Then I caught an excerpt from an interview he did with Bob Costas.

Q If these Olympics are as successful as they are shaping up to be, most people believe this only further legitimizes the ruling party in the minds on most Chinese citizens. And even absent true liberty as we understand it, the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese people are much better than they once were. Therefore, what’s the party’s incentive to reform?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, if you’re a religious person, you understand that once religion takes hold in a society it can’t be stopped. And secondly, I think the Olympics are going to serve as a chance for people to come and see China the way it is, and let the Chinese see the world and interface and have the opportunity to converse with people from around the world. This is a very positive development, in my view, for peace.

The Jon Stewart response to the first part of Bush’s response was that he must be talking about Christianity, but if your religion rhymes with, I don’t know, “buslim” then we must destroy you.

Here’s what gets me.  The response to “religious freedom” is that “once religion takes hold in a society it can’t be stopped.”  I don’t think he’s talking about religion in general; I think he’s talking about a specific religion.  If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have needed to start with “if you’re a religious person.”

One of my fears is that religion “can’t be stopped.”  This is hardly an argument for freedom of religion at all.  He’s implying that people become dependent on it and we can make decisions based on it and that religious law can become the law of the land.

How can a leader speak of freedom of religion while pointing toward control by religion in the same sentence?

Only George Bush could justify himself that way.

One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streets
of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the
roads are wet and slick.

Suddenly, my daughter, Aspen,
spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat. “Dad, I’m
thinking of something.”

This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some
fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all
that her six-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“The rain!” she began, “is like sin, and the windshield
wipers are like God wiping our sins away.”

After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond.
“That’s really good, Aspen.”

Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little girl take
this revelation? So I asked… “Do you notice how the rain
keeps on coming? What does that tell you?”

Aspen didn’t hesitate one moment with her answer:
“We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us.”

I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.

Isn’t it distressing to know that when you forward this message
you will not send it to many on your address list because
you’re not sure what they believe, or what they
will think of you for sending it to them.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think
of us than what God thinks of us.

In order to see the Rainbow, you must first endure some Rain.

My first response was simply “wtf”.  Basically, why are you sending me this garbage.  Then I thought about it for a few days and replied with the rest of the story.

As they pull up to their cookie-cutter suburban house, the car takes its place in front of the house on the street.  Aspen was feeling pretty good about herself as she reached for the door handle when her sister, Jessica, pipes up.

“You don’t have an umbrella.”
“So?, ” replies Aspen.
“Do you really want to run around out there with all that sin falling all over you?  Don’t you need protection from here to the house?  If the windshield wipers are like god, then your umbrella is like a church- giving you shelter and cover from all the oncoming sin.”

Well this stopped Aspen cold.  She couldn’t move and only stared out the window as their father has already made it up the house steps and stood in the doorway waiting.  She could only think about stepping out of the car and becoming soaked in sin without protection.

Then Jessica feeling pleased, as would any good sister, starts again.

“It’s not sin dummy.  Rain just happens.  Nobody puts it here and tells it to rain today.  That’s just the way the world works.  Nobody made it sunny last week and nobody is going to make it snow or not snow this winter.  It’s just how the world works.”

Still Aspen couldn’t move as she stared at the sin running down the window.

“Look,”  Jessica continued, “life happens around us constantly.  We don’t know who we’re going to meet or what events are going to happen to us; the events just come this way.  It’s not that rain is bad.  It’s more that we have to accept the rain and be able to handle it.  If we view the world as good and bad all the time, then we never get over that point.  If we view the world as events, then we must merely prepare ourselves to get over it.”

Still Aspen couldn’t quite get her years of Sunday School out of her head as she watched two little drops of sin race down as if the first one to bottom of the window owned her soul.  Jessica decided she had to take one last try as their dad had begun to look worried in the doorway.

“Here,” she said as she opened the door and stuck her hand out collecting a couple raindrops and pulling them back in to the car.  “Nobody placed these raindrops in my hand.  There is no guiding hand that said these two raindrops should be here.  I simply reached out and pulled in two raindrops that came across my hand.”  Aspen looked at her instead of the running sin for the first time.

“It’s not sin,”  as Jessica continued since she had her sister’s undivided attention for the first time.  “It’s rain.  Sometimes we come across a little rain.  We can be worried about it or we can understand that rain will fall.  So we’re going to go in, get a little wet, ask Mom to make us some hot chocolate to warm up, and we’ll be fine.  Tomorrow, we’ll put on our boots and go stomp in some sin puddles.”

