“Divine Punishment and Reward Theory”

There are several problems with the “Divine Punishment and Reward Theory” of the Bible.

• The Biblical rewards or punishment happens only after death. No one knows what happens after death, it can’t be proven. This is a fact.

• There is very little motivation to follow God’s laws until you are older. “Criminologists tell us in order to be maximally effective; punishment and rewards must be immediate and certain. For most theists divine rewards and punishments are hardly immediate.”

• Since it’s a reward solely based on faith in Jesus as Savor, you really don’t need to fulfill your “moral obligation.” Wealthy Christians conveniently ignore Christ’s teaching daily, concerning Mark 10:25, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

• How can a loving God morally and ethically justify billions of people going to hell through no fault of their own, simply because they haven’t heard about Christ? If you say, God works in mysterious ways, there is a four letter word and you’re full of it. How could anyone in their right mind, think this catch all phrase can easily explain away why an all powerful loving God would be eternally mean to his own living creations for the simple reason they never heard about him?

• Believe now—just in case it’s true—it’s a nice insurance policy. Hey if it’s not true, who gets hurt? How could an insurance policy be a bad thing? Why pay for something you don't need? Wasted time results in missing out on living in reality.

• What if you live to Christ’s moral behavior, but don’t believe in Christ? Why would you still go to hell? I know, what you are saying, that person didn’t ask to get in. But an extremely immoral person can get into heaven just by asking to get in. Let me get this straight… You planned a big, Big, BIG party, but you are not inviting anyone except those that knock on your door (those that invite themselves). Your nice and extremely moral neighbor, a friend, is not invited to your party because he didn’t invite himself? But the guy who just shot your wife or husband the same day of your party, is allowed to come to your party because he asked to be invited? Wow.

I believe I can guess at the response most Christians will have on my party theory. They would say, that's exactly correct. It's time to take a quick peek at a common component of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy (CBT), it's called, "Delusional thinking."

Almost all the above is paraphrased (direct quotes use quote marks) from the book, “Atheism, Morality, and Meaning.” Pages, 179-180, by Michael Martin, 2002.

The party analogy is mine.

Do you Vote?

I asked (on November 6, 2008) this homophobic guy at work if he voted on November 4th, 2008. Curiosity was getting to me. He said no. He doesn't vote because it's doesn't make a difference.

He said, if they want to build bombs they build them. If they want to start wars in other countries, they do it. We saw the government give billions of dollars to businesses recently. Why can't the US government give everyone a house and health insurance? If they wanted to, they could do it.

Usually, I don't agree on topics or issues with this guy at work. On his suggestion about giving everyone a house and health insurance, I agree with him.

Obama Headlines

Obama News Headlines

(This link above, takes to you a site that shows pictures of the front pages of newspapers, nation wide and world wide about Obama winning. Recommended by a friend of mine.)

Prop. 8 Passes in California

Prop. 8, a ballot proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in California, passed by a narrow margin—5,987,332 (52.5%) for, 5,463,833 (47.7%) against, or a total of 11,451,165 votes. See Prop Results.

As of 2006, the estimated number of people who live in California is 36,457,549. People under 18 make up 26.1% of the population, or a total of 9,515,420 non-voting Californians, leaving about 26,942,129 eligible voters. 42.50% of the eligible voters in California voted on Prop. 8. See Census source.

The vote was by a narrow margin, but that might not be too important. Formed by religious belief or not, many Californians think Prop. 8 is wrong and have concluded the Constitution should protect the rights of its citizens.

People might not realize that Prop. 8 was unwise. The religious right did not think their proposition through because, win or lose, equality will always win. Why? Because Americans don't like their rights and liberties taken away.

Not believing in equal rights is bad press for the religious right. To put it bluntly, it's anti-American. Not a good thing. They have put their money and votes where their mouths are—liberty, justice and equality is not for all. Only those who are straight are afforded rights protected by the Constitution. What did the proponents of Prop. 8 win? Nothing.

Another question: Can straight atheists marry in church?

People who don't believe in or don't understand the importance of the separation of church and state should take a basic course in the US Constitution. Many Christians think their tenets should be incorporated into US legislation. Bad idea. For some reason, Christians don't realize that doing so abhors non-Christians (and the not-so-religious right) just as much as voting Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam tenets into US law would repulse many Christians.

This is not the end of debating marriage rights in California and here's why. What if a majority of people passed a proposition that banned the practice of religion in California? Hey, it's a majority vote!

The Prop. 8ers did not think about this. Can a proposition that takes away the rights of US citizens change the California constitution? Time will tell.

