A blog about Religion & Faith, Personal Journals, and Health & Wellness.
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Maybe you asked the question wrong? *Birthers* the New Hate Word. Buying Forward. Maturity Truth and Stories. Breaking News: Mexico proposing it's own border wall! God's Miracle In Albania Explanation for Crop Circles Found! Insanity or Demonic Possession Obama cruel to animals!!! October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 +Christ is Risen+ 
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Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year. How long a minute is depends on what side of the bathroom door you're on. Birthdays are good for you; the more you have, the longer you live. Happiness comes through doors you didn't even know you left open. Ever notice that the people who are late are often much jollier than the people who have to wait for them? Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us. If Wal-Mart is lowering prices every day, how come nothing is free yet? You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once. Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened. We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
Shortly after class, an economics student approaches his economics professor and says, "I don't understand this stimulus bill. Can you explain it to me?"
The professor replied, "I don't have any time to explain it at my office, but if you come over to my house on Saturday and help me with my weekend project, I'll be glad to explain it to you." The student agreed.
At the agreed-upon time, the student showed up at the professor's house. The professor stated that the weekend project involved his backyard pool.
They both went out back to the pool, and the professor handed the student a bucket. Demonstrating with his own bucket, the professor said, "First, go over to the deep end, and fill your bucket with as much water as you can." The student did as he was instructed.
The professor then continued, "Follow me over to the shallow end, and then dump all the water from your bucket into it." The student was naturally confused, but did as he was told.
The professor then explained they were going to do this many more times, and began walking back to the deep end of the pool.
The confused student asked, "Excuse me, but why are we doing this?"
The professor matter-of-factly stated that he was trying to make the shallow end much deeper.
The student didn't think the economics professor was serious, but figured that he would find out the real story soon enough.
However, after the 6th trip between the shallow end and the deep end, the student began to become worried that his economics professor had gone mad. The student finally replied, "All we're doing is wasting valuable time and effort on unproductive pursuits. Even worse, when this process is all over, everything will be at the same level it was before, so all you'll really have accomplished is the destruction of what could have been truly productive action!"
The professor put down his bucket and replied with a smile, "Congratulations. You now understand the stimulus bill."
A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?" The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, and even fixed his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk." The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way. Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks accept him, feed him, and fixed his car. That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk." The man says, "All right, all right. I'm dying to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?" The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk." The man sets about his task. Forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, "I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth." The monks reply, "Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound." The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, "The sound is right behind that door." The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, "Real funny, may I have the key?" The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, amethyst... Finally, the monks say, "This is the last key to the last door." The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound. But I can't tell you what it is because you're not a monk.
Cheerios made a sexist commercial that is demeaning to men. This can not stand!!!!!!!!!!http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.co...
In the media there have been a few secularist fundamentalist attacking other faiths. Materialist and Spiritual people alike have responded that intolerance is still intolerance and that trying to deny any religion it's civil rights is against the separation of Church and State. This article repeats that argument. Enjoy;) Recurrent themes in President Barack Obama's speeches have been the need to give adequate weight to the "common good" -- to find a new balance of the "me" and the "we"; to cross boundaries that divide us; to care for others; to be inclusive; to fulfill responsibilities, not just claim rights; and to hold the future on trust for those who follow us. Rev. Carol Finlay, a Toronto Anglican priest, points out that these are some of the beliefs the monotheistic faiths share, and what they teach as a basis for our personal and social lives. She writes: "They all emphasize putting the other before oneself; love for a transcendent Being first, then love for neighbour; special care for the poor, marginalized, older people, parents; rules of behaviour (holiness) with accountability (yes, even liberal Christians); that a meaningful life comes from service; there is meaning in suffering; ... and the unseen is the most powerful aspect of the universe and our lives." She asks, "Without religion's role, where do we find these values in our society as firmly and clearly stated? What would we lose if religion was taken out of the mix in our society?" The secularists' -- atheists' and humanists' -- response is, "nothing". Indeed, they go much further. Many of them believe religion is seriously harmful, even evil. All believe religion has no valid role in our shared values formation and no place in the public square of a secular society. They base their arguments on the doctrine of the separation of church and state. They are correct that "we can be good without God". But can we get our shared values across so powerfully or well if we exclude religious voices? In particular, these voices may be needed to activate all our human ways of knowing, not just reason, which the secularists see as the only valid way. In short, we need a conjunctive, not disjunctive, approach -- we need both religion and secularism, and must build bridges between them. Let me be clear: We are secular, democratic societies and there is rightly a separation of church and state. But that separation does not mean religious voices have no place. Rather, it means the state, and its laws and public and social policy, are not based directly on religious beliefs and laws as they are in Islamic societies such as Iran. Democracy is founded on principles of liberty and equality. Its genius is that, at its best, it allows us to live peacefully together despite our differences by finding where we can agree and holding in creative tension the issues we disagree about, rather than engaging in destructive conflict. To privilege secularism, as some advocate, is to contravene liberty and equality and to prevent democracy functioning properly -- in short, it's anti-democratic. I have long pondered why fundamentalist neo-atheists, like the scientist Richard Dawkins, are so passionate about their disbelief. Just read his book, The God Delusion, to see this, or consider the large amount of funds given to the "no God" advertising/proselytizing campaign. Such passion seems to show that we all have a need for some form of powerful belief (or disbelief) in order to find meaning in life. Our most human characteristic is that we are meaning-seeking beings. The Latin root of the word religion is religare -- to bind together -- and we humans need to bind together, not only to find meaning, but to form a society. So if we abandon traditional religions, how can we do that? The emergence of "secular religions" could be one response. Science, for example, can function as a secular religion and does so when it becomes scientism. The same is true of ethics when it becomes moralism. It's also true of sport, and the combination of sportism with another "ism," nationalism, is especially powerful. And environmentalism is at least a secondary religion for more and more people -- but even that has its disbelievers and critics! In short, we are witnessing the emergence of a very large number and range of secular religions. None of these "isms" is harmful in itself, but they are harmful to finding a "shared ethics," as I believe we need to do when they are promoted -- as, for instance, Mr. Dawkins does with scientism -- to deny any space for spirituality and traditional religion in the public square. Secularism, the most encompassing "secular religion", functions as a basket holding all the others and we also need to understand that it is not neutral, as atheists and humanists claim. It too is a belief system used to bind people together. Consequently, it is inconsistent and unjust to exclude religious voices from the democratic public square on the basis that views based on belief systems have no place. We urgently need to engage in an ongoing search for a "shared ethics" in our local, national and global societies. But we can't possibly hope to find that unless everyone, both people who are not religious and those who are religious -- and, if so, no matter which religion -- can participate in that search. That requires religious voices to be heard in the public square. This search will help us to recognize that although we might disagree with “the other side” on some issues, we can agree with them on others, and that will allow us to experience ourselves as belonging to the same moral community. There will be groups at either end of a broad spectrum of values who will never buy into a shared ethics, but the vast majority of people can cross the divides between them -- including the secular/religious one -- to find common ground. We need a shared ethics to "hold on trust" for future generations, not just our physical world, but our metaphysical one - the values, principles, beliefs, stories and so on that create and represent the "human spirit". In other words, that which makes us human. Margaret Somerville is founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University.
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The week of the United States presidential inauguration happened to coincide with the atheists' advertising campaign, "There's probably no God." Looking at these stories together can provide some important insights.