#But in all seriousness don’t say this to anyone Jews Muslims Christian I don’t matter

[oliviartist]

Stop acting like America hates christians

first off when have I ever said that

and second don’t act like we’re loved either

I am extremely grateful that I was born in a country that has the freedom of religion HOWEVER that doesn’t mean it’s perfect

I’ve been bullied and harassed because I’m a Christian

I have lost friends because they found out I am a Christian

At one point in time my church was literally vandalized

furthermore by you saying that it’s obvious that YOU are the one with a persecution complex because if you have to downplay the suffering of others just to boost yourself or other people than you are the one who thinks that your suffering is more important a than someone else

[qqueenofhades]

So, it’s Friday evening, and it turns out I have more thoughts about things that happened this week. I almost never do Discourse on this blog, on whatever subject, but sometimes even your friendly local depressed historian gotta say things. If you’re not in the mood for a long-ass meta-y text post, just keep on scrolling, no hard feelings.

In the wake of the Notre Dame fire, which obviously a lot of us were upset about, and profoundly relieved that it did not end up being completely catastrophic, the usual spate of posts began to pop up, alleging that people only cared about Notre Dame because of the loss to Western/European/Christian history, that nobody had been this upset about the National Museum of Brazil or the outbreak of arson at three black churches in Louisiana in the same week, and so on. I don’t blame anyone for making those posts, because I know they cared about those issues and wanted to ensure that their importance was communicated, especially when something major like Notre Dame was getting all the airtime. However, I couldn’t help but notice how that followed the same pattern as all Woke Tumblr Discourse (tm). An event happens, people express reactions to it, and are then attacked or indirectly shamed for not expressing reactions to another event. Or there’s the usual cycle of “nobody will care about this because it’s not happening in America”-style posts, or passive-aggressive insinuations that “you don’t care if you don’t reblog this.” And -- I say this with the greatest kindness possible, because I know, I know you guys care -- it’s... not helpful.

The culture of Tumblr and other left-wing sections of social media often rests on enacting performative wokeness, on showing that you care about the most Progressive (tm) issues, or that you have thoroughly scrutinized your fandom tastes or political beliefs for anything Problematic and/or can prove yourself to an imagined moral standard (and there have been some great metas written on how this essentially replicates conservative evangelical purity culture, with the goalposts switched). This is why we keep having to circulate (and doubtless will have to do so with increasing frequency) those posts reminding the left not to eat its young and flame all prospective Democratic challengers to Trump in 2020 to a crisp before the right wing, which is only too happy to let us do the work of sabotaging ourselves, even gets a chance. This is also why you see the posts responding to said angry “nobody cares about this!” posts, in which people mention the fact that not visibly reacting to all the (vast and terrible) injustice in the world does not mean they don’t care. The world is a big place. So is the internet. I can guarantee you that people do care, and just because you didn’t see immediate evidence and response to it when you opened up your Tumblr dash is not proof of a collective nefarious conspiracy.

Take me, for example. I am a thirty-ish academic and historian who considers myself well-informed and literate in current events. I read national and international news every day to find out what’s going on (because I live in England, the answer is Brexit, and the status is Failed). And yet, there are plenty of things that I only hear about for the first time on Tumblr, often attached to one of those “nobody cares about this!” posts. And you know what? I do care. I care a lot. And I’m guessing that most other people do as well, because no matter how it may feel, the majority of individuals are fundamentally decent people with basic empathy for others, even if our whole system is a nightmare. But the urge to demand why nobody is Discoursing about this issue (again, among a vast and exhausting sea of them) needs to take a few fundamental things into account. 

First, the American media (as a large portion of readers are relying on) simply does not report this stuff. Look at what’s happening in that godforsaken country right now; does it really seem like the kind of place that’s eager to tell you about Brazilian museum fires or black-church arson? I’m someone who makes a conscious effort to read the news no matter how depressed it makes me, and I still miss tons of stuff, because it’s not there. The Western media reported on Notre Dame, people knew about it, and were upset. But when those of them who did not know about the National Museum of Brazil learned about it, they were also upset. We can definitively say now that the National Museum was a bigger and more irreplaceable tragedy in terms of what burned. But we were also apparently 15-30 minutes away from losing all of Notre Dame. You can be upset about both these things. You can express empathy for the history lost in both cases. There is not a greater moral value attached, and you’re not racist for caring about Notre Dame if you heard about it first (unless you’re only upset about Notre Dame for reasons related to race or perceived cultural superiority and are peddling vile conspiracy theories about Jews and Muslims intentionally burning it down, in which case you are a racist). Almost everyone who learned about the National Museum fire was just as horrified.

2019 is a hard and monstrously unfair and tremendously difficult place to live. The internet has made exposure to both all the information and no real information at all simultaneously possible. Not everyone can display active engagement and empathy with every tragedy everywhere. People have jobs, lives, kids, work, school, other commitments, mental and physical health to look after and even when they read the damn news, there’s no guarantee whatsoever the news is going to report it. If they haven’t made the conscious effort to search out every scrap of terribleness that exists in this hellworld, they.... really should not be shamed for that. If they don’t care even after they learn, that’s another debate. But again, in my experience, most people do. But if they are first exposed to it by someone claiming they won’t care, that makes them less likely to engage with it, and to want to enact meaningful change. Firing wittily sarcastic takedowns at easy targets on echo-chamber liberal Twitter is one thing. We all enjoy a good roast and venting our frustration at times. But as a long-term engagement strategy, it’s going to actively backfire.

I talk a lot about being a teacher, and my experiences with my students, but it’s relevant again, so here goes. The kids in my classes come in believing some pretty strange things, or they flat out don’t have a clue even about what I consider basic historical knowledge. If my reaction was to shame them for not knowing, when they have expressly come to me to learn better, I’m pretty sure I’d be a bad teacher. My strategy, whenever a student can actually be nudged to answer a question, is to pick out whatever correct thing they said. Even if the rest of the answer is wrong and we need to work through it, I start by highlighting the part of it that was right, and to build their confidence that I’m not just going to tear them down when they respond. Freshmen are scared of not knowing things and to be made to look like an idiot, so I try to assure them that I’m not going to do that and I will constructively engage with their contribution and treat it seriously. You can then move to dealing with the other parts of it that may not be right, or even Mmm Whatcha Say side-eye. It is a long and often frustrating process and sometimes after reading their essays, you wonder how much of an impression you made. But if you actually want to get people to care about things, you can’t mistake Ultimate Wokeness or Look How Progressive/Anti-establishment/Enlightened I Personally Am for the simple requirement of being a decent person. You can have the greatest and most necessary beliefs or value systems in the world, but if your response to people is to lash out at them even before they begin the conversation, you’re setting yourself back. And I know that’s not really what you want to do.

This should not be interpreted as some wishy-washy “everyone just needs to be nice to each other!!!” kindergarten-playground-rule. I frankly think the whole system could use a good nefarious dismantle, and you sure as hell don’t get there by mistaking insipid moral equivalence for necessary action. But accepting the existence of people different from you, and considering how you want to engage with them, and understanding that issues are complicated and people are flawed, is a fundamental part of being a mature adult (and this has nothing to do with chronological age; there are 15-year-olds who are plenty more mature adults than 50-year-olds). I honestly do love the desperate desire to make people care, and that, for the most part, is why people who identify as liberal or left-wing do so, because they want to (and they do) care. But it’s also why they can be bad at winning elections and getting into meaningful positions to enact this change. The right wing stays on message and sticks together. Even if they absolutely hated Trump, plenty of Republicans held their noses and voted for him anyway. The left did not do that. The greatest virtue of liberal thought, i.e. its determination to include multiple perspectives, has increasingly reduced it to smaller and smaller camps where only the purest survive, like some kind of ideological Hunger Games. It might be great for making yourself look good to your hall of mirrors, but.... not so good for actually doing something long-term.

Once again, this is not to blame anyone for being upset and worried about things, for wanting people to know about them, and so forth. But I am gently-but-firmly suggesting, in my capacity as old, salty, queer spinster academic aunt, that perhaps you consider how you start the conversation. Once again, it’s my experience that most people want to know and want to care, but there are countless factors that mean not every bad thing in the world will be acknowledged everywhere by everyone at all times. You can care about different things for different reasons. That is okay. You can care about something because you have a personal connection to it. That is also okay. You can not care about something because you just don’t have the capacity and are emotionally exhausted and there’s so much shit in this world that you have to compartmentalize and set boundaries. That is also okay.

For example, I was obviously very upset about Notre Dame, and still am, though I’m relieved it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Am I happy it’s going to be restored? Yes. Am I unbelievably angry that a half-dozen of the elite uber-rich could just suddenly throw billions of euros at it for its restoration, when it had to struggle for years to get funding for crucial renovations? Yes. Do I feel as if that if the vaults have suddenly been opened to restore one major European Christian landmark, it’s incredibly heartbreaking that that level of instant capital just won’t be addressed to actual endemic, long-term issues like global warming and social inequality and the Flint water crisis and whatever else, and that this is a sad and troubling message for our society in many ways? Yes.  All of these things exist together. And I imagine most people feel the same way.

In short: I realize this is the internet, and therefore just is not designed to do that, but maybe we can give each other a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt, and think about how we would like to educate and engage those we come in contact with, whether virtually or in reality. We can do it wherever and whoever we are, with anyone that we meet, and I wonder what it would be like if we did.

[quakerjoe]

A CUPPA JOE for SUNDAY 13 MAY 2018

This morning, one of our "brothers" here at Quaker Joe threw this quip into a thread "Christianity is under attack in America." It got me thinking, actually and I wondered: 

By whom?

Seriously, I'd love to know. Most #Muricans claim to be "Christian", even if they don't act like they are. It sounds to me, to be perfectly honest, that the ones attacking Christianity are those from within, not from any outside sources. Bogus "Christians" vote for sexual predators carrying a cross. They INSIST on rampant gun ownership, because that's what Jesus would want, right? They back trump because a thief, adulterer, and con man who sexually assaults women is God's Chosen, right?

For "Christians", here in the US, they're awfully anti-Christ in nature. That's how they present themselves; as bullies and judgmental mega-assholes. Instead of "love they neighbour" or "love they enemy" or "judge not", they openly attack anyone not like them. They've been attacking one another since before we were a nation; one "brand" of Jesus versus another. They've attacked and murdered Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists, the LGBTQ community, have supported Misogyny, were the founding backers of slavery, native American genocide... "Christians" in #Murican history have repeatedly proven, through our entire history as a nation, that the word "Christian" doesn't mean what they say it means.

The religion, like religions before it, is waning, mostly because people of compassion, empathy and reason have caught on that the religion is corrupt, rife with hypocrisy, and should be walked away from and avoided. Nobody's attacking it; people are trying to defend themselves AGAINST it. You don't get to be a bully to everybody and when they stand up to cry about how you're being attacked and play the victim when you {the religion} brought it upon yourselves. If you want to be a true, honest Christian, it comes at a price: HONESTY. Most Christians have never read their bible except for select, cherry picked slices of it that back whatever it is they personally wish to believe, and using the Old Testament is simply WRONG. 

I could go on all day about this, but I've got other shit to do today. The bottom line is this. Christians in the US have been fighting against themselves since forever, and they openly shit on everybody else not Christian. People are getting sick of it. Standing up to a group of disingenuous, right wing nutjobs who flail about in a pile of hypocritical fecal matter is NOT attacking Christianity, it's calling liars out on their bullshit because they are NOT real Christians. We were warned in the Scriptures that there would be false prophets and that the masses would be blinded by them and follow them. "Christians" in #Murica do nothing about it. Satan, if he's real, could show up, fool them all, and most #Murican Christians would line up in droves to serve because they've been trained to knee-jerk react, get angry and to simply NOT THINK or QUESTION or analyze fuck-all anything. They've turned their backs on the divine, slapped Jesus' teachings in the face and punched them in the balls and then spat on him when he was down because that's how they handle things; not with love, acceptance or peace, but by casting stones even though they are not free from sin themselves.

