Here’s the latest on the Chief Justice Moore/10 Commandments monument fiasco.

They moved it to another part of the building.
And here’s what the Moore supporters are doing and saying:
“Outside, more than 100 supporters of Moore, the judge who had the slab placed in the building in 2001, sang hymns, prayed and lay face-down in what they called a show of repentance.”
” ‘We don’t view this as a defeat at all,’ Mahoney said. ‘We’re still calling people to come to Montgomery to take a look at where the Ten Commandments once stood.’ ”

It’s not the real 10 Commandments, people, for Christ’s sake! It’s a freakin’ piece of rock made to look like what ONE artist THINKS the 10 Commandments looked like IF they even existed!
People, Moore, his supporters, perhaps even the Superior Court of Alabama, are making a material symbol more important than it needs to be. What is it? It’s a piece of stone. Why is this piece of stone so important that a man will spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on making sure it stays?
Why is this piece of stone that has no more religious significance than a photocopy of a photograph of a lithograph print of the painting “The Last Supper”, being made a shrine? Is one’s faith that tied into symbols and material items?
Wouldn’t a truly faithful person say “It’d be nice to have that reminder there in the rotunda, but God doesn’t exist in that rock, He exists within my heart and soul, and moving that piece of rock does not change that.”
Isn’t that what faith is about? That no matter what happens to this or that piece of rock or a splinter of wood or a statue of that “saint” or a painting of that event, what all matters is what God means in your personal life?

It drives me nuts that people are wasting time and money and energy (”complaining about it?” What? No, we’re not talking about me at the moment, let me get back to complaining about OTHER people wasting time,) it drives me nuts that people care more about a statue than the true meaning of the faith it’s supposed to represent. Isn’t one of the Commandments a statement that no graven images of God should be made? (By the way, if our judicial system is so closely based on the laws of the Old Testament, where’s that one in our penal code? Or 7 other of the Commandments?) Isn’t the spirit of that Commandment that faith and belief in God is not found in symbols and statues?

And Moore’s argument is that he’s upholding the Constitution by trying to force the religious symbol to stay in the public lobby of a government building. While the 1st Amendment states no law shall be made to infringe upon the freedom of the public to worship how they wish, according to Jefferson (one of the major, if not THE major architect of the Constitution and Bill of Rights,) the “wall between Church and State” is there to prevent the government from promoting one religion over another…which is what demanding the Judeo-Christian symbol to remain there does. Not to mention Moore’s absurd claim the law is based on Jewish law. Evidence he’s never actually sat down and read Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy.

God, this all makes me so mad I want to spit! Grrrr!
Ah, I don’t think God, Jesus, or Buddha would want anyone to get mad over this any more than they’d likely not want huge arguments and negative emotions generated from the debate over a piece of rock.

Went to a concert last night for the 1st time in a LONG time. Evanescence with Cold, Revis, and Cauterize.
(Last concert I went to, was I think They Might Be Giants in a small club in Fayetteville, AR. Fun show. Before that was either Lollapalooza with Metallica and Soundgarden’s last tour, or Tori Amos. About the same time, circa 1997.)

First Cauterize: Eh. Not bad, but not really good either. Reminded me of the Malibu punk I used to listen to when I was a skater wannabe in the 80’s. Descendants, Agent Orange, Dead Kennedy’s, etc. Only they were more creative and Cauterize was pretty forgettable.

Revis: Pretty good! Very impressed. The lead singer owned the stage from the first moment. He belonged up there, and had the audience wrapped around his finger. He knew where and how to move and simply had great stage presence. Plus, the music was not half bad! I’d consider buying their album.

Cold: Very unimpressed. I actually tuned them out halfway thought their set and started daydreaming. Bland, forgettable alternacrap. Based on their look and especially their video for “Stupid Girl” you’d think they’d be some harder band like Coal Chamber or Tool. But they’re evidently a victim of marketing, because their sound and stage appearance was bland and innocuous. Shame, too. I was hoping to be able to “discover” a cool new hard rock band I could get into.

