Then why do you use it?

Did you hear of pencillin?  Did you hear that for every decade in the 20th centerary life spans went up in pretty much all of the world?

Did you hear about Thomas Becket?

Did you hear about Thomas Cronwell using Durham (UK) chatherdral as prison?

Did you hear about the Churches getting looting in pretty much every war in Europe?

Did you hear about the burning of the Sinagoges across the world and the centeries?

Did you hear that three-four hundred years ago every  major, and pretty much all minor ones, would be what we now describe as dictatorships with no regard for human rights, or in a total of cases the right to as  fair trial?

I have not been ciompenting recently, more because of time concerns then anything else. I appreciate your article, and while I can agree with the general thrust of argument you claim some things that are simlpy not true.

1. Desecration of Churches: I can see your worldview coming into play here, but there have been plenty of desecration of churches, just not White Christian churches in the suburbs. Think of the 60's and racial desecration of churches in the south. Think of all the discrimination that Muslim's in this country have had to endure just to try and get Mosques up and running. The list here is really endless.

2. Idealism of the 40's/50's. This is really something that society in general is starting to adopt, which is kinda discusting if you ask me. People seem to think this was a great time... there was no crime, everyone went to church, and you could sleep with your doors open. All true, if you were white, could afford to live in the new suburbs, and were protestant. I once read a statistic that talked about the murder rate compared to coverage of murders on TV. The fact is that the murder rate has dropped spectacularly in the last 20/30 years or so, but coverage of the murders that do happen has risen by around 300%. You can still sleep with your windows open, most likely nothing will happen to you. You have just been told by the media that you need an alarm system and a rotwieler or your kids are not safe.

3. Church attendance - This is one that gets me as well. As a regualar attender at a mainline protestant church I can tell you that faith is alive and well in America. The differnece is that now, the people who want to be there are there. You are not cuturally forced to go to church. This is a huge positive on many levels. Most kids do not grow up resenting the church as something they were forced to do. This means less outright hated of the church when they get older. Secondly, the people who are involved are truly there because they feel called to be there. I would rather have a spritually alive 200 person congregation then a 400 person one where people only come out of obligation and then build up that resentment.

BTW, the law that makes you wear a seatbelt took away your freedom how?? Your freedom to be impaled on your steering column? As I see that law retains my freedom to not have to pay for other people's stupid decision when they end up in the ER with no health insurance.

Really?

What "discrimination" have Muslims in the US ("this country") had to endure to try and get mosques up and running?

Leauki, just google Hamtramck and Mosque and you will get the story that I was refering to. I guess living in the Detroit area I see it more because of the large Muslim population here.

I see that case was about noise, not Islam or Muslims.

Is that it? When you said "discrimination" you meant that sometimes special laws for Muslims are suspended and they have the same rights and duties as everybody else again?

Leaders of the Al-Islah Islamic Center asked the council for permission to broadcast calls to prayer — a centuries-old tradition in Islam. A prayer is sung five times a day to invite Muslims to pray. They’re often broadcast by loud speaker in predominantly Muslim countries, but are seldom broadcast in the United States.

(Note that there is no centuries-old tradition in Islam to call for prayers using loudspeakers.)

The council could vote down the amendment — which seems unlikely — because the amendment has passed unanimously several times. If the council votes to approve the amendment, it still doesn’t go into effect. Instead, the amendment would be put on hold until it can be put on a ballot for city voters to consider.

So there is unanimous support for special rights for Muslims. And you call that discrimination? It is, but it's positive discrimination.

Masud Kahn, the associate imam of the mosque, said the mosque will begin the calls to prayer Friday, as planned, no matter what happens with the petition and the council. Kahn and council President Karen Majewski say the mosque didn’t need the city’s permission to broadcast the calls to prayer in the first place.

Because the mosque is a religious institution and because it is broadcasting from its own property, the city has no control over the calls to prayer beyond regulations contained in the noise ordinance.

So the imam had announced that he woulde defy the law and noise ordinance regulations.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/11149_Hamtramck_Mosque_Will_Defy_Community

"jdkeepsmiling",

I am someone who does not even dare make public my religion in many cities out of justified fear. And now I am learning that for other religions it is already considered "discrimation" when they don't get special rights and there is a controversy over their announcement to break the law? That's ridiculous.

You need to learn what discrimination really is and why it is evil. Your example is NOT discrimination, not in the negative sense anyway.

Applying the same law to everyone is not discrimation. Changing the law for some is.

However, making enforcing noise regulations a matter of religion can likely lead to some ugly riots.

I'll tell you what.

He who wants to buy ham in a supermarket is not an anti-Semite (even though Jews, for religious reasons, would rather have supermarkets that don't sell ham).

And he who wants mosques to follow the same noise regulations as everybody else is not discriminating against Muslims (even though Muslims, for religious reasons, would rather have the imam use loudspeakers and wake up the entire city at five in the morning).

Superstitious, outdated bullshit. Dogma is hilarious.

That's really pathetic.

