I have a simple solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian Debacle…
take down all the walls and declare
the population there in as Israeli citizens.
Arab and Jew, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Samaritans.
…but nobody ever listens to me…
Category: religion
What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah
What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah
Pussycat, Pussycat
I’ve got flowers
And lots of hours
To spend with you.
So go and powder your cute little pussycat nose!
Pussycat, Pussycat
I love you
Yes, I do!
You and your pussycat nose!
What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah
What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah
Pussycat, Pussycat
You’re so thrilling
And I’m so willing
To care for you.
So go and make up your cute little pussycat face!
Pussycat, Pussycat
I love you
Yes, I do!
You and your pussycat face!
What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah
What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah
Pussycat, Pussycat
You’re delicious
And if my wishes
Can all come true
I’ll soon be kissing your sweet little pussycat lips!
Pussycat, Pussycat
I love you
Yes, I do!
You and your pussycat lips!
You and your pussycat eyes!
You and your pussycat nose!
…Tom Jones…
(video clip)
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.
The Temptation of Adam and
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Sistine Chapel
When the power of love
overcomes the love of power
the world will know peace
…..Sri Chinmoy Ghose…..
- Labels: arms trade, big brother, money, religion, war
“Left-wing, chicken-wing, it’s all the same to me”…..Woody Guthrie.
Why would anyone have contempt for an educated person? I’ll tell you why, it’s because new information and discoveries have always challenged the beliefs of the past. The evolution of perspective inevitably changes the way we see reality and the world we live in. There are many who take up the mantle of conservatism to protect and insulate themselves and their beliefs from the perceived attack on their reality of the truth. The more extreme fundamentalist conservatives create and promote their own limited views by enshrining them in “legitimate” vehicles such as museums and encyclopedias. So today, for the purpose of shining the light of truth into the darkness of ignorance, I offer but two examples of how this practice can be harmful and dangerous and, dare I say it, specious, subterfuge, deception, dishonesty, etc.
______________________________________________
The website “Conservapedia” is a “copy-cat” online encyclopedia that mimics Wikipedia in order to gain “legitimacy” on the internet.
“The Conservapedia project has come under significant criticism for factual inaccuracies and factual relativism. Conservapedia has been compared to CreationWiki, a wiki written from the perspective of creationism, and Theopedia, a wiki covering the Bible. Some writers have compared it with new conservative websites competing with mainstream ones, such as MyChurch, a Christian version of social networking site MySpace, and GodTube, a Christian version of video site YouTube. The Guardian of the United Kingdom has referred to the Conservapedia’s politics as “right-wing”.
Thomas Eugene Flanagan, a conservative professor of political science at the University of Calgary, has argued that Conservapedia is more about religion, specifically Christianity, than conservatism and that it “is far more guilty of the crime they’re attributing to Wikipedia” than Wikipedia itself. Matt Millham of the military-oriented newspaper Stars and Stripes called Conservapedia “a Web site that caters mostly to evangelical Christians”. Its scope as an encyclopedia, according to its founders, “offers a historical record from a Christian and conservative perspective.” APC magazine perceives this to be representative of Conservapedia’s own problem with bias.
The project has also been criticized for promoting a dichotomy between conservatism and liberalism and for promoting relativism with the implicit idea that there “often are two equally valid interpretations of the facts”. Matthew Sheffield, columnist for The Washington Times and contributor to the conservative Media Research Center blog NewsBusters, argued that conservatives concerned about bias should contribute more often to Wikipedia rather than use Conservapedia as an alternative since he felt that alternative websites like Conservapedia are often “incomplete”. Author Damien Thompson says Conservapedia “is to dress up nonsense as science”.
Allegations of homophobia have also been raised against Conservapedia. Bryan Ochalla, writing for the LGBT (“lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender”) magazine The Advocate, referred to the project as “Wikipedia for the bigoted.” (read more)
______________________________________________
The “Creation Museum” is a laughable use of the word museum and another example of mimicry to gain a sense of legitimacy. Mimicry can be another form of deception.