Fortunately, Evanescence kicked serious rear. Their sound live is much harder than the studio produced stuff, which is great! Their studio albums are wonderfully musically complex and melodic, and their stage sound is hard and crunchy and chest cavity shaking. Lead singer Amy didn’t hold back like a lot of performers do live, and used her entire range. Unfortunately the venue wasn’t that great acoustically, so vocal was kinda muddled sounding, but you could still hear the force and great sound of her voice.

The guitars were, as I said, hard and rocking, and had life! Unlike Cauterize and Cold where the lead and rhythm guitars seemed to merge and you really couldn’t pick out anything other than chords strumming, Evanescence used their instruments as…instruments and not just white noise generators. Pre-recorded tracks were used sparingly for effects and some keyboard, and simply enhanced the performance, as did the lights. For such a small venue not very friendly to live rock bands, they were still able to put on a 1st rate light show that perfectly enhanced the music and wasn’t simply for effect.

I felt their set was too short (while Cold was interminably too long) and they didn’t do an encore, but my brother reminded me, they’re not really a huge band yet and they correctly judged the size of their britches. I see that, but as a fan I wish I could have heard more, especially from their earlier albums.

They did do a cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Zero” that was quite well done! Amy’s mixture of hard yet nearly operatically smooth voice added a certain depth to the song. Wish I could have heard it a bit better. Later this month they’ll be performing at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado with Korn. If I had expendable cash and an open schedule, you can bet I’d be there!

I was already an Evanescence fan before this concert, now I’m even more galvanized in my appreciation for them. Too bad she didn’t wear a corset as is her stage “trademark”, but it was pretty warm! Don’t blame her at all for not!

I state again for the record, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe that the Bush administration (which is made up of more than just Bush and Ashcroft (spituuy!) by the way–it’s made up of hundreds of individuals with many different political bents and agendas,) intended for 9/11 to happen. I do not believe that gaining the oil in Iraq is anything more than 25% of the reason we went to war there. I do not believe the evidence of WMD and the reasons we went to war are more than 10% faked and 30% exaggerated. I don’t believe in black-and-white, absolute left-and-right, I believe in many shades of gray.

That said, I DO believe many in the Bush administration who have more unique control over smaller fields of influence (like Ashcroft (spituuy!)) are trying REAL hard to gain more power at the cost of civil liberties.
(By the way, what I mean by that previous statement, is that things like going to war in Afghanastan or Iraq require the cooperation and checks and balances of THOUSANDS of people. Collusion and deceit and massive amounts of wrong-spirited agendas would be caught by many people. But removing a sigle civil liberty here or there, requires a LOT less people in various branches of the government, people who have closer to similar agendas, and is easier to hide reasons and methods.)

Check out:
http://www.refuseandresist.org/big_brother/index.html
It’s a clearninghouse of information regarding how the federal government is slowly invading our privacy more and more, and justifying the removal of our civil liberties by capitalizing on the horrible effects of recent geo-political affairs.

(Note, while I believe and am appalled by much of what is found here, I don’t cotton to much of what’s on this domain: refuseandresist.org. They rally a lot around the idea that the war in Iraq is wrong, for example, and I think it’s just and necessary. Although, I also feel it’s quickly becoming VietNam West. We need to help getting primary infrastructure back up FAST and a local run government FAST and get the flock out of there, FAST!)

An article on the Slate today regarding the chief justice Moore issue (see my entry on it in yesterday’s blog), makes mention of the Founding Fathers being “very religious.” I beg to differ. I’ve done research on it before, and this morning I’ve done more research, and I offer the following:

Christianity Today
http://www.christianitytoday.com/holidays/fourthofjuly/features/50h028.html

Heresy House
http://www.heresyhouse.com/quiz/spoiler03.html

Skeptic Files
http://www.skepticfiles.org/misctext/athehist.htm

A couple of tidbits on Thomas Jefferson, one of the more influential members of the Constitutional Committee and framers of our government:

In the Notes [on the State of Virginia] Jefferson elaborated his views on government�s keeping its distance from all religious affairs and religious opinions. �The legitimate powers of government,� he wrote, �extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.� (Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, pp. 42-43. )

�The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.� (Thomas Jefferson, as quoted by Saul K. Padover in Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, New York, 1946, p. 165, according to Albert Menendez and Edd Doerr, compilers, The Great Quotations on Religious Liberty, Long Beach, CA: Centerline Press, 1991, p. 48.)