People are catching on. People are rejecting them. People have had enough of the hypocrisy, the lies, and the bossy, pushy bullying and their infiltration into politics in order to push agendas that promote hate and fear, murder and rape, and a constant division among our fellow citizens and our neighbours. Christians are the only terrorists that anyone with half a brain in the US should worry about, and that is why we're standing up, for ourselves, for our nations, and for those who don't just talk the talk but walk the walk, for the sanctity of Christ's teachings because there are a FEW honest, genuine Christians out there who see this too and they're siding with those who most claim are "attacking Christianity". Thank you George, for getting the mind going while I was having my morning coffee. I know it was a quip, but I did find it engaging and the answer was probably longer than you'd expected.

I'd like to leave you all with this, since this has turned into a Cuppa Joe for this week instead of the one I'd prepared earlier in the week. I'd mentioned that the Bible itself mentions false prophets, so, as the former Christian that I am, let me leave you with some samples of what “the good book” had to say on the matter.

Ezekiel 13:9

"My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD."

Jeremiah 23:16

"This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD."

Here's one for Little Donny POTUS:

LUKE 6:26

"Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets."

Here's one I'd like to dedicate to Congress in particular...

Matthew 24:24

"For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect."

Matthew 16:11-12

"How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Matthew 7:15-20

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them."

2 Timothy 4:3-4

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."

Acts 20:28-30

"Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them."

2 Peter 3:14-18

"So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen."

When talking about false prophets, this is where it gets sketchy, because the "good book" also grants you permission to shit on people not of your religion, be judgmental, and if taken in the right context, allows you to kill the infidels. I give you the book of John, that sketchy, over-the-top nutjob. He was never one of my favourites. He always seemed a bit of a war pig to me. In retrospect, he sounds a lot like trump trying to sell you his brand in a way that demands total belief in what he said and to attack anyone who says otherwise.

1 John 4:1-6

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood."

There are more, if you bother to read the Bible and really look, and the warnings are clear to those with an open heart AND MIND. Sadly, that's too much to ask from 21st century #Muricans who think themselves devout. ~Joe

[ekmekandwater-blog]

Thirty Eight Years and Still Going

38 years ago today I made a decision that would forever impact my life.  Here’s the story:

I thought I'd take this time to re-post my own story of how I decided to follow Jesus. In other words, How did a guy like me end up writing a blog like this?

I was raised in a non-religious Jewish home.  I emphasize the term “non-religious” because I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.  No side curls, no Hebrew classes, just an occasional Yiddish phrase and matzo ball soup.  I had no idea about any of the reasons for some of the holidays we celebrated.  I thought Passover was a food holiday – “Pass over the matzos please.   Pass over the bitter herbs!”  Seriously, I had no idea.  I just knew we didn’t believe in Jesus because I asked my mom several times after watching Davy and Goliath or something like that.

The God issue wasn’t something that we discussed much, but I had thought about it some.  I remember early on thinking it was kinda silly to believe in God.  I understood later, that people believed in God, as I saw it, to help them cope with life and mortality or hardships or whatever.  I didn’t really have a problem with people doing this if it helped them cope.  When I got older though, I met people who didn’t just casually believe in a divine coping mechanism (the invisible friend for grownups) but who were making life choices as a result of this belief.  These people were choosing to not do some of the things that I was doing – they were choosing not to have the kind of fun that (it seemed to me) high school kids ought to have because of this concept of God.  That seemed ludicrous to me.  It seemed to me that Christians were being stupid about this and so I saw it as my duty to let them know.

I was that guy in high school – the outspoken skeptic.  I wouldn’t have called myself an atheist because I thought to speak authoritatively that there is no God seemed equally foolish.  My argument was that it was impossible to know.

During my senior year in high school, my buddy Chet and I applied to work at The Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland.  We got accepted and shortly after my 18th birthday, we began to work in “Outdoor Vending.”  My job title was a “culinary host” which meant that I sold ice-cream, popcorn and balloons.

On day 2 of my employment, I was assigned a trainer for the day to learn the art and science of ice-cream sales.  It’s a complicated science that requires 8 hours together with a trainer.  You take the order, take the money, open the lid, pull out the desired frozen treat and smile.  It’s very complex. So the trainer assigned to me for the day was a young woman named Cynthia.  Cynthia had a personality as big as life.  She laughed loud, smiled big and just seemed to get a lot out of life.  It turns out, and I found out quickly, that she was also one of those enthusiastic, life changed, born again Christians – but like I said, she had a pretty engaging personality and we became friends in spite of her deep convictions.

So during that summer if she was working at a nearby popcorn or ice cream wagon, and I was on a break, I would stop by to visit.  And every single time, I kid you not, she would start to tell me something about the God she believed in.  She would have Bible verses on 3X5 cards that she was using to actually memorize portions of the Bible!  And she would show me what was on her card and say something like, “Mike, look at this.  Look at how much God loves you.  Isn’t that amazing?”  And I would respond with something like, “That’s great for you, but it’s not my thing.”  Undaunted, we would have a similar conversation the next time we met.

I think it was her consistency of her life and message (and for those of you wondering, no, I wasn’t really interested in dating her or anything) and she seemed so earnestly convinced of this God stuff that I started to re-visit the whole God question in my head.  Is there a God? If there is a God, is he somebody I need to worry about?  Does it ultimately make a difference?  Who could I ask about this?  Who’s been talking to me non-stop about God since the day I met her?

So I was working on Main St. at popcorn wagon #2 and I decided to send a note to Cynthia to come and chat with me when she got a chance.  As a sidelight and a bit of Disney trivia, when popcorn venders want to communicate with each other in those days, we of course couldn’t leave our wagons.  We were stuck in one place and so we would use the sweepers.  They were mobile and they were the pony express of the Disney world.  So Cynthia got my note and came out at the end of her shift and I told her what I had been thinking about.

Literally, just at that moment, a sweeper came by.  “Hey Joe,” Cynthia called, and Joe came sweeping over, “You still have that Gospel of John on you?”  Joe said, “Sure,” pulled a gospel of John out of his breast pocket and handed it to me.  Cynthia said, “Mike, if you want to know about God, the best person to ask is God.  Say, ‘Lord I want to know you and I want to know more about you.’  And then sit down and read this Gospel of John.”

I said, “okay” and I took that book home and I probably prayed that prayer 100 times (by the way, had I known I was praying, I probably wouldn’t have done it).  And the more I prayed, the more I thought, “Yeah, God, if you are real, I want to know you.”  So finally, I sat down on our couch in the living room and read the book from cover to cover.

Now I’d heard about Jesus before this time, mainly as something you yell when you’re really frustrated, but I’d never really known any of the story.  This was my first encounter with him and I have to tell you, he impressed me.  There was something to this guy - something, dare I say…spiritual?  Something was happening to me as I read it – for the first time in my life, I began to believe in God.  I still wasn’t sure what to do with Jesus and how he fit into it all.  There was a verse in John 14:6 where Jesus claimed to be the only way to God and I remember thinking that was a pretty narrow statement and it excluded my people – even though I wasn’t an observant Jew, that seemed like a big hurdle.

But I went off to Whittier College as a freshman and I started to enter into the God discussion as a participant rather than an antagonist.  This was a new experience.  I remember being surprised at how many people believed in God as I met Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons and every Joe blow with their own homespun theology.  And as I compared notes, I realized all of their theologies had complexity to them.  All of their gods had personality and ideas and history and values and the God I believed in was empty and void – he needed help and so I enhanced him.  I began to construct God out of the conversations I’d been having.  A little of this, a dab of that and voila I had my god.  By the end of the school year, he had become more complex and I was proud of him.

On June 15 of that year, I stepped into The Raven bookshop in La Canada and ran into one of my Christian friends from high school who I used to pick on.  I said, “Hey Denise, how’re you doing?”  “Praise the Lord,” she replied, “I’m just serving Jesus…” and blahbity blahbity blah about Jesus and I replied, “I have my beliefs.”  “Really,” she exclaimed, “I’d love to hear them.”  And so in the next 30 seconds, I unpacked all of my complex theology (I remember thinking, “Is that all?” I guess I hadn’t developed my theology as much as I had thought) and Denise shook her head and cleared her throat and said, “we need to talk.”

So there we were right in the middle of the bookstore, talking about God,  “In our culture, Mike,” she continued, “Wouldn’t you agree that if we’re talking about God, then more often than not, we’re probably talking about the God of the Bible.”  I thought about it – if there wasn’t a Bible we probably wouldn’t know much about God and so I replied, “sure.”  She said then, “It seems to me that if we’re claiming to believe in the God of the Bible, we should believe what the Bible says about the God of the Bible.”  I agreed.

There is a verse in the New Testament book of Romans – Romans 10:9,10 which says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He is risen from the dead, you will be saved.”  Denise explained to me a lot about the God of the Bible.  She answered a lot of my objections and I knew that I needed to quit avoiding the inevitable and I needed to start following the God that Denise followed whatever that meant.  And I really had no idea what that meant.  But I also knew that I didn’t want to be a freak and so I was going to keep that decision to myself.  I wasn’t going to confess that with my mouth before anyone.

As it turns out, God knew what I was thinking.  And so just a few hours later, that same evening, I was working at Disneyland.  I wasn’t actually working in the park itself but rather was blowing up balloons for the evening in the balloon room.  I was only able to interact with guests in the park for 15 minutes when I was giving a balloon vender a break.  So there I was, standing with a bunch of Mickey Mouse balloons under the people mover when this guy walked up to me.  I had never seen him before and I have never seen him since.  But he walked up to me and said, “Excuse me.  I’d like to know if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

I thought for a moment and replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact I have.”  He said, “okay,” and took off into the crowd (and who knows? Back to heaven?).  That was that.  I went back to the balloon room where a # of my Christian friends were working and I told them what happened, that this weird guy came up to me and…They got very excited and word got out among the believers in outdoor vending and we started a Bible study with the sweepers and the vendors.  And I got a good strong start to my Christian life.

That God was in such obvious pursuit of me is something that still moves me.  And the events of June 15 following my freshman year in college 30+ years ago still wow me.  But that was just the beginning.  More stories to come soon.  I’d love to hear yours!

[badgop]

This current shitshow is brought to you by Roger Ailes.

When I was growing up in the 80s, politics was more like a thing that came up a few months before a presidential election, and people would talk about who they might vote for and why, and you would freely choose whichever candidate you liked best. Totally dullsville. Not like now, where who you think you are as a person determines your vote.

Way back in the late 80s, a guy named Morton Downey Jr had a hit talk show. The format was, Downey was an abrasive chain-smoking loudmouth asshole who'd invite people from two opposing sides of a story to talk it out. He'd pick a side and verbally abuse them and get the audience all riled up with outrage on his side. Outrage! This was the key component, the sense of you or someone like you getting screwed and there's the guy doing the screwing, it's one of our most powerful emotions.

Cue Roger Ailes. He clocked Downey's shtick, put it in a suit and tie and sat it behind a desk in a room with bookcases and flags and called it Rush Limbaugh. Of course it was a smash hit. With Limbaugh, Ailes used outrage to manipulate his audience with what appeared to be a respectable format. In reality it was as absurd a cartoon spectacle as Downey or pro wrestling or televangelism. But say what you want, they made politics a lot less boring.

Five days a week, people would flock to "Rush Rooms" at bars and cafes to listen to his radio show, and/or tune into his TV program at night. The secret to its success was that, finally, there was a person to blame for all your troubles, and it was the Liberal. Outrage! The Liberal was out to destroy your entire way of life!

Ailes used the astonishing success of Limbaugh to start Fox News, where he cultivated an entire stable of Limbaugh clones, all working the same shtick. It, too, was a tremendous success.

Working closely with the Republican party and Rupert Murdoch, they transformed the entire political narrative. Outrage sold like gangbusters, so much more than boring old serious policy discussions. No longer did you need to have a coherent plan for anything in government - to win, all you needed was an identifiable enemy for every occasion. Who's to blame for what ails you? Who's trying to destroy your way of life? It's always going to be the blacks, the Mexicans, LGBT, Muslims, immigrants, terrorists, atheists, abortion doctors, big-city elites, Obama, Hillary, college professors, college students, Hollywood, the French, etc etc etc, but one way or another all jammed under the big umbrella of Liberal. Not the Asians because that's the "good" ethnic stereotype you can use, and never the military or the Jews if you want to stay in prime time, but pretty much any group who's not white, straight, Christian and rural, they could use to work their audience into a sweet, profitable lather.

