CactusTom

I beg your pardon. What makes you think I'm an atheist just because I find certain creeds ridiculous. Like most honest folks I have no clue as to who or what directs the universe. All I know is that is silly to believe that someone has got it all figured out, when such mysteries are well beyond the capacity of us poor mortals to comprehend. posted 07/23/2008 at 10:08:35

There is something beyond preposterous that anyone should believe that a loving God would find it necessary that he have his son tortured on the cross as a means for forgiving mankind of its sins. To highlight the ridiculousness of such a concept, let"s give it a more contemporary setting.

Suppose a seemingly nice single parent father moves into a typical middle class Christian neighborhood. Suddenly early one bright and sunny Saturday morning folks in the neighborhood are startled to hear horrible screams coming from the front yard of their new neighbor. They rush out of their homes, heading for the sound of agony to witness the father nailing his son to a cross. What in heavens name are you doing they yell at the father. Why I killing my son so as to save your children from their sins, the father calmly replies.

To which some of the neighbors immediately jump upon the father, while others try and rescue the blood soaked young man from his deadly predicament, and another among them quickly dials 911 to summon the police and paramedics. Of course there is no doubt whatsoever in the minds of these good folks of the neighborhood that this new fellow among them is a sadistic maniac, as the next morning they routinely trot of to church to praise their loving God for having sadistically sacrificed his only begotten son so that they may have ever lasting life. Would there be a disconnect here? posted 07/23/2008 at 09:02:29

Indeed, all religions are merely cults that for no particular good reason have gone on to become full blown religions. Usually what happens is that some powerful ruler takes a shine to the ways of a particular cult and makes it the official religion of his region or nation, much in the way Christianity was adopted by Constantine I when he ruled the eastern Roman empire. Like much in life, the spread and power of a particular religion is an evolutionary crap shoot. posted 07/22/2008 at 23:35:24

While my rational mind is in full agreement with Bill Maher"s view of religion, I also understand that we humans have both a rational mind and emotional needs. The two are at odds. To wholly deny either the rational, scientific part of our being or the religious, poetic side is dangerous. Both religious fanatics and people who suppress their poetic emotional side are in danger of coming to violent end. A good life is sort of a schizophrenic balance of a rational and poetic view of life.

In other words, for sanity purposes our emotional needs require that we not face an endless barrage of tough reality. For instance, when a close loved one dies there is something soothing about talking about the departed as being safely in the hands of God, even if we do not understand it as a literal truth. Of course there are vast bodies of folks for who something can not be seen in such split terms, it"s either God"s truth or it"s hog wash.

Personally I have no trouble going into a great cathedral full of coral music and being a part of a heart warming experience without having to literally accept the underlying theology. Indeed, I refuse to either subvert my rational thought or emotional fulfillment. We humans, like it or not, are both rational and emotional creatures. I do, however, find humor in Bill's punching holes in religious logic. posted 07/22/2008 at 22:51:19

Bush has repeatedly demonstrated that he is a clown. Now McCain is proving likewise. posted 07/19/2008 at 19:35:22

He can't manage to keep his pro football stories straight either. I can't believe i used to like this bumbling fool. posted 07/14/2008 at 15:42:21

Why of course we won the war with easy in the first few weeks. It"s the nutty occupation that we are trying to force down the throat of the Iraqi people that"s the thing that"s never going to work. posted 07/08/2008 at 14:12:24

Since the 2004 election Bush"s job has been done. It was his primary assignment to get elected so as to put the Cheney Neocons in charge of our energy policy. Meaning that the Chaney gang was fronting for the Saudis to help keep America addicted to middle East oil, of which taking control of Iraq"s oil was the lynch pin of that strategy and why we have insisted on our occupation of Iraq long after Saddam was toppled. posted 07/04/2008 at 14:38:29

And he hears it from non ideologues like me. Look, extremists like you and the far right cancel each other out. He is right on, it will be common sense moderates like me who make him president. posted 07/02/2008 at 18:04:47

Plain and simple. America is always in better shape when its leadership dumps the left right extremes. posted 06/27/2008 at 15:33:29

There is an up and coming program on CNBC about how one percent of Americans equals the wealth of a combined ninety percent of other Americans"America"s super rich. Is not the super rich's wealth mostly dependent on our fossil fuel as energy world, and thus this wealth group is why inventors who have soundly demonstrated, for a number of years running, simple, cheap ways to convert water to hydrogen get nowhere with their dramatic discoveries? In other words, the Rich and powerful are protecting the source of their wealth by stifling a new, cheap energy concept. posted 06/19/2008 at 22:39:30

Now that Hillary has finally been awaken from her campaign coma, and realizes she has lost, it is time for Obama and the Democrats to explode the real reason why the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Neocon gang took us to Iraq, and it had nothing to do with a war on terror.