“The Creation Museum is a “museum” that presents an account of the origins of the universe, life, mankind, and man’s early history according to a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. Its exhibits reject universal common descent, along with most other central tenets of evolution, and assert that the Earth and all of its life forms were created 6000 years ago over a six-day period. In particular, exhibits promote the claim that humans and dinosaurs once coexisted, and dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark. The museum exhibits are at odds with the vast majority of scientists who accept that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and that the dinosaurs became extinct 65.5 million years before human beings arose. The museum has generated criticism by the scientific community, several groups of educators, Christian groups opposed to young Earth creationism, and in the general press.
Professor Lord Robert Winston visited the museum and remarked, “I admit I was dismayed by what I saw at the Ken Ham museum. It was alarming to see so much time, money and effort being spent on making a mockery of hard won scientific knowledge. And the fact that it was being done with such obvious sincerity, somehow made it all the worse.”
Educators criticizing the museum include the National Center for Science Education. The NCSE collected over 800 signatures from scientists in the three states closest to the museum (Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio) on the following statement: “We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis.”
NCSE director Eugenie Scott characterized the Creation Museum as “the Creationist Disneyland.” The Guardian called the facility “quite possibly…one of the weirdest museums in the world.” Physicist Lawrence Krauss has called on media, educators, and government officials to shun the museum and says that its view is based on falsehoods. Krauss said that the facility is “as much a disservice to religion as it is to science.”
The museum has also been criticized by Christians who are not young Earth creationists. Notable among them is geologist Greg Neyman of Answers in Creation, an old earth creationism ministry. Neyman released a press kit dealing with the museum’s grand opening in which he said: “They will see the museum, and recognize its faulty science, and will be turned away from the church.
The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Cincinnati, Ohio, said it calls into question the whole Christian concept and “makes us a laughing stock.” Roman Catholic theologian John Haught sees little merit in the museum, saying it will cause an “impoverishment” of religion. Michael Patrick Leahy, editor of the magazine Christian Faith and Reason, says that by replacing the scientific method with biblical literalism, the museum undermines the credibility of all Christians and makes it easy to represent Christians as irrational.
Lisa Park, a professor of paleontology at University of Akron who is also an Elder in the Presbyterian Church was particularly disturbed by the museums depiction that war, famine and natural disasters are the result of a belief in evolution. She stated: “I think it’s very bad science and even worse theology…and the theology is far more offensive to me. I think there’s a lot of focus on fear, and I don’t think that’s a very Christian message…I find it a malicious manipulation of the public.”
The museum has also been accused of using 19th century human evolution theories, since refuted, to promote the idea that different human races came from Noah’s descendants dispersing after the Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel. In August 2009, more than 300 people part of the Secular Student Alliance took a tour of the venue, along with P.Z. Myers, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Scientists in the group, such as chemist William Watkin, commented about how scientifically wrong the displays are. Myers posted an account of the tour on his blog, including condemning the venue for “promoting the Hamite theory of racial origins, that ugly idea that all races stemmed from the children of Noah, and that black people in particular were the cursed offspring of Ham.”
In a March 2007 Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, 48% of respondents agreed with the statement “God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” According to an ABC news poll, 60% of Americans believe that “God created the world in six days.” (read more)
______________________________________________
A warning to those who would attempt to subvert the truth, it will bite you in the end. Perspective cannot be used to change or distort the truth, the truth is, with or without your perspective. There has always existed an age old battle between old and new, liberal and conservative, there is nothing inherently evil about either but both can be usurped. The neo-conservative is a wolf in sheeps clothing, an injured wolf, just like the ultra-liberal, both are extremists dealing in absolutes, both are undesirable. I understand how new and conflicting truths can threaten to destroy an entire life of belief, don’t be afraid of the truth. And what of the holdouts? We will have to drag them, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness”…..John Kenneth Galbraith.
It is the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope, a moment defined as the beginning of the end of the childhood of mankind, a moment when our eyes where opened to the truth of the universe.
Galileo had lived a long and very productive life before he revolutionized astronomy by turning a telescope to the sky. He learned medicine and mathematics at the University of Pisa and became an able instrument builder. He performed many experiments in the motion of bodies and convincingly toppled some of Aristotle’s notions, most notably the notion that heavier objects fall faster. Galileo proved soundly that all falling objects fall at the same rate, regardless of mass.