That's why Republicans don't really have any substantive policies to implement now, even when they control the whole works. They don't have any ideas to actually do anything, all they know after 25 years of this is how to generate outrage.

Now the biggest problem with hammering on this outrage for so long is, people take it real seriously. It becomes part of their identity. It's like you root for the sports team from the area you live in. You don't choose that team because you carefully analyzed all the available teams in a big spreadsheet, it's just fun to feel like part of a tribe with your neighbors. And you've heard all these terrible stories over and over and over about all the terrible Liberals out there, so you, along with your neighbors, are simply not the kind of person who would have any truck with people like Those People. It's got nothing seriously to do with sitting down and analyzing political policies and the best way to run things, it's just sports and identity.

So keep turning the screws on that concept bit by bit for 25 years, and where we are now was always inevitable. Trump says he could shoot people and not lose his base. Just today, 60% of Trump voters still say there's nothing that could ever ever never ever turn them against Trump. Well of course. It doesn't matter to them what he actually does or doesn't do because it was never about that in the first place. It was only ever about sticking it to whoever caused all this outrage that day - because if Those Terrible Liberal People are all up in arms screaming about what a scumbag Trump is, he must be doing something right, right?

And on the far side of that envelope, there's the fascists. Implicit in the nature of authoritarianism is the use of or at least the credible threat of violence. The far right, personified by Trump, is the father archetype: what he says goes, or else. The nazis marching in the street these days are the "or else."

People like to bitch about PC SJWs and whatever, but let's face facts, we just don't like being lectured about not saying "retard" anymore. Nobody's going to come to your house and burn a cross in the yard if you keep saying it, though. At least I hope not, for my own sake. There's not a lot of vegans shooting up churches and mosques or shooting people at protests or stabbing people to death on trains or running people over with cars. At least not yet. It's almost sure to happen sooner or later. But Antifa, as the name clearly states, is only a reactionary movement against the spread of violent fascism given increasing signal boost in recent years.

But this is the most important and least-discussed principle behind the whole shebang: in the post-Ailes world, liberals are not just people with different ideas about what's best for the community or country, they're dirty dirty Liberals who want to destroy your way of life. Keep drilling that into peoples' heads for long enough, and a few of them will start to act on it. And then those dirty liberals will start to fight back. And then the nutjobs will say, we gotta stop these dirty liberals, now they're getting violent, and the Outrage Machine will eat that story up from both sides.

Presto, now you've got a low-level civil conflict simmering to open warfare. Who's got the power to dial it back? Doesn't seem like anyone can at this point. The power of the state can at least keep it somewhat in check... but funny enough, the current president is doing everything possible to undermine the authority of the state, so how much longer will that hold? It's notable that Glenn Beck had a change of heart and tried to pull back from the precipice, and what happened? His fans bid him the fuck goodbye and found themselves another outrage supplier.

It's possible this all bottoms out and people demand pulling back on the controls and getting out of the civil war death spiral. I mean, it doesn't take much to look around and realize how few people anywhere in the world have ever said, "gosh, sure am glad we had that civil war." But as long as outrage sells, it will... and it only takes a handful of people captive to their chosen media who spin out sideways on it and do a bunch of damage, so... good luck with all that, America.

Ironic thing is, the Outrage Machine could be turned around and used for good. Be outraged at the rich who actually are taking all your wealth and jetting off to their bunkers leaving you behind to die in the wasteland they created, for example. Be outraged at a system that led us straight into extinction. Imagine the possibilities, instead of this weapon being used against each other. It's a damn shame.

Now what this means for collapse... well, I don't think civil war's ever been kind to a nation's infrastructure and development, and if we're sliding into the peak oil climate change economic collapse future at the same time, it's just that much more reason to be pessimistic. Although on the other hand, should the state weaken sufficiently, civil conflict may provide opportunity for more self-governing enclaves, some of which might be dedicated to surviving into the future. That may be the most optimistic scenario, really. Even if we could pull back to the pre-civil conflict status quo, our systems will come unglued some other way anyway.

[inhumansforever]

Ms. Marvel #21 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The stirring and politically-charged ‘mecca’ story-arc continues in this excellent latest installment of Ms. Marvel; from the creative team of G. Willow Wilson, Marco Falla and Ian Herring.  Full recap and review following the jump.

The diabolical Chuck Worthy and his cronies have managed to take over the local government of Jersey City, instituting a zero-tolerance policy toward Inhumans, Mutants, and anyone who might possess weird powers or an odd appearance.  Despite it being wildly unconstitutional, Worthy administration has somehow gotten away with dispatching uniformed goons who are rounding up anyone who doesn’t to their narrow view of normalcy.  Leading Worthy’s forces are the villains, Lockdown (‘Basic’ Becky St. Jude) and Discord (who seems quite familiar although his true identity has remained thus far a secret).   Last issue ended with the cliffhanger of Discord threatening to kill Kamala’s brother, Aamir, unless Ms. Marvel surrendered and allowed herself to be taken into custody.  Unwilling to risk her brother’s life, Ms. Marvel had agreed to surrender.  

The various Mutants and Inhumans that have been rounded up refuse to let Jersey City’s hero give up.  They fight back and in the ensuing melee Discord point this weapon at Aamir.  Before he can fire, however, Ms. Marvel stops him, slamming her embiggened fists onto the street and cracking the concrete. 

As Ms. Marvel battles Discord and his goons, Aamir and the other detainees siege the opportunity to flee.  Not knowing where else to go.  Amir leads them to his Mosque where upon Sheikh Abdullah makes his long overdue reappearance in the pages of Ms. Marvel.  Despite his reservations, Abdullah recognizes that these people are in trouble and he sees it is moral duty to invite them in and offer them refuge and a safe place to hide.  

The various Inhumans and Mutants that Aamir had found himself lopped in with are a motley crew of different peoples from different ways of life.  Normally they would not have much in common, but their mutual persecution by Worthy’s forces has made them allies.  One comments on how he never would have imagined his ever finding himself  such a place like this.  A short period of quiet reflection offers some interesting dialogue between Aamir and his new friends. And yet , it is not long before Lockdown and her forces manage to track down their escaped detainees.  They burst their way into the Mosque looking to recapture their prey.  

Ms. Marvel follows closely behind and the battle continues.  Kamala is exhausted, she’s been fighting for too long without having any time to rest or eat and her powers are beginning to wane.  Barely abel to stand, Ms. Marvel is forced to sneak off to a secluded room of prayer in the back.  Discord ultimately finds her and aims to finish her off.  Before he can, however, Ms. Marvel grabs him and yanks off his mask, revealing that this villain is actually Josh, Kamala’s friend and classmate from school. 

Josh is rather horrified at being unmasked.  All of the bluster and sinister commitment he had once demonstrated seems to fade once his real face is exposed.  It’s actually a bit of a jarring shift, yet it’s quite true that people tend to change their attitudes significantly once their anonymity is taken away.   Ms. Marvel asks how it is that Josh should fall in with such villains as Chuck Worthy and Lockdown.  His tale is not that different then many privileged people peoples who become angry when things don’t go the way they want them to.  Josh is just as alienated and confused as any typical teenager, yet he has always been told how lucky he is, how fortunate and  privileged he is and that things will come to him easily.  Nothing has felt easy or fortunate and it has all left him angry and spiteful; and when Lockdown offered him the opportunity to act on that anger in the guise of Discord, Josh leapt at the chance.  

Well, I personally feel just about zero compassion for Josh in this situation.  Yeah… life is tough.  It’s tough for teenagers and adults, for those who are lucky and privileged and for those who are not.  It is all tough.  But that is no excuse for donning some ninja suit and engaging in a totalitarian campaign against the who are different.  Seriously, Josh can piss right off.  

Yet apparently Kamala is a gentler and more compassionate soul than I (or perhaps she is just a bit more naive).  She sympathizes with Josh, feels bad for the things that he has been through and opts to do something rather rash.  She removes her mask, revealing her true identity as Kamala Khan… Josh’s classmate since their were in primary school.  

Josh is shocked and it remains unknown how this new development will effect his attitudes moving forward.  And we’re going to have to wait until the next installment to find out more the issue ends on this cliffhanger.  

This issue feels a touch more rushed compared to the two that preceded it.  The action is more chaotic and there is a bit more reliance on exposition then I am used to in Willson’s scripts.  Still, there is some important and heady stuff that fits well with the overarching thematics and I continue to be happily surprised with the decision to make Aamir into such a well rounded and multidimensional character.  I was particularly stirred by Aamir’s comments about how he had imagined he would be more accepted by the conservative aspects of Western attitudes.  

He’s traditional, pious and conservative and expected that those in America who maintain similar views would be welcoming to him.  Yet they weren’t and what’s left unspoken but nonetheless evident is that he was not accepted because he comes from a foreign land, is a Muslim and has brown skin.  It’s a matter I hadn’t really contemplated before.  Christians, Jews and Muslims who lean more toward orthodox values really should get along better, but they don’t and the only viable explanation as to why they don’t is base xenophobia.  

The sudden shift in Josh’s attitude and demeanor once he is unmasked may seem overly stark and unrealistic, but it;’s actually in tune with psychological experiments explore the effects of masks and obscured identities.  Researchers have found that people can act in extremely different ways when their identity is hidden, yet tend to mellow quite considerably when their identities are revealed.  This can have positive connotations, such as Peter Parker who is much more confident and self assured when wearing his Spider-Man mask; and can have very negative connotations, such as members of the KKK who often feel emboldened to do and say terrible things when their true faces are obscured.  

All of this aside, I have no sympathy for Josh and felt kind of annoyed that Kamala proved so sensitive and understanding over his situation.  Perhaps I am not as compassionate a soul as Kamala, but I have absolutely had it with angry white guys who take out their frustrations on those who are different.  I mean, I can relate to Josh.  I’m a white guy and came from a relatively well-to-do family.  School wasn’t very hard, I was decent at sports, and many of the girls I liked liked me back.  I had no reason to complain but was nonetheless a very anxious and depressed kid.  Life s tough no matter who you are, but that is never, ever an excuse to bully and persecute others.  It’s reprehensible and, although it may seem cold-hearted, I don’t want to see Josh earning redemption.  He needs to go to jail.

All of this is indicative of just what a great comic Ms. Marvel is.  Even a somewhat lackluster issue has the effect of eliciting all sorts of interesting thoughts and feelings.  I’ll read other comics, finish them and be like ‘that was fun’ and then sort of forget about them.  Ms. Marvel is different… it rarely fails to leave a lasting impression, provoking all matter of thoughts and feelings that swirl about my head long after I’ve put the issue down.  

Issue #21 isn’t as strong as the two that proceeded it, but recommended nonetheless.  Three out of Five Lockjaws.  

[magenpeters]

To my dearest daughter

Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun? The answer to these questions is 'evidence'.

Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling….) that something is true. Astronauts have traveled far enough from the Earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The 'evening star' looks like a bright twinkle in the sky but with a telescope you can see that it is a beautiful ball – the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling…) is called an observation.

Often evidence isn't just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there's been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the dead person!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots of other observations which may all point towards a particular suspect. If a person's fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn't prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it's joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realize that they all fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.

Scientists – the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe – often work like detectives. They make a guess (called a hypothesis) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: if that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveler, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started. When a doctor says that you have measles he doesn't take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: if she really has measles, I ought to see… Then he runs through his list of predictions and tests them with his eyes (have you got spots?), his hands (is your forehead hot?), and his ears (does your chest wheeze in a measly way?). Only then does he make his decision and say, 'I diagnose that the child has measles.' Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-rays, which help their eyes, hands and ears to make observations.

The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something, and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called 'tradition', 'authority', and 'revelation'.

