Dear Kina and to ALL ... JUST SOME MUSINGS... of my own...

Religion and Organized Religion...
I received a note yesterday in my email ... and decided to pose and not post anything on the blog... I reflected and as it is my custom for open unrestricted dialogue and a 100% supporter of FREE SPEECH... I am publishing the note without any changes... That's how it should be... That's how I am... Others have denied me my writes to speak... in political, social, religious and educational forums... I have been kicked out of discussion halls and also from university classrooms... Just because I had insisted to express my views unrestricted and freely...
People do not appreciate the TRUTH... which is relative too...
I have been threatened and at times punched out of halls and when I was teaching, in my last school, where the note writer, Kina, was a student too... the animosity to my way of doing things and organizing things was palpable... The main dispute was academia versus athletics... I insisted that as a "school" the priority should be on academics... But the athletics lobby was very well organized and had tradition on their side... 

Dear (former) student and now a friend...
I have absolutely NOTHING against religion... My dispute is with organized religion...
Let me come up with a very tentative least...
1. The wars to liberate the Holy Lands...
2. The wars between Protestants and Catholics in Europe which went for centuries and its last manifestation was the Northern Ireland conflict between Protestants and Catholics...
These two wars were very prolonged and claimed thousands of lives... and ALL in the name of religion...
3. The Inquisition...
4. The Papal Vouchers  which were sold to raise money... for the Vatican... and the more you paid the better sit you got in heaven... Organized religion sold "chairs" in Heaven
5. The burning of the "witches"... by the thousands in Europe and the "Witches of Salem" in Massachusetts...
Also,
6. Mohammed conquered all of the Middle East and North Africa by force... He preached to spread the faith by the sword and kill the infidels...
7. The successive Turkish regimes organized pogroms against Armenians... locked them in churches and burned them alive... and all that culminated in the Armenian Genocide... and the world is commemorating the centennial of the Armenian Genocide this year...
And, 
8. The Islamist-Jihadists... Now...
9. I will not mention the abuses of individual priest... sexual or financial... I will not mention the luxurious mansions... and all the riches of ORGANISED religion...

I am depressed now and I do not want to continue the list... It is indeed disgusting what ORGANISED religion had committed in the name of God and in the name of Allah...

Reading the religious literature and the "Holy" books is wonderful... It is our culture and civilization... learning from it is excellent... When I was studying English Literature in the University... the Bible was a required reading... and I read it with enthusiasm and pleasure... it supplemented my knowledge of mathematics and philosophy and economics... which I had studied before...

In the Bible it is mentioned that "When two or three of you gather in my name to pray... that's where the Church is and I am with you..."

We do not need the luxurious abodes and Churches... They are worth billions and billions of dollars... and Jesus admonished the Prince and told him... "Sell your belongings and follow me..." and as an afterthought added... "It is much easier for the camel to pass from the needle eye, than the rich people to go to heaven..."
All the churches combined... are worth billions of dollars... and imagine how much good that will do in the Global Village...

Let us sell ALL the Churches and ALL the Church belongings ... Let us stop buying arms with petro-dollars... Let us stop the purchase of Arms in the Middle East in the name of religion... AND LET US FEED THE HUNGRY OF THE WORLD...

I am sorry for the lengthy musings... but I am very passionate when it comes to Organized religion and the ruthless atrocities that it has committed and is committing at present...

I always dreamed of myself in a monastery... tranquil and peaceful... away from everything... but it never happened... I always wanted to be by myself... and thinking and thinking more... 
I have absolutely NOTHING against religion and the priests that you mention are dear to me... I respect them... and you and people like you are dear to me... I give you a BIG HUG... 

People like you are a beacon of light and make all that we (I) am doing worthwhile... I admire your courage against all odds and I salute your positive attitude and bubbly smile... I miss them all...

And here is Kina... one of the BEST people that I had the pleasure to meet and chat and teach and learn from her...

Hello hello!

I thought I would send you a message after reading your blog post.  

I am one week away as of tomorrow from my next chemo session and I've been using your blog lately as a way of keeping up with what is going on in the world.  

I can't stand to watch the news and I don't get the news paper here, but I do like to keep up to date.  I used to be able to do that at school, the other teachers would fill me in, but now that I'm at home, I don't have that luxury.  So, before I would sign on to your blog once a week and catch up on everything, but now I look at it every night when I write my own blog.  

