We just concluded our poll, which was posted on September 1, along with our article "Politics and Religion: Reaping the Whirlwind". The poll asked our readers if they believed the wall between church and state should remain; come down; on be weakened.
The vote is in and our readers overwhelmingly said that church and state should not mix. 66% of our readers wanted to maintain or strenghten the seperation between religion and government. 16% wanted to the wall between the wall to come down, while the remainder thought a little mixture of church and government was ok.
While not part of the Constitution, tradition has held the religion should be kept at arms lenght from govenment. Our founding fathers was concerned that if the two mixed, it could result in simlarly repressive national religion such as the one England had. Secondly, they wanted a country that welcomed and treated all religions equally. In fact, they believed you had not only the right to practice any faith of your choice, but also the right to practice no faith (a crime at the time in some European countries which would have sent you to prision or worse).
Our founding fathers were mainly Protestant Christians (with a couple exceptions)and practiced their chosen religions in varing degrees (several later even became deistist). They founded this country based on not just Judeo-Christain values, but also on values derived from the Enlighenment, which in turn, were a rediscovery of ideals first proposed by the Ancient Greeks, Romans and even the Sumarians (these included such ideas as basic human rights and the diginity of human beings). As such, they would be appalled to see the Ten Commandments removed from courtrooms, government offices, and classrooms (afterall, they're already engraved all over the buildings in Washington, including such places as the Supreme Court Building and the US Senate).
They would have had no objection to a Christmas scene on public property, so long as other religions had the same right and no attempt was made to impose any religion on anyone else (equal access). Even those who didn't believe in God would have the same right to express themselves, however, they would not have the right to deprive others of their right to express their belief. I suspect this would include posting the Ten Commandments since isn't an attmept to impose a belief system, but rather a a display of one of the founding stones of this country (besides, it happens to be the a basic tenet of the overwhelming majority of our citizens).
Equally, they would often invoke God's name in public speeches, and believed they were morally right in doing so. They had no objections to any man (or woman) following their faith, be it in business or politics. However, they drew the line at when that individal tried to impose their religious beliefs on others. It's one thing practice your religion and quite another to try and pass legislation to require others do the same. Perhaps we truly are judged more by actions than words.
Thanks again everyone for voting! And to our Jewish readers, have a blesses Yom Kippur.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Illegal Immigration, Obama’s HealthCare and You: Truth and Consequences.
President Obama’s healthcare plan continues to make the news, and while most Americans would agree that our nation’s healthcare infrastructure is in shambles, few Americas want to see those here illegally become eligible for any portion of taxpayer benefits. In fact, a number of leading Democrats have quietly begun backing off the so-called “Public Option”. I have gleaned some interesting articles that I thought you might find interesting. I should point out that, in all fairness, I haven’t seen any proposals by the GOP to provide comprehensive health coverage to legal US residents. As such, I’m forced again to add my voice to the chorus which asks of the Republican Party—“I know what you’re against, but what are you for?”
The first article is from The Health Care Blog, an independent oriented healthcare industry newsletter. The article, which links to several other related topics, is entitled “A Detailed Analysis of Barack Obama's Health Care Reform Plan”.
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2008/03/a-detailed-anal.html
The second article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, discusses what many fear, a shortage of physicians. Some believe that as many as 45% of doctors would quit if Obama’s healthcare plan should pass.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/20/INC814PD9M.DTL"
The next article, from CNN Money.com exposes some of the basic “freedoms” you loose under Obama’s plan. Personally, I’m big on personal choice.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama. fortune/
Illegal Immigrants under Obama’s Plan
Of course, by now everyone has heard (ad nauseam) about South Carolina Congressman Jim Wilson’s not so subtle opinion of Obama’s healthcare plan (“You lie”) and illegal immigrants. Well, despite Obama’s assertions to the contrary, it looks like old Jim knew what he was talking about. It looks like he (or more likely, one of his aides) did their homework. The Congressional Research Service reports that some illegals will, indeed, quality for taxpayer based healthcare. Check out this article from ABC news, and the link to the CNR’s report, “The Treatment of Noncitizens in H.R. 3200”.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/from-the-fact-check-desk-illegal-immigrants-and-health-care-reform.html
It appears that Obama was “mistaken” after all.
What To Do?
The long and short of this really quite simple. Our health care system in this country is crumbling. It needs a dramatic overhaul. An increasing number of businesses and individuals can’t afford the premiums and are being forced to drop coverage all together. But their health problems and that of their children don’t go away. The result is often deciding between food, rent, or getting treatment. Not a pleasant choice. While you and I may wait or simple decide not to go to the doctor, our children is another matter. So what do you when you can’t afford it? Well, you do what more and more people are doing---you go to the emergency room for what are often routine matters, and more often than not, the public get stuck with the bill through higher premiums and higher costs of service imposed by the doctors and hospitals (I suppose that, in some respect, we already have public healthcare, at least from a billing perspective).
