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Friday, June 26, 2015

Pope's Climate Change Encyclical Missing Key Point

Wonderful as it is that the Pope is taking a public stand on global warming and climate change, he's left out one huge point: the primary driving force behind climate change is human overpopulation. And none of the other religions who have taken a stand against environmental degradation and global warming have taken a stand on overpopulation either. Why? Because they do not want their own group's numbers to diminish. They want their own membership and prestige to grow.
http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/world-religious-leaders-climate-change?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=linkewire3&utm_campaign=email

http://www.pewforum.org/2009/04/16/religious-groups-views-on-global-warming/

By my way of thinking, any plan to decrease global warming and climate change that doesn't include increased use of contraceptives is hypocritical. Therefore, the countries that are doing the most to stabilize our world's climate and ecology are those showing significant population decreases (even if they don't promote the use of contraception).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Papal Encyclical Vexes America's Religious Right and Big Business Catholics

A papal letter sent to all bishops of the Roman Catholic Church is a welcome relief in contrast to dogmatic and short sightedness of the fundamentalistic religious right. It is good that it's also vexing for many big business Catholics. .....

"It turns out that environmental issues are particularly vexing for the Catholic Church, especially in the United States. They carry implications for Big Business, often with ties to wealthy Catholics, as well as for the world’s growing population, which brings up questions of birth control. For the religious right, the Vatican’s endorsement of the U.N. alarm about global warming amounts to an endorsement of the U.N. agenda to give women access to contraception and abortion."......

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/before-francis-long-line-of-popes-voiced-environment-alarm/

Comment: What's amusing is the fact that this same encyclical indirectly confronts every group both big and small that has invaded neighboring territories all the way down through history up through Western imperialism, America's gunboat diplomacy in 19th century Japan, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Russia's seizure of Crimea, etcetra, etc.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/30/pope-francis-has-given-the-climate-movement-just-what-it-needed-faith/

Movie: " The Earthling" -- Growing Up The Hard Way Fast

Movie: " The Earthling" -- Growing Up The Hard Way Fast

When I was a secondary school teacher, I always found an appropriate way to integrate this movie into my curriculum. I even own three VHS tapes of it to ensure I can always have it on hand. It's a rare classic that all teenagers are touched by when they see it. And adults that aren't too callous appreciate it, also.

"Patrick Foley (William Holden) has been on the move all his life, indeed a life of adventure truly lived. Tired of drifting and now ill, he wants to spend his last days in the isolated Australian valley where he grew up. On his difficult journey he encounters Shawn (Ricky Schroeder), a city-boy whose parents were killed in an accident in this remote, inhospitable territory. Being unable to accompany the boy back to the civilized world Foley reluctantly takes the boy with him on his trip to the valley of his own boyhood. Along the way, and when the two finally reach the valley, Foley teaches Shawn the ways of the Australian Outback, how to survive what most would call an incredibly rugged way of life. He empowers the boy, teaching him among many things perhaps the most powerful lesson of all, to embrace and overcome fear. While Foley teaches Shawn how to survive, he in turn receives a priceless gift and lesson of his own, that of love."

"The Earthling": 

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Akbar The Great: Heretic or Saint?

Muslims have mixed feelings about Mughal Emperor Jodhaa Akbar. As a conqueror who expanded the Islamic world by conquering most of what is now present day India, he's an exalted hero. As a man who was more spiritual than a fervently religious Islamic, he was a heretic.

Among other efforts, he tried to establish a religion that would unite rather than divide. He was antithetical to religious fundamentalists who are unenlightened and incapable of the higher order thinking that is required to truly begin understanding the Godly intent of their own religion's spirituality....

"The Dīn-i Ilāhī (Persian: دین الهی‎ lit. "Religion of God") was a syncretic religion propounded by the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great in 1582 AD, intending to merge the best elements of the religions of his empire, and thereby reconcile the differences that divided his subjects. The elements were primarily drawn from Islam and Hinduism, but some others were also taken from Christianity, Jainism and Zoroastrianism".

Watch Movie: "Jodhaa Akbar"
 https://youtu.be/ePEVqAN7cWQ

Movie review:
 http://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/movies/16akba.html?referrer=&_r=0

Note: Mariam-uz-Zamani (1542 – 1623) was a wife of the Mughal emperor Akbar. She has also been referred to by several other names, including “Jodha Bai”, the name used in the movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam-uz-Zamani



Sunni Theofascists & Shiite Theocratic Statism

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Sunni Wahabi enclaves support extreme fundamentalistic Sharia Law. The hijackers that destroyed the World Trade Center were such individuals, as is ISIS. Rigid, absolutist and backwards though it is, Wahabi doctrine is very appealing to those who find security in its theofascist manifestations.
Iran is a Theocratic state. Strict Muslim practices are maintained. But no Al Qaeda type terrorist organizations exist. There's no need, because the government is already Islamicaly controlled.
ISIS will be the theocratic counterpart to this. Neither of these groups are truly spiritually oriented. They are simply religious outpicturings of assumed spirituality. The only Muslim group that can possibly be called spiritual is the Sufis. Their focus is on the God within. This allows God to manifest into our world properly.

http://annaqed.com/en/terrorism/saudi-arabia-wahhabism-and-the-spread-of-sunni-theofascism

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Putin: Creating A Fascist State?!


After Hitler won over the hearts and minds of his people with sustained propaganda and military showcasing, he became judge and jury with the power of life and death over everyone. Germans had been so desperate for a rebirth of national glory that they were willing to sacrifice everything. Hitler promised better times, and when this was less than promised, he declared that it was all the fault of the insidious Jews.

Today, Putin is playing the strongman trying to "protect" Russia from outside forces. Anyone who disagrees will be increasingly belittled and harassed by the equivalent of Hitler's "brown shirts" as time goes by. Meanwhile, he longs for the days of the Soviet Empire. Among other things, this requires the land and resources of the Ukraine, which Hitler also coveted. Russians may not want war; but, Putin is not scared of it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/putin-isn-t-reviving-ussr-101500375.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/secret-money-behind-vladimir-putins-210001032.html

Nazis: Evolution of Evil -- In Power http://youtu.be/4F0CV8J-1ZI

What To Do If Dog Sprayed By Skunk?

Stehpinkeln vs. Sitzpinkler

One highly controversial topic is the when & if men should sit down to urinate. In Germany, men are being shamed into it by a gadget (Toilet Ghost)… a voice-alarm that is triggered when the seat is lifted. Millions have been bought by wives and girlfriends who are tired of cleaning up after ‘stehpinkeln’ (word for a man who ‘stands’) / in protest, the German men use the word ‘sitzpinkler’ (wimp) for a man who ‘sits’.
[Note: Because fragmentation of a stehpinkeln’s urine stream causes particles of urine to dissipate and the further the urine stream has to travel increases the dissipation radius, it’s virtually impossible for even the best master of eye-hand coordination to not leave evidence behind. So, if there’s no urinal to use and you’re indoors, good manners dictates sitting down (especially if you’re not home where you have an understanding with whomever cleans the toilet and bathroom floor). However, if you’re in a high usage public restroom where the seat is splattered from previous misanthropes, you raise the seat and the ‘stehpinkeln rule’ applies.
Note: The biggest furor seems to come from insecure men who feel feminized by sitting.]