Last week’s Supreme Court decision, effectively giving Monsanto and other megacorporations the power to buy our senators and representatives in Congress really threw me into a tailspin. I’ve seen this thing coming for months now, but I don’t think I ever really allowed myself to consider this outcome a possibility. After all, even my nine year old knows the difference between living things and those that aren’t. The whole fiasco was simply inconceivable until it actually happened.

The idiots who applauded this decision were quick to point out that labor unions were included in this ruling, but seriously, when was the last time organized labor actually stood on equal footing with big business? That’s like sending Pee Wee Herman into a boxing ring to fight Mike Tyson; no contest.

Last week’s Supreme Court decision, effectively giving Monsanto and other megacorporations the power to buy our senators and representatives in Congress really threw me into a tailspin. I’ve seen this thing coming for months now, but I don’t think I ever really allowed myself to consider this outcome a possibility. After all, even my nine year old knows the difference between living things and those that aren’t. The whole fiasco was simply inconceivable until it actually happened.

The idiots who applauded this decision were quick to point out that labor unions were included in this ruling, but seriously, when was the last time organized labor actually stood on equal footing with big business? That’s like sending Pee Wee Herman into a boxing ring to fight Mike Tyson; no contest.

Earlier this week I got an email from an old friend of mine. It was one of those disgusting, ignorant things people forward whenever their fear chain gets pulled. This one purported to prove that all Muslims are under orders from Allah to kill the rest of us. Lock up the women and children! Fear the brown people! Be afraid, be very, very afraid!

The offending email even claimed to have been vetted through snopes.com, so I checked snopes myself and they call this piece of fundamentalist propaganda as a “mixture” of truth and lies.

Earlier this week I got an email from an old friend of mine. It was one of those disgusting, ignorant things people forward whenever their fear chain gets pulled. This one purported to prove that all Muslims are under orders from Allah to kill the rest of us. Lock up the women and children! Fear the brown people! Be afraid, be very, very afraid!

The offending email even claimed to have been vetted through snopes.com, so I checked snopes myself and they call this piece of fundamentalist propaganda as a “mixture” of truth and lies.

I’ve been struggling with this post for several days. Perhaps that’s a sign that now is not the time to write about this subject, but I need to write about it for my own sanity. My soul is screaming for this to come out, and maybe by writing about it I can help someone else who’s suffered the same torment.

I am a survivor of long term peer abuse; abuse that ended almost twenty years ago, but which still influences my life almost every day.

I’ve been struggling with this post for several days. Perhaps that’s a sign that now is not the time to write about this subject, but I need to write about it for my own sanity. My soul is screaming for this to come out, and maybe by writing about it I can help someone else who’s suffered the same torment.

I am a survivor of long term peer abuse; abuse that ended almost twenty years ago, but which still influences my life almost every day.

I ran across a recent Gallop Poll this morning, indicating that organized religion is losing ground in America. Nearly thirty percent of Americans today find religion in general to be old fashioned and impotent to address many issues we face today. With this in mind and the holiday season now officially past peak, perhaps now is a good time to reflect on the Christmas season and the relevance of organized religion in our society.

I could go on and on about the tragic commercialization of Christmas, and how we in the modern world have abandoned the ways of our ancestors for the new church of the Consumer Economy, but you already know these things.

I ran across a recent Gallop Poll this morning, indicating that organized religion is losing ground in America. Nearly thirty percent of Americans today find religion in general to be old fashioned and impotent to address many issues we face today. With this in mind and the holiday season now officially past peak, perhaps now is a good time to reflect on the Christmas season and the relevance of organized religion in our society.

I could go on and on about the tragic commercialization of Christmas, and how we in the modern world have abandoned the ways of our ancestors for the new church of the Consumer Economy, but you already know these things.

“The Spirit, without moving, is swifter than the mind; the senses cannot reach him:  He who is ever beyond them. Standing still, he overtakes those who run. To the ocean of his being, the spirit of life leads the streams of action. He moves, and he moves not. He is far, and he is near. He is within all, and he is outside all. Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear. When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all beings, what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?” ~ Isa Upanishad

Gnosis is a Greek word roughly translated as “knowledge,” thus the word agnostic literally means one who has no knowledge. It simply means that one doesn’t know, and I don’t.

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” ~ New Testament, Matthew, 22: 37-40.

Right there it is. In those four lines lie the keys to the entire Christian religion. Love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor, your fellow man, as you love your family and yourself. It doesn’t get any clearer than that, even for a faithless heretic such as me, yet the most vocal opponents to government social programs like universal health care, assistance for the poor and disabled, and just about any other safety net funded by taxpayer dollars seem to conveniently forget this, the first rule of Christendom.