Many Americans cross the border to get their prescriptions filled. Now, the American pharmaceutical industry will tell us that if we do, we’ll wind up with inferior or even harmful medicine. However, they fail to explain that this is often the identical medicine sold to Americans. The only difference is that the governments of Canada and Mexico have negotiated cheaper rates based on the American Medicare model.
The problem with creating a national healthcare plan is multifold. First, forget about that all that Hippocratic Oath stuff. Healthcare is big business. It employees hundreds of thousands, from brain surgeons to billing clerks, and makes billions of dollars a year. It’s tied to universities, agribusiness, petrochemicals, and the federal government The CEOs of America’s hospitals and pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to walk away from that kind of money. Secondly, Americans want choice. We demand it. It’s part of our national psyche. A monolithic national healthcare plan would by its very nature require limited choices in order to be manageable. Lastly, but less importantly, is the costs. We’re talking billions upon billions of dollars stretching decades into the future. Can we---should we---impose that kind of debt on our great (yes great) grand children? And let’s not forget, we still need to deal with a rapidly deteriorating infrastructure (roads, sewers/drainage, bridges, dams, etc) as well coping with increasingly severe natural disasters and subsequent costs as the result of climate change.
And then there is the issue of coverage for illegal aliens. Why should Americans pay for the coverage of people who are breaking the law by being in this country illegally and who don’t, by and large, contribute to the system? Only those who contribute fully and legally should benefit. Americans are perhaps the most kind and giving people on the planet. We’ve done more for the world than any nation before us. Heck, we even clothe, feed, educate, and provide medical care to some of the very people who hate our guts. We have been the world’s policeman since 1945. But I think the time has come when we have to admit that we can no longer provide for the world needs. America must address its own problems, and that includes revamping our healthcare system in a way that we don’t enslave our descendents to an untenable tax burden.
The answer, I think, is not in socialized medicine, but increased competition (including cross-border prescription purchases), costs caps, an increase in “fast track” research and development with a shorter proprietary time in order to encourage generics, as well as encouraging resource pooling for small businesses. We also need to focus on improved wellness. It’s often cheaper to work on prevention rather than dealing with after-the-fact cures.
The first article is from The Health Care Blog, an independent oriented healthcare industry newsletter. The article, which links to several other related topics, is entitled “A Detailed Analysis of Barack Obama's Health Care Reform Plan”.
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2008/03/a-detailed-anal.html
The second article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, discusses what many fear, a shortage of physicians. Some believe that as many as 45% of doctors would quit if Obama’s healthcare plan should pass.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/20/INC814PD9M.DTL"
The next article, from CNN Money.com exposes some of the basic “freedoms” you loose under Obama’s plan. Personally, I’m big on personal choice.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama. fortune/
Illegal Immigrants under Obama’s Plan
Of course, by now everyone has heard (ad nauseam) about South Carolina Congressman Jim Wilson’s not so subtle opinion of Obama’s healthcare plan (“You lie”) and illegal immigrants. Well, despite Obama’s assertions to the contrary, it looks like old Jim knew what he was talking about. It looks like he (or more likely, one of his aides) did their homework. The Congressional Research Service reports that some illegals will, indeed, quality for taxpayer based healthcare. Check out this article from ABC news, and the link to the CNR’s report, “The Treatment of Noncitizens in H.R. 3200”.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/from-the-fact-check-desk-illegal-immigrants-and-health-care-reform.html
It appears that Obama was “mistaken” after all.
What To Do?
The long and short of this really quite simple. Our health care system in this country is crumbling. It needs a dramatic overhaul. An increasing number of businesses and individuals can’t afford the premiums and are being forced to drop coverage all together. But their health problems and that of their children don’t go away. The result is often deciding between food, rent, or getting treatment. Not a pleasant choice. While you and I may wait or simple decide not to go to the doctor, our children is another matter. So what do you when you can’t afford it? Well, you do what more and more people are doing---you go to the emergency room for what are often routine matters, and more often than not, the public get stuck with the bill through higher premiums and higher costs of service imposed by the doctors and hospitals (I suppose that, in some respect, we already have public healthcare, at least from a billing perspective).
Many Americans cross the border to get their prescriptions filled. Now, the American pharmaceutical industry will tell us that if we do, we’ll wind up with inferior or even harmful medicine. However, they fail to explain that this is often the identical medicine sold to Americans. The only difference is that the governments of Canada and Mexico have negotiated cheaper rates based on the American Medicare model.
