Gratuitous Common Sense

If my South African and Tierra Del Fuego-an readers will excuse me for a moment, it’s June 21st, the Summer Solstice. It’s the beginning of summer in the Northern hemisphere, because, well… The Earth begins tilting back in the other direction today (at least in relation to the Sun). Rumor has it that it actually happened at 6:06pm GMT, which is about the time this was posted.

Today is a religious holiday (Litha or Midsummer) for modern Pagans. No doubt many of them gathered at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England this morning to watch the sunrise in alignment with its axis. Much to their delight, I’m sure, this is one of the few Pagan holidays that Christians have yet to commandeer, re-brand, and re-package for consumption by the masses. That is, unless you count the feast day of St. John the Baptist on June 24, in which case the Christians did a particularly poor job of re-branding when you compare it to the monumental success of Christmas. But then again, that is Jesus’ day.

But Pagans aren’t the only ones to hold this day in high regard. Native American tribes had many celebrations, and harvests, and feasts related to this day.

Probably the most famous Native American homage to the Summer Solstice is The Bighorn Medicine Wheel near Sheridan, Wyoming in the Rocky Mountains. It’s one of many wheels, most of which are located in Canada. At Bighorn, the center of a small cairn (which is external to the main wheel) lines up with the center of the wheel and the sunrise. It really has little to do with Medicine though. The term “medicine wheel” was invented by Pilgrims. “Medicine” was a term used to describe anything native that white people didn’t understand.

Ancient Romans were also fond of this day. The festival of Vestalia was held in honor of the Roman Goddess of hearth, Vesta, and it lasted from June 7^th to June 15^th. During this time, married women were allowed to enter the shrine of Vesta, whereas during the rest of the year only the vestal virgins were permitted inside.

Not to be left out, Ancient China had their own Summer Solstice ceremony, during which they celebrated the Earth, the feminine, and the yin forces. This complemented the Winter Solstice which celebrated the heavens, the masculine, and the yang forces.

So don’t discriminate, pick your favorite, and go out and celebrate today! And if you don’t like all this religious and mythological mumbo jumbo, that’s okay… it’s also World Humanist Day! See? Something for everyone.

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This will be the beginning of a ongoing series of questions for Christians to answer. However, anyone may feel free to answer such questions, as my curiousity is not satiated only by those who hold the human edited, translated, compiled, and annotated word of “God” as absolute truth.

So without further adieu, Question #1:

Why would your god stop the Earth for a day just so Israelites could finish up a genocide against their enemy? I mean, I can see stopping it so there is more time to help the poor, or plant crops, or love your neighbor, but more time to kill???

Note: When I say questions for Christians to answer, that doesn’t mean with dismissive comments, like “the lord works in mysterious ways”. I would like to see actual answers. If you don’t know, simply say that you don’t know.

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A quick, but poignant, thought from The Necessity of Atheism…

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Gallup has released an annual poll that finds the perception of moral values in America at an all time low. And more than 80% think morality is getting worse.

I found the results not all that surprising, but there were some interesting caveats worth mentioning.

For example, the death penalty (in this so-called “Christian nation” ) enjoys widespread support, with 66% saying that it is morally acceptable for the state to commit revenge killings under the euphemism of ‘punishment’. But hey, at least that’s down from last year’s high of 71%.

At the same time, doctor assisted suicide is only morally acceptable to 49%. And even more baffling is the fact that suicide, without doctor assistance, is only acceptable to 16%. Can anyone tell me why it’s waaaayy more acceptable to ask a doctor to help you commit suicide than it is to just do it by yourself?

I can’t figure that one out.

But on a more positive note, stem cell research is up in the polls:

And in further trending away from scripture as a moral guide, the gays are up in the polls too:

Things look bleak for the likes of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, though. Polygamy and adultery are down in the single digits of moral acceptability. The homosexuals are more moral than these guys, and they’re running for president? I think Atheists even enjoy more support for our morally unacceptable - or “Filthy,” as one Christian put it - position.

Just over 1,000 adults were surveyed for this annual Values and Beliefs poll.

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Mwahahahahaha!

Meh, it’s the weekend… and it’s warm outside.

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“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

- Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)

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Welcome to Conversations with Jesus. In this fireside chat, we will be listening to a wonderful discussion between two of history’s most admired martyrs. Both tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, it is nothing short of remarkable that we are able to bring both of them here today for Conversations with Jesus. Without further adieu, I say ‘welcome’ to both of you…

Jesus meet Socrates… Socrates meet Jesus…

Socrates:
Good morning, Jesus, I have heard much of your marvelous teachings. In my own modest way I am a philosopher here in Athens. I am told you have great wisdom and certainly that is indicated by the throng of admirers that follow you through the streets. If you have a few moments to spare, I would appreciate it if you would enlighten me with the answers to some of the puzzling problems I have been wrestling with all my life

Jesus:
I am as a fisher of men in my search for followers. I bring the truth of God to all men. Seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be answered knock and it shall be open unto to thee.