What I've Been Saying for Years

I've been traveling to Europe since 2001. Every time I was able to have a conversation with someone in Europe or Asia, they have disliked Bush. The reason I know this is, is when I first meet someone, I quickly point out I did not vote for Bush. Then people immediately start telling me how they don't like Bush and how horrible it is that we are at war with Iraq. When I got back to the U.S., I'd casually mentioned this to people at work, people had no interest—apathetic to the world wide disgust of Bush.

Why does it seem that American's as a whole don't care if Cheney and Bush are impeached? I will always hold my ground and say that it will be the crime of the century if Cheney and Bush are not impeached.

On a better note, due to Obama getting elected, the happiness of people all over the world is in the news. See the link to the article in the blog entry below.

Obama—"a Truly Global President"

"What an inspiration. He is the first truly global U.S. president the world has ever had," said Pracha Kanjananont, a 29-year-old Thai sitting at a Starbuck's in Bangkok. "He had an Asian childhood, African parentage and has a Middle Eastern name. He is a truly global president."

Source: "Obama—a Truly Global President," by John Leicester, Associated Press, November 5, 2008. See story: News Article

This Time America Knows it was a Majority Vote That put President Obama in Office

...and we are grateful a real leader has been elected to the White House. Today, November 5th, 2008, Cheney and Bush should voluntarily remove themselves from office and let the real President, President Obama, run the country.

There is an Easy Solution to Taking TV off the air.

Take your TV(s) and drop it (them) off at your Senator's or Congressperson's office. Or just send your TV to the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. I think they will get the message.

The Wicked Witch of the Northwest?

I thought the wicked witch was from the west. Times have changed.

It's not Natural for Gay People to Have Sex.

A co-worker said to me last night, look, it's easy to see that it's unnatural for gays to have sex. And... it's obvious our purpose is to procreate with the opposite sex to further the human race. Anyone can easily see that a guy and a girl are made to have sex together. How would you be here if it wasn't for straight people having sex?

Unnatural? The first question to ask is, how do you know this for a fact? The answer: No one knows the ultimate answer as to what is natural sex between two human beings. I know it's natural for me to have sex with a guy and it's not natural for me to have sex, with the opposite sex.

My question is, why is it that many straight people want to make everyone straight? Gay people say, be who you are. Who's doing the converting here? Gays or straights? It just kills some straight people that they can't convert gays to straight.

Procreation. How is it that I am here? Because there are more straight people than gay people. Freak! Our race will always survive because there will always straight people procreating. For this reason alone, the "How is the human race going to survive, if everyone is gay" argument holds no water.

Realistically, what is the chance the human race could either be all straight or all gay? It would never happen this way. Human sexuality is diverse as people are themselves diverse. There is sexual diversity in the human race whether straight people like it or not. What about people who don't like sex, or don't want to have sex? I know straight women who have no interest in sex. Are they perverted for not wanting to further the human race?

Fact: Straight people have already over populated the earth. There are over 6 billion people on earth and about 5 million children die of starvation each year. It's very sad.

How would my co-worker like it if I said this: I can easily say that it's obvious that cultures surviving for thousands of years created the races of Asians, Whites, Middle Easterners, Africans, Indians and so on and so forth, because they did not mix races. Isn't it obvious that these cultures were meant to be separate and not mixed? Tradition dictates that if our various cultures were not mixed for thousands of years, then why mix them now? Why erase the culture and tradition of pure races? Mixing cultures corrupts the human race.

Look at Asian people, not only do they have the same physical traits (straight black hair, slanted eyes, fair to naturally tan skin, etc.) but they have their own culture and language, to top it off. Each race has their own distinct physical characteristics as well as their own culture and language.

It's easy to see that skin color, hair type, eyes that are slanted, noses that are larger or smaller, foreheads that are shorter or taller, and the scent of a person should not be commingled with another race. To mix races is ridiculous. It's obvious that the mixing of races is not natural, don't you agree?

The guy at work who told me it's unnatural for gays to have sex, is a mixed guy of several races. How would he like it if I said that mixed people are a corruption to the human race and it should be made law that he can't have sex with anyone for fear of corrupting the human race even further. That he is repulsive and a danger to society for not being a pure breed human being. How would he feel if I told him this?

Look at young children. Why is it that children of mixed races can learn together, play together and be friends together without noticing each other's skin color? For the simple reason they haven't been taught yet to hate other people due to skin color. Racism is obviously a learned behavior.

You can see men and women are made for each other. It takes a man and a woman for procreation, yes of course, I'm not denying this. However, same-sex sex is for the pleasure of sex, not for procreation. How many times do straight people have sex and they don't procreate?