The problem with creating a national healthcare plan is multifold. First, forget about that all that Hippocratic Oath stuff. Healthcare is big business. It employees hundreds of thousands, from brain surgeons to billing clerks, and makes billions of dollars a year. It’s tied to universities, agribusiness, petrochemicals, and the federal government The CEOs of America’s hospitals and pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to walk away from that kind of money. Secondly, Americans want choice. We demand it. It’s part of our national psyche. A monolithic national healthcare plan would by its very nature require limited choices in order to be manageable. Lastly, but less importantly, is the costs. We’re talking billions upon billions of dollars stretching decades into the future. Can we---should we---impose that kind of debt on our great (yes great) grand children? And let’s not forget, we still need to deal with a rapidly deteriorating infrastructure (roads, sewers/drainage, bridges, dams, etc) as well coping with increasingly severe natural disasters and subsequent costs as the result of climate change.
And then there is the issue of coverage for illegal aliens. Why should Americans pay for the coverage of people who are breaking the law by being in this country illegally and who don’t, by and large, contribute to the system? Only those who contribute fully and legally should benefit. Americans are perhaps the most kind and giving people on the planet. We’ve done more for the world than any nation before us. Heck, we even clothe, feed, educate, and provide medical care to some of the very people who hate our guts. We have been the world’s policeman since 1945. But I think the time has come when we have to admit that we can no longer provide for the world needs. America must address its own problems, and that includes revamping our healthcare system in a way that we don’t enslave our descendents to an untenable tax burden.
The answer, I think, is not in socialized medicine, but increased competition (including cross-border prescription purchases), costs caps, an increase in “fast track” research and development with a shorter proprietary time in order to encourage generics, as well as encouraging resource pooling for small businesses. We also need to focus on improved wellness. It’s often cheaper to work on prevention rather than dealing with after-the-fact cures.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Politics and Religion: Reaping the Whirlwind
There’s line I seem to recall from Frank Herbert’s wonderful futuristic book, Dune, which goes approximately like this, “When religion and politics ride together in the same chariot, a whirlwind is sure to follow”. Now, that may not be an exact quote, but the meaning is clear enough. When politics and religion unite, people (and usually a lot of them) die. Historically, Mankind has murdered millions, if not billions, in the name of what ever god was currently in vogue at the time, and it has usually been done bloody hand in hand with politics.
A facet many of you don’t know is my interest in religion. I have long been a student of comparative religions. I’m not only well versed in the great religions like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, but also Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, as well as Wicca and Native American Spirituality. While in the military, I even “volunteered” to serve as administrative aide to the base Rabbi and liaison to the local Jewish Community Federation. While attending Bellarmine College (a Catholic school), I took as many courses in religion as I could get away with, and I continue to study religion today. Many of my professors did their best to persuade me to become a theologian rather than pursue a business career (looking back, I sometimes wonder if they’d been right).
Being an amateur historian as well has taught me well about the world we live in today, which has seen the line between religion and politics becoming increasingly blurred. We’ve seen it in India where Hindus have become more nationalist and less tolerant. We’ve seen normally tranquil Buddhist monks take up arms. And of course, we’ve all watched Jewish fundamentalists not just pressing their claims against the Palestinians, but also against secular Jews; forcing businesses to close and women to dress in accordance to their demands. Of course, we’re all too familiar with Islam’s head long fall from a deeply beautiful religion of contemplation and compassion to one of mass murder and intimidation (like public beatings of women and those who refuse to be bullied; throwing acid in the faces of young girls attending school; or so-called “honor killings”). In this country, we’ve witnessed the hijacking of the Republican Party by groups like the Moral Majority and their ilk. Gone is the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Goldwater, Eisenhower, Rockefeller (not to mention Nixon, Ford, or even George Bush the Elder) and in its place a more rigid and less tolerant political party. Who can forget the so-called “justifiable” murder of doctors or bombed clinics and attempts at intimidation by some of these same zealots?
The one thing these religious extremists have in common is the belief that they and they alone are the keepers of the “True Faith” and it is their God given duty to bring about their version of the end times (of course, the rest of us are generously given the option of converting or facing God’s wrath by their blood soaked hands). All this brings me to a highly engaging and eye opening book by Michael Baigent entitled, “Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions And The Plot To End The World” (you may remember Mr. Baigent as the co-author of the hugely popular “Holy Blood Holy Grail” and “The Messianic Legacy”). Mr. Baigent gives us an excellent historical overview the three main religions and their claim on Jerusalem. He then leads us through their Byzantine world to induce the coming of the Messiah, but which Messiah? Is it the Messiah Ben David or the Twelfth Iman? Or is it the Second Coming of Jesus? Finally, Mr. Baigent details the objectives of each and finally, what we can do.