As Jessica saw the little light go off in Aspen’s head, Jessica got out of the car and laughed as the rain fell down on her.  She opened the door for Aspen and said one last thing, “Think for yourself.”  With that, the two girls ran toward the house taking a moment to enjoy the random rain that fell upon them knowing that they had nothing to be afraid of as long as they took responsibility for themselves.

And some hot chocolate.

It’s always perspective.  Thomas Kincade paintings don’t bring miracles and convincing your six year old that life is good and evil or black and white gives me chills more than it should you.

My site has been hacked twice in the last week and a half.  So I’ve had to go through and fix the posts that they have replaced and reset my settings, which makes it look like my old posts are new.  Quite annoying.  Hopefully I’ve figured out how to keep them from doing that again.  If not, I’ll persist.

Yesterday I was writing a post and was most the way thorugh it when a small surge hit the house turning off the power for a second.  I lost everything, which confused me because Worpress used to autosave every few minutes before 2.6.  Hmm, maybe it’s a setting I have to find now.  Maybe people complained about it for some reason.

A lesser person may think that a blog like this is being “told” something.

It’s just a little bad luck.  We all must endure some bad luck on occasion.  That’s how life works.

Nonetheless, my doorbell rang the other day as my daughter’s friend hollered for her to come out.

“You gotta see this, you gotta see this!”  She shouted as she saw my daughter.

And out they went.

Soon they were back to get my other daughter.  Again with the same “gotta see this” yelling.

I saw it as I came home that afternoon.  The big inflatable jumping thing and the barbecue going and the loads of people.  Why it was the church block party, and it was right here in my neighborhood.

I guess I’m lucky enough to have a local preacher living in my neighborhood and he sponsored a block party to help spread the word.  I’m sure all expenses were tax deductible.

They (I know there was more than one pusher) ask my daughter and her friend if they went to church.  They answered no.  Maybe they could see it in my daughters’ eyes.  They weren’t going to get very far with this one.  She’s been taught tolerance and given the freedom to think for herself.  They handed a pamphlet to the friend.

“Enjoy your time, ” they said.

Peddling church like a carnival.

On a different occasion from a different church we found a packet with some information and two pieces of Double Bubble gum.  My kids could only ask, “Why would a church give you gum?”

Good question.

Somehow we’re more likely to go to church and buy the stories if they only give us a little something.  Is salvation not enough anymore?  Is it not enough to guilt people with their souls?

A different church was parked outside the local grocery store a month ago.  Note that the local grocery store isn’t a mom and pop’s, but rather a Safeway.  Anyway, the people parked outside it were handing to shoppers a cup of soda…. and a pamphlet.

Do these gimmicks work?  Does a few pennies worth of pop and gum or a block party actually achieve higher turnout?

If so, then what is the point?  Why do they need higher turnout if the simple message they are trying to tell is not enough?  If the message was enough, then no product or game would be necessary.  Instead they offer something to people in order to expand their base.

If expanding the base is not done with the message, then what’s to be gained?

You have to spend money to get money is what I have often heard.  Must be money to made for somebody in there somewhere.

Several more examples of doing whatever it takes to make a buck.

Greedy fuckers.

Her friend has a daughter that is in between the age of our two daughters.  She spent some time with us this past weekend.  Not enough time to corrupt the poor child.

See, my wife’s childhood friend didn’t get fortunate enough to meet somebody with an open mind.  She wasn’t fortunate enough to meet somebody that would challenge normal convention and allow for free thought.  I’ve said these types of things before, but nonetheless.

I’m not posting to discuss this young girl that stayed with us over the weekend.  It’s the first time I met her and she’s far too young to understand the rules and ideas that are being poured into her head.

My wife and I were discussing the older children from a previous marriage.  The youngest of the three has just finished high school.  He told my wife and daughter a few days ago that he wanted to be a writer.  Wow, so does my oldest child.  The older of my two would like to write creative works of fiction for a living when she gets older.  So my wife tried to engage the young man.  She asked him what he would like to write.  He said something along the lines of facts and history.

I said, “Give me a week with him.”

Here’s the thing, and I do believe this is where so much of the shit in the world comes from.  The first several years of the kid’s education was in the home.  The rest was at a private school dedicated to Christian studies.

Often used as a cliche is that history is written by the winners.  Take that a step further and history is taught in the teacher’s perspective.  The perspectives that he has been taught are limited and are not the basis for which any person should write.