Filipino Culture. In the Philippines it's natural for two straight friends to hold each others hands when casually walking down the street. It's not considered gay. Imagine if the culture of the U.S.A. allowed for friends and co-workers of the same sex to hold each others hands? For the simple and pure reason as a way to connect as friends—it would have nothing to do with sex. If this ever happened, it would be difficult to tell which guys were gay and which guys were not.

Imagine.

Money Isn't Everything. Money Doesn't Bring You Happiness.

Those are the biggest two lies of the century. Money is everything and money does buy you happiness. I've traveled world wide because of money. I feel so alive when I'm traveling because I don't have to worry about work. Vacations relax my brain, my body and my life—and my creativity increases. When I get back home and go back to work, people even tell me I look refreshed.

The last two vacations I spent were on cruises (2007 & 2008) in the Mediterranean. Some travel books reveal the Mediterranean is the best spot in the world to take a cruise. This is due to the good climate and the calm waters of the Mediterranean. On the cruises, my time was my own and being pampered was the crew's top priority for their passengers. I was pampered so much that my creativity spiked and I started writing books on each cruise. I hope to have one of my books completed either late 2008 or early 2009.

Traveling also afforded me the opportunity to meet new people and experience new things. I can say I've met people from England, Turkey and Bangkok. I've purchased such-and-such in Venice, I bought this trinket in Paris, I purchased this item in Hong Kong and I bought this souvenir in Prague. I've stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (This is an incredible experience.), I've been to St. Mark's Square (a.k.a Piazza San Marco) in Venice, had a boat ride in the long tail boats (a.k.a James Bond boat from the movie, Man with the Golden Gun) in Bangkok and I've visited La Sagrada Família in Barcelona. And yes, Barcelona is a fantastic city. These are just some of the things I've done.

When I first started working for a new company several years ago I told several of my co-workers that I've traveled all around the world. My one co-worker said she was too busy to travel. Another employee commented that he never has been outside California. He said he didn't need to since California offers everything he needed. I feel sorry that this guy actually believes this.

There's another guy where I work and he says he would never travel outside the United States because people in other countries will chop your head off. I asked the don't-chop-off-my-head-guy, where on the news have you seen this and what countries? He said, "Well, I don't remember where but I've seen it." I said there are more murders in this country per year than most industrialized countries put together per year. He said, well, if they kill you here, they don't chop your head off. I wish more Americans would use their brain.

I've heard we have a lot of gun related deaths in the U.S. but I wasn't sure of the totals, so I've tried to locate some gun death totals per country but it's not so easy to find this information. I've found some interesting information listed below:

U.S. fire-arm related deaths in 2001 is approximately 30,000.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/death-by-the-barrel.html

Canadian fire-arm related deaths in 2001 is 842.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/ads/82-003-XPE/pdf/16-4-04.pdf (page 43 of the PDF)

Australia fire-arm related deaths in 2001 is 333.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi269t.html

[These are not active links, you'll need to copy and paste them into a browser if you are interested. Sorry about that, not enough time to link them.]

So, two points, money is everything, money does buy you happiness and there are lots of murders in the U.S. Hey, it's my blog, if I want to make these points in one blog I can!

I'm trying to say it seems that some people in the U.S. are satisfied by living here and don't see the need to experience other cultures and people despite the fact there are incredible things outside of the United States—and for many countries, it's probably safer to be traveling outside the U.S.A., ta boot!

Of course that brings me to another point for a blog about the "culture of fear" in the U.S.A. created by Bush to push through Homeland Security and to take away our rights. Another blog, another time.

The Final Solution

Doesn't "Marriage equals one man and one women. Protect marriage!" have the similar ring to it, as how the Third Reich promoted the Final Solution? Well... maybe not that similar but homophobic straight people—today—just can't come out and say, "Kill all the gays" anymore. I mean, even homophobic straight people know it's wrong to kill the customer and lose profits.

So, instead, they say it's not an equal rights thing, it's tradition. Don't they mean it's tradition for religious people to teach institutionalized homophobia and why the hell would we want to stop the tradition of blaming "others" for all our troubles? If we don't have the gays to hate, who will we say is causing all the trouble in this world? We'll have to say it's Satan and that's not as fun as saying that gays are causing all the trouble.

