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POPSLet's Wake Up and Make A Difference in 2010!
We know it is false and just a pathetic excuse to seize control of us. We must track these efforts and have a zero tolerance policy for these efforts. The other Government control battle in our face the next few months is the communist and anti constitutional health care bill congress and this President are planning to cram down our parched throats. Second weapon used against us Radical Islam Islam has always wanted control of the world. Financed and radical groups since the 1920s have taught, preached and pursued a worldwide Caliphate of control. Their taught and known methods of doing this include silent and violent jihad world wide. The fundamentalists study and know our sensitive, our legal loopholes and ways to intimidate and scare us. Only on Christmas we saw the latest horror show on flight 253 by a wanna be Islamic martyr from Nigeria. It was a miracle the plane didn’t blow up. The organized Islamic terrorist groups are like body parts of the mother alien and ...
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POPSYou Should Know About This Guy: Scott Lively, Anti-Gay Crusader for The Family "Masculine Christianity" is a tenet of The Fellowship Foundation (ak.k. The Family). Lively on homosexuality: “In reality, homosexuality is nothing more than same-gender conduct among people who are innately and unchangeably heterosexual. Homosexuality is thus biologically (and to varying degrees morally) equivalent to pedophilia, sado-masochism, bestiality and many other forms of deviant behavior.”
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POPS"Fundamentalists" threaten Republicans and Democrats This story is about GOP but same party cleansing attempt is going on in Democratic Party where competing "Progressives" are trying to dictate the "correct" position on everything. The real story is that "fundamentalism" is a political virus infecting global politics and religions. Beware of the Fundamentalist Flu it's the political pandemic that could do us all in - especially if it has its way in this week's climate talks
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POPSUnreported World: The Battle for Israel's Soul The vids wouldn't clip, but I thought it would be interesting to some. Gives an insight on the Haredi group and the settlement issue. Even the youtube link didn't work, but the vids are at the source (with a link to youtube).
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POPSEastern Congo, one story - Francoise No Fundamentalists here just a fifty year struggle over diamonds, rare minerals for computers, cell phones, nuclear weapons and millions of people killed, marginalized, exploited, and abused - in full view of world's leaders but out of sight and out of mind for most of us.
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POPS"The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails"
Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. "It was an adult Disneyland, where Sheikh Mohammed is the mouse," she says. "Life was fantastic. You had these amazing big apartments, you had a whole army of your own staff, you pay no taxes at all. It seemed like everyone was a CEO. We were partying the whole time." I ask a Filipino girl if she likes it here. "It's OK," she says cautiously. Really? I say. I can't stand it. She sighs with relief and says: "This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised – everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake – even the water is fake!" But she is trapped. She got into debt... "Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real."
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POPSThe Religious Wars "I’m hoping that the latest crop of books marks an armistice in the religious wars, a move away from both religious intolerance and irreligious intolerance. That would be a sign that perhaps we, along with God, are evolving toward a higher moral order."
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POPSU.S. Muslims are Americans too Americans are Christians, Jews, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, and anything else in between -- but Americans are also Muslims, millions of them, and Islam has now become integral to what the distinguished American sociologist Robert Bellah termed our "civil religion."
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POPS"New" Afghanistan Legalized Rape, Starvation of Women Okay "There was a review process - Karzai came under huge pressure from all over the world to amend this law, but many of the most oppressive laws remain," Rachel Reid, the Human Rights Watch representative in Kabul, told the BBC. "What matters more to Karzai is the support of fundamentalists and hardliners here in Afghanistan whose support he thinks he needs in the elections." Women's groups say its new wording still violates the principle of equality that is enshrined in their constitution. It allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses his sexual demands; a woman must get her husband's permission to work; and fathers and grandfathers are given exclusive custody of children.