While a professor of mathematics at Padua, Galileo heard descriptions of a recent Flemish invention, the telescope, built with two convex lenses. Galileo worked out the geometry of this arrangement and built a telescope that magnified objects by a factor of ten. After getting a pay raise for this, he designed a more powerful version and pointed it at the sky, thereby changing astronomy forever.
“The moon was seen to have mountains, craters, and sea-like dark smooth areas. The sun had blemishes, or sunspots. The planets were seen as disks! The stars remained point-like. Venus showed phases like the moon. Jupiter had four moons, the inner ones revolving faster than the outer ones.”
Around 1611, Galileo ran into some trouble with the Church, which had embraced the Aristotlean cosmology. He was made to promise not to publish anything that implied that the Copernican view was real. He was careful to keep any remarks on the correctness of the Copernican sun-centered view repressed or expressed hypothetically until 1632, when, emboldened by good relations with the pope and some cardinals, he published his “Dialog on the Great World Systems” which was blatantly pro-Copernican.
In 1633, at age 70, Galileo was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy. The sentence of the Inquisition was in three essential parts:
Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse and detest” those opinions.
He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest.
His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.
It took nearly 400 years but, on November 4, 1992 Pope Paul II issued a formal and public apology concerning the treatment of Galileo saying, “The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture….”
Religion should embrace science, to seek the truth is to seek god, there is nothing to be gained by replacing truth with belief.
(excerpts from astro.wsu.edu and wikipedia.org)
In these past ten years or so we in Ireland, North and South, have been enjoying a stable and hopefully lasting peace. The thirty years of conflict, bloodshed and loss of life are more or less over. (It ended in the early to mid-nineties of the last century) Yet, as peace-makers we can never become too complacent, because there is much hatred and bitterness North of our border. Now, I am not saying for a minute that our brothers and sisters in the North of Ireland have a monopoly of these two vices – far from it. I readily admit that there is not a little hatred and bitterness in the hearts of some South of the border. However, statistics show that the North of Ireland is an extremely racist country. A report recently declared that some 20 or so Romanian people of the Roma ethnic minority had to flee back to their homeland because they had literally been burnt out of their homes. I am old enough to remember such happening in the Catholic areas of the North of Ireland in the early to mid 1960s. So, all people of good will, North and South of the border, and, indeed, all people of good will everywhere must be peace-makers with a deep compassion for all our fellow human beings! There is too much conflict in the world today – and there probably always was – but in these more enlightened days let’s be conflict breakers or conflict busters.
Sadly religions of all hues have been more often than not repositories, and indeed often promoters, of hate and bitterness. Anywhere in the world where there is inter-national and indeed intra-national war oftentimes religion or interpretations of that phenomenon lie at its heart. We have to go beyond religion and find a spiritual ground or baseline – the only solid foundation for intra and inter-national peace. With these thoughts in mind I offer here some words from the wonderful Dalai Lama on the matter of the difference between Religion and Spirituality:
I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another–an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit–such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
From “The Pocket Dalai Lama,” edited by Mary Craig, 2002. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.
- Labels: belief, compassion, dalai lama, enlightenment, humanity, love, non-violence, peace, religion, spirituality, together, violence, war
The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are a Congregation of religious brothers and sisters dedicated to a two-fold Crusade: the propagation and defense of Catholic dogma â especially extra ecclesiam nulla salus â and the conversion of America to the one, true Church.
OUTSIDE THE CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION
“Outside the Church there is no salvation” is a doctrine of the Catholic Faith that was taught By Jesus Christ to His Apostles, preached by the Fathers, defined by popes and councils and piously believed by the faithful in every age of the Church. Here is how the Popes defined it:
“There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)
“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)
[excerpt from catholicism.org]
Price of this salvation? “Religious submission of intellect and will.”
(Sounds exactly like a cult to me………really creepy)
One and the same?
…kiss your ass goodbye…
God created man in his image
….but then….
man created god in his image
- Labels: art, evolution, god, perspective, philosophy, religion
One of my daughters-in-law sent this to me, and I think it’s appropriate to share it here:
Some years ago, on a hot summer day, a little boy
decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole that was behind his
house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water, he ran out the back
door, leaving behind shoes, socks, and shirt as he went.
He flew into the water, not realising that as he swam toward the
middle of the lake, an crocodile was swimming toward the shore.