If you have any interest whatsoever about world politics, religion, global economics, the environment or terrorism, you have to buy this book. It should be on the reading list for every thinking man and woman. Never in our history have we edged so willingly close to global annihilation. Personally, I truly cannot imagine any god demanding such a terrible harvest of souls from his creation. I’ve included the Preface from the book below. I’m adding this book to my recommendation list to the right of this article.
Preface from Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World by Michael Baigen
The race toward Armageddon is the stumbling toward self-destruction.
Armageddon!
The great battle against the Antichrist; when the red mist of a vast firestorm is to descend from above to envelope all living creatures in its deceptive embrace, leaving the god of war to spit out the pips.
According to the tricky and treacherous text of the final book in the New Testament, the book of Revelation, when the end time of the world dawns, a scroll with seven seals will be opened. With each seal a new horror will be unleashed against humanity. First, a great dragon will appear; this is later identified with Satan. Next will emerge a monstrous beast ominously rearing its seven heads and ten horns. Finally, a servant of this beast will arrive on the stage, a "false prophet" (16:13) -- the Antichrist -- who will lead his international satanic army against the forces of God. All these satanic forces will be gathered together "at the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon" (16:16).
Abruptly, a white horse bearing a divine warrior will appear from heaven, a warrior described as "The Word of God" (19:13), whom many interpret to be Christ; he will lead the "armies of heaven" (19:14) in a vast and bloodthirsty battle that will erupt against a background of terrestrial plagues and earthquakes. The three satanic allies will be defeated: the beast and the false prophet will be thrown alive into burning sulfur; their followers will all be put to the sword by the heavenly rider. According to the book of Revelation, God will take no prisoners -- except, strangely, for Satan, who will be quickly locked up in a bottomless pit. Then the calm following this mayhem will usher in a thousand years of peace.
But in a curious and unexplained twist, at the end of the thousand years of peace, Satan will be released from his prison for a short time. This act of apparent mercy will immediately lead to a second great war.
It does seem a very cruel trick for God to play upon the newly peaceful inhabitants of the world. God appears to be toying with Satan like a cat toys with a mouse, because this new satanic army will also be rapidly destroyed, permitting a shiny new Jerusalem to descend from the clouds -- a new Jerusalem from which Jesus will rule forever over a world where death is no more.
Personally, I have always wondered why, if Jesus is destined to be victorious, he and God should put themselves to so much trouble first. It seems to me that by delaying the inevitable, they are actually colluding with the beast, the false prophet, and Satan. It is also pointless, and the collateral damage so extensive.
But it does not seem pointless to approximately 59 percent of Americans who, according to pollsters, say they believe in the coming battle of Armageddon. And this is in addition to the millions of fundamentalist Christians worldwide who hold the same belief. Indeed, fundamentalist preaching has been pushing this kind of material out for years, material that does not allow for any doubt in the literal interpretation of Revelation. John Hagee, a prominent Texas fundamentalist preacher and author, clearly has none: "Armageddon is an actual battle, and the Antichrist is a living, breathing person."
It is evident from statements such as these that fundamentalist preaching operates in the service of fear -- fear of the big battle to come and fear of not belonging to the side of Jesus so as to benefit from the thousand years of peace.
Fear is all to these people, and every opportunity to spread it is taken. In January 2007 fundamentalist evangelist and former presidential contender Pat Robertson told his television audience that millions of people would die that year in a huge terrorist attack on the United States. He claimed that God had personally told him this but added, rather as an afterthought, "I'm not saying necessarily nuclear, the Lord didn't say nuclear." Which is, of course, reassuring.
Such an attitude is not so far away from that of the Islamic suicide bombers who are sure that upon their deaths they will go straight to paradise to enjoy the favors of seventy-two young girls, favors they have missed out on in life due to their restrictive beliefs.
This battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ is, according to thousands of Christian fundamentalist preachers, coming soon. In fact many are convinced that our modem military involvement in the Middle East is linked to this fiery end. In the book of Revelation, Babylon is the source of all evil and is ultimately overthrown; Babylon, of course, is in Iraq, which has presently fallen to U.S. forces and their allies. To Christian fundamentalists, the connection, and the importance, is obvious.
But the Christian fundamentalists are not the only ones to believe in a final battle. Muslims, too, with increasing urgency speak about the coming of their messiah, the Mahdi, who -- with the aid of Jesus -- will fight against the demonic forces of the Dajjal, the Islamic anti-christ figure. Especially important is the belief held by many Muslims that the Mahdi will rule from Jerusalem, which the Muslims claim as their own. Muslims who follow these beliefs expect the final battle to come very soon, and this is affecting their politics, which, in turn, is affecting all of our lives.