Some quotes from the Founding Fathers,
http://www.cesame-nm.org/Viewpoint/contributions/milner.html
But since none of them have any citations, I HEAVILY urge you to check them out yourselves. For example, one quote by John Adams says:
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
A little checking on that has yielded this among many more verifications:
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/tripoli.htm

And there’s a pretty blunt quote from Thomas Paine that says:
“”The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.”

If you research it , you’ll find it comes from his “Age of Reason”:
http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason10.htm (About 2/3 the way down.)
Taken in context you can see he’s talking specifically about how Medieval Christian Crusades and “scorched earth” mentality of conversion helped to ruin the Middle Eastern Renaissance at the time. I doubt he meant it as a blanket statement of Christianity in general.
Context is everything!

(later edit)
Here’s most of the same quotes, but with more citation of source to make it easier to research.
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/extra/founding-fathers.html

I want to make mention, following the posting of that last link which contains references to someone with an online name including the word “Satan,” and links to atheism sites, once again my own beliefs–in short. (Some detail can be found elsewhere in this blog and on my www.celticbear.com site.)

I’m coming closer to the belief that I’m a Deist. I believe in God, creator of the universe (or multiverse, perhaps,) and that “He” set in motion the Big Bang and evolution. That God MAY BE the gestalt of the collection of all living creatures and natural elements. That men like Siddhratha (sp) (the guy we know as The Buddha) and Jesus are men that are so in tune with the nature of what is God and how we can all become closer to our spiritual connections with the nature of God, that they themselves are near divine. That God is not an entity in some alternate plane setting forth judgement. That there is fundamental Good and Evil in the world (contrary to the lessons of Buddhism which I’m also closely studying,) but that Heaven and Hell are human constructs created to either give peace and comfort to the downtrodden early Christians at best, and control the behavior of the populace of the masses by the politically corrupt Church post 4th century AD at worst. And on and on.
In short(er): God yes, man in clouds with flocks of angels, no. Evolution and Big Bang, yes, by accident and completely random, no. Jesus as “Savior”, probably not, one of the greatest teachers of Godhood and spiritual paths, yes. Paul and the trappings of religious dogma and behavior control and the corruption of the teachings of Jesus,…guess my feelings about that!

Because the blog’s getting way too bogged down (a bogged blog!) in complaining and pompous opinionated diatribes, here’s something light and fun:

Bravo’s new series: “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”

Very funny and irreverant mix between “While You Were Out” or “Trading Spaces” and “What Not to Wear” and “WIll and Grace” =)
Five gay guys help a straight guy in each episode in a total makeover of clothes, grooming, food, decor, and style, with usually a goal in mind. Aside from general self improvement. For example, the guy’s going to propose to his girlfriend, or has his first art show, or a couple’s having their 1st coctail party with friends sans kids in…forever, things like that.

It’s full of GREAT advice for any guy who wants to improve their style or self-image or confidence, and great light hearted entertainment as well.

Do check it out. =)

(This blog is quickly becoming a curmudgeons’s complaint log of all the things that irk me off. Hmm. Oh well. *grin*)

Here’s the story to date regarding the Alabama Chief Justice and his refusal to remove the monument to the 10 Commandments from the courthouse rotunda.