In the house, his mother was looking out the window. She saw the two
as they got closer and closer together. In utter fear, she ran toward
the water, yelling to her son as loudly as she could.
Hearing her voice, the little boy became alarmed, and made a U-turn
to swim to his mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the
crocodile reached him. From the dock, the mother grabbed her little
boy by the arms, just as the crocodile snatched his legs. That began
a very incredible tug-of-war between the two.
The crocodile was much stronger than the mother, but the mother was
much too passionate to let go.
A farmer happened to drive by, heard her screams, raced from his
truck, took aim, and shot the crocodile. Remarkably, after weeks and
weeks in the hospital, the little boy Survived. His legs were
extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal. On his arms,
there were deep scratches where his mother’s fingernails dug into his
flesh, in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.
The newspaper reporter, who interviewed the boy after the trauma,
asked the boy if he would show him his scars.
The boy lifted his pant legs. Then, with obvious pride, he said to
the reporter, ‘But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms,
too. I have them because my Mom wouldn’t let go.’
You and I can identify with that little boy.
We have scars, too. No, not from an crocodile, but the scars of a
painful past. Some of those scars are unsightly, and have caused us
deep regret. But, some wounds, my friend, are because God has refused
to let go. In the midst of your struggle, S/He’s been right there,
holding on to you.
Gurbani* teaches that God loves you.
You are a child of God. S/He wants to protect you, and provide for
you in every way. But, sometimes, we foolishly wade into dangerous
situations, not knowing what lies ahead. The swimming hole of life –
the terrifying world ocean – is filled with peril ~ and we forget
that anything can – and does – happen. That is when the tug-of-war
begins.
If you have the scars of His/Her love on your arms, be very, very
grateful. S/He will not ever let you go.
Never judge other persons’ scars, because you don’t know how they got them
(A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the
bricks that others throw at him or her.)
*Gurbani is a Sikh compound word from Guru – the dispeller of darkness – and bani – word. These are the writings of our Gurus. You can read it as “sacred scriptures” of whatever religion you believe in. If you don’t believe in any religion, that’s OK, too. Just consider “God” as whatever positive, loving force – personal or impersonal – that you find in this universe. If you can’t find a positive, loving force in this universe, I’m sorry. But, even then, please don’t give up the search.
Chardi kala!
It doesn’t matter to me
what you believe…
…as long as you give me the freedom
to believe what I want
- Labels: acceptance, belief, faith, perspective, religion, truth
Religion must die…….so that reason may live…..Bill Maher-Religulous.
…..god is not religion.
…..i will not humanize god……i will not sexualize god……god is change…..god is a process……god is……not a giant old white guy with a long white beard sitting in the clouds…….god!
…..all religion is…..man made.
…..ignorance is the original sin.
…..our ignorance is the reason for…..faith.
…..all the major religions teach the golden rule……that works.
…..god made man in his image…..but then…..man made god in his image.
…..fear has perverted religion, turning the golden rule…..into the
war of the gods.
…..ignorance creates fear….fear creates intolerance….intolerance creates extremism….extremism creates hate….hate creates destruction.
…..intolerance is another word for…….extremism.
…..ignorance+fear+intolerance+extremism+hate=destruction.
…..faith is innocent….ignorance is not.
…..religion divides us, spirituality brings us together.
…..we cannot fault man for faith….we can however, hold man and religion, responsible for ignorance.
…..you must first define, “faith”.
from the dictionary……faith 1: allegeance to duty or a person: LOYALTY 2: belief and trust in God 3: complete trust 4: a system of religious beliefs.
…..so the definition of “faith”…is what your trust is “in”…..duty, a person, God, or a religion.
…..the word “trust” more deeply describes “the reliance on the truth of something”….or truth.
…..so you might say that faith boils down to what you “believe” is true……or “your belief.”
…..and as i’ve said before…..
…..the “truth” has nothing to do……with what you “believe”.
…..in other words……faith is not always founded on truth.
…..i have faith the sun will come up in the morning……i have no faith in war.
…..i’m not afraid of god….what reason could there be?
…..i don’t believe in a god that needs to be worshiped.
…..i don’t believe in a god that would doom me to burn in eternal pain.