From California Protect Marriage (November 2, 200) site. The bold is their quote and the italics are my comments.
"It protects (Don't they mean the law will insist you lie to children and say only two people can love each other only if they are of the opposite sex?) our children from being taught in public schools that “same-sex marriage” is the same as traditional marriage (It is the same. Two people loving each other. There is no difference.), and prevents other consequences (A law recognizing we are all equal? How horrible!) to Californians who will be forced (Forced? It's a free country, you can still hate gays if you still decide you don't agree with the Declaration of Independence, "...all men are created equal....") to not just be tolerant (It's America, you can still hate anyone you want, in private or public, in fact.) of gay lifestyles, but face mandatory compliance (Mandatory compliance of what? That you have to pay taxes? You will still need to pay taxes whether you are a straight or gay couple.) regardless of their personal beliefs." (There is a little something called the Separation of Church and State which makes the United States of America one of the most unique countries in the world. Take your personal bigoted, intolerant beliefs and believe them in the privacy of your own home and church. There is no room for personal prejudices and intolerance in state law or federal law.)

Follybuster. What?

"So, what the heck is a Follybuster, anyway? A Follybuster is anyone who publicly debunks a majority point of view that rewards conformity, perpetuates ignorance, disregards critical thinking, and supports overall foolishness." —Tom Interval. See my friend's blog: Follybuster Blog

His blog looks nicer than mine (not to mention that his blog has less spelling and grammatical errors) but I have better content! Ha! Just joking!

Religious Right Nut Cases

If I hate the fact that Religious Right Nut Cases hate "other" people, is my hatred of the haters wrong?

Somtimes in my Blog I Write With Hatred Towards Others and Sometimes I Write With Love Towards Others

I'm just like God.

Will a Minister Ever Have a Sermon Titled: "Us" "Them" and "We"?

Nope. So, I'll do the sermon here, it's only four sentences long: There is no "Us" and "Them." There is only "We." Using the terms, "Us" and "Them" only divide people—friends, family and even nations. We are all interconnected, we all share the same humanity. (These four sentences are taken directly from the web site: Walk for Togetherness)

When will Christian ministers (as a whole) bring this message of our shared humanity to their flocks? Never. I think Christian American enjoys using their god and their Bible as their mechanism to promoting their own personal prejudices.

If the Christian church as a whole stopped hating gays, the only other people they'll be able to hate are people with other faiths, atheists (Of course, Christ wouldn't hate people of other faiths or atheists, his message is one of love.) and people who live outside of the United States of America. It's kind of boring to hate people outside of the country, especially when you can hate people inside the U.S.A. in the privacy of your own home, church, community and country.

My Parents Friends and my Friends

As I look back to the 1970s, when I was growing up, I remember that my parents friends where white heterosexual couples. I've told my parents recently that my friends are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, white, African American, Mexican and Asian. My mother did not know what to say.

I asked her, do you have any gay friends? Her response was, well no, and it's because they like to hang out together by themselves. What a nut case! She actually believes, "Birds of a feather, flock together." Fine mother, then you can have the comfort of knowing that your best friends are your hateful, bigoted and intolerant friends who flock together at your church.

For the record, I do not associate with people like my parents. Period.

Wow. Watching Religious People Hate Others on T.V.

I have recently seen Christians talking on TV about Proposition 8 (California, 2008) which defines marriage only between a man and a woman. The so-called Christians publicly declare their hatred toward other human beings. It is unreal—really unreal.

It's amazing how people who claim that Jesus' main message (beside salvation) is of love, are filled with hatred towards other human beings. The real truth? Millions upon millions of Christians across America are actually false followers of Christ. Christ never spoke against homosexuality. Fact. I blame the false leaders of Christ and the false followers Christ, equally.

One of the main keys for keeping homophobia alive is how straight people think that if you accept gay people as equal to you or if you have gay friends that—you (a straight person) must be gay. Think about how illogical this is. If a gay person has straight friends, gays aren't afraid that other gay people will accuse them of being straight. The other key to institutionalized homophobia is how the American flock of false followers of Christ accept the intolerance so easily from their minister's and clergy's sermons.

Religious Right Nut Cases are saying gays equate pedophilia and that gay sex is equal to bestiality, which implies that gays will screw anything around even if it happens to be an animal. Don't people ever think for themselves?

Again homophobic people aren't thinking for themselves. The average pedophile in the United States is a 34 year old married male (married to a woman) with two kids. This is a fact. Look it up on a reliable web site. If you look at a religious site, it is not reliable, they only tell lies to promote their own prejudices.

If you have any doubts what-so-ever about who is and who is not a pedophile, then stop demonizing others based on your own ignorance. Research the statistics yourself, call your police department and see what they say. They will tell you there are more heterosexual pedophiles than gay pedophiles who are arrested, simply because there are more heterosexuals than homosexuals. Homosexuality does not equate pedophilia.