It’s a sticky subject. Here’s what the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution has to say: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”

That’s it. The one place in the Constitution that mentions the separation of Church and State. And it’s been argued that what that means is not that there cannot be items or practices of religiosity within public buildings or proceedings, but that there cannot be laws passed that endorse, enforce, or encourage one religion onto a people or over another religion.
The reason for this is easy when you take into account the context of when the Bill of Rights was written. The British Crown for centuries established the law of the land. If the King was Catholic or Orthodox, the people were Catholic or Orthodox. Or if a King wanted to establish the Anglican Church and be Episcopal, the people were to be Episcopal. And it was enforced as a State requirement like any law.
So, the Founding Fathers wanted the new US citizens to be able to worship, or NOT worship however they wish. After all, most of the Founding Fathers were deists, freethinkers, and Unitarians and did not believe in the trappings and dogma of religion.

Which, now that I feel I’ve established why simply having a statue of the 10 Commandments isn’t necessarily against the Constitution, I’ll express my opinion why the Justice who’s demanding they remain in the rotunda is a big ass.
His argument is that US law is founded on the 10 Commandments, and Judeo-Christian morality in general. Well, if the idea of not murdering someone is a uniquely Judeo-Christian belief, then OK. I guess so. Thievery, lying. Things like that, must all be found only in Judeo-Christian texts and not in pretty much any and every civil and governmental texts since The Code of Hammurabi in 1750 B.C.E. (that’s oh, a few hundred years before the Jewish priests started putting pen to paper and writing down their stories and laws that had until that time been an oral tradition.)
Did you know that this “evil” Babylonian empire, you know, the one the early Jews considered the enemy, had a VERY expansive and detailed code of laws dictating things such as punishments for theft and murder and cheating people and perjury and falsification of documents and…well, thousands of laws that are a MUCH closer model to our law than the measly 10 Commandments. And the rest of the laws found in the Old Testament. (The “eye for an eye” thing originally from the Code of Hammurabi, by the way.) After Hammurabi, and long before the Jews started becoming less roving nomads and started writing things down, pretty much every middle eastern kingdom had written codes of laws. And guess what, they all dealt with how murder was wrong and should be punished, as well as theft and cheating and lying and harassment and assault and all other topics and ways man can harm another man or society.

So, the idea that US law is based at worst solely and at best even significantly on Judeo-Christian law is arrogant and misguided.

ESPECIALLY when you take into account Jefferson and Adams and Franklin and 90% of the other Founding Fathers were highly educated men, learned in the ways of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the Roman Senate, classical literature and government, AND were critical and skeptical of religious dogma and liturgical law. Like Thomas Paine, they were deists and freethinkers who while believing in the right of the individual to chose how to worship God, they themselves did not believe in the trappings of religiosity and rejected the ideas of traditional God-interfering-in-the-affairs-and-writings-of-man beliefs of the Church. Our Founding Fathers, the men who set our government in motion, wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights, looked to classical legal and ethical tradition when setting to work and NOT Judeo-Christian mythology. So Chief Justice Moore is in my opinion a bullheaded, ignorant and profoundly arrogant and self-righteous ass who has no problem spending taxpayer money to feed his ego and pompousness.

Besides, if he were as faithful as he says he is, a man-made symbol wouldn’t be as important as his faith itself. It’s as if by removing the statue of the 10 Commandments he’s less of a faithful person? Didn’t Christ say it’s better to pray alone in a closet than to shout praises in a crowd? The arena of the hypocrite?

Interesting NPR series on ethics in America.
Can’t wait to hear all the installments!

I am so sick of everything being a thinly veiled conspiracy.
I’m as big a fan of The X-Files as the next nerd, and I believe Bush Jr. had his own personal agendas in ADDITION or legitimite reasons for going to war in Iraq, but I’m so sick of people who think the whole thing is some conspiracy.
Somehow involving hundreds of people in the administration, including some Democrats, and some people who were hired prior to Bush’s taking office, and some people who have differing political aims than Bush…somehow all these people are colluding in some mass conspiracy to cause 9/11 to happen and blame AlQuida (sp) and plant evidence of WMD to allow us to go to war and yadda yadda ad nauseum it’s too tiring to continue.