Jewish fundamentalists, by contrast, do not think of a battle to come, but it is hard to see how their end times can appear without one. For they hold that when the Messiah comes, he will rebuild the Temple, referring to Solomon's Temple, the very first temple, according to the Bible, to serve the ancient religion of the Israelites in Jerusalem, a temple that was pillaged and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. And with the Messiah's coming, they hold that Jerusalem will be wholly Jewish. There will be no room on the Temple Mount for any Islamic structures, nor will there be room for the Islamic population within Jerusalem, indeed within all of Israel -- which they define as stretching as far as western Iraq. They believe that the signs of the coming of the Messiah have already appeared; it will not be long now. The thousands of years of waiting are about to end. Of course, there are those who wish to hurry the time along and remove the mosques from the Temple Mount in advance of the Messiah's arrival. The anti-Islamic position of these groups is inflexible and runs very deeply. Their true relationship with Christianity is prickly and kept rather close, for they all depend upon the constant flow of funds donated to them by Christian supporters, but the tensions are there to see. For them, there is no need for compromise or tolerance; God gave Israel to the Jewish people, and that is all that needs to be said.
At its heart fundamentalism is a relentless progression deeper and deeper into intolerance and ignorance, which, unless opposed, will by default achieve its aims. Judged and measured against their own pronouncements, we must conclude that the fundamentalist religions of all denominations are opposing the free will and vibrancy of human life -- they are, paradoxically, performing the very task they attribute to the feared Antichrist: they are attempting to convert a distorted view of reality into such a skillfully packaged shape that it might be taken as truth.
Fundamentalist religions are humanity's greatest enemy. Blunt speaking, certainly, but time is short, and I see no reason not to call it as I see it. The fact we all have to face is that the fundamentalist religions leave no room for human frailty, for compassion, for forgiveness, or for creative freedom of thought. They are trying to return us to that time of darkness we thought was left far behind, where blind belief was considered more important than farsighted discovery, where the dogmatic was more valued than the tolerant and the false was more important than the true.
We simply cannot permit that future to occur; we must oppose that future with all the strength at our disposal. If, like those countless victims of the Nazi Holocaust, we are ever again asked to step into a cattle wagon for a trip to the Promised Land, we must remember that the correct response is always, emphatically, "No! Never again!"
But we need to move quickly for the fundamentalists are on the march; step by step they are encroaching upon the peaceful and tolerant high ground with their perverted idea of a heavenly realm filled with comfortable seats from which those who have been "saved" can eat their popcorn and watch the slaughter below. It all sounds like some deranged fantasy based on a dim memory of the Roman arena, for there is much blood in the message and so very little mercy.
Again Christian fundamentalist preacher John Hagee does not mince his words on this issue:
The first time He came to earth, Jesus was the Lamb of God, led in silence to the slaughter. The next time He comes, He will be the Lion of Judah who will trample His enemies until their blood stains His garments.
It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that, like those who once packed the Roman Colosseum to watch Christians or Jews thrown to the wild animals, Hagee cannot wait to take his seat before the carnage.
Hagee's position closely resembles that of Islamic fundamentalist commentators for whom, of course, Jesus is an Islamic prophet. the Egyptian Sa'id Ayyub, writing in 1987, insisted that in the final days,
All of the books will be burnt at the end of the road. Those who sucked at deceit, spying, and hypocrisy will be burnt beneath the feet of the prophet of God, Jesus, and the army of Islam -- [Jews and Christians] . . . will be trampled under after the dawn."
We have good cause to be deeply worried about these people and those who read and believe their words. We must never let them near to the seats of power, else we will wake up one morning in a world where madness is called sanity and true sanity is viewed as a heresy to be ruthlessly destroyed. But, ominously, we can see this world creeping closer and closer.
The apocalyptic view of Middle East events held by recent U.S. administrations, most evidently with President George W. Bush, really began with President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. Famously, in 1981, Ronald Reagan revealed that he believed, "For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ." He later echoed this belief, stating, "I turn back to the ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if -- if we're the generation that is going to see that come about."
Two decades later, President Bush contented himself with advice from God. In 2003 He explained to the Palestinian prime minister, "God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam."
He seems to speak like Moses or Joshua; perhaps he really did believe that he was leading us to the Promised Land.
