Let us pray. We meditate on the transcendental Glory of the Diety Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of Heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.
Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening. May no obstacle arise between us.
May the Senators strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world, performing their duties with the welfare of others always in mind, because by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life. May they work carefully and wisely, guided by compassion and without thought for themselves.
United your resolve, united your hearts, may your spirits be as one, that you may long dwell in unity and concord.
Peace, peace, peace be unto all. Lord, we ask You to comfort the family of former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson. Amen.
It reads to me as if Zed bent over backwards to present a non-denominational prayer. Do you see anything there that threatens our American Way Of Life? Anything that threatens Christianity? Anything at all?
If not, you must not be working hard enough. A family of conservative Christian protesters felt the need to burst in and interrupt the affair shortly after it began, yelling and shouting until they were hauled off in handcuffs. I'm sure they think of themselves as martyrs rather than intolerant idiots they actually are.
“For all of these years we have honored the God of our Founding Fathers. It was not a group of Hindus, Buddhists or Muslims that came here. It was Christians,” said, Rev. Flip Benham, head of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, speaking to The Hill. As if that somehow gives Christians the right to act like asses toward representatives of other religions.
Lets be clear -- our founding fathers definitely came from cultures where Christianity was the dominant religion. However, most of them arrived here (or their ancestors did) because they were looking to escape from religious intolerance. They favored the idea of people being able to practice religion as each best saw fit (and assuming it wasn't directly harmful to others ... human sacrifice being right out for example).
There's a reason that, despite the predominantly Christian backgrounds of the signers, our Constitution doesn't mention "God" or "Creator". There's a reason we don't have an official state religion (despite what some people, including Rev. Benham, appear to believe).
Many of our founding fathers, to which such people so readily leap to apply "Christian" values, were not, in fact, good, practicing Christians. George Washington would leave church prior to receiving the sacrament. When the church pastor pointed out he was setting a poor example for the other attendees, Washington agreed ... and stopped attending church entirely.
With that attitude, George Washington could never be elected to any serious political office today, much less President. Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration of Independence and our 3rd President, was unquestionably not a Christian. He would be lucky to be elected to a school board these days.
We are becoming a theocratic nation, and that's not a good thing. Most people who claim to be "religious conservatives" don't believe in many of the main tenets of science (evolution being the prime, but not sole, scientific matter they dispute). You could say the same about Islamic conservatives, and look where that stifling of research and questioning has left most Islamic cultures today -- what had been a thriving, intellectual culture, the forefront of human existence a millennium ago, is now broken and backward, scrabbling to come to terms with the modern world.
After barging into the room, the protesters interrupted Zan's prayer by shouting "this is an abomination". Ironically, that part they got right, if not in the sense they meant.
No comments:
Post a Comment