First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about 50 children. These children were invited because they'd been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by 'tradition'. Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents, which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like, 'We Hindus believe so and so.' 'We Muslims believe such and such.' 'We Christians believe something else.' Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn't all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite proper, and he didn't even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn't the point I want to make. I simply want to ask where their beliefs came from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they've been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over centuries. That's tradition.

The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn't true, handing it down over any number of centuries doesn't make it any truer!

Most people in England have been baptized into the Church of England, but this is only one of many branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as the Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other often go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons – evidence – for believing what they believe. But actually their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.

Let's talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn't die but was lifted bodily into Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don't talk about her much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don't call her the 'Queen of Heaven'. The tradition that Mary's body was lifted into Heaven is not a very old one. The Bible says nothing about how or when she died; in fact the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn't invented until about six centuries after Jesus's time. At first it was just made up, in the same way as any story like Snow White was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as an official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented 600 years after Mary's death.

I'll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.

Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the Pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are old men with beards called Ayatollahs. Lots of young Muslims are prepared to commit murder, purely because the Ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.

When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary's body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950 the Pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The Pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that Pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the Pope, you should believe everything he said, any more than you believe everything that lots of other people say. The present Pope has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow his authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases and wars, caused by overcrowding.

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like 'authority'. But actually it is much better than authority because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary's body zooming off to Heaven.

The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called 'revelation'. If you had asked the Pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary's body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been 'revealed' to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling 'revelation'. It isn't only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?

Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You'd be very upset, and you'd probably say, 'Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?' Now suppose I answered: 'I don't actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have this funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead.' You'd be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you'd know that an inside 'feeling' on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, and sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don't. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.

People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you'd never be confident of things like 'My wife loves me'. But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little tidbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn't purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.

Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn't even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can't trust them.

Inside feelings are valuable in science too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a 'hunch' about an idea that just 'feels' right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.

I promised that I'd come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish are built to be good at surviving in fresh water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of … other people. Most of us don't hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters, we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We 'swim' through a 'sea of people'. Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.

You speak English but your friend speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to 'swim about' in your own separate 'people sea'. Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way. In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more truer than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at 'swimming about in their people sea', children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child's brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can't be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.

It's a pity, but it can't help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed – even if its completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place – it can go on forever. Could this be what happened with religions? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood – not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this is because they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.

Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers, Mormons or Holy Rollers, and all are utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and someone speaks German.

Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can't be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can't be alive in the Catholic Republic but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.

What can we do about all this? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

[fell-senpai]

Relationships! (And how not to fuck them up)

So, first things first. I’m single. I have been for well over a year now. And…I don’t like it. I mean…I do, but I don’t. I have more freedom, sure, but I feel that everyone at some point has that need to cuddle with someone, feel more than just a pillow and your own lonesome. If you get me, then let’s continue. This how to not lose your relationship (Based on what I’ve personally experienced) 1. Be hygienic. This is more of one I expect, and is partly why I dumped someone else. If there’s visible DIRT in your hair. By all means, come back to me when you’ve taken a shower. And if you haven’t after thousands of reminders…we’re done.

2. Don’t be away for long periods of time. I was dumped for this reason. I had lots of school, trips, family stuff. I was gone for a week or two, and then I get a message saying we’re done, and I’m inwardly like. “What the hell just happened…?” It was strange. I hadn’t done anything (and I think that’s the point) to let them know I still cared. But…in my defense. It was a week XD

3. For the love of god do not point out imperfections until you’ve known eachother for a bit. If you haven’t, you’re more or less making them feel insecure about themselves AND the relationship.

4. Make sure that while getting to know each other (and it sounds like a huge don’t) but make sure you know eachothers religious views. There are some people who aren’t okay with dating agnostics, atheists, Jews, muslims, and christians. And make sure it’s clear, but put it in subtly. Don’t do this… Them : “So what’s for dinner later?” Me : “Some kosher pork for my Jewish boyfriend!” Them: *points to the door* “get away from me.” (In case you didn’t know. Pork is considered unclean to the Jewish faith. Not trying to make fun)

5. If it’s long distance, you better not tell them your address. I swear. No matter what their profile says, no matter what they say. Unless you’re responsible about it, do NOT give anyone your address. I know from personal experience. Don’t. (All I’m gonna say is he accumulated 13 felonies in the same day, and that he stole a car.)

6. Final One: Don’t be CLINGY!!! If you are constantly texting them or telling them to do something, they WILL stop hanging out with you. People think it’s weird if you do that. Seriously. Please don’t.

—— A side note: before I made this, I was just thinking about how much I needed someone to hug and tell them about how my day was. People need to feel important, y'know? Feel free to question me about any concerns or, well, questions, you may have! I’ll try and answer them for you.

-Fell~

[almost-hysterical]

So @infpbandgeek and I were at lunch today talking to a couple of friends and were talking about misogyny, racism, nativism, LGBTQ+ animosity and religious discrimination. The two friends that we were talking to argued that none of that is a thing. That there's no white privilege. That there isn't true racism. That men don't have any advantages. That America doesn't need immigrants. That Christians aren't favored. Says the white, straight, Christian, American born males. As a woman I have to consciously choose my routes based on where I am least likely to be assaulted. I can't look around without seeing my body and my fellow sisters' bodies sexualized and attuned to what will fill MEN'S sexual appetites. I can't be angry without being disregarded because of my monthly cycle. I can't make a mistake without it becoming a reflection of my gender. I cannot speak for what I believe in because then I'm loud and bitchy. I cannot say no without being called shrewd. I cannot say yes without being called a slut. I can't wear tank tops or shorts to school, even though I've seen men with practically no shirts on. I can't question the wrongdoings of a man without being called a "feminazi." I can't bring up the idea of gender equality without being shamed for my identification as a feminist. The list goes on, so don't you dare say there isn't male privilege. Racism is rampant. My black and Latino friends are treated differently than other kids because their pigmentation determines their intelligence according to some. And Asian friends are all assumed to be smart and shamed when they aren't. And a white kid acting up is just a kid being a kid, but a black or Latino kid making a mistake is a reflection of their entire race. Latino friends of mine feel uncomfortable speaking Spanish to other Latino friends at school for fear of being assaulted, verbally or otherwise. Muslims can't wear religious clothing because it's seen as dangerous. People avoid them and call them terrorists, despite the moral codes of the Quran preaching quite the opposite. Because apparently ISIS is a fair generalization for all Muslims and Arabs. So don't you dare say racial issues are only happening within our police force. I have never met an immigrant with ill intentions. No matter the part of the world. Central/South American, African, European, Asian, and Australian immigrants all attend my school, and I get along perfectly with them. They are kind, and smart, and funny, and passionate just like anyone else. Their birthplace is not a reflection of who they are as people, and yet most are afraid to talk about their homelands because they know people will attack them for it. Kids with undocumented parents can't reach out for help or get insurance or go to the doctors because there is no protection for immigrants and no help for them to become citizens (which isn't cheap, by the way). The place these people are born determines their worth as a person and that is NOT okay. So don't you dare say that there isn't nativism. (Not to mention our newly inaugurated president wants to ban Muslim/Arabic immigrants and wants to build a fucking wall on the Mexican border) As a bisexual women, men ask me all the time if I'm interested in a threesome with two girls and a guy. The answer is and will always be no. But the point is that my sexuality is used to assume that I am easy. And I'm not. I am complicated and dedicated and focused. I am not ANYBODY's property or sex object because I am a woman, not a thing to be owned. Gay men are always assumed to be feminine and flamboyant and boy-crazy, when they are just as smart and kind as any heterosexual. Lesbians are expected to be butch, which doesn't have anything to do with sexual orientation. Speaking of gay couples, to people who ask, "Who's the boy and who's the girl?" The answer is no. Saying two gay people in a relationship are different genders kind of defeats the purpose. And gender equality is dismal. Gender fluid, non-binaries, transgendered, and undecided friends are all afraid to show what gender they truly are because they know people will attack them. People get accused of being too sensitive when asking for specific pronouns. And people who are displaying their true gender are often pushed down, and told they still look like their sex. While on the topic, gender and sex are not the same. Gender is in the brain based on hormones and brain chemistry, sex is what genitalia a person is born with. Saying they're the same is saying that thinking with your head is the same as thinking with your penis and that's fucking stupid. So don't be a dick and use "gay" as an insult or purposefully use the wrong pronouns, despite how much of a trend it is these days. Don't tell me there isn't discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. As a Jewish woman, I can't really talk about my heritage or religion. When I mention that I'm Jewish, the Jew jokes and Holocaust jokes roll in. People say they can tell by the shape of my nose. They make fun of traditions and degrade me for not agreeing with the teachings of their own religious denomination. Once, I mentioned I was Jewish in a class discussion based on the idea of Jewish culture and when I came back from the bathroom that class period, my notebooks and class work was covered in swastikas and horribly offensive, obscene language. Muslim friends can't wear the hijab because "it's not safe," but white boys can wear hats. Let's just say these issues aren't really based on the idea of safety. And no one is allowed to leave class to pray except some Catholics. During some Jewish holidays and many Muslim (sorry if I leave out your religion, I'm just not very informed about some of them), it is expected to pray in a specific way at specific times of the day. And not allowing people to practice those religious traditions is taking away their ability to feel close and safe with their God. Not to mention that as much as Trump supporters rally around the Constitution and the idea of America, they've seriously overlooked the part about religious freedom. There is religious discrimination and thinking there isn't is ignorant. This is a long post, but put basically: Our problems aren't because of gender, race, origin, sexuality, or religion. Our problem is that we focus on those generalizations too much to realize that in the grand scheme of things our political and social situations are what's wrong. I promise that someone being born with dark skin doesn't inherently make them a terrorist. Swear to God. So if you're a white, Christian, American born, straight male, great. I don't really care, I guess. But don't pretend there aren't issues because you haven't had to face them, and don't pretend that the way you were born is somehow a writ of passage into being a better person.

[rolandfontana]

Eight+ Things to Read About China and Other Things, Part 3

This is part 3 of our (relatively) new series on listing out eight+ things to read about China and a lot more. We constantly get emails from readers asking what to read on China and all sorts of things related and even barely related to China and the plan of this series would be to constantly and consistently answer this very question. We also have a few very loyal readers who often send us truly great articles on China (and other things). We owe these unpaid and truly superb researchers a big debt and this week’s post is dedicated to them!

As I said in our initial post on this, our plan is to list out eight (or so) articles we benefitted from reading and think you our readers would also benefit from reading, along with a very brief explanation why the particular article was included. More specifically:

The articles will likely include many on China and on Asia and a few on international trade, international politics, Spain and Latin America, economics and really just anything else we believe might benefit our readers or even that we just want people to read. We do not plan to choose articles that push our or any other political agenda or any other agenda for that matter, but having said that, we are not objective and our views may creep through. Our goal though is to focus on articles that are important or helpful or — most importantly — that make you think. Our posting of an article will NOT mean we agree with all of it or even any of it. Most of the articles will be from the week preceding the post but we will also sometimes throw in older articles (classics if you will) as well.

And though I have said this previously, it is important enough that I feel compelled to state it again: Please do not hesitate to comment at the end of this or any other post. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your comments, good, bad and indifferent.

Here we go, in absolutely no particular order

1.Let Go of Your Grudges. They’re Doing You No Good. New York Times.  Because the older you get the more you realize how true this is.

2. The Preachers Getting Rich from Poor Americans. BBC. Because if there is a hell, there has to be a special place there for those who (1) steal from the poor (2) in the name of religion. It is also troubling how many Americans fall for this sort of thing. Is there any other country where this goes on as much as in the United States? This is not a rhetorical question; I would love people to answer it.

3. Iraq’s Christians close to extinction. BBC. Speaking of religion, why is the world being silent as the Arab world moves apace in getting rid of pretty much anyone who is not a Muslim. Within 25 years, there very well might be no Christians nor Jews left in any Arab country, but for an expat or two in a place like Dubai. For a somewhat more uplifting flip side, read this BBC article, The man who might have stopped Sri Lanka’s Easter bombings, on a Muslim in Sri Lanka who acted on his belief that “people of different religions should get along.”