……though god may be love, god is above all truth…….god is even the atheism of the atheists……..mahatma gandhi.
- Labels: awakening, god, perspective, religion, spirituality, truth
I wrote this for my personal blog, sometimes – 2, and then I got to thinking. We as Sikhs are a little known and often misunderstood group. What better place to get to know us a little than on this blog that’s all about GlobaLove? This is a rather light-hearted look at our attitude toward hair.
My husband is again annoyed at all the money I spend on my hair. I think this is normal. Women do tend to spend a lot of money on their hair.
I was discussing this with a friend online. What are the things most women do to their hair? Straightening, I mean, relaxing, perming, weaves, cornrows (where did that name come from?), braids, extensions, all kinds of styling and, of course, cuts.
She said that she spends about $100.00 a month at the salon, in addition to home care products, such as shampoo, conditioner, gels, mousse, sprays and a weekly deep conditioner. That can easily add up to another $50.00 per month. Then there are brushes, combs, ties, and ornaments. I am going to disregard them, as I have no way to approximate that.
My expenses are somewhat less. In twenty years of marriage, I have been to a salon – not even one time. Wait, I was in a salon once. I’ll tell about that later. I have never used or paid for the services of a salon even once. Well, once…I’ll tell that story, too..
Given those figures, the average American woman would have spent about $36,000.00 over twenty years.
My expenses are somewhat less. I buy only three products for my hair: shampoo, conditioner and hair oil. Although I refuse to use that hair garbage from the dollar store – it makes my hair, which is very dry, break off and my scalp itch – I do not use the expensive salon items. I buy what is on sale at the local grocery/drug store. Shampoo and conditioner cost about $7.00 each for a bottle. One bottle will last me about a month. Hair oil, even imported from India is not expensive. The kind I usually use costs about $6.00 a bottle and lasts a couple of months. But let’s say, I use a bottle a month. That all adds up to to $20.00 per month. Over twenty years, that adds up to a grand total of $4,800.
That means I have saved us about $31,200 over the twenty years of our marriage. I’d say I’m quite a bargain!
About that trip to the salon. A friend asked me to meet her there. With some misgivings, I agreed. I do not think any keshdhari Sikh could possibly feel comfortable in such a place. (For my nonSikh readers, being keshdhari means following the distinctively Sikh practice of leaving the hair unshorn and in its natural state.)
I am keshdhari. Going to a hair salon felt a little like going to a brothel. Interesting, a bit disgusting, quite daring and very uncomfortable. I was very much out of place, rather like a lioness at a dog show.
I first noticed the smell. A hair salon smells a bit like a chemistry lab without fume hoods. Ammonia seemed to predominate, along with some smells I couldn’t identify. Someone had lit some incense, I suppose to cover up the noxious odours. It didn’t work. Both my nostrils and my eyes were assaulted and I felt vaguely sick to my stomach.
The sights that met my eyes were a bit shocking. I mean, I know what goes on in these places, but to actually witness it! Here were all these women, all seemingly having a good time, mutilating their hair in various ways with these toxic chemicals. I could almost hear their tortured hairs screaming out in agony. And on the floor lay strands and strings of amputated hairs of all sorts of colours, some natural, most dyed. All dead.
My friend was in another room, but the receptionist recognised her name when I asked her. I left a note asking her to meet me at a near-by coffee shop and got out of that chamber of horrors. That was maybe 15 years ago; I have not been in one since.
I will be honest. Many years ago, while married to Mani, I did go to a hair salon for a service. I took it into my head that I wanted to get my hair professionally conditioned. I think mostly I was curious at exactly what went on in there. I found out.
I explained that I just wanted a deep conditioning. As this was in Montreal, of course it was all in French. I’ll spare you and write in English. The young woman who was to serve me had bright blonde hair of an improbable shade puffed around her face to make her head look very round. She approached me. saw my neat bun and reached up to take out my kangha. I let out a yelp and fastened it to a sort of string around my neck. Jeanette – I don’t remember her name, but that seems appropriate – loosened my hair which fell and fell and fell. She actually let out a little gasp and said she’d never seen such long hair. There was no approval in her voice; in fact her tone was accusatory. She picked up the ends of it and with several hmm, hmm, hmms, examined them closely “Virgin hair,” she murmured.. “You have split ends. I’ll have to trim them off before it can be properly conditioned.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Cut a single hair and I’ll have your,” I caught my breath and choked back the obscenity that had been on my lips, “cosmetology licence.”