The latest event to stick in my craw is this response the the tragic accidental death of a US cameraman in Iraq.
Here’s a quote from it:

–QUOTE–
�We saw a tank 50 meters (yards) away, I heard six shots and Mazen fell to the ground,� Dana�s driver Munzer Abbas said.
One of the soldiers started shouting at us, but when he knew we were journalists, he softened. One of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.�
�There were many journalists around. They knew we were journalists. This was not an accident,� Abbas said.
A U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity that American soldiers saw Dana from a distance and mistook him for an Iraqi guerrilla, so they opened fire. When the soldiers came closer, they realized Dana was a journalist, the official said.
�This is clearly another tragic incident, it is extremely regrettable,� Central Command spokesman Sgt. Maj. Lewis Matson said.
–END QUOTE–

Uh huh. For some reason this patrolling tank manned by soldiers who have been getting shot at for months by guerilla fighters with RPG’s have some conspiratorial reason to shoot at and kill a US journalist intentionally. It’s not enough the troops over there are being attacked by resistance fighters, and the Iraqi public opinion is turning sour, and that US public opinion is turning sour, but they’re going to risk more inflamed public opinion by intentionally shooting a journalist.
Use your heads, people! Christ!

An attempt to disprove evolution can be found here.

I uh, wow. I have no idea what to say. The awesome stupidity that serves as the basis and filler for this article is just dumbfounding. I seriously can’t believe this is meant seriously. I can’t get through any one paragraph without gaping in shock at the absurdity of it.

It uses flawed and spurious logic and assumptions and passes opinion based on preschool level reasoning as scientific certainties. It’s peppered with quotes and numbers and assertions from philosophers (who we all know to be very astute scientists) to unknown people we we are told are part of the scientific community although there’s a pronounced lack of citation regarding where the source came from. And where there is citation, it’s from heavily biased sources.

Basically it’s taking the thesis that evolution is completely false and the Earth is really only 6,000 years old. I wouldn’t even begin to know where to start. Even I can take every paragraph and point out where the reasoning is flawed, the evidence suspect at best or blatantly wrong at worst, and the conclusion rediculous. I just know once I get started I won’t be able to stop. So, read it yourself and have a good laugh.

One thing I will mention, is it very highly emphasises the concept verbalized by this passage found therein:
“This, of course, is an utter impossibility. Evolution is again proven to be false! Just because people believe in something does not make it true. Facts do not lie, but people do!”

Argh I’m vibrating with frustration at wanting to slap the author silly! 1st of all, whether you believe in humans evolving from lower spieces or not, the fact remains that evolution as a process is not only a reality but the effects of which can be observed and measured presently. We have witnessed spieces of animals and insects change and adjust due to variences in environment and development which reflect the precepts of evolution. It’s a reality.
And one can easily apply that statement to creationism: “Just because people believe in a supreme being who created a single man and used a rib to create a woman and somehow their sons found women somewhere and the human race developed from them, and just because people believe that despite the fact we live in a universe with set and measurable laws of physics and biology and astrophysics and conservation of energy that it was all still created in 6 days despite the measured and recorded evidence of the existance of the Big Bang billions of years ago, does not make it true. Fossels and radiotelescope recordings of the aftermath of the BigBang and carbon dating and simple intellectual use of your fricken brain don’t lie, but ancient tribal people who wrote stories to explain what couldn’t be explained to people living 4000 years ago do!”

Why must people be so stupid as to believe despite all reason in the literal interpretation of the Bible when it was never meant even by its writers to be taken literally?? (Except for the Old Testament laws, but if we’re going to believe 100% the creation stories (yes, plural, reread Genesis, there are two accounts of the creation,) and Adam and Eve and the giants living among humans who lived for many hundreds of years and floods that killed everything except a family and 2 of every animal…shouldn’t was also follow every law of the Old Testament too? Like the stoning of people and not looking upon a woman in menstration and not wearing clothing of more than one fiber and sacrificing animals and not eating “unclean” foods and any of the other couple hundred laws in the OT that not even the most orthodox of Jews follow any more?)