4. What Four Decades of China Trademarks Says About Chinese Trademarks. Managing Intellectual Property. The data say that the number of trademark filings are exploding in China and the reason is because they are super-important and they work. See China Trademarks: Register Yours BEFORE You Do ANYTHING Else.

5. Five Reasons Why Valencia, Spain Should Be Your Next Holiday Destination. Because I spent a summer in Valencia, Spain, working on my Spanish and I loved living there, but if you are going to Spain for a week or two, there are easily 20+ places you should visit before going to Valencia. Valencia is a really nice city the way Grand Rapids, Michigan (45 minutes from where I grew up) is a really nice city, but if you are a tourist in the United States and you go to Grand Rapids over New York or San Francisco or Las Vegas or Santa Fe or Yellowstone National Park or…. you are making a mistake.

6. Bart Starr was the toughest football player who ever lived. ESPN. Because, along with Walter Payton, he was. And because I get to use this Bart Starr article as an excuse to cite to a 1999 article I read on Walter Payton at least once a year, entitled, He Was the Rock of the Bears, because it is maybe the singular best/most moving piece/most accurate piece of sports journalism ever:

Walter Payton always got up. Always.

For 13 years with the Bears he took every hit, survived every collision, confronted every menace, shook off every tackle, always gave better than he got. Walter Payton always got the extra yard. Always.

He was the rock of the Bears, the one to take the ball every time anyone wanted to hand it to him, and he outlasted a full dozen Bears quarterbacks, any one of whom can claim no higher accomplishment than having handed the football to Walter Payton.

Because I would watch Payton on TV every week and when he retired my football consumption decreased by about 98%.

7. Why Business Schools are Shutting Down their MBA Programs? Because there is a lot of talk out there about how MBAs are neither relevant nor worthwhile, but all I know is that my clients with MBAs always strike me as exceedingly well educated in a wide range of areas relevant to operating a business. At the same time, what’s the deal with all of these one year practical Master’s Degrees springing up that look more like certificate programs. Is this degree inflation?

8. How to Pack a First Aid Kit for Extended International Travel. New York Times. Not because I don’t think it’s possible to easily secure Ibuprofen at a Oaxaca or Hohhot pharmacy, but because there is a lot to be said for being able to reach into your carry on to pull out bandages to stanch the bleeding you get from a badly constructed/maintained Qingdao Airport security scanner or to give your kid Ondansetron when she wakes up at 3:00 a.m. in a Seoul hotel throwing up.

9. China won when Trump blindsided Mexico with tariffs, says former Mexican ambassador to China. CNBC. Because Trump’s proposed tariffs on Mexico are stupid/incoherent/unnecessary/bullying/etc. and they give China the ability to argue that the tariffs against China are no different, even though they are. Because they make the world further question how much they can trust the United States. Everyone better hope these tariffs never go into effect, but even if they don’t there will be long-lasting damage from this.

10. Want to Keep Your Business in China? Do These Things Now. This is the first time (and it very well may be the last time) I’ve listed another China Law Blog Post on here, but I feel compelled to do so because the post came out late on Friday afternoon (not exactly prime time) and it was the second post of the day and I worry not enough people will see it. Yesterday, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced it will kick out of China “foreign enterprises, organizations and individuals that do not comply with market rules, violate the spirit of contract, block or cut supplies to Chinese firms with non-commercial purposes, and seriously damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises” and I take that threat exceedingly seriously. This post explains the things foreign companies and individuals need to do now to minimize their chances of being shut down and/or booted out. So yes, it is important!

Your thoughts?

Eight+ Things to Read About China and Other Things, Part 3 syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[renzanandsinghramananda]

On Jewish Theology and Abortion

(This article is based on a Twitter thread I wrote on May 19, 2019, expanded with more detail)

Religious freedom applies to ALL religions

To begin: Judaism permits abortion

That is a given.  Different rabbis might rule differently as to when it is permitted (usually handled on a case-by-case basis) but all agree that there are circumstances where it is kosher.  In  some cases it might actually be required by Jewish law; cases which, if  abortion is universally outlawed, might infringe on the religious freedom of Jews. The main thesis of this essay is that, because Jewish theology interprets the abortion issue differently from fundamentalist Christian theology, the US government should not be deciding questions about when the soul joins the body.  To do so violates the First Amendment. WARNING: If you plan to hit me with antisemitic crap over this about how "wrong" the Jews are according to your religion, don't bother.  Been there, done that.  But if you are seriously interested in my more mystical take on this regarding body and soul, then read on.

When does human life begin according to the Torah? 

 Genesis 2:7 says that God "formed Adam from the dust of the earth, breathed a breath of life into his nostrils, and he became a living soul" (or a living being: Hebrew nefesh chayah) .  So we have two aspects of humans: body and soul.  The body comes from the material world, the soul from the "breath of God" or spiritual world.  For literally millennia, the first breath was considered the beginning of life as an independent human being. This is still the way that Jewish law views it. (For more details on that, see this excellent article by Danya Ruttenberg "Why are Jews so Pro-Choice?") Anti-abortion Evangelicals quote Psalm 139:13 and Job 31:15, which speak of God saying, "I formed you in the womb." These verses are regarded as poetry by Jews and play no role in Jewish law which, as I said above, we base on Genesis in the Torah.  While Christians see the Bible as a single book, and give equal weight to all material in it, Jews understand that the Bible is really a library, with different categories of material: Torah, Prophets, and Writings.  The Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) forms the basis for Jewish canon law (halachah.)  The other books are considered to be various genres of literature: mostly history, sermons by the prophets, and inspirational writings like Psalms and Proverbs.  These materials are secondary to the Torah and are not cited in legal decisions. I actually had an Evangelical tell me that Job is the oldest book in the Bible - trying to prove that it overrides the idea that life begins with the first breath as in Genesis - but that is wrong. The literary style of Job is like a Greek play (more on that) which puts it way later than the Torah. So lines from Job and Psalms do not count in determining the Jewish stance on abortion.  But for the sake of argument, if we are going to discuss "knew you in the womb" verses, then what about Jeremiah 1:4-5, where God says, "“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..."? Some Christians also cite this verse to oppose abortion.  But read it again: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..."  How could God know Jeremiah before he was in the womb?  How can he be synonymous with an embryo that does not even exist yet?  What did God know of Jeremiah BEFORE gestation? His soul.  Which, we can probably assume, was "breathed in" by God at birth. The bottom line is, the question of when the soul joined the body is theology, and gets into First Amendment issues.  Should the govt be deciding a theological question over which various religions disagree? No.

Influence of Roman Catholicism

The Catholic Church was more deeply concerned with the question of ensoulment than were the Jewish scholars.  "Life begins at conception" was not always their official doctrine (read more on that) but they were moving in that direction, and in 1974 it became official.  Pope Paul VI ratified the "Declaration on Procured Abortion," making it required doctrine for all Roman Catholics that abortion is forbidden because the soul joins the body at conception. So why do I, a Jew, care about Roman Catholic theology?  Because, with the Pope's declaration, the political debate heated up. Back in the 1970s and 80s, the anti-abortion protesters were almost always Roman Catholics.  But gradually, their theology jumped denominational lines into fundamentalist Christian groups.  Although Catholics today still oppose abortion, it is the Evangelicals who are leading the charge to legally ban it.  As Cynthia Ozick once put it, we should oppose anyone "who proposes that the church steeple ought to be gin to lean on the town hall roof."  Which is exactly what is happening now.  Hence the reason that Jews are concerned. Today, the Catholic stance that "life begins at conception" has pretty much taken over the "pro-life" movement. As an outsider looking in, I find it ironic that fundamentalist Christians, who have historically been anti-Catholic, are now basing their argument against abortion on a declaration by the Pope. Or are they?

The impact of embryology and DNA studies

Parallel to the Catholic Church's decision on abortion was the science of embryology.  Even in antiquity, people had seen miscarriages at various stages of development, but the process was not well understood.  When Watson and Crick unraveled the double-helix mystery of DNA in 1954, which led to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, we suddenly had a better understanding of how the human body develops.  We could finally explain, scientifically, exactly what happens when the sperm and egg unite.   And we understood, at least to some extent, how genes carry our hereditary traits. So the Pro-lifers seized on conception as the moment of full personhood, claiming that everything you are going to be is created in the union of sperm and egg through your DNA. Again ironic, because we now have very religious people -- many of whom are anti-science in other areas -- relying on science to argue that the fetus is fully a person either at physical conception, or when there is a heartbeat.  Both of these are purely materialistic arguments. If you believe you are nothing but your physical body, that your DNA is all there is to your human existence, then the heartbeat argument works. An odd stance for a religious person. no?

Body and soul -- again

But what if you believe a human being is not simply a matter of biochemistry? What if you believe there is such a thing as a human soul?  Then we are back in the realm of theology.  When does the soul join the body? And how do you prove that?  You can't, really.  Which is why Jewish law bases "life" on the first breath, which can be observed without the use of theology or mysticism.  Even atheists can agree whether a child is breathing or not. I suspect this is also why Republicans now focus on the heartbeat benchmark, because it, too, can now be measured by ultrasound.  But what about the brain? Nowadays brain activity is a better marker for life. Does a six-week-old embryo with a heartbeat think?  A brain dead person has a heartbeat, but are they still alive?  Is there a difference between an adult kept alive by machines and a no-yet-viable fetus kept alive by a womb? In the case of the brain dead person, family members get to decide, along with their doctors and clergy, whether to terminate life support - even though the patient still has a heartbeat. So why is that not also true of an embryo in the womb? Why is it murder to end the life of an embryo without a thinking brain but not an adult who is brain dead? In fact, Judaism does not consider the death of an unborn child to be murder, based on  Exodus 21:22-25, which the New American Standard Bible (NASB) renders this way: "And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no [further] injury [to her], he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he [the guilty one] shall pay as the judges decide."  Fined, not executed for murder.  "Thou shalt not murder" does not apply here.

In conclusion 

So we are back to the original questions: When does the soul join with the body? When does it leave? Is the body the whole essence of a person, or is it a merely a garment for the soul? These are questions we should leave to the clergy, not the politicians. True, abortion is ultimately a woman's choice, sometimes along with the father of the child or other family members, sometimes not.  Religious women will also take their faith's teachings into consideration.  And they should be free to do so according to their own theologies, not dictated to by fundamentalist Christianity.

* * *

Addenda: Seems I am not the only one thinking in this vein.  A recent New Your Times article discussed whether Jewish and Muslim doctors and women should get religious exemptions in Alabama under their new strict anti-abortion law.  After all, Christians have claimed exemptions from Civil Rights laws (such as refusing to bake cakes for gay couples) based on their faith.  So why shouldn't religions that allow abortions also get similar exemptions? Good question.

from Notes from a Jewish Thoreau http://bit.ly/2HGhXzs via IFTTT from CoscienzaSpirituale.net Associazione "Sole e Luna" via Clicca

[quranreadalong]

#45, Surah 6

THE QURAN READ-ALONG, DAY 45

We’re gonna power through all the way to the end of the surah today. It has not been the most enlightening surah of all time, I know. But we’re at the end of it. Let’s make fun of the polytheists some more.

Our first ayah today is a title-drop--yes, the cattle. What is wrong with the cattle? The polytheists say that some cattle belong to Allah, that some vegetation belongs to other gods, etc. Ibn Kathir explains:

When they, the enemies of Allah, would cultivate the land or collect produce, they would assign a part of it to Allah and another part to the idol. They would keep the share for the idol, whether land, produce or anything else, and preserve its division to such an extent that they would collect anything that accidentally falls from the share they assigned to Allah and add it to the share of the idol. If the water that they assigned for the idol irrigated something (a section of land, for instance) that they assigned for Allah, they would add whatever this water irrigated to the idol's share!

Allah is very upset by the idols stealing his land. “Evil is their ordinance,” he tells us. He also says that he will punish the idolators for saying some cattle are off-limits for holy reasons and that certain contents of the cows’ stomachs are reserved for certain people. Allah takes this whole cattle business very seriously. We’re off to a fantastic bad start.

In between those ayat is this one, 6:137.