Copyright © 2009 Michael Baigent, author of Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World
Author Bio:
Michael Baigent, author of Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World, was born in New Zealand in 1948. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Canterbury University, Christchurch, and a master's degree in mysticism and religious experience from the University of Kent, England. Since 1976 he has lived in England with his wife and children. Published in 35 languages, he is the author of From the Omens of Babylon, Ancient Traces, and the New York Times bestseller The Jesus Papers; the coauthor of the international bestsellers Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy (with Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh); and the coauthor of The Temples and the Lodge, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Secret Germany, The Elixir and the Stone and The Inquisition (with Richard Leigh). For more information please visit www.harpercollins.com
Healthcare for Illegals Still Part of the Plan
Healthcare for Illegal aliens keeps marching forward under Obama’s healthcare plan. It seems the louder the People say no, the more Obama and the Democrats in Congress are determined to cram it down our throats (it never seems to cease to amaze that despite their claim about how wonderful this plan is, not a single individual of our so-called leaders is willing to drop their healthcare coverage and adopt it. That to me speaks volumes. Below are to must read links to what’s going on Washington:
Illegal Alien Health Care Loophole a Topic of Debate at August Townhall Debate http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21223&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1721
Congressional Research Agency Confirms Illegal Aliens Will Get Health Benefits Under House Bill
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21337&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1721#1
Poll Results
Our last polled asked if you thought illegal aliens should be able to participate in the purposed Healthcare Plan. 1/3 of you thought so while everyone else (66%) said no way. Personally, I don’t think anyone who isn’t a taxing paying citizen of this country should have any input or benefit whatsoever in any program paid for with our tax dollars.
A facet many of you don’t know is my interest in religion. I have long been a student of comparative religions. I’m not only well versed in the great religions like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, but also Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, as well as Wicca and Native American Spirituality. While in the military, I even “volunteered” to serve as administrative aide to the base Rabbi and liaison to the local Jewish Community Federation. While attending Bellarmine College (a Catholic school), I took as many courses in religion as I could get away with, and I continue to study religion today. Many of my professors did their best to persuade me to become a theologian rather than pursue a business career (looking back, I sometimes wonder if they’d been right).
Being an amateur historian as well has taught me well about the world we live in today, which has seen the line between religion and politics becoming increasingly blurred. We’ve seen it in India where Hindus have become more nationalist and less tolerant. We’ve seen normally tranquil Buddhist monks take up arms. And of course, we’ve all watched Jewish fundamentalists not just pressing their claims against the Palestinians, but also against secular Jews; forcing businesses to close and women to dress in accordance to their demands. Of course, we’re all too familiar with Islam’s head long fall from a deeply beautiful religion of contemplation and compassion to one of mass murder and intimidation (like public beatings of women and those who refuse to be bullied; throwing acid in the faces of young girls attending school; or so-called “honor killings”). In this country, we’ve witnessed the hijacking of the Republican Party by groups like the Moral Majority and their ilk. Gone is the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Goldwater, Eisenhower, Rockefeller (not to mention Nixon, Ford, or even George Bush the Elder) and in its place a more rigid and less tolerant political party. Who can forget the so-called “justifiable” murder of doctors or bombed clinics and attempts at intimidation by some of these same zealots?
The one thing these religious extremists have in common is the belief that they and they alone are the keepers of the “True Faith” and it is their God given duty to bring about their version of the end times (of course, the rest of us are generously given the option of converting or facing God’s wrath by their blood soaked hands). All this brings me to a highly engaging and eye opening book by Michael Baigent entitled, “Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions And The Plot To End The World” (you may remember Mr. Baigent as the co-author of the hugely popular “Holy Blood Holy Grail” and “The Messianic Legacy”). Mr. Baigent gives us an excellent historical overview the three main religions and their claim on Jerusalem. He then leads us through their Byzantine world to induce the coming of the Messiah, but which Messiah? Is it the Messiah Ben David or the Twelfth Iman? Or is it the Second Coming of Jesus? Finally, Mr. Baigent details the objectives of each and finally, what we can do.
If you have any interest whatsoever about world politics, religion, global economics, the environment or terrorism, you have to buy this book. It should be on the reading list for every thinking man and woman. Never in our history have we edged so willingly close to global annihilation. Personally, I truly cannot imagine any god demanding such a terrible harvest of souls from his creation. I’ve included the Preface from the book below. I’m adding this book to my recommendation list to the right of this article.
Preface from Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World by Michael Baigen
The race toward Armageddon is the stumbling toward self-destruction.
Armageddon!
The great battle against the Antichrist; when the red mist of a vast firestorm is to descend from above to envelope all living creatures in its deceptive embrace, leaving the god of war to spit out the pips.
According to the tricky and treacherous text of the final book in the New Testament, the book of Revelation, when the end time of the world dawns, a scroll with seven seals will be opened. With each seal a new horror will be unleashed against humanity. First, a great dragon will appear; this is later identified with Satan. Next will emerge a monstrous beast ominously rearing its seven heads and ten horns. Finally, a servant of this beast will arrive on the stage, a "false prophet" (16:13) -- the Antichrist -- who will lead his international satanic army against the forces of God. All these satanic forces will be gathered together "at the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon" (16:16).