I know that there are a lot of horrible things going on in the world, but I think there is also so much focus on those things that we lose sight of the good things right under our noses.  For example, I know that organized religion has been responsible for some horrible things, but to put all the blame on it is equally as horrible.  Really it comes down to people.  For example, the priests in some churches have done horrible things, I will agree with that.  They take liberties that are very un-Christian like.  However, I look at people like the priest of my community.  When he came to this country, already a priest, he got a job teaching French at a school.  He taught for a very long time, and as a result, when he retired, he was able to collect a teacher's pension.  He lives off of this pension now.  Every other little bit of money that comes into the church is used for the upkeep of the church, or sent to orphanages in Armenia or Lebanon to help those who need it so much more than we do.  I myself help to organize that Fathers' Day brunch every year where we raise thousands of dollars.  Ask me if we keep any of it...we don't.  Every single penny that we raise goes to the orphanage.  I think that it is more of a problem of enlightenment versus ignorance.  Those who are members of IS, they are not following what the Koran teaches them.  This evening my parents came over for tea and we were actually discussing this.  My father translated for me parts of the Koran, since he is fluent in Arabic.  There is a part that mentions that Mohammad is the prophet of God.  However, in the IS, they have warped this part of the Koran so that it reads that God is the prophet of Mohammad.  This again is a sign of ignorance in opposition to enlightenment.  

I do a lot of reading and research into religions and their holy texts.  I learned a lot about the Koran while I was in Turkey for a couple months a few summers ago.  The words of the book have been played with to excuse so many things.  Currently, I am reading the Gnostic bible.  It is very interesting to see how they explain the difference between the jealous God of Judaism and the all-loving God that we are taught in Christianity.  Gnostic means knowledge of self.  It teaches of enlightenment.  They were the first books to be burned by the Roman Catholics when the Romans decided to take over.  Now though, I am seeing this new Pope and I am feeling closer to my religion than I ever have before.  I feel that more and more Catholics are being awakened and enlightened to what Jesus wanted us to learn and to be.  It is ignorance that holds people back.  It is ignorance that takes away peoples' right to choose, it is ignorance that makes people feel that they have the right to end a life.  It all leads back to ignorance.  Those members in IS are killing their own members!!! Why?! Because once they are recruited, their eyes are opened to the fact that they were being held in the dark.  Once they are actually enlightened by the truth, once they can see their own ignorance, their leaders cannot have them polluting the minds of others.  

THAT is the sad truth of the world today.  We think that we are all educated, that the world is becoming a much better place because people are graduating from schools at higher rates, but that just makes us more ignorant because we cannot really understand that life is not about books and grades.  We are actually creating a world of people who are more and more stupid.  Book smart, but not life smart.  

Something to think about,

Kina

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Evolution in Motion.......................................
Social Evolution... and Religious tolerance...

I hust encountered the news below... GREAT! and wonderfully refreshing...

The country's largest Presbyterian denomination has changed its definition of marriage to be more inclusive...  Presbyterian Church (USA) approved an amendment to its constitution after most of its 171 presbyteries, or governing bodies - voted for it, PC (USA) said Tuesday. Before, the definition said marriage was between "a man and a woman." The new definition says, in part, that "marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives."

Dear Kina, 

I included this so as to write... Many ORGANISED religious groups will oppose this expression of inclusiveness and LOVE... As many ORGANISED groups have a "PRO LIFE" position and refuse to be inclusive and compromise...

Organised religion has always insisted that they know the TRUTH and ALL the rest are WRONG.... and When various ORGANIZED religious groupings insist on their infallibility... then there will be WAR and devastation...

Religion must be LOVING and TOLERANT and INCLUSIVE...

***

Sorry to repeat myself... I mentioned this in yesterday's post too...

A Televangelist... A Mega Church Minister, Creflo Dollar... asks for $60 million in hand outs and donations for a new jet...

 The Gulfstream G650 can fly eight passengers and four crew members some 8,000 statue miles at a cruising speed of Mach 0.85, according to specs posted on gulfstream.com.

Creflo Dollar, the minister of the church, known for being a prosperity preacher at his Atlanta-area World Changers Church International, is seeking "200,000 people committed to sow $300 or more (to) help achieve our goal to purchase the G650 airplane."

Just a single question Kina,

What he will do with the jet... people in Africa and Latin America and in the ghettos of North America... are starving... ?
Why the Organized churches will have billions of dollars worth of estates and antiquities... when people in the Global Village are starving...?
Indeed it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!