I feel that as he smuggly says that he wishes to write about facts and history, he likely has a very limited idea of what those are.  I also feel that is the problem with our society.  Nobody goes and takes in other perspectives with an open mind.  Instead, they have been brainwashed with information for so long they dismiss anything from a different point of view.

Maybe he’s be better off writing fiction loosely based on what he has learned in his limited exposure.

Then again, the way this country has been run the last 30 years, he may do just fine writing about the shit dumped into his brain since he was born way back in 1989.

Personally, I was amazed at how much history changed from what the public education system taught me to what was presented during college and what I learned from just doing my own research.  Keeping an open mind and being willing to learn from others is vital and key to learning and understanding our history as people and as a country.

I’ll talk about one in another post, but for right now I feel like discussing the one that I believe he has been sending around regarding taxes.

I hate taxes as much as the next person.  They are a pain to consider.  We are all selfish and don’t want to contribute anything to the government if we don’t have to.  Then we also learn of all the wasted money that the government spends and it makes it even tougher for us to want to do our part.  Or course, taxes are a source of revenue for the country.

The e-mail that I read compares the tax plans of the two candidates.  Over several examples, the post shows that Obama will have higher taxes than McCain.

Then I read this news story.  Record deficit predicted for 2009.

Driven by dwindling tax receipts caused by the economic downturn and the payment of more than $100bn (£50bn) in stimulus cheques to US consumers, the figure was higher than the Bush administration’s previous estimate of a $407bn gap for the 2009 fiscal year starting in October.

Then I go and look at the current debt at $9.5 trillion dollars.

Maybe I’m not getting this.  Maybe nobody should ever pay any taxes and the government should spend and spend and spend.

But I actually think it’s a good thing to have a balanced budget.  That we actually create some revenue.  That maybe we shouldn’t spend so much money if we don’t need to and not pass along huge amounts of debt to our children and our grandchildren.

If I remember correctly, there was once a balanced budget.  Way back in the ’90’s.

I think Obama is at least being reasonable and realistic.  He’s suggesting that we cannot continue to spend without bringing in any revenue.  He understands that we really should not be dependent on borrowing from other countries in order to run our government.

A woman approached her, as she was washing her hands, and asked her if she goes to church.  My wife replied with a no.  The woman replied with, that’s too bad.  Apparently, this woman believes that 9/11/2009 is going to be the last day and that she has taken it upon herself to approach people in the ladies room and talk them into going to church so that they will not be judged poorly.  This lady did add that she was only telling my wife because she cared.

I told my wife that my response would have been, “I’ll tell you what.  I’ll live my life and if the world ends on 9/11, then you win.  Otherwise, when 9/12 comes around, let’s meet back here in the store, but not the restroom, so that I can tell you that you were wrong and to never bother people in such a way again.  Sound fair?”

She chuckled, agreed, and then told me, “Yeah, but I think she was a bit loony anyway.”

Aren’t they all?

Let’s face it.  People are willing to plaster the logo of their favorite team on their car, on their house, and especially on their person.  Team logos are plastered even if it is accompanied by the logo of corporate advertising, which it often is.

People support colleges they never went to in order think they are associated with a winner somehow.

Many make it personal.  Comments like “We really beat you guys good yesterday” or “How are you guys gonna do this weekend?” baffle me.  Always have.

Somebody was talking about an ex co-worker of mine with me recently.  He took my old job when I left and the comment was that he doesn’t talk much.  I responded with sure he does.  He’ll talk about the local football team to no end.  He has their logo on his car and on his jacket and before his promotion he had it on every shirt he wore.  The only words I’ve ever heard him say are ones relating to that team.  Not likely to find a woman who will care that much about football.  Anybody who hasn’t let go of adolescent sports fanaticism by his 30’s doesn’t impress me.

I love baseball.  I really do, but most people can’t get their head around the fact that I don’t have a favorite team.  I really just enjoy watching the game and I often determine a team to root for on a game-by-game basis.  It is a competition afterall.  I don’t take the sport personally.  These are guys who have nothing to do with me or the area in which I grew up.  Home team fanaticism makes no sense outside of the fact that it’s nice to have a professional team here.

It doesn’t stop at sports though.  We, as a culture, love to be divided.  We love to point fingers.  We love to raise our giant foam finger in the air.  People proudly wear their Old Navy American Flag shirt all year round to show their loyalty to the country in which they were lucky enough to be born.

Certainly, it is important to take an interest in our country and support it, but extreme sense of nationalism really doesn’t interest me.  I find it counter productive but a very good method by which governments can control the population.