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POPSMalalai Joya, Afghanistan Woman Speaks Out For expressing my views I have been expelled from my seat in parliament, and I have survived numerous assassination attempts. The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy" backed by Nato troops. In the constitution it forbids those guilty of war crimes from running for high office. Yet Karzai has named two notorious warlords, Fahim and Khalili, as his running mates for the upcoming presidential election. Under the shadow of warlordism, corruption and occupation, this vote will have no legitimacy, and once again it seems the real choice will be made behind closed doors in the White House. As we say in Afghanistan, "the same donkey with a new saddle".
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POPSBurn the Bible! I just wanted to note that I am in no way endorsing this article. I am just posting it for it's content.
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POPSMuslims Are Good Folks The only real solution is education and broad experience. It seems to me that God creates individuals one at a time, and it is the human mind that insists on grouping and classifying them. We should resist that temptation.
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POPSEvidence vs Dogma This clip pretty well sums up the point. Fundamentalists simply don't realize how abjectly stupid they sound when they constantly parrot the religious right mantra that evolution is "only a theory". No matter how often they hear that they are wrong in their use of the word theory they keep on trying to use the same old tired argument. They truly are ignorant in the manner in which they ignore what is being said. As the article clipped say, they literally stick their fingers in their ears and go la, la, la. How pathetic.
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POPSJohn Maynard Keynes: Don't call it a comeback And yet today, you can't click your way three links through the econoblogosphere without stumbling into a flame war between reenergized triumphalist Keynesian supporters of government intervention in the economy and bewildered, angry market fundamentalists who have just watched their painstakingly constructed world crumble around them. Just a few years ago the heat of the debate would have been unthinkable -- Keynes seemed to have about as much relevance to current economic policymaking as Winston Churchill does for the Middle East peace process.
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POPSAuthor attempts to convey essence of Islam, post 9/11 Interesting comment by the publisher at the source: It was my great pleasure to publish this book for Modern History Press. We only very rarely consider fiction works as part of our Reflections of America series and once I picked up Shaila's "Saffron Dreams", I knew this was a story America HAD to read. Regards Victor R. Volkman Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
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POPSScary Fundamentalists
When people adhere to fundamentalist principles they are often driven to extreme action in support of their beliefs and so the rest of us, the rational world, have to deal with the fallout. Murders and atrocities are committed in the name of God and they have been for centuries now. It is depressing to consider how long the religious battle has been raging because there can be no end to it unless religion itself disappears. If Protestants and Catholics can´t get on with each other what chance is there of either getting on with Muslims? Religion has been responsible for death and persecution on a grand scale. The war waged between the Catholic and Protestant faiths has left an especially deep scar in the UK and even in my home country of Scotland there are still religiously motivated acts of violence (thankfully rare nowadays). However on a world scale the violence caused by religious intolerance is still the greatest threat to peace today. As an atheist I am always surprised by the
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POPSWho is Culpable? At the end of this clip I've included a comment made by a reader. The reader brings up a good point about the idea that even "moderate" theists are responsible for in some way for tragedies like this because they enable more extreme theists to justify their religious delustions.
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POPSChiropracters - Help or Snake-Oil I've met people who adamantly support chiropractors. I went to one 15-20 years ago and can't say he did much good. I've become more skeptical over the years. I've become especially skeptical over the ones who dabble in such disproven scams as homeopathy and reflexology. IMO, they all should be required to warn their patients that the placebo effect is alive and well, thank you.
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POPSMalalai Joya: Message to Obama "When the U.S. and its allies replaced the Taliban with the fundamentalists of the Northern Alliance in 2001, every Afghan knew that these terrorist bands were no different than the Taliban. Today, unfortunately, we can all clearly see this. The nature of the fake democracy ‘donated’ to Afghanistan by the U.S. government, which was trumpeted by mainstream Western media as an achievement, stands exposed before the world. Afghan women have been betrayed in the past eight years under occupation. They are deeply feed up with the propaganda of the Afghan government and its international backers who invaded Afghanistan in the name of liberating women."