Iraq was an American client state until Saddam decided to go off the reservation and invade Kuwait. For years it had been the Neocon"s prime objective to return Iraq to American client state status. This is the real reason that after we defeated Saddam"s army we immediately took up the stance of occupier. We refused to leave until we where certain that Iraq was safely returned to client state status, and the only way that was possible was to stay there in force forever, claiming that we were fighting some sort of war on terror.

Right now the Bush gang is trying to negotiate some kind of treaty with our puppet government in Iraq to give us control over dozens of permanent bases there before Obama gets to the White House and ends this nonsense. One of Obama"s main campaigning points should be to expose this Republican slight of hand deal. posted 06/05/2008 at 00:00:54

Hillary reminds me of the old Confederacy. It never formally surrendered. It just faded away thinking it had never really lost. And then fester in negativity for the next hundred years. posted 06/04/2008 at 13:25:13

Having been raised in the Christian tradition, it is a story line that one hears a million times. It was quite convincing back when I was twelve. But one does, if of an independent mind, move beyond a Sunday school perspective of life. It mean, there really is more to obsess over than Santa, the Easter Bunny and Jesus, though the latter was (or perhaps maybe Paul was) quite an insightful philosopher. posted 04/01/2008 at 19:56:27

There is something beyond preposterous that anyone should believe that a loving God would find it necessary that he have his son tortured on the cross as a means for forgiving mankind of its sins. To highlight the ridiculousness of such a concept, let"s give it a more contemporary setting.

Suppose a seemingly nice single parent father moves into a typical middle class Christian neighborhood. Suddenly early one bright and sunny Saturday morning folks in the neighborhood are startled to hear horrible screams coming from the front yard of their new neighbor. They rush out of their homes, heading for the sound of agony to witness the father nailing his son to a cross. What in heavens name are you doing they yell at the father. Why I killing my son so as to save your children from their sins, the father calmly replies.

To which some of the neighbors immediately jump upon the father, while others try and rescue the blood soaked young man from his deadly predicament, and another among them quickly dials 911 to summon the police and paramedics. Of course there is no doubt whatsoever in the minds of these good folks of the neighborhood that this new fellow among them is a sadistic maniac, as the next morning they routinely trot of to church to praise their loving God for having sadistically sacrificed his only begotten son so that they may have ever lasting life. Would there be a disconnect here? posted 04/01/2008 at 17:02:23

Friedman was mainly arguing against the sort of red tape, strangling bureaucracies as exemplified by places like India in the 70"s, not promoting this cowboy free-for-all, hand the rule making over to K Street crap that was the Bush doctrine. But there are far greater economic forces at work upon American than the wars over market regulations.

Coming out of WWII America"s enemies were in ashes and its friends were mainly bankrupt. So for some 25 years America ruled the world economy nearly free from competition. As we became the one stop seller of everything our standard of living exploded, creating an abnormally large middle class. But by 1970 the rest of the world was well along the road to recovery, and so it was about then that our manufacturing industries peaked. Then by 2000 our technological advantage had evaporated. And so with the rest of the world rolling along producing just about anything we could at a fraction of the price, American wages and the bloated middleclass had nowhere to go but down.

But when folks are used to living the high life they do not easily give it up. So in order to keep on living as if we still owned the world, both government and the private sector have been borrowing like mad. Now we have just about come to the end of the line. posted 03/31/2008 at 18:00:04

President Cheney and his Neocon buddies are determined to attack Iran before their Bush baby puppet leaves office. posted 03/29/2008 at 17:47:04

The moderate Republican (near independent) Chuck Hagel would make an ideal vice-presidential running mate for Obama. He would bleed off much of McCain"s moderate backers, providing a comfortable margin for Barack's general election victory. posted 03/29/2008 at 17:58:25

Any time the all powerful Shiite leader Mugtada al-Sader cares to call off his truce, Bagdad and much of the rest of Iraq will be turned into a record breaking blood bath. He, not Bush"s surge, controls the level of violence. posted 03/27/2008 at 15:30:58

A few days before the Wright extravaganza was poured into public view, I told my wife that sooner or later the rightwing is going to find a deadly effective means for turning the forthcoming election into a race issue thing. Bingo! How many times has Fox rerun the Wright tape to play upon the fear of whites that just maybe Birds of a feather, indeed, ought to flock together, which of course equals a McCain victory if race is the central underlying theme. posted 03/27/2008 at 15:55:03