What is more important to you, that you blindly believe lies told to you by others or that you yourself have researched pedophilia to know actual facts? Once you know the facts, if this subject comes up with friends, family, work or at church, you can say you've researched the subject and that homosexuality does not equate pedophilia. You can tell people it's time to stop lying or stop believing in the lies about this.

Homosexuality does not equate bestiality. Like I said in an earlier post. There is a huge difference between bestiality and homosexuality. Bestiality is having sex with an animal and homosexuality is sex between two people. Why do we need to spell these things out for America? Is the American public that stupid? You know what they say, the masses are asses.

As I said before, what homophobic straight people don't get is that gay sex is natural for gay people. Straight sex is not natural for gay people. So, when a homophobic person thinks that gay sex is unnatural, it's because... gay sex is not natural for a straight person. The only sex that is natural for a straight person is straight sex.

The Christian church has years and years of apologies to make to the American people and the rest of the world for their message of hatred of others. When will they step up to the plate and apologize for their public hatred, bigotry and intolerance of others?

TV Stations Make Murder Stories Their Top Stories, or do They?

When one or more persons are murdered in a city, all the TV stations not only cover the story but they typically make it their feature story. Since that is the case, why don't all TV stations around the nation feature the murder of Iraqis by American armed forces on a daily basis?

When you look at web sites which estimate the number of murdered Iraqis, they usually have a tally in the one (1) million range. A million people? This crime against humanity should be all over the news.

Reminder, during World War II, the estimated number of Jews murdered runs between 5.7 million to 6 million people. Do you see any similarity between how 1 million people or 6 million people being murdered is disgusting? Murdering one million people in another country, no matter what the reason, is a crime against humanity.

When I'm out riding my bike around San Diego and I see a news van, I always stop and say, "News Flash, the American people don't want the war in Iraq and it's disgusting that we've murdered about a million Iraqis. It's time we impeach Cheney and Bush, now." The TV people look at me and either agree or don't say anything.

I've also called my Senators and Congresspeople for years asking them to stop the murder of Iraqis and I call for the impeachment of Cheney and Bush, to no avail. Congresswoman Susan Davis, wrote back to me in 2007 and said, "...I do not believe that impeachment is the only way to hold this administration accountable for its misguided actions." Misguided? Murder? She's right, forget about impeachment, simply send Cheney and Bush, directly to prison.

Wake up America! Wake up American media! These filthy murderers are using our taxpayer's money to kill people in other countries! It's a sad time when I have to write about the immorality of the White House and how our nation as a whole is not crying out and demanding this crime to be stopped.

Shame on any citizen who has not called their Senators and Congress people telling them to stop the war. Shame on the media for not—on a daily basis—outing this war as an illegal war not sanctioned by the United Nations. Shame on the media for not—on a daily basis—covering the murder of Iraqis and giving the death tolls of Iraqis on a daily basis and a year-to-date basis. Shame on the media for not demanding that Cheney and Bush be impeached.

Are Gays the Downfall of Society?

Homophobic Religious Right nut cases are quick to point out that gays are bad for society or are the downfall of society and etcetera.

Let's talk about some statistics. At the Raiders Chargers game (Oct. 2007) in San Diego, a Channel 10 news report listed a total of 53 arrests, mostly for alcohol-related offenses. The news article stated this was a "relatively well-behaved" crowd of fans. And let's face it, the number of arrests don't seem bad, it seems about right, for a Raiders Chargers football game with a rowdy football crowd drinking alcohol. Some more numbers: Qualcomm stadium in San Diego can hold between 50,000 to 70,000 people.

Let's talk about Gay Pride (an annual event) held in San Diego. This two day event typically attracts approximately 200,000 people. Several years ago, I was talking to a San Diego police officer who, year after year, has specifically worked during Gay Pride in San Diego and he wanted to tell me about Gay Pride, from a police officer's point of view.

He told me the police always have planning meetings on how to handle large crowds at public events and how they will plan for arrests and so on and so forth. They know arrests will be made when large groups of people are gathered, especially when there is alcohol involved. You might not know this, but there is always a large beer garden in a fenced off area at San Diego's Gay Pride.

During one of the Gay Pride planning meetings, several years ago, an officer who never work on a gay pride event before, asked the question of where will they locate the temporary prison? There was immediate snickering in the room.

Aside: When you have a large crowd of people at an event, the officer told me, the police typically have a temporary prison—a holding place—for those arrested and then when appropriate, the police will move people in mass to the local jail, it's more efficient that way.

The new officer said, okay, why are all of you snickering? What is going on at Gay Pride that I don't know about? Another officer spoke up and said, we don't need a temporary prison at Gay Pride. Year after year, there has never been an arrest.

And gays are the scourge of society?