There is nothing superstitious about calling believers to prayer. It's just loud.

move to argentina which is posed to become the 2nd nation in this hemisphere to reverse its laws prohibiting possession of  small amounts of what are in this country designated as illegal drugs for personal use by its adult citizens (mexico being the first to do so).   according to an op-ed article published in the la times this very day (9/2/09):

Argentina's Supreme Court last week struck down a law that punished adults with up to two years in jail for marijuana possession, saying personal use is a private affair and that prison time is, therefore, unconstitutional in such cases. Adults are "responsible for making decisions freely about their desired lifestyle without state interference," the ruling said. "Private conduct is allowed unless it constitutes a real danger or causes damage to property or the rights of others." In response, the administration is preparing a law to decriminalize possession of small quantities of drugs while continuing to pursue producers and traffickers.

somehow i don't see you supporting shackles of this sort being undone (link by link is, btw, inappropriate imagery; chains, not shackles, have links).  based on their court's ruling, argentina has taken a giant step on its way to becoming a land of truly brave free people who do more than proclaim themselves so.

Not per se, no.

Has anyone else here ever noticed that when Muslims pray, they look like they're getting screwed in the ass?

I notice you have to go outside of our country to bring your examples.  I was referring to just our country, when I was describing the sacredness of churches once upon a time, which was unlike any other country in the world at its inception.  Our country was founded as a republic based upon Godly principles.  Every single charter in the individual states bares record of this.   Europe, is for all intents and purposes, godless (albeit religious at times) and has always been.  

Our country, now is not anything like it was.  We have followed the rest of the world all the way to the gutter and are continuing to go downward as I mentioned in the first line of this blog. 

But it makes sense in the whole scope of things.  We have to be brought low to be on a level playing field with the rest of the world for the Kingdom of the A.C. to take place.  A one world order means we are all in sync and are on equal grounds.  So all of this bad behavior and lack of any spiritual life needs to happen first to bring us down to snuff with the rest of the world. 

The burning of Synagogues is an anti-Semitic thing.  The Jews have been persecuted for centuries by the "so called" Christians who are really goats in sheep's clothhing. 

I've said before, if you doubt what I'm saying start talking to the older people around you.  See if they've noticed a difference.  I remember one parole officer saying that the criminals today are much much worse than they used to be.  He said there's a hardness about them, a vacancy in their eyes he never remembers seeing in the years past.  So go ask a seasoned security officer or a Parole officer or maybe someone who has been involved in Social Services for a long time.  I'm sure they will back what I'm saying up.  I'm not saying there weren't any really bad guys back then...Charles Manson and Ted Bundy comes to mind real quick.  What I'm saying is it's getting more and more prevalent.  The one or two Mansons here and there are nothing in comparison to what is walking around our world today.  Think about that the next time you get on a busy elevator. 

When I think of the 60's I think of the KKK burning black churches.  Yes, that's true.  But to the KKK blacks were animals.  They were not capable of worshipping a real God in a real church.  There was no sacredness involved here because to the KKK it wasn't really a church in the first place in their twisted religious minds.  They thought they were doing God a favor most likely.  Or they wern't thinking..period. 

it's not doing nearly as well as you think it's doing.  The churches are filled with people who are apathethic.  Satan himself has put on his Sunday best, applied for church membership and walks the aisles of many churches today.  He does his deadliest work from within the church.  The churches are in a very poor state and most Godly Pastors will tell you so.  In fact, there was a big article in  Time Magazine recently about the decline in the churches not to mention the fact they were asking if Christianity wasn't  dead.  Most polls are coming out with a declining membership. 

Let me ask you this since you go to a mainline denomination.  How well do you know your bible? Do you even bring one to your church on Sunday?  If I asked you if you could open up to any book of the bible would you be able to do so confidently without help?  If I quoted a scripture would you at least be able to make an educated guess at least which book it came out of?  If I quoted a scripture would you be able to tell me if Jesus, Paul, or John said it? 

I have health insurance and car insurance.  Always have.  You just proved my point.  My freedom in this instance has been taken away because of the actions of others.  On top of that, someone got their way and I lost my way of doing what I want to do.  Because I'm a law abiding citizen, I now wear my sealtbelt.  I have NO choice in the matter unless I wish to be a law breaker.  That's taking away my freedom. 

"The myth has to deal with the cosmology of today, and it's no good when it's based on a cosmology that's out of date. That's one of our problems. I don't see any conflict between religion and science. Religion has to accept the science of the day and penetrate it to the mystery. The conflict is between the science of 2,000 B.C. and the science of 2,000 A.D., and this is one of the problems with our tradition: where our inherited mythology, let's say our Judeo-Christian tradition relates to the Near East in the first millenium B.C. and it has nothing to do with life here and everything has to be explained. A mythological image that has to be explained to the brain is not working. When you move through a culture that is so alien to your own that the images don't click off any response, any recognition, then you're out of sync." - Joseph Campbell

I can definitely relate to this.  I am our of sync with the culture and I should be.  I'm a Christian with a Christian world view.  Makes sense. 

This was just brought to my attention.  Thought it was quite good and very modern way of saying the same thing I've been saying all along...in fact I felt at times watching this that I could have been the interviewer myself.   It's called "An Interview  With the Devil."   It's very biblical but with a current twist to make it easier for those who are unfamiliar with scripture. 

http://www.cryofthespirit.com/interview.html