Thus have their (so-called) partners (of Allah) made the killing of their children to seem fair unto many of the idolaters, that they may ruin them and make their faith obscure for them. Had Allah willed (it otherwise), they had not done so. So leave them alone with their devices.

Okay, yes, Mohammed is literally saying “don’t stop people from sacrificing their children because Allah wants them to do it so they won’t be believers” here, but that’s not the only problem. This ayah is just about child-killing in general for any reason, but I’m sure many of you have heard that infanticide and specifically female infanticide was a common practice in pre-Islamic Arabia. So I’m gonna put this in big-ass text so y’all won’t miss it.

🚨 THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE THAT “CHILD SACRIFICE” OR INFANTICIDE WAS PRACTICED IN PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA ON A SCALE LARGER THAN IT WAS IN THE ISLAMIC ERA. THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PIECE OF ARCHEOLOGICAL OR HISTORICAL EVIDENCE SUGGESTING IT WAS A PARTICULARLY COMMON PRACTICE AT THE TIME. (IN FACT THERE IS NOT A SINGLE DOCUMENTED EXAMPLE OF THIS HAPPENING EVEN ONE TIME OUTSIDE OF ISLAMIC TEXTS WRITTEN A CENTURY OR MORE AFTER MOHAMMED’S DEATH. THERE ARE BARELY ANY DOCUMENTED EXAMPLES IN THOSE TEXTS, EITHER.)

WHILE THIS AYAH IS JUST TALKING ABOUT IT IN A GENERAL SENSE, OTHER PARTS OF THE QURAN FOCUS ON GIRLS ONLY. THE IDEA THAT POLYTHEISTIC ARABS ROUTINELY KILLED THEIR CHILDREN, ESPECIALLY THEIR GIRLS, COMES SOLELY FROM LATE ISLAMIC TEXTS. PEOPLE STILL REPEAT THIS TODAY BECAUSE THEY DESPERATELY WANT TO BELIEVE THAT PRE-ISLAMIC ARABS WERE BACKWARDS AND EVIL AND THAT ISLAM FREED THEM FROM SUCH EVIL. IN REALITY INFANTICIDE WAS AN UNCOMMON BUT NOT UNHEARD-OF PRACTICE BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER ISLAM IN TIMES OF EXTREME FAMINE, WAR, OR HARDSHIP.

WE HAVE THE FAMILY TREES OF MOST PROMINENT CITIZENS OF PRE-ISLAMIC MECCA, INCLUDING BOTH MUSLIMS AND NON-MUSLIMS, AND BOTH ALMOST ALWAYS HAD DAUGHTERS (AND SOMETIMES MULTIPLE WIVES). NOTHING SUGGESTS THERE WAS AN UNUSUAL GENDER RATIO. AND THERE IS NOTHING, I REPEAT NOTHING, TO INDICATE THAT SPECIFICALLY FEMALE INFANTICIDE WAS EVEN SOMEWHAT COMMON IN MECCA OR ANYWHERE NEAR IT.

SOME WESTERN PEOPLE REPEAT THIS LIE WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO VERIFY IF IT’S TRUE OR NOT. DON’T BE LIKE THAT. THANKS. 🚨

Ahem. Anyway, Mohammed says that people who kill their children because of their fake gods are going to hell... even though it is Allah’s will, as we just saw. But... uh, it’s good, ignoring the context, which honestly makes it kind of awful...

You know what... let’s move on.

Allah is god etc. Feel free to eat cows unless they’re being used for physical labor, regardless of their sex. People who say you can’t are lying about Allah. (This is about pre-Islamic beliefs, like we saw in the last surah. Ibn Kathir has the whole dumb backstory here.)

But you can’t eat pigs, etc. 6:146 relates this to kosher dietary laws and says (again) that Jews have to obey them because their ancestors were rebellious (the actual reason given in the Torah is that Jews can’t eat certain things because the animals are unclean/unholy, and since YWHH is their god, “you shall be holy, because I am holy”. As always, Mohammed’s version is of course the true version, and the Jews are just making things up.)

6:147 is one of my favorite ayat in the entire Quran. Behold:

Your Lord is a Lord of All-Embracing Mercy, and His wrath will never be withdrawn from guilty folk.

You genuinely can’t make this shit up.

Anyway, the Jews get out of it fairly easy this surah, as I said. Back to the idolators. On the Day of Judgement, they’ll try to say that Allah could have made them believe if he wanted to (which is true!). But Allah will simply reply: “ya that’s what your ancestors said before I destroyed their asses LOL!”. (Bad!) Then Mohammed challenges the polytheists to produce evidence of Allah requiring all their dietary rules (he does not ask the same of his own followers, of course).

Now... holy shit! It’s a genuine good ayah!!!!!!!! Two, actually!!!!!!!!!

6:151 tells Muslims to be nice to their parents and not kill anyone, except in the case of “justice” or legal punishment (and to not do lewd things or worship multiple gods). 6:152 tells them not to steal from orphans’ inheritance money and to be fair in legal matters even when a relative is involved. I was beginning to fear we’d only have, like, two good ayat in the entire surah. Mama, we made it.

Then Mohammed just tells people to do as he says as he is a prophet like Moses and the Quran is really from Allah. Allah sent Mohammed so the polytheists couldn’t get out of the whole disbelievers-are-doomed thing by saying “we’re not Christians or Jews so how would we know about these rules?” All neutral. Then Mohammed ruins the high I got from those two good ayat with this bad one:

who doeth greater wrong than he who denieth the revelations of Allah, and turneth away from them? We award unto those who turn away from Our revelations an evil doom because of their aversion.

Sigh. Kuffar hell counter: 1.

Then Mohammed chastises those waiting for a divine miracle again. 6:159 is neutral but it’s another interesting one (we’re almost done, I swear, don’t worry!):

As for those who sunder their religion and become schismatics, no concern at all hast thou with them. Their case will go to Allah, Who then will tell them what they used to do.

This is about Jews/Christians, who left the True Path of “Islam” as practiced by the prophets etc, but that’s not the interesting part. So the word Pickthall has as “schismatics” here means “sectarians” or “partisans” (shiyaan), which is also the root of the word “Shia” (short for “partisans of Ali”... we’ll get to that story later). This ayah is used by some Sunnis to argue that any sects that deviate from “the norm” are therefore against Islam, which should be one undivided community. Some Shia scholars point to this same verse and say the same thing--arguing that everyone should be Shia! Just a funny note.

Hey, another good one! Relatively!

Whoso bringeth a good deed will receive tenfold the like thereof, while whoso bringeth an ill-deed will be awarded but the like thereof

Then Mohammed again says that his religion is the real one and Allah is god etc and polytheism is wrong and everyone will be judged by Allah so remember that.

And we’re finally, FINALLY done. Let us never speak of this surah again.

The Quran Read-Along: Day 45

Ayat: 30

Good: 4 (6:140, 6:151-52, 6:160)

Neutral: 18 (6:141-45, 6:149-50, 6:153-56, 6:158-59, 6:161-65)

Bad: 8 (6:136-39, 6:146-48, 6:157)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (6:157)

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[lovestructionworld]

“ISIS of the Heart” LFM #28 March 16, 2016

"ISIS of the Heart"

When I see something that isn't right and is causing pain, I'm always pulled to "Why is this happening" and "What is the root?" This is one of the reasons I am so drawn to deliverance ministry. Omnipotent Holy Spirit can rescue anyone no matter how strong their stronghold is. Holy Spirit, I give you full credit for every miracle I've ever seen!!

The key is humility. "God opposed the proud, but gives grace to the humble." He decides whether to dispatch one of His messengers...or an angel...or a legion of angels to accomplish whatever he wants.

Please understand that deliverance isn't just for the individual. Deliverance is for families, for churches and for nations too.

Our Christian flesh tendency is to point the finger away from our own negative, sinful issues as being responsible for our pain and personal disintegration. At birth, we are born into this cycle of aggressive denial. Masses of people can be in aggressive denial as well.

Old and New Testament Historical Evidence

Time after time, in the Old Testament, Israel (God own people) always experienced some measure of foreign invasion and attack as God's response to their root cause and denial of sin. Somehow, we like to pretend that The Trinity is different today.

"Old Testament" Israel's most precious religious object, The Temple, which physically and symbolically connected them to their living God, was destroyed twice by foreign invaders because of God's disappointment and anger with them. Please give some thought to how Israel's loss of the Temple parallels the unleashed and undefended attack on our "In God we Trust", "10 Commandments" and Prayer being removed from our schools in the United States today.

Through the whole of the "New Testament", Israel was experiencing foreigner (Roman) occupation because of sin.

Israel's sin was so odious to Holy Spirit that an entire "chosen" race of people was eventually scattered to the four corners of the earth by God's restraint toward demonic activity attacking His people. He allowed or sent Himself torturous foreigners as His rod of correction. Think Taliban, ISIS and a host of other AK-47 carrying corrective rods secretly positioned around the USA right now, inside and outside of our borders, about which billion dollar nuclear submarines and ten billion dollar aircraft carriers can't touch.

US/Israelite Parallels

I'm sure the Jews were blaming their weak, national (US Senate/House), regional (State Governors) and local leaders (City Mayors). Or maybe they were blaming their last weak King (President Obama today) who was into appeasement and negotiation. Maybe they thought the reason for their difficulty was flimsy protection at their borders with southern Egypt (Our Mexico), eastern Iran (ISIS in Europe) and the invaders to the North, there Syria (Our Russia attacking with nukes from over the North Pole).

And let's not forget the "sinners" as a potential reason for their trouble (Homosexuals and baby aborters in our country today). Both are without a doubt sin, but not the real and deeper reason for our countries regression.

We know from the Gospels Israel was convinced that a new King, one with all the right, progressive ideas, would save them. They wanted someone who would side with the "pious" and "righteous", the Pharisees and Sadducee's of their day (Religious Right in ours).

They wanted a leader who would stop the inflow of foreigners, and be tough on the invaders causing them mass casualties (US Illegal Aliens, the Border Wall and Muslim infiltration).

They wanted a leader who was all about their national safety and security, who would make them strong again ("The Donald" today). This desire was so strong it caused them to miss the real King of Kings.

They wished and prayed for this kind of King/Leader all day and every day, decade after decade and never were able to find that person. Instead, they had national weakness, moral decay and political and spiritual gridlock with a synagogue in most cities. Sound familiar?

The last of those looking for this kind of King and those rebellious to the foreign invaders committed suicide in a place called Masada.

Hail to the Chief

None of this mattered to God. And instead He set His kind of King right into their midst. God introduce Jesus, through John the Baptist, as His choice for Israelite Presidency, Prime Minister...King. I can hear our own President's "Hail to the Chief" song playing and then dying off in the background as the Pharisees said, What???, wait...Him??? Seriously???

He was a humble King who taught them about confession and repentance. He told them not to be afraid of death (Oh death, where is your sting) and to reach out to foreigners and the weak with love, whether they were going to be killed or not.

Let's face it. Jesus' exit poles weren't fairing well with, "Crucify Him"!

Right when He was about to show them how to die for others, at least one person in Jesus' entourage had a carrying permit for a sword and pulled it in Jesus' defense. He even winged one of the torturers in the ear, symbolically pointing to both the defender and the religious leaders inability to hear. What was Jesus' response to the person who wounded the torturer?... "Sheath your sword. For those that live by the sword, die by the sword". Sounds like the disciple was using the wrong kind of weapon to me.

Heaven On Earth

To Jesus, living life was/is about bringing heaven to earth while you are here. He wants us bringing His resurrection life to each of our spheres of influence through the loving, real miraculous power of the Helper, Holy Spirit. I know this might hurt. But political parties have zero miraculous, heart changing power. The Litmus Test is this. Are you having a miraculous, resurrection life impact, with your own spiritual DNA gift set, on your own, personal sphere of influence? I'm laughing right now, out loud, at how simple this truth is. But, the evil spirit of pride will potentially block it.

The enemy? Well, he is all about distraction from Jesus' Kingdom culture truth. The enemy wants us focusing on self protection, guns and the false belief that good government and just the right King will be our salvation. But we Christians so want to hold onto comfort, safety, border protection through our newly elected President. And OMG help us, we wonder why the Muslims cry "Crusaders".

