Hypocritical Republicans

I just found my first blog called "Musings" which I reread and published. I was rather amused at how prescient it was regarding the hypocrisy of religion and politics.
The latest in a long and frankly, annoying string of moral "oops's" by the Republican Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, eloquently illustrates the point I made in my last blog.
I moved to the U.S. in 1980 from Europe and was immediately dismayed at the electoral choice. From the start, it was obvious Ronald Reagan was a mouth piece for special corporate interests set on breaking labor unions, a friend to the very wealthy and most disturbingly, a champion of the "Grand Hypocrisy" known as the Moral Majority. (By the way, we truly owed the end of the cold war to Gorbachevs' courage, not Reagans'). For the past thirty years, it has been proven time and time again ad nauseam how this vocal political faction has been neither moral, nor a majority. And what is today's political product of this moral majority? How about Sarah Palin! Ignorant to a fault on international relations, clueless about the economy and worse, defender of religious zealots everywhere! Somehow, America has been duped into believing that adultery, homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, etc. has any place at all in the American political arena.
I used to cringe every time I heard Jerry Falwell speak because to me, he sounded like a self righteous, hypocritical, cruel and judgemental man. Pretty much everything Jesus Christ told us not to be! Like so many after him, what goes around comes around and he was caught with his pants down. Rush Limbaugh's day is coming...
So, this brings us back to Mark Sanford and all those other Republican hypocrites. But, you say, the Democratic representatives have been guilty of these sins. Yes, but they (for the most part) don't run around telling everyone they are going to hell for being who they are. And. by the way, adultery is mentioned in the Ten Commandments whereas I see no reference to homosexuality. The few lines here and there in the bible are within the historical context of an era which was strongly condeming slavery and the selling of young children, boys and girls, to serve as sexual toys. In my opinion, that is the true point of the few references in Deuteronomy, etc.
When is America going to wake up and leave the medical issues to doctors, the sex issues to individuals and families, the scientific experiments to specialists and most of all, the judging of people to God. Can I get an Amen? Cm'on people rise up...do not let these hypocrites run our lives!!!!!

Introductory Musings

I wanted my first blog entry to be something deep and meaningful, or some mind blowing political commentary that would send the world a twitter. After musing about this for a few days though, I've decided to just jot down some of my beliefs.

I believe God exists. I also know Atlantis existed, as well as dragons and, if any of their ancestors were ever to be uncovered, this would be in Asia and not the West. I believe the oppression of woman and thus, their children, has put a sour taste in the mouth of our global village and has additionally thrown off the balance almost every spiritual teaching worth it's salt.

Actually, I was watching an interesting show produced by James Cameron (I think) on the history channel about the Exodus the other night. He did a well researched expose on the "scientific" basis for the Exodus of the Israelites described in the Bible. I found it fascinating and generally agreed with the show's premise that history could be tweeked to match the scientific evidence left from that time. That is that most of the plagues could be linked to a nearby volcano explosion. All the information seemed to flow pretty well except for the deaths of the first born sons of Egypt. I couldn't help but see God's hand in that punishment of the Egyptian slave owners.

The information that really fascinated me however, was the fact that Moses and his followers had gold with them. This indeed was a new historical tidbit for me and while the show's m.c. went on to describe the fact that the Pharoeh let Moses go and then changed his mind, something really obvious struck me. If the Pharoeh had finally been strong armed by God to let Moses go, why on earth would he change his mind and send his army after him? It seemed simple. Soon after the slaves departure, he realized that Moses and his followers had helped themselves to quite a bit of gold out of the royal treasury! That could have been one pretty obvious reason why the Pharoeh would have been angry enough to risk God's wrath again. And, as we know, things didn't go so well for the Pharoeh and his army since they all drowned. No one mentioned my theory in this biblical documentary because, I'm guessing, it could not be proved scientifically or just maybe, no one thought of it! This random thought does however, illustrate my point of how easy it is for people to come up with their own interpretations of events. This is also why man should be extremely careful interpreting spiritual messages. I fear the world has always been too cavalier in their understanding of God's word. The catholic church of the 21st century being a prime example but that's for another time!!!

Why, you ask, do I bring this up? For one, because I believe it beautifully illustrates a point that often seems to be passed over in man's social, politcal and judicial interpretation of "Holy" sources (i.e. Bible, Khoran, etc.). The fact that all these books were written by, if not multiple sources, certainly by multiple points of view. For some strange reason this simple fact alone seems to escape a large majority of those who would quote these works as infallible sources that have justified all kinds of godless behavior for centuries. And this....really, really pisses me off!!

The bible, for example, is so full of contradictions that the only passages I would personally ever dare quote are Jesus's own words heard and experienced by multiple sources whom, at that time, could corroberate what Jesus said and did! What's even more unfortunate is how this mixing of religion and politics has ended up causing seriously catastrophic results illustrated by all the destruction caused in God's name over thousands of years.

Though some examples may be obvious today like what is happening in Iran (where there has been a serious perversion of Mohammed's message), people don't acknowledge how twisted some political factions in America have also become. Jesus's implicit teaching of love, understanding and tolerance has been confused and the bible's messages have become a bizarre mixture of justification for hate, denial, prejudism, hypocrisy, greed, etc. Now this is a topic that is of extreme anxiety for me since I live in America and thus, feel the immediate repercussions of this seriously confused understanding of religion. More to come....