“Do you belong to some weird religious cult or something that won’t let women cut their hair?”
“Or something,” I growled. “And men don’t cut their hair either.”
“Well, you should break free and become your own woman.” She picked up her scissors. “Long hair is really not becoming on you with that long neck. You have such a high forehead, you really need some cute bangs. You really need a sexy new hair style. Let me help you get free from all ” – she held up my precious kesh – “this.”
I admit that I sprang out of the chair and got out of there fast. I suppose she still thinks that I came from some strange cult and had inadvertently wandered into the Twentieth Century.
After that I conditioned my own hair – or rather Mani and I did each other’s hair, which was not only safer, but also a lot more pleasant.
I have one more thought about long hair. I once watched on The Oprah Winfrey Show, an episode that greatly disturbed me. A bunch of women – and one man – with very long hair were to get makeovers. The main point was to cut off that awful, old-fashioned, ugly, long hair. Give these people a modern, “sexy” look. I admit they did look very different, but BETTER? Not in my opinion. I had the same reaction I have when someone suggests I’d look better if I wore make-up. I always respond,”Better? No, just different.” The man went from a strong, masculine man with a full beard and mustache, and hair as long as – although not as healthy – as a keshdhari Sikh to a somewhat girlish metrosexual. I did not like at all.
At least the shorn hair was donated to Locks of Love, a charity that makes human hair wigs for children who have lost their hair, usually as the result of cancer treatments. A worthy cause.
Now, in case you are thinking that these Sikhs are a bit daft with this whole hair thing, allow me a brief explanation. We believe that our Creator knew what it was doing when it made us and we couldn’t be more perfectly made. We have hair for a reason, in fact, several practical reasons which I am not going into right now. Even if we could find no practical reason for hair, the fact is that Akaal Purakh (God) gave us a gift of our hair and it is for us to gratefully accept and cherish this gift. (Of course, there’s more to it than that, but I think that’ll be enough for a start, eh?)
If we still seem a bit daft to you, that’s OK. We don’t mind. Most of us anyway.
WHY TRY TO FIT IN? YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT!
On a flight to Cameroon, beginning a weeklong trip through Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said, “you can’t resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
That the Pope would question the value of condoms in fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS is truly disturbing.
Troubled by the Pope’s comments, the French Foreign Ministry said, “We consider that these statements are a threat to public health policies and the imperative to protect human life.”
The International AIDS Society on Friday condemned Pope Benedict XVI’s denunciation of condoms as outrageous and insulting, warning that his comments could fuel HIV infection in devout Africa.
- Labels: birth control, ignorance, religion, truth
Teach your children well
(Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)
How to, reduce/minimize/avoid, abortion:
The majority of abortions
are because of “unintended” pregnancy.
“Unintended” pregnancies are
avoided with birth control and education.
The “Church” must embrace
birth control and education.
Overpopulation is a
serious threat to world peace.
Statistics on “abstinence-only sex education” show
girls are eight times more likely to allow “oral”
and six times more likely to allow “anal”.
The “Church”, in forbidding birth control,
is promoting overpopulation and ignorance.
The “Church”
must change position.
- Labels: abortion, acceptance, birth control, education, religion
Why should I love God? He strung up his son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he’d do to me.
……….Marquis de Sade from “Quills”……….
- Labels: god, humanity, perspective, religion
For while religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle more resembles a battlefield than an orchestra. Everywhere, in economic as well as in political life, the guiding principle is one of ruthless striving for success at the expense of one’s fellow men…….Albert Einstein.
It’s right to say you know God…………..It’s wrong to say you speak for Him.Jean Pictet, in his commentary on The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross points out the universal characteristics of humanitarianism:
The wellspring of the principle of humanity is in the essence of social morality which can be summed up in a single sentence, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” This fundamental precept can be found, in almost identical form, in all the great religions, Brahminism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism and Taoism. It is also the golden rule of the positivists, who do not commit themselves to any religion but only to the data of experience, in the name of reason alone.