Abruptly, a white horse bearing a divine warrior will appear from heaven, a warrior described as "The Word of God" (19:13), whom many interpret to be Christ; he will lead the "armies of heaven" (19:14) in a vast and bloodthirsty battle that will erupt against a background of terrestrial plagues and earthquakes. The three satanic allies will be defeated: the beast and the false prophet will be thrown alive into burning sulfur; their followers will all be put to the sword by the heavenly rider. According to the book of Revelation, God will take no prisoners -- except, strangely, for Satan, who will be quickly locked up in a bottomless pit. Then the calm following this mayhem will usher in a thousand years of peace.
But in a curious and unexplained twist, at the end of the thousand years of peace, Satan will be released from his prison for a short time. This act of apparent mercy will immediately lead to a second great war.
It does seem a very cruel trick for God to play upon the newly peaceful inhabitants of the world. God appears to be toying with Satan like a cat toys with a mouse, because this new satanic army will also be rapidly destroyed, permitting a shiny new Jerusalem to descend from the clouds -- a new Jerusalem from which Jesus will rule forever over a world where death is no more.
Personally, I have always wondered why, if Jesus is destined to be victorious, he and God should put themselves to so much trouble first. It seems to me that by delaying the inevitable, they are actually colluding with the beast, the false prophet, and Satan. It is also pointless, and the collateral damage so extensive.
But it does not seem pointless to approximately 59 percent of Americans who, according to pollsters, say they believe in the coming battle of Armageddon. And this is in addition to the millions of fundamentalist Christians worldwide who hold the same belief. Indeed, fundamentalist preaching has been pushing this kind of material out for years, material that does not allow for any doubt in the literal interpretation of Revelation. John Hagee, a prominent Texas fundamentalist preacher and author, clearly has none: "Armageddon is an actual battle, and the Antichrist is a living, breathing person."
It is evident from statements such as these that fundamentalist preaching operates in the service of fear -- fear of the big battle to come and fear of not belonging to the side of Jesus so as to benefit from the thousand years of peace.
Fear is all to these people, and every opportunity to spread it is taken. In January 2007 fundamentalist evangelist and former presidential contender Pat Robertson told his television audience that millions of people would die that year in a huge terrorist attack on the United States. He claimed that God had personally told him this but added, rather as an afterthought, "I'm not saying necessarily nuclear, the Lord didn't say nuclear." Which is, of course, reassuring.
Such an attitude is not so far away from that of the Islamic suicide bombers who are sure that upon their deaths they will go straight to paradise to enjoy the favors of seventy-two young girls, favors they have missed out on in life due to their restrictive beliefs.
This battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ is, according to thousands of Christian fundamentalist preachers, coming soon. In fact many are convinced that our modem military involvement in the Middle East is linked to this fiery end. In the book of Revelation, Babylon is the source of all evil and is ultimately overthrown; Babylon, of course, is in Iraq, which has presently fallen to U.S. forces and their allies. To Christian fundamentalists, the connection, and the importance, is obvious.
But the Christian fundamentalists are not the only ones to believe in a final battle. Muslims, too, with increasing urgency speak about the coming of their messiah, the Mahdi, who -- with the aid of Jesus -- will fight against the demonic forces of the Dajjal, the Islamic anti-christ figure. Especially important is the belief held by many Muslims that the Mahdi will rule from Jerusalem, which the Muslims claim as their own. Muslims who follow these beliefs expect the final battle to come very soon, and this is affecting their politics, which, in turn, is affecting all of our lives.
Jewish fundamentalists, by contrast, do not think of a battle to come, but it is hard to see how their end times can appear without one. For they hold that when the Messiah comes, he will rebuild the Temple, referring to Solomon's Temple, the very first temple, according to the Bible, to serve the ancient religion of the Israelites in Jerusalem, a temple that was pillaged and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. And with the Messiah's coming, they hold that Jerusalem will be wholly Jewish. There will be no room on the Temple Mount for any Islamic structures, nor will there be room for the Islamic population within Jerusalem, indeed within all of Israel -- which they define as stretching as far as western Iraq. They believe that the signs of the coming of the Messiah have already appeared; it will not be long now. The thousands of years of waiting are about to end. Of course, there are those who wish to hurry the time along and remove the mosques from the Temple Mount in advance of the Messiah's arrival. The anti-Islamic position of these groups is inflexible and runs very deeply. Their true relationship with Christianity is prickly and kept rather close, for they all depend upon the constant flow of funds donated to them by Christian supporters, but the tensions are there to see. For them, there is no need for compromise or tolerance; God gave Israel to the Jewish people, and that is all that needs to be said.
