Patrick's Rants

On Saturday we went to a movie, then stopped at Walmart on the way home. We came out to find papers tucked under nearly every windshield wiper in the lot, manna of salvation. After reading this life changing paragraph I knew I had to post it for my readers who find themselves a little lost. The most interesting tidbit included in this mini story is how to find god.

“…if you would like to be saved and have a new life, get off by yourself…”

So, friends, if you are feeling despondent, get off by yourself.

California teacher calls creationism “superstitious nonsense”, court rules that he had “immunity” to express that opinion.

Wear a colander to honor your starchy creator? Niko Alm has spent three years fighting to get his pasta strainer recognized as religious head gear for his driver’s license photo. Now, he is able to don his pastafarian head gear
It’s awesome. Niko has truly been touched by the noodly appendage of his creator.

The Catholic church should get out of the business of helping people and providing potentially life saving health care. The reason, if you have not heard the story, St. Josephs hospital in Phoenix saves a woman’s life by terminating her pregnancy. Now the Catholic church thinks it knows best about health care and is threatening to remove its support (and funding). The catholic church that hunted people as witches, perpetrated the inquisition, baptized South American babies so they would go to heaven moments later when their heads were bashed in with the back of an ax in the hands of their baptizers and covered up sexual abuse of children for decades wants to decide if a woman lives or dies by prohibiting a legal termination procedure.

In an episode of “House” a young girl has a medical problem that causes all manner of medical distress. There is nothing the doctors can do until they realize the the girl is pregnant – and terminating the pregnancy “cures” her. The girl does not want her parents to know that she was pregnant nor that she had a termination – abortion. Dr House tells her parents that she had a “growth” that once removed resolved all of her symptoms. Although fictional, would Dr House have had to tell the same tale to an outside dictator if he were not in a research hospital but a church ruddered entity?

Until there is proof – real proof – that the church and religion are able to adequately care for people in a medical setting then they should step aside. By adequate I mean through nothing other than prayer save the life of someone who is bleeding out. Through nothing other than prayer – regrow a missing limb. Through nothing other than prayer save a life, cure cancer. It can’t be done or would already have been, over and over. Until that day let the professionals do their job without consulting Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Those Chilean miners trapped for two months after a mine collapse have begun their return to the surface. Here in Arizona, one man said in an interview, “it’s a miracle”. Really? I thought that there were people drilling a rescue shaft over the last two months to reach the miners. There is heavy equipment and quite a few workers on the scene and these miners are now taking a fifteen minute ride to freedom.

This is not a miracle. A miracle is if people gathered around the breathing hole, prayed and the earth opened up, forming stair steps with a hand rail so that the miners weren’t trapped for two months. That’s a miracle. That did not happen.

The supposed “Ground Zero Mosque” is adding to the list of lies perpetuated by the Tea Baggers and right wing wackadoos. “Death Panels” is a notable tick mark on that same list.

Here’s where I weigh in. Do not allow any, any “house of worship” anywhere. They impinge on my right to be atheist. They offend me in their beliefs that there is some mysterious “man in the sky” who controls life or watches us like tropical fish in a bowl.

Or maybe the right wing whackadoos should step back and realize that our first amendment protects the Islamic religion as much as it protects the Mormons who killed innocent cross country travelers in the US, the Catholics, who baptized babies so they would go to heaven when their heads were bashed in moments later with axes by those same Catholics and the Jews, who killed Jesus himself.

The mosque is blocks away from ground zero. And the right wingers, as Sara Palin has said, cling to their guns and their religion. The First and Second Amendments allow them to do that. It also does not allow them to take that away from the Muslims. If they want to build a mosque and cling to their guns I say so be it. The First Amendment does not read, “unless you happen to be muslim, or your church is too close to something I want to call ‘sacred’.”

Right wing whackadoos are allowed to spew their lies and hatred under the First Amendment and back up their words with their Second Amendment rights. Muslims are too.

Let me repeat something that I have said before – all water is reclaimed water. All water is recycled. There is no more and no less of it. All the water on the earth is water that has always been here. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed; it’s a law of physics. Sure it can be combined with other chemicals and some reactions that make it something different – hydrocarbons for instance contain the basic molecules for water, burning oil based fuels will release some water vapor. Heck, breathing and plant respiration both release water vapor.

Native tribes, and some European transplants (yes, Caucasians, I’m looking at you) don’t want snow making at Arizona Snowbowl. They don’t want snow making because the “reclaimed” water “desecrates” the peaks. Give me a break. The First Amendment protects me from your wacky religious ideas as much as it makes an argument in your favor. Freedom of Religion canceled out by Freedom From Religion. Your religion cannot impinge on my freedoms just as mine cannot impinge on yours.

They don’t want it because there is “not enough research” into the effects of reclaimed water on the environment. Again, all water is reclaimed water. Reclaimed treated water is cleaner than incoming water in the water treatment plants. It is cleaner than water that you naturally find flowing down the streams. It is clean. Drop the bogus claims already. To use a phrase that has been floating around lately, your claims are vapid and hollow.

Bottom line, your side lost. You have lost at every step of the way. Howard Shanker has filed for an injunction in the related article,

“To win a temporary retraining order, Shanker must prove either that he is likely to win this case, or that irreversible changes (logging, for example) will result if construction proceeds before his case is heard.”

The recent 15,000 acre Shultz fire in Flagstaff shows what happens when the forest is allowed to become too thick, too dense. Fires that might have been small and burned naturally end up burning tens of thousands of acres due to injunctions against cleaning and clearing land. Don’t get me wrong, I like trees. I like my hair too, but I’m not about to never cut it because it would be “unnatural” to do so. Shanker and his clients have lost over and over again. It’s time to step aside, you have lost. You have nothing left to prove and you are using the legal process to vex and harass.

Scott Brown defeated Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in Massachusetts last night. Now we will get meaningful health care legislation. Fundamentalist Christian politicians are exactly what this country needs. Why could we have not had Sarah Palin and John McCain? Christians know that they must provide health care for the poorest of the poor, Jesus says so right in Matthew 25. In fact he goes so far as to say if you don’t, you are going to hell. Matt 25:41

Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did not to me.

So I am happy that conservative Christians will be able to wield their power. By letting one child go hungry or without health care, you are damning yourself to eternal fire and brimstone. It’s right there in Matthew, “that which you do unto the least of these you do unto me”. No less that God himself is watching what you plan to do to the most underprivileged, the least of these. Can you really look that poor, underprivileged and sick child in the eye and tell him he can’t go to the doctor, especially since you know that the eyes of God stare back at you when you do?

The disbelief in giant invisible beings is growing on campus.

On September 11, religious zealots set out to murder innocent men, women and children. Of course I’m not writing about September 11, 2001 now. This was September 11, 1857 and the religious zealots were members of the Mormon church, finishing a siege on a wagon train that started days earlier. “September Dawn“, a portrayal of the Mountain Meadow Massacre is a factual event that shows another unpleasant facet of religion and fanaticism. The Meadow Mountain Massacre is a stain on the Mormon church. This portrayal places the blame at the top, with Brigham Young. Naturally, Young, and the entire LDS church deny that the church had any prior knowledge of the impending death of the wagon train members.

For a more in depth history of the Mormon Church’s murderous spree in Utah, read The Mountain Meadows Massacre