Socrates:
There is one basic question that has always been uppermost in my mind. Although it has always been an insurmountable obstacle to me in my search for the truth and meaning, I am sure that with your learning you will find it far too easy and think me a foolish old man. I have always longed to live honorably and nobly, but it seems that I have merely stumbled through life without even knowing what was honorable or noble. With my limited understanding, it often seems to me that life, even with all its sound and fury, really signifies nothing. Please tell me: How should a man live; what is the purpose of life?

Jesus:
To serve and worship God.

Socrates:
Which God?

Jesus:
There is only one god.

Socrates:
Oh. You should live here in Athens. We have several to choose from.

Jesus:
There is only one true God.

Socrates:
Of course. And which one is the true God?

Jesus:
The true god is Lord God.

Socrates:
Yes. But who is Lord God? Or what is he?

Jesus:
He is the infinity of wisdom, love, compassion, peace, and mercy. He is the creator of heaven and earth all things in the universe.

Socrates:
Of all things?

Jesus:
Yes-all things. He is omnipotent. He is master and controller and maker of all things. He is omnipresent-nothing can happen that he does not know beforehand.

Socrates:
Did he create plagues, wars, death, suffering and evil?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Four U.S. Congresspersons are in the middle of the Food Stamp Challenge, in which they try to live on $21 worth of food stamps for a week.

Why $21? Because that is the national average food stamp allotment per person, that’s $3 a day! The lawmakers that are crazy enough to try this are Rep. Jim McGovern (MA), Rep. Tim Ryan (OH), Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (MO), and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL). The goal “for this ‘food stamp challenge’ was to spark a real discussion about the real life difficulties that many in America face in trying to put food on their tables.”

Why? According to McGovern, because…

We’re trying to get this debate going. There are more working people today getting food stamps than six years ago. . . . There’s not a member of Congress that doesn’t have hunger in their district.

McGovern and Ryan are blogging about their experiences here and here, respectively.

Jan Schakowsky has also added a post to McGovern’s blog about her first few days on the Food Stamp Challenge, noting that…

Shopping was really hard. Here’s what I learned. It is much easier to afford pasta and bread than it is fruits and vegetables of any kind. It is hard to buy much of anything for $3 a day. It is impossible to get a Starbuck’s coffee or a Diet Pepsi if you don’t want to run out of money pretty quickly. I also learned how miserable it would be to live on food stamps for any length of time.

Mmmm, pasta and bread, and all the carbs your body can turn into fat. Here is Jan’s menu for her first few days:

For $1 per meal, it makes you wonder how these people stay alive. Not the congresspeople. The poor souls who don’t have the luxury of choice.

I’m not saying we should be pouring more money into Food Stamps necessarily, but certainly things like the U.S. Farm Bill that subsidizes (read: makes cheaper) ingredients like sugar and corn syrup and fat don’t help anyone, much less the poor that can’t afford healthy food because of it.

For some extra educational material, Micheal Pollan writes in the New York Times about this egregious government utilitarianism veering down the all-too-common path of unintended consequences…

This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?

For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

(Read the rest of the article here. The New York Times website may require a login, which is easily obtainable from bugmenot.com)

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As a person who once tried to play basketball in a high school in Oklahoma, I must say that this story from 20/20 hits a little close to home. The story is about an Atheist student, Nicole, in the town of Hardesty, Oklahoma, who allegedly experienced a few difficulties with other students and even teachers and administrators because of her (lack of) religious beliefs.

I must admit that, at her age, I didn’t have the strength or the confidence to do what she did by telling her coaches or other students that she was, in fact, an Atheist. I hadn’t even developed a full understanding of what it meant to be an Atheist, much less the ability to stand up for those beliefs in the way she did.

I was the one who found myself taking John Stossel’s suggestion… standing in that circle, before the game, silently waiting for those around me to finish their regurgitation of the Lord’s Prayer. A friend was the first to notice, and asked me about it. But things didn’t turn sour until an assistant coach noticed some time later. Much like Nicole, I was told that I wasn’t welcome if I wasn’t going to join the team in prayer.

Regardless of how badly I would like to say something to my coaches, to this day, I don’t regret my decision to leave the team after that. If they were going to be discriminatory, then it’s not a team I wanted to play with anyway. I played basketball more for fun than (like Nicole) in a pursuit of a college scholarship, and I was fortunate enough to have such a luxury.

I am both proud and sorry for Nicole and her situation. And I can only hope that her story will help chip away at the religion-fueled bigotry, discrimination, and hate that is so prevalent in this country.

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The difference between being crazy and being devout:

1. You say, “This orange juice has been transformed from the blood of Zeus.” Nobody else agrees. Congrats! You’re crazy.
2. You say, “This wine is transubstantiated into the blood of Christ.” Millions agree. Congrats! You are devout.

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