People are so swift to say “Oh but the coming of Christ means we don’t have to do that stuff anymore.” a) Where does it say that? Didn’t Christ say he did not come to remove the letter of the law but to provide a new spirit to it? b) If it is true then why is it you same fundamentalists and closed minded pseudo-Christians who say we no longer have to follow those annoying rules of the OT say homosexuality is wrong when the only place it’s mentioned once is in the same section of rules you say we don’t have to follow any more? What makes that rule more important that all the rules YOU say aren’t important anymore? c) If we get to pick and choose what we can follow and what not to now, why can’t we also assume the creation stories are also written simply as parables and not have to be believed any more in the face of scientific discovery?

Why are staunch creationists so afraid of having creationism disproved? It doesn’t mean there’s no God. Even Stephen Hawkings and Carl Sagan have said the existance of evolution does not disprove the existance of God. Someone had to put all that matter in the universe into that little ball and explode it into being. Our universe is goverened by measureable rules of physics today and for the last 1000 years of scientific observation…why would it suddenly have all started so recently? Why couldn’t these laws of physics have been put into place by God billions of years ago?

If the creation story is disproved by science, do you have such a tenuous hold of your faith that you’re afraid it will all come collapsing down around you? How childish! It’s like thinking the monsters in the dark bedroom you fear are there can’t get to you if you hide under a blanket of cloth. There’s no reason spiritual faith and scientific fact have to be mutually exclusive. Isn’t it just possible that the almighty omnipotent creator of the universe who created everything from galaxies and black holes to nuclear fussion and genetic double helixes (unless you don’t believe in those things either) would have set it all into motion with a awesome explosion of existance rather than something as childish as a man from clay, a woman from a rib and sons who must have married their sisters or something?

In my opinion, the creation of the universe through an incredible explosion of matter and energy is proof of God, while childish stories of Gardens of Eden and arks of animals and rainbows is proof that Judeo-Christian creation stories are mythology told by a people 4000 years ago to explain what they didn’t understand.
But that’s just me.

Out today (although I doubt in wide release) is The Magdalene Sisters.
Here’s Roger Ebert’s review of it.

I mention it because I remember hearing an article on NPR several months ago about the real life basis for the movie and becoming very angry. Angry at the demented self-righteous perversion of pseudo-morality that allows such horrible things to happen in the name of goodness.

I figure after all the drivel of the last few postings I should turn things a little lighter. =)
Here’s a quote from Roger Ebert’s review of “Grind” (a movie I have no intention of seeing, but does remind me fondly of my skater wannabe days. I got sorta good at street skating but not much experience with ramps, sort of like The Squid on Rocket Power *grin*. I grew up and went to college before I could get as much into skating as I wanted to.)

“The movie is nevertheless sweet, in its meandering way. It has no meanness in it, no cynicism, no desire to be anything other than what it is, an evocation of the fun of living your life as a skateboarder. While there are few things more poignant than an ancient skateboarder (as “Dogtown and Z-Boys” also suggests), these guys are still in their endless summer and don’t yet understand that.

Neither this movie nor “Dogtown,” by the way, answers the question I have every time I see high-level skateboarding: In order to learn to fly free high into the air, and go through body twists, and land again on your board, you presumably must fail a lot of times before you succeed. It looks to me as if that would involve a drop of 10 or 20 feet to a hard surface. How many skateboarders are killed? Maimed? Paralyzed? What about that first guy who thought about flying free beyond the lip of his skating surface–how did he think he would get down again?”

I just received this e-mail. I don’t know if it’s really by Rush Limbaugh since the e-mail asked to be sent to as many people as possible (and I DESPISE that!)
But, regardless, even though I personally can’t stand Rush, I DO think this essay on the absurdity of how much money 9/11 victems’ families are getting and U.S. Senators vs. the pittance our fighting forces get is pretty startling.

So, I urge you to click the link to read the article. You do NOT have to send it to everyone you know. =)
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