okay, yesterday i got email from this guy, who had a question about my fëanorian font. from about the third grade until almost all the way through high school i would have loved to have his job, and here he is asking me a question, out of the blue. maybe i’m doing something right after all… i bet he’d like anguish languish…
finally, somebody saying something i can agree with about larry the cable guy. generally, when i’m around, the less said the better, but in this case i’m willing to make an exception.
Write 10 things that make you happy, in no particular order. Tag 5 people to do the same.
1. being strange enough that people wonder about me
2. moe
3. explosions… big ones
4. siva, parvati, ganesha, kartikeya, kali
5. playing with the fremont philharmonic
6. making things out of stone, wood and metal
7. high quality incense, murtis, rudraksha, buttons, etc., etc., etc.
8. moe again
9. a variety of weird music all the time
10. plenty of marijuana
1
2
3
4
5
So what would our founding fathers think? Dubya claims God put him in office, but what did statesmen of early America have to say?
Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826) 3rd American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat. Deist, avid separationist.
“Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”
“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.”
“Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies.”
“To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus told us indeed that ‘God is a spirit,’ but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter. And the ancient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter.” [letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820]
“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.” [Notes on Virginia]
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes” [Letter to von Humboldt, 1813].
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” [Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823]
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own” [Letter to H. Spafford, 1814].
“But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.”[in a letter to S. Kercheval, 1810]
“…an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, ‘Jesus Christ…the holy author of our religion,’ which was rejected ‘By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.'” [ From Jefferson’s biography]
James Madison, (1751-1836) American president and political theorist. Popularly known as the “Father of the Constitution.” More than any other framer he is responsible for the content and form of the First Amendment.
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
“In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” [April 1, 1774]
“…the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State” [Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819]
“Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together” [Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822].
John Adams 1735-1826, 2nd President of the United States
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.” [ in a letter to Thomas Jefferson]
“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
“Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.”
“But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.”
“Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1500 years.”
“The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.
also, for good measure, there’s a link to the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary (although the barbary states no longer exists), which says, among other things, that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion” (Article 11)
all this is in response to those who believe that this is in any way a "christian" nation. 8/
Judge OKs bag searches on NYC subway
Fri Dec 2, 2005 6:35 PM ET170
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge ruled on Friday that police had a constitutional right to randomly search passengers’ bags on the New York City subway to deter terrorist attacks.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruled the searches were an effective and appropriate means to fight terrorism, and constituted only a “minimal intrusion” of privacy.
“The risk to public safety of a terrorist bombing of New York City’s subway system is substantial and real,” Berman wrote in his opinion.
“The need for implementing counter-terrorism measures is indisputable, pressing, ongoing and evolving.”
Random bag searches began on July 22 after a second set of bomb attacks on London’s transit system.
In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the ruling, calling bag searches a “reasonable precaution” that police would continue to take.
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), which had sued to stop the searches, plans to appeal, Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. She said the “unprecedented” bag search program violated a basic freedom.
More than 4 million people a day ride the 101-year-old subway system, the nation’s largest.
The NYCLU had sued the city and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in early August, calling the policy of searching thousands of passengers a day without any suspicion of wrongdoing unconstitutional.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits searches without probable cause.
Police had argued random searches were a crucial deterrent to a possible attack.
The frequency of searches increased in October after Bloomberg said the FBI alerted him to a specific threat to the subway system. Searches were later reduced after the federal warning passed without incident.
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You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.
What is Your World View? (updated) |
That anguish Languish killed me. Terribly entertaining.