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POPSAmateur Astronomer Credited with Jupiter Finding
Take a listen to this story. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106913242 Here's what happened to me. I realized that much of my curiosity about space has been stifled because for the past 40 some years I've bought into a simple biblical understanding about creation and my place in the universe. The wonderment of the earth being the only planet currently hospitable to life may have caused me to worship god more, but it didn't stimulate any intellectual ponderings that might cause me to learn about the universe, life forms, the mystery that is around us. Nope, the answers were neatly packaged. And that is the problem with the certainty of modern religious expression - fundamentalism does not push one to question. The creation myth made me safe in my little god cocoon, disinterested in questions like where did all of this come from. In like fashion, the christian nation myth held by so many fundamentalists in our nation makes them safe little xenophobes who hav
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POPSThe Case for God: Karen Armstrong (review) <<<Armstrong's new book is shaped as a response to these two distortions. She wishes to remind us of the mystery of God. Her sympathy is with the great Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians who have denied that any human attempt to put the divine into words will be accurate. We are simply too limited to be able to know God; our apprehension must hence be suffused with an awareness of our provisional and potentially faulty natures. She writes: "He is not good, divine, powerful or intelligent in any way that we can understand. We could not even say that God 'exists', because our concept of existence is too limited.">>>
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POPSIt's a movie, people! Since the first Potter movie came out there has been this ludicrous panic among some Christians that all their little darlings who view these movies will be recruited by the witch's cabal. And the insanity continues still!
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POPSHead Scarf Emerges as Indonesia Political Symbol Golkar Party officials rejected accusations by the president’s party that they were trying to exploit Islam for politics; they also denied having anything to do with the recent distribution of leaflets that stated, falsely, that Boediono’s wife was not Muslim, but Roman Catholic. The fundamentalists are trying to force women to wear the jilbab as an act of submission, and had already done so in various municipalities across the Indonesian archipelago in recent years, Ms. Neng said. For the progressives, she said, wearing the jilbab was an expression of a woman’s right. “For women in Indonesia, whether they want to wear the jilbab or not is their choice,” said Ms. Neng, who started wearing one five years ago. “It shouldn’t be political.”
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POPSGays Thank the Religious Right the religious Right's great efforts opposing homosexual practice may have brought the whole question to the attention of the public, who are now more tolerant of lesbians and gays than they were a generation ago
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POPSThe Religious Right Didn't Kill George Tiller <blockquote>But if the reactions to the death of Tiller mean anything, the "Christian Taliban," as conservative religious figures are often called, isn't living up to its namesake. If "Christianists" were anything like actual religious fascists they would applaud Tiller's murder as a "heroic martyrdom operation" and suborn further mayhem.</blockquote> <blockquote>I hold no brief for the religious right, and its views on homosexuality in particular offend (and affect) me personally. But it's precisely because of my identity that I consider comparisons between so-called Christianists (who seek to limit my rights via the ballot box) and Islamic fundamentalists (who seek to limit my rights via decapitation) to be fatuous.</blockquote>
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POPSThe Incredibly Shrinking GOP The GOP is losing support in nearly every major demographic subgroup except frequent churchgoers. It's becoming a party of religious fundamentalists. If that continues to be the trend, it will die on the vine. I used to think that is tragic, but I'm convinced that some other party will emerge to replace it. Democracy abhors the vacuum of single-party dominance.
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POPSCalling God Instead Of The Doc "Mental illness is an area that remains especially taboo in orthodox religious communities. "A lot of fundamentalist Christians, including pastors, believe that people have mental illness symptoms because they do not pray hard enough or do not believe in God enough," says John McManamy, mental health journalist and author of Living Well With Depression and Bipolar Disorder. The medical community has long grappled with religious traditions that jeopardize their patients' health. "Fundamentalists tell us their lives are in the hands of God and we, as physicians, are not God," says Dr. Lorry Frankel, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine and author of Ethical Dilemmas in Pediatrics. "We respect people's religious beliefs and try to compromise, but we won't deny treatment that will save lives."
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