Pornography, Porno, Porn, XXX in Greensboro, North Carolina

If pictures of women in tennis attire is pornographic,
should all Greensboro women’s tennis programs be cancelled?

Should all children in public school

be taught that evil is compatible with an omnipotent and benevolent God?

If some believe pictures of women and men in bathing suits is pornographic,

should public swimming pools will be closed?

Are members of a church more likely to give campaign contributions
to a "pious" Council Member who attends the same church,
after said church’s preacher gives a sermon on the dangers of pornography?

If pictures of women and men wearing dancing tights is pornographic,

should all publicly funded dance groups be disbanded?

If all men not wearing shirts in any pictures on the internet is pornographic…?

Should public schools should be segregated by sex?

Should dancing be prohibited?

Should Roman statues be covered?

If a Catholic Priest says it’s OK for him to touch you wherever he wants,
should you believe him?

Should public employees using phones with internet access

be denied access to pornographic web sites?

Should clergy who support political grandstanding

receive privileged access to Greensboro’s political and municipal executives?

Does the government always act in the majority’s best interests?

Should a married pregnant unemployed high school drop out

who knows the child will have AIDS and autism

have to receive permission from her husband to get an abortion

after being raped by her schizophrenic brother-in-law?

Should “abstinence-until-marriage” education
replace explicit sex-education programs,

school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Should contraceptive measures for raped woman be outlawed?

What is the likelihood that the God of rectangle shaped people has four sides?

Should school curriculums teach Creationism,

and have a disclaimer before any evolutionary topics,

like biology, or chemistry, or geology, or platectonics,

or world history, or dinosaurs, or physics?

Should morning prayers be instituted in public schools
and end with “in Jesus’ name we pray”?

Should Jewish children be prohibited from dating Christian children?

Can an atheist be superstitious?

Should no mosque on American soil
be within a mile of an elementary school?

Should religious and/or alternative sexual orientation

be a required disclosure on all public identification?

Are all Muslims terrorists?

Can a robot be one of God’s children,
and if so, is it OK to enslave intelligent machines?

Should all children be taught at the earliest ages

that their parents are obligated to give 10% of their families income
to their religious leaders?

Should Biblical dietary and punishment laws be strictly enforced?

Do you get to wear clothes in heaven
but not in hell?

Are all men who look for porn at the library child molesters?

Should special police in charge of monitoring moral behavior

be given the right to use corporal punishment on anyone under the age of 21?

Should elected lawmakers seek to avoid imposing their religious views
upon the communities in which they reside?

Should the United States of America officially declare war on Islam?

If the government arrests a citizen for pornography,

should the accused be publicly humiliated before trial,

unless they are related to or are good friends with a public official?

What do you believe that you can’t prove?

Are all women who look at porn at the library lesbians?

Are communities who lean towards religion infused government

more or less likely to pass religious based legislation

like alcohol prohibition, dancing, female submission, book burning,

what could be unnecessary pornography restrictions,

public school curriculums, abortion or homosexuality?

Why are weak governments and/or fringe political movements
more likely to embrace religion or nationalism
in times of economic and social instability
and/or when distractions appear helpful to bury other more important issues?

Should any man caught "sexually" looking at women in public libraries be removed?

Should all sexually active homeless persons within the city limits be removed?

Should all those of a religion other than those sanctioned by government,
wear an insignia stating their religion on their garments at all times in public?

Should anyone who disagrees with the will of a majority of a minority,

be prohibited in engaging in public discourse?

If sentient beings on another planet played chess with Earthlings
would God would be on our side, as long as the player is a white, not gay, Christian American?

Are you a robot?

Were we all predestined to have free will?

If I knew you were a robot,

would you want me to tell you?

Craig Fehrman: "Thomas Jefferson's personal Bible"

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826)

was an American Founding Father

who was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776)

and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

"Jefferson referred to "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence,
he preferred to keep his personal beliefs to himself,
a reticence that lined up with his philosophy
of individual freedom and religious tolerance.

On Hanukkah: Can religion, nationalism or ideology justify autocracy?

The Hanukkah Story

 

Hanukkah is the most adult of holidays. It commemorates an event in which…everybody is flummoxed by insoluble conflicts that remain with us today. It’s a holiday that accurately reflects how politics is, how history is, how life is.

 

It begins with the spread of Greek culture. Alexander’s Empire, and the smaller empires that succeeded it, brought modernizing ideas and institutions to the Middle East. At its best, Hellenistic culture emphasized the power of reason and the importance of individual conscience.

 

…Urbane Jews assimilated parts of Greek culture into their own, taking Greek names like Jason, exercising in the gymnasium and prospering within Greek institutions. Not all Jews assimilated. Some resisted quietly. Others fled to the hills. But Jerusalem did well. The Seleucid dynasty, which had political control over the area, was not merely tolerant; it used imperial money to help promote the diverse religions within its sphere.

 

In 167 B.C., however, the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, issued a series of decrees defiling the temple, confiscating wealth and banning Jewish practice, under penalty of death.

 

…those who refused to eat pork were killed in an early case of pure religious martyrdom.

 

…The cultural pressure on Jewish practice had been mounting; it was only when it hit an insane political level that Jewish traditionalists took up arms. When they did, the first person they killed was a fellow Jew.

 

In the town of Modin, a Jew who was attempting to perform a sacrifice on a new Greek altar was slaughtered by Mattathias, the old head of a priestly family. Mattathias’s five sons, led by Judah Maccabee, then led an insurgent revolt against the regime.