At its heart fundamentalism is a relentless progression deeper and deeper into intolerance and ignorance, which, unless opposed, will by default achieve its aims. Judged and measured against their own pronouncements, we must conclude that the fundamentalist religions of all denominations are opposing the free will and vibrancy of human life -- they are, paradoxically, performing the very task they attribute to the feared Antichrist: they are attempting to convert a distorted view of reality into such a skillfully packaged shape that it might be taken as truth.
Fundamentalist religions are humanity's greatest enemy. Blunt speaking, certainly, but time is short, and I see no reason not to call it as I see it. The fact we all have to face is that the fundamentalist religions leave no room for human frailty, for compassion, for forgiveness, or for creative freedom of thought. They are trying to return us to that time of darkness we thought was left far behind, where blind belief was considered more important than farsighted discovery, where the dogmatic was more valued than the tolerant and the false was more important than the true.
We simply cannot permit that future to occur; we must oppose that future with all the strength at our disposal. If, like those countless victims of the Nazi Holocaust, we are ever again asked to step into a cattle wagon for a trip to the Promised Land, we must remember that the correct response is always, emphatically, "No! Never again!"
But we need to move quickly for the fundamentalists are on the march; step by step they are encroaching upon the peaceful and tolerant high ground with their perverted idea of a heavenly realm filled with comfortable seats from which those who have been "saved" can eat their popcorn and watch the slaughter below. It all sounds like some deranged fantasy based on a dim memory of the Roman arena, for there is much blood in the message and so very little mercy.
Again Christian fundamentalist preacher John Hagee does not mince his words on this issue:
The first time He came to earth, Jesus was the Lamb of God, led in silence to the slaughter. The next time He comes, He will be the Lion of Judah who will trample His enemies until their blood stains His garments.
It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that, like those who once packed the Roman Colosseum to watch Christians or Jews thrown to the wild animals, Hagee cannot wait to take his seat before the carnage.
Hagee's position closely resembles that of Islamic fundamentalist commentators for whom, of course, Jesus is an Islamic prophet. the Egyptian Sa'id Ayyub, writing in 1987, insisted that in the final days,
All of the books will be burnt at the end of the road. Those who sucked at deceit, spying, and hypocrisy will be burnt beneath the feet of the prophet of God, Jesus, and the army of Islam -- [Jews and Christians] . . . will be trampled under after the dawn."
We have good cause to be deeply worried about these people and those who read and believe their words. We must never let them near to the seats of power, else we will wake up one morning in a world where madness is called sanity and true sanity is viewed as a heresy to be ruthlessly destroyed. But, ominously, we can see this world creeping closer and closer.
The apocalyptic view of Middle East events held by recent U.S. administrations, most evidently with President George W. Bush, really began with President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. Famously, in 1981, Ronald Reagan revealed that he believed, "For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ." He later echoed this belief, stating, "I turn back to the ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if -- if we're the generation that is going to see that come about."
Two decades later, President Bush contented himself with advice from God. In 2003 He explained to the Palestinian prime minister, "God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam."
He seems to speak like Moses or Joshua; perhaps he really did believe that he was leading us to the Promised Land.
Copyright © 2009 Michael Baigent, author of Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World
Author Bio:
Michael Baigent, author of Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World, was born in New Zealand in 1948. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Canterbury University, Christchurch, and a master's degree in mysticism and religious experience from the University of Kent, England. Since 1976 he has lived in England with his wife and children. Published in 35 languages, he is the author of From the Omens of Babylon, Ancient Traces, and the New York Times bestseller The Jesus Papers; the coauthor of the international bestsellers Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy (with Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh); and the coauthor of The Temples and the Lodge, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Secret Germany, The Elixir and the Stone and The Inquisition (with Richard Leigh). For more information please visit www.harpercollins.com
Healthcare for Illegals Still Part of the Plan
Healthcare for Illegal aliens keeps marching forward under Obama’s healthcare plan. It seems the louder the People say no, the more Obama and the Democrats in Congress are determined to cram it down our throats (it never seems to cease to amaze that despite their claim about how wonderful this plan is, not a single individual of our so-called leaders is willing to drop their healthcare coverage and adopt it. That to me speaks volumes. Below are to must read links to what’s going on Washington:
Illegal Alien Health Care Loophole a Topic of Debate at August Townhall Debate http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21223&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1721
Congressional Research Agency Confirms Illegal Aliens Will Get Health Benefits Under House Bill
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21337&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1721#1
Poll Results
Our last polled asked if you thought illegal aliens should be able to participate in the purposed Healthcare Plan. 1/3 of you thought so while everyone else (66%) said no way. Personally, I don’t think anyone who isn’t a taxing paying citizen of this country should have any input or benefit whatsoever in any program paid for with our tax dollars.
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