Jesus constantly lived life on the assassination edge. But this didn't stop him from reaching out. I love how Jesus opened His Kingdom's borders to the Gentiles (The unclean, the foreigner, the angry, the torturers, the sinners) and He didn't save the promise (Himself) only for the Jews. For anyone who would bow the knee to him, He would be all inclusive.

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." Matthew 16:25

In closing, God's own self centered, comfort minded, and frozen hearted people are always the reason for societal regression. When we blood bought believers begin "wanting" to lose our lives for Jesus is when Holy Spirit and society will respond positively to our internal revival." God the Father has this thing about sending His children to crosses. We don't get to vote on this. He expects it at, "Please save me Jesus".

One last thing...I'm not saying "don't vote". Holy Spirit is asking you, "What do you treasure" and "Where is your heart"? "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

Love to you all,

Brian Burke

[oldmanforwards]

2004/07/23 Fw: DO YOU KNOW WHAT LOSING WILL MEAN??????????

Please take the time to read this.  The following was written by someone unknown to me. It was forwarded by people that inadvertently cut out the writer's name. Too bad, indeed. The writer should be this country's leading contributor to our Foreign Policy thinking, if not our actual leader. Please read it, and, if you think it is so absolutely correct as I do, forward to other people with the ability to think. Jim Carlin ******************************************************  

To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means. First, let's examine a few basics: 1. When did the threat to us start? Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us: Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983; Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988; First New York World Trade Center attack 1993; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996; Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998; Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000; New York World Trade Center 2001; Pentagon 2001. (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide). 2. Why were we attacked? Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and >Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter. 3. Who were the attackers? In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims. 4. What is the Muslim population of the World? 25% 5. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful? Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along with the administration or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests). (see http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm). Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities. Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others. Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way - their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else.. The point here is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing - by their own pronouncements - killing all of us "infidels". I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die? 6. So who are we at war with? There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting. So with that background, now to the two major questions: 1. Can we lose this war? 2. What does losing really mean? If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions. We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean? It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one can get. What losing really means is: We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them. We would of course have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see we are impotent and cannot help them. They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do, will be done. Spain is finished. The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast. > If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost. Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win. So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win. Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation. - President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war. For the duration we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently. And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head. - Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause. - Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying. We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police. These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein. And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq. And still more recently the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of American prisoners they held. Compare this with some of our press and politicians who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them. Can this be for real? The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can. To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned - totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world. Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us for many years. Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels! That translates into all non-Muslims - not just in the United States, but throughout the world. We are the last bastion of defense. - We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant'. That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world. We can't. If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated. And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, equal rights for anyone - let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the world. This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read. If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by ! little on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar? Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power. They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"? I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I believe that after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking about. Do whatever you can to preserve it.

[automatismoateo]

17 year old british ex-muslim. Here are my reasons for leaving. Potential ex muslims will read for a eureka moment :) via /r/atheism

Submitted June 27, 2017 at 03:57AM by boredashellitsinsane (Via reddit http://ift.tt/2sgpR8V) 17 year old british ex-muslim. Here are my reasons for leaving. Potential ex muslims will read for a eureka moment :)

I’m 17 years old, live in the uk. Born into a muslim family. Thanks to the help of relatives and various others i was able to leave and currently live away from my parents. It’s a crazy world lol

Alright so below is a combination of every possible reason you can think for leaving Islam. Every one of these points combined together to result in my removal from the religion. I hope by this some potentially shaky muslims who read this will wake up, and realise that their doubt is founded upon good reason and that they have every reason to keep looking for the right thing to do. Ex-Muslims are not idiots who know fuck all about their religion. In fact they know so much they begin to hate it. It's often people that start studying the religion seriously having had an open mind prior to doing so that apostate. They realise that shit honestly does not make sense, and regardless of how you look it, continuously explaining stuff away with "god willed it, that's how it is" gets a bit tiring mentally. We are humans. We have reason and we cannot live comfortably knowing that we are hiding things from ourselves in order to remain 'stable'.

Not all of this is my own content. Much was collected from answers around Quora but were written better than I could have so I included them. I did have my own complete stuff written painstakingly by myself. which i posted on Quora. Unfortunately I wasn't anonymous and it went viral and that fucked me over in the real world. Now that I'm away from that shit I thought I'd post again.

why does Allah always threaten us and intimidate us into loving him?

Every Muslim on this planet has one thing in common, the Holy Quran. Regardless of different sects and books of hadith, everyone believes Quran to be the perfect word of God. So after having concerns with Islam in general, I analyzed the Holy Quran. The following are some of my major objections derived from the Quran that made me leave my faith.

Islamic Heaven

The image of heaven is painted like it's a fantasy of a 6th century arab; Lavish silk clothing, jewelery, young boys circulating wine, full breasted, large beautiful eyed virgins, shades of palm and banana tress, rivers of honey and milk, meat of the fowl etc. That heaven is not for anyone else or for all times. And it's not intended to be a metaphor. (the verses are spread out in the Quran).

Murdering a child and Moses

In an event, a man kills a child in front of Moses. Upon inquiring,Moses is told that the child would have grown up to be a non believer and that would burden his Muslim parents (verse 18:74- verse18-82). Implying it's ok to murder a child because he may not grow up to be a Muslim.

Miracles

The many fables about miracles. Moon splitting in two, fish swallowing a prophet, miracles of Moses and Jesus etc. People who wrote the book didn't believe them to be metaphors. They believe it literally happened. How's that any different from myths found in other religions?

Adam and Eve

The story of Adam and Eve as the initiation of creation on earth. It doesn't relate with evolution, which makes sense. There are many holes in the story. Are we then the product of incest? One couple can't populate the earth. Why would God create his own game set the rules, watch as Satan tells them about the tree and then freaks out afterwards. Unless that too is somehow a metaphor.

6 days of Creation

At one point it states , God says be and it happens. But then He needs 6 days to create the universe. Theists say, the time is different for us. For us it's 6 days, for Him it's a moment. But that's only speculation and an excuse for this inconsistency. (verses : 32:4, 50:38, 7:54, 57:4, 25:59)

Allah controls everything

Allah chooses not to interfere, hence our free will. But Quran has inconsistencies on the matter. At several points it says Allah guides those whom He wills, He controls who becomes a Muslim. If I'm searching for Him and He decides that He doesn't want me as a Muslim, i can't do anything about it. Also He says that family and children are less important than him, which doesn't sit will with me. A religious person can leave his family if God tells them too, can murder his child, can do anything if God tells them to. And how does one know that the voices or dreams they're having are a mere product of their mind and not some universal celestial being sending vague signals?

Expressing loudly is frowned upon

Verse 31:19 indicates that if you speak or laugh loudly you sound like a donkey. This expression, one would expect from a child, not from an All knowing God. He created the donkey to be ridiculed? And to use this analogy, a celestial being can do better.

Christians and Jews

Earlier on Quran says they are both allies, people of the book. When they don't acknowledge the prophet or Islam and keep their faith, Quran curses them. The Jews were cursed first, when their relationship got bitter with Muslims, during the battle of trench. Quran said Christians are nice as they have monks and priests who are truthful. Then they were cursed too. It said not to take either of them as allies and may Allah destroy them. And then Jews are prohibited fat of animals. This sounds more like the intentions of the prophet rather than inconsistent commands of Allah. But you can marry their women to spread Islam, in hopes that they'd convert. (verses : 5:51, 5:82, 9:30, 6:146)

Context based signs

Allah talks about signs in the universe for His existence. But all these signs were observable in the 6th century desert. Ships, seas, childbirth, moon, sky without pillars like a plane, rain, sun, palm trees, pomegranates, grapevines, creation from sperm, rivers,earth laid out,mountains, having sons as wealth, hunting and tents from hides etc. Nothing even outside of the context. Elm and oak trees provide a greater shade than palm trees. They're never mentioned. The evidence of signs is not convincing to a person looking for God in modern times.

Battles

Violent verses during battles aren't really objectionable. Except a few. For example the verse 8:67 says to not have slaves unless you spread massacre across the land. But the tone of the verses is barbaric. Striking necks, fingertips, slaughter etc. The same message could be delivered in a much better way if the said God is humble, kind and hates unnecessary violence

God, punishments and genocide

One can't really judge God on the scale of human morality. But His kill count is much higher. He admits He kills nations in their sleep at night or noon. He's no divine, humble, mature celestial being. He's jealous and vindictive. He creates pigs and monkeys as symbols of insult and mockery, then turns humans into those animals. He says when you're in power, do not show mercy. But then the prophet showed mercy at conquest of Mecca. Maybe that's another inconsistency. Cursing an ancient Arab like Abu Lahab in the divine Book of guidance seems trivial and petty for a God. He says don't attend the funerals of your non Muslim friends. And there's even a verse (22:15) that says if you don't believe in the prophet, try and hang yourself with a rope from the ceiling and see if that changes anything. That's an All wise God’s message. And He says if you're told to kill yourself for God, that is better for you .Verse 59:5 justifies the cutting down of trees in a desert. It's all a game, He creates and destroys. (verse: 32:26, 5:60, 7:4, 66:9, 111:1, 5:33, 4:65)

Rulings

Marrying your adopted son's wife is totally fine. You can never call him your true son. The person you see as your daughter in law can be your wife. This would only induce feelings of hatred between the son and his father. 100 lashes to a couple who consensually has premarital sex. Why? You don't know them, they're not hurting you, no one's being raped. You barge into their lives, lash them in front of an audience, humiliate them and be pleased with yourself of having done a noble deed. If you want to educate people about sex, it's their parents job. It's their families concern. It's not Allah's concern. It's not your job to lash anyone. Cursing gays when it's not a choice and God made them that way.

Slavery

Yes, Islam liberated slaves of the 6th century. They were treated as daughters, sons, sisters, brothers. They were fed and clothed like their masters. They could demand freedom. But God knows better that in the modern world, good treatment of a slave is no excuse to own a human being. Slavery wasn't banned by Allah like wine or pork was. There was a contract that stated this man or woman is your property. Owning a human being is wrong. If God could add a clear verse about not consuming pork, what prevented him to add a clear verse about not owning human beings? Why leave that to vague examples and Muslims doing mental gymnastics trying to somehow make it sound reasonable?

Sexual slavery being allowed in Islam. Now that is absurd. How can that be allowed in Islam, that would be hypocrisy. So u mean premarital sex is totally a "No-No" but having sex with your slaves, even if they if are married is absolutely fine?

Women

Woman were given many rights and they too were liberated in Islam. But then it stopped. It's clear from reading the Quran that it's from a male's perspective in which woman at times are treated as inferiors. She can't divorce in the same way a man can There has to be two female witnesses for one man, so if one female forgets the other can remind her Marrying any four women and amongst your many many concubines, but women don't have the same choices If a woman is raped and can't produce four witnesses. She might even get punished herself. She wouldn't get justice Verse 24:31 says “…. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment…” Meaning, a woman should not move in a way that reveals her body. It restricts you in illogical ways. You play sports, you're sinning. You can't dance, get excited and express it. One can beat women if she cheats (yes I've heard the miswaq example) the woman can't beat a man.

Outside of the Quran, there are many other problems with the mere idea of God. One look at innocent children dying of horrible diseases, being tortured in pain, may make a logical believer question the idea of a merciful loving God.

Or if one digs deep into history and looks at the religion's role models, they're found to have done some questionable things. They were people of their time. Who did some good and some bad things. Definitely not the perfect examples of character.

And if one does a philosophical analysis of religion. It's about getting rid of your own individuality to serve men in power who claim to talk to God. To obsessively idolize a man, called the perfect human being. If you're born different in this religion, you're labeled a sinner. Organized religion suffocates dreamers and free thinkers. It makes them guilty of their ability to fly and many cut of their wings to fit in. I for one am glad I took the leap of faith away from my indoctrination.