 

…The Maccabees are best understood as moderate fanatics.

 

…they were fighting heroically for their traditions and the survival of their faith. If they found uncircumcised Jews, they performed forced circumcisions. They had no interest in religious liberty within the Jewish community and believed religion was a collective regimen, not an individual choice.

 

They were not the last bunch of angry, bearded religious guys to win an insurgency campaign against a great power in the Middle East, but they may have been among the first. They retook Jerusalem in 164 B.C. and rededicated the temple. Their regime quickly became corrupt, brutal and reactionary.

 

…Scholarship withered. The Maccabees became religious oppressors themselves, fatefully inviting the Romans into Jerusalem.

 

Generations of Sunday school teachers have turned Hanukkah into the story of unified Jewish bravery against an anti-Semitic Hellenic empire. Settlers in the West Bank tell it as a story of how the Jewish hard-core defeated the corrupt, assimilated Jewish masses. Rabbis later added the lamp miracle to give God at least a bit part in the proceedings.

 

But there is no erasing the complex ironies of the events, the way progress, heroism and brutality weave through all sides.

 

…there is no honest way to tell their story as a self-congratulatory morality tale. The lesson of Hanukkah is that even the struggles that saved a people are dappled with tragic irony, complexity and unattractive choices.

 

David Brooks

New York Times, December 11, 2009

Religious and Rhetorical Ethics: Adolf Hitler

Is demeaning rhetoric bigoted if verbs and/or adjectives describing multiple nouns are interchangeable with dissimilar multiples of nouns?

 

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.

 

 It points me to the man who once in loneliness,

 surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were,

 and summoned men to fight against them

 and who God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

 

 In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge

 to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders.

 

 How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.

 

To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion,

I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this

 that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross.

 

 As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated

 but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice...

 

For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

 

Adolf Hitler, April 12, 1922

 

Can Muslim and Hindu replace Christian and Jew?

 

How about Hutu and Tutsi, Black or White, or politically Left or Right?

Israel, America, Saudi Arabia and Iran: Why do survivors survive?

Are there times when compromise isn’t appropriate?

US battleships cross Suez Canal

According to Al-Quds al-Arabi report, 11 American warships, one Israeli vessel, crossed Suez Canal into Red Sea

Eleven American battleships and an Israeli one crossed the Suez Canal Friday en route to the Red Sea, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported.

According to the report, traffic in the canal was halted for several hours in order to allow US Navy vessels, which included an aircraft carrier and carried infantry troops, armored vehicles and ammunition, to pass from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.

 It was further reported that eyewitnesses detected an Israeli warship among the vessels. No confirmation has been received from Egyptian authorities.

 The report also noted that fishing activities in the area were stopped during the ships' passage as well as traffic on the bridges above the canal…

Roee Nahmias
Ynetnews.com, June 19, 2010

Should you do what you need to whether you like it or not
sooner than later?

Saudis test clearing skies for Israel to bomb Iran: report

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defenses to allow Israeli warplanes to use its airspace in any bombing raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Times newspaper reported Saturday.

"The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way," a US defense source in the region told the paper.

"They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the (US) State Department."

Riyadh denied the British report on Saturday, calling it "false" and "slanderous," the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

…The Times said Riyadh, which views Iran as a regional threat, had agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance in the event of any bombing raid on Iran.

It said that a source in Saudi Arabia said the arrangement was common knowledge within defense circles in the kingdom.

AFP, June 12, 2010

Are there correlations
between currency, debt, natural resources, peace and war?

Merry Christmas

Want happiness, joy, bliss, harmony, and love.

 

When eyes close, think of the good that was and why,

and dream of making others’ dreams come true.

 

They don’t care how much you know,

until they know how much you care.

 

Unknown

Sing, laugh, cry, don’t worry, let go, feel good, love,

and have as much fun, with the least amount of risk,

as soon as you can, for as long as possible.

On God

Can any good person get to heaven,

or do you have to believe certain thoughts?

 

Do suicide bombers act in ways they think God wants them to?

 

If God were a defined certainty,

would the number of people following different religions increase or decline?

 

If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic,

and you can only save a canister with five inseminated eggs,

or one 4-year old child,

which do you save?

 

Is life support God’s will

if $100,000 keeping one patient on life support

could provide seeds to grow food for 10,000 starving others?

 

Could this be heaven,

or hell?

 

If something started everything,

is everything else supposition?

 

Would the God of rectangles have four sides?

 

Can an atheist be superstitious?

 

What do you believe that you can’t prove?

 

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support

  religious worship, place, or ministry...,

nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief,

 but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain

 their opinion on matters of religion.

 

Thomas Jefferson

Virginia Bill on Religious Freedom

Manhattan Declaration straw man stereotypical generalization: Who wants to deny or enforce what onto whom?

It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.

 

Manhattan Declaration: Religious Liberty, Via Guarino

 

Is demeaning rhetoric bigoted if verbs and/or adjectives describing multiple nouns

are interchangeable with dissimilar multiples of nouns, like Muslims, Blacks, those, such persons, Jews, Whites, Devil Worshipers etc…?

 

I find the law very explicit on murdering your fellow man,

but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman.

 

Case dismissed.

 

Judge Roy Bean

Why did many white religious institutions

teach congregants that God supported racial segregation?

If Jesus celebrated Hanukkah…?

Then came the Feast of Dedication [Hanukkah] at Jerusalem.

 

It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.

 

John 10:22-23