I can’t even begin to count how many fish I see placed on cars as I drive to work and back each day.  Not just fish, but the Darwin fish with legs and then the fish with the word “Truth” inside eating the Darwin fish with legs.  It’s so competitive.

The bumper stickers of each person’s favorite candidate are starting to populate everywhere which baffles me even more.  Hey, in a few long months your car’s going to be out of date.  They may try to hide the fact that you have a loser’s bumper sticker stuck to their car or they may keep it on another four years to show that they were supporting the winner all along.

All this political candidate spirit after the Democrats were so divided amongst their two candidates that had very little differences from each other outside of charisma.  Insults were created for each others’ supporters to make their support seem the smart thing to do.

Little boys in striped shirts pissing on the Chevy logo, the Ford logo, country flags, party logos, and on and on.  Is there anything that little punk won’t piss on?  Is there anything that I will give a fuck about when he does it?  Maybe if one day there is one made of him pissing into the wind.

If somebody is a part of a team, then it is important for that person to support their team with no limitation.  Teams are a valuable method of bonding and creating sense of importance- even if recreational.  Even if at work.  Forming teams, working within them, and creating something as a member of one can be very satisfying.

I wish more of America would understand the true nature of team.

I wish America would stop being so damn competitive.

Put away your big foam finger.

Your web page is interesting.

What influence you to become a better person? What do you turn to when you need to center yourself and get back on track?

First reaction?  What?  Without a god or religion a person can’t be centered or has no reason to be a better person?

I don’t believe these words were meant to be ill though.  I can take them at face value.

The first question is better person.  I’m taking that question to regard attitudes toward others.  At the heart of most atheists is the belief that there shouldn’t be a reason to be good.  There shouldn’t be a consequence outside of what one’s actions do to others.  That those who are good only for the sole purpose of getting into some cloudy paradise aren’t really good at all.

This is called humanism.  According to Merriam-Webster:

a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason

So a focus on the value of human life and not the value of human death.  The Western religions all use life as a means to death and an ultimate reward.

As far as centering goes, well that seems to depend on the person.

Since you asked me… music, exercise, good conversations, and a solid dose of family.

Balance is everything.  For every bit of work, counter with a moment of play.

I’ll assume your method of centering may be similar.  Maybe a different order.  Maybe with different coefficients of centering.  Maybe our struggles to find that point of center is the same- forcing the time.

Anyway, thanks for commenting.  I hope you’ve found some value.

As if, somehow, it doesn’t seem that Obama is completely campaigning from the churches these days and not from lecture halls.

As if it’s not annoying enough that each and every one of his speech’s could rival Rod Parsley’s ranting and raving on the stage in front of thousands.

Maybe it’s simply locking up the nomination for the Democrats that has allowed Obama to become extremely blatant about his faith.  To tell the world that his faith will be first and foremost in his presidency.

Is he trying to show us that he is more devout that Bush?  Is he trying to make us think, “hmm, Obama’s alright; if only he were less religious like Bush”?

Ever since capturing the nomination has spent countless hours trying to make a mockery of the separation of church and state.

By announcing that he plans to overhaul Bush’s faith-based initiative, Obama is taking yet another step in the wrong direction.  He once portrayed himself as a man of principle, and now he is simply doing whatever he can to become president.

The world does not need more faith-based initiatives.

“Make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea,” Obama said.

He emphasized that those receiving funds could not proselytize the people they help nor could they discriminate in hiring practices on the basis of religion. Faith-based groups could only use federal dollars for secular programs. And he committed to ensure that taxpayer dollars would only go to “programs that actually work.”

Oh.  So the funds can’t be used to proselytize?  Nor can they be received if people are being discriminated against.  Fantastic.  And who’s going to head up this operation?  Who’s going to police the use of funds for all the “right” reasons?

Obama’s “rock-star” status has turned into something a lot less cool.

There is not a shortage of religious leaders and we certainly don’t need one in the White House.

What do I want?  Somebody to stop jerking our collective chain.  Obama seemed, for a second, to be the one to actually implement change, or at least enough to make us feel we’re going kinda-sorta in the right direction.

Instead, we’re getting more of the same.  Packaged slightly different.  Tone is quite a bit better.  May actually be somebody who earned his degree.

They say he’s courting the Christian Left.  How about simply courting the left?  How about showing that religion doesn’t actually have to play a part in the election process?

Thank you Jesus.