1) According to Quran mountains prevent earthquake or the shaking of the earth. in Sura Al-Anbiyaa (Chapter 21 verse# 31) It says " And We have placed on the earth firm mountains, lest it should shake with them”

If Mountains are there to stop the earth from shaking, then why do we see so many earthquakes in mountainous regions?. For example, Japan is a mountainous zone but it has 1500 earthquakes every year.'Shaking of the earth' and earth quakes mean the same thing right? Mountains are created because of the movement of tectonic plates. They do not stablize the earth or prevent shaking of the earth. This verse is clearly in error

2) The Quran In Sura Al Mulk (Chapter 67) Ayaat # 5 it says

"And We have adorned the lowest heaven with lamps, and we have made such (Lamps as) missiles to drive away Satans, ... "

So the stars were created by Allah as missiles to throw at the devils? In order to not let them eavesdrop on the heavenly council?

The first ayaat says stars are lamps that is fine but lamps (stars) are not thrown at devils

3) Why does the Quran say Allah prevents the sky from falling into the earth? The Holy Quran in Sura Al Hajj ( chapter 22 verse# 65) says

Pickthall:He holdeth back the heaven from falling on the earth unless by His leave. Lo! Allah is, for mankind, Full of Pity, Merciful.

As we know the sky is vast. So how can it fall into the earth?This sounds absurd.

4) According to the Quran honey comes from the body of the bee. In Sura an Nahl An Nahl (chapter 16 verse # 69) says

YUSUFALI: Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men.

A bee makes honey from the collected then chewed up pollen from plants. The bee never actually swallows and or digests the pollen. Honey does not come from the bodyof the bee. The bees chew their nectar through their mouth. After that nectar is dried out in the honeycomb and honey is formed. The verse in Quran is scientifically incorrect.

Homosexual men are to be killed. Homosexual women however, are subject only to lashes.

Wasn’t Quran supposed to be a book that is “The Guidance for All Mankind”? Then why is it written in words so difficult that they are beyond the comprehension of normal people and even majority of the so called scholars. Literally no one understands it properly with everyone having their own interpretation of it’s words.

The Quran assumes a flat earth which has physical places into which the sun sets and rises from. Since the earth is a rotating sphere, the sun does not set in any particular place and you can never travel to "the spot" where the sun sets nor a place where it rises.

Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness. - Quran 18:86

Till, when he reached the rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had appointed no shelter therefrom. - Quran 18:90

We created the heavens and the earth and all between them in Six Days, nor did any sense of weariness touch Us. - Quran 50:38

The earth first formed around 9 billion years after the Big Bang. The Quran, however, repeats the prevailing middle eastern myth that the earth and universe were formed in six days.

This minute fact that the prophet had a desire to marry his adopted son's ex wife and suddenly a verse in the quran states that its a command by allah and its perfectly fine to do so. What it seems to me that Mohammed just made up a verse to suit his own desires

There’s a story in the Kuran about a king called Dhul’Qarnain (he of the two horns) who conquered the world of his time from east to west. a devoted king who feared god, was just, and fought Gog and Magog(another Sci-FI version of old aliens) , but it turns out that this was an ancient myth about Alexander the great, who was a polytheist (not monotheist), tyrant, a mass murder, and who loves men in his bed rather than woman (not being homophobic here but just to prove that Mohamed got his fairy tail completely wrong.

The christian king who wanted to destroy the Kaaba, he brought his elephants, he set off from Yemen, crossed the whole Arabian desert, but was defeated in Mecca by firing birds (from Allah). An elephant who needs at least 200 litres of water daily and a 3 tons of herbs/vegetation to eat could survive a journey of nearly a month in one of the driest deserts on earth. Go figure.

Even if warned, disbelievers will disbelieve. Allah has placed seal on their heart and hearing, and they are closed from accepting Allah’s guidance.

Thoughts - Really, this is the all merciful, all powerful Allah who prevents people from accepting guidance, brands them as disbelievers and then says its okay to kill them? And if Allah places a seal on the heart of disbelievers, then where is the glory in killing them, or preaching to them in an attempt to convert?

Allah mocks them(the hypocrites) and increases their wrong doings.

Thoughts - If Allah can increase the wrong doings, then why can’t he decrease them? Isn’t he all powerful? He increases the fallacies of the disbelievers, places a seal on their heart, prevents them from accepting guidance, and then throws them to hell fire. Sadist much?

Doubters will go to hell.

Thoughts - Wow, what an way to prevent logical questioning! What kind of power does Allah have if he cant even clear doubts.

Echoes the above sentiment. Basically says that no questioning/curiosity is allowed. Questioners are sinners, disbelievers and will be condemned to hell.

Thoughts - Hello, hell.

There is no compulsion in religion.

Thoughts - Finally! A joke in this book. LOL!!!

And we shall cast terror into the heart of disbelievers.

Thoughts - Why? They have been made disbelievers by the will of Allah. Allah increases their fallacies and throws them into hell. And even then,that much of sadism isn’t enough? Right now, I need to read the “No compulsion in religion” line again. I need a good laugh.

6:14 - Muhammad said that he is the first to be commanded among those who submit themselves to Allah as Muslims.

Thoughts - This screams contradiction and cooked up theories. What was all that stuff about Jesus being sent by Allah and that he had declared that he was a Muslim. This verse contradicts directly with - 5:111, 5:112, 3:67.

Mostly from what I observed that muslims don’t tend to question their own religion which contradicts the basic logical reasoning to everything that’s happening around them and just act blindly to everything that has been proved scientifically.

"Also I think if it happened and there is a GOD out there, he will forgive our disbelieving. If he created our mind to think at everything, so it’s nature to think that religions doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe in him because I’m some bad guy, but because I have no clue of his existence."

People need to open their eyes and see the reality of the hate-obsessed cult that is Islam.

Hoped this helped out some you :)

[nancyedimick]

No, Gov. Dean, there is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment

Howard Dean stands on a platform built on top of a police car during the 40th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., in 2004. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean writes:

Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment. https://t.co/DOct3xcLoY

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) April 21, 2017

This leads me to repeat what I’ve said before: There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn, for instance, Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal immigrants, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or socialism or Democrats or Republicans. As the Supreme Court noted in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), “this Court’s tradition of ‘protect[ing] the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate”” includes the right to express even “discriminatory” “viewpoint[s].” (The quote comes from the four liberal justices, plus Justice Anthony Kennedy, but the four more conservative justices would have entirely agreed with this, though also extended it to university-recognized student groups’ freedom to exclude members, and not just their freedom to express their thoughts.)

To be sure, there are some kinds of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment. But those narrow exceptions have nothing to do with “hate speech” in any conventionally used sense of the term. For instance, there is an exception for “fighting words” — face-to-face personal insults addressed to a specific person, of the sort that are likely to start an immediate fight. But this exception isn’t limited to racial or religious insults, nor does it cover all racially or religiously offensive statements. Indeed, when the City of St. Paul tried to specifically punish bigoted fighting words, the Supreme Court held that this selective prohibition was unconstitutional (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992)), even though a broad ban on all fighting words would indeed be permissible.

The same is true of the other narrow exceptions, such as for true threats of illegal conduct or incitement intended to and likely to produce imminent illegal conduct — i.e., illegal conduct in the next few hours or maybe days, as opposed to some illegal conduct some time in the future. But these are very narrow exceptions. Dean’s post came in response to a Steven Greenhouse tweet saying, “Free Speech Defenders Don’t Forget: Ann Coulter once said: My only regret w/ Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building”; but if Dean meant that such speech by Coulter is constitutionally unprotected, he’s wrong. Indeed, even if Coulter was speaking seriously (which I doubt), such speech isn’t unprotected incitement, because it isn’t intended to promote imminent illegal conduct. Compare, e.g., Rankin v. McPherson (1987), which upheld the right to say, after President Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt, “If they go for him again, I hope they get him” — and that was in a case involving a government employee being fired for her speech; the First Amendment offers even stronger protection to ordinary citizens whose speech is more directly restricted by the government.

Returning to bigoted speech, which is what most people use “hate speech” to mean, threatening to kill someone because he’s black (or white), or intentionally inciting someone to a likely and immediate attack on someone because he’s Muslim (or Christian or Jewish), can be made a crime. But this isn’t because it’s “hate speech”; it’s because it’s illegal to make true threats and incite imminent crimes against anyone and for any reason, for instance because they are police officers or capitalists or just someone who is sleeping with the speaker’s ex-girlfriend.

The Supreme Court did, in Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), uphold a “group libel” law that outlawed statements that expose racial or religious groups to contempt or hatred, unless the speaker could show that the statements were true and were said with “good motives” and for “justifiable ends.” But this, too, was treated by the court as just a special case of a broader First Amendment exception — the one for libel generally. And Beauharnais is widely understood to no longer be good law, given the court’s restrictions on the libel exception. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) (rejecting the view that libel is categorically unprotected, and holding that the libel exception requires a showing that the libelous accusations be “of and concerning” a particular person); Garrison v. Louisiana (1964) (generally rejecting the view that a defense of truth can be limited to speech that is said for “good motives” and for “justifiable ends”); Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps (1986) (generally rejecting the view that the burden of proving truth can be placed on the defendant); R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) (holding that singling bigoted speech is unconstitutional, even when that speech fits within a First Amendment exception); Nuxoll ex rel. Nuxoll v. Indian Prairie Sch. Dist. # 204, 523 F.3d 668, 672 (7th Cir. 2008) (concluding that Beauharnais is no longer good law); Dworkin v. Hustler Magazine Inc., 867 F.2d 1188, 1200 (9th Cir. 1989) (likewise); Am. Booksellers Ass’n, Inc. v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323, 331 n.3 (7th Cir. 1985) (likewise); Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197, 1205 (7th Cir. 1978) (likewise); Tollett v. United States, 485 F.2d 1087, 1094 n.14 (8th Cir. 1973) (likewise); Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies 1043-45 (4th ed. 2011); Laurence Tribe, Constitutional Law, § 12-17, at 926; Toni M. Massaro, Equality and Freedom of Expression: The Hate Speech Dilemma, 32 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 211, 219 (1991); Robert C. Post, Cultural Heterogeneity and Law: Pornography, Blasphemy, and the First Amendment, 76 Calif. L. Rev. 297, 330-31 (1988).

Finally, “hostile environment harassment law” has sometimes been read as applying civil liability — or administrative discipline by universities — to allegedly bigoted speech in workplaces, universities and places of public accommodation. There is a hot debate on whether those restrictions are indeed constitutional; they have generally been held unconstitutional when applied to universities, but decisions are mixed as to civil liability based on speech that creates hostile environments in workplaces (see the pages linked to at this site for more information on the subject). But even when those restrictions have been upheld, they have been justified precisely on the rationale that they do not criminalize speech (or otherwise punish it) in society at large, but apply only to particular contexts, such as workplaces. None of them represent a “hate speech” exception, nor have they been defined in terms of “hate speech.”

For this very reason, “hate speech” also doesn’t have any fixed legal meaning under U.S. law. U.S. law has just never had occasion to define “hate speech” — any more than it has had occasion to define rudeness, evil ideas, unpatriotic speech or any other kind of speech that people might condemn but that does not constitute a legally relevant category.

Of course, one can certainly argue that First Amendment law should be changed to allow bans on hate speech (whether bigoted speech, blasphemy, blasphemy to which foreigners may respond with attacks on Americans, flag burning, or anything else). I think no such exception should be recognized, but of course, like all questions about what the law ought to be, this is a matter that can be debated. Indeed, people have a First Amendment right to call for speech restrictions, just as they have a First Amendment right to call for gun bans or bans on Islam or government-imposed race discrimination or anything else that current constitutional law forbids. Constitutional law is no more set in stone than any other law.

But those who want to make such arguments should acknowledge that they are calling for a change in First Amendment law and should explain just what that change would be, so people can thoughtfully evaluate it. Calls for a new First Amendment exception for “hate speech” shouldn’t rely just on the undefined term “hate speech” — they should explain just what viewpoints the government would be allowed to suppress, what viewpoints would remain protected and how judges, juries and prosecutors are supposed to distinguish the two. And claiming that hate speech is already “not protected by the first amendment,” as if one is just restating settled law, does not suffice.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/21/no-gov-dean-there-is-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/