are shown to have been involved in such activity! And of course, the Pastor Eddie Long has been accused of similar activity with young men in his congregation, and yet rails against gays with poisonous rhetoric! 🙁

Whether evangelical Christians, Catholics, Jews, or mainline Protestants, we see too many examples of hate for people of a religion or those of a different sexual orientation, and these people are committing the ultimate sin: not following the concept of tolerance and open mindedness!

How can someone call himself or herself “religious” and then promote hate, prejudice, and discrimination in their sermons and public activities? And how can someone claiming to be “religious” be a parent and disown his or her own children over what is natural to them, as much as someone who naturally is heterosexual? 🙁

These leaders, and others like them, and ordinary citizens who are parents and reject their children because of being different, are not truly “religious”, but instead are hypocrites who are dividing families and society by their hate! 🙁

What is being truly “religious”? It is being a person who treats others who are different, with dignity and respect, and accepting diversity in this world with equanimity! It is how you deal with people every day of your life, not whether you attend church or synagogue on the Sabbath, as many such people sin all week and then think going to religious services somehow makes up for their horrible behavior on a daily basis!

It is essential that such religious leaders be called out for their reprehensible behavior, and be repudiated as hate mongers who do not deserve a collar! 🙁

And it is time for parents to act like parents, and be there for their children through thick and thin, not rejecting them under the guise of being “religious”!