Three priests were conversing about their churches and how things were run.  The first priest asked the others, “How do you determine what amount of the Sunday offerings plate goes to God and the poor and what amount goes to you and the church?”

The other two looked at one another but didn’t answer so the first priest said, “I’ll go first.  What I do is I draw a line through the middle of the room, I place all the money in one tray and throw it into the air.  What ever lands on the right side goes to God and the poor.  What ever lands left, I get to keep.”

The second priest says, “Well our church is a bit larger than yours and our cost’s there for more.  So what I do is I draw a circle in the middle of the floor and put all the money in one tray, then I throw it up in the air and whatever lands inside the circle goes to God and the poor and what ever is outside I get to keep.”

The third priest says, “well my parish isn’t all that big, but my method is similar.  I place all the money in one tray and throw it up in the air, what ever God keeps up in the air he and the poor can have.”

The church does not want to be governed by man’s law; it touts itself as a place one can turn to for sanctuary and forgiveness. However if you look at the history of religion and the church, most if not all wars have some form of religious interference in them. The word of god or whatever omnipotent being you may believe in has been used in one form or another to justify the actions of man in times of war for centuries.

Looking at the history of the Roman Catholic religion is the most prime example I can think of. It was founded by Constantine who arose as Emperor of Rome in 312 A.D.  According to The Encyclopedia Britannica, Constantine created the Roman Catholic religion in order to unify his people during his reign. However this was contested by a Father George Schultz of the Prince of Peace Catholic Church who stated in effect that, “The religion was founded by Saint Peter… You could argue that Jesus and his disciples were the fathers of the church… The church itself existed before him (Constantine); he just gave it strength and helped it grow more widely accepted.” Heh, funny thing that.  Can you think of any religion that does not claim to have been started by God? Regardless of your belief in its origins, no one can contest the bloody history that the religion is still today trying to live down or distract folks from.

Just to name a couple: The Crusades where the RCC (Roman Catholic Church) decided that they were the only ones that would get into heaven simply because they were Catholic; thus they decided to convert the savage Moorish people. They sent troops over to the middle east to fight in a holy war against the Muslims. A very bloody war. Next there was the Inquisition, pretty much a repeat of the Crusades except here the RCC attacked, captured and tortured anyone until they accepted God as the RCC wanted them to. In this way the RCC thought they were cleansing the world of heresy.

Father George Shultz, when confronted with these facts, said, “The Catholic Church, when following man is fallible, and we’re not proud of some of the things we have done. When we follow Jesus, love is paramount. And the Church grows stronger.” Okay, let’s set aside the blood spilled and the atrocities of war and torture that were committed in the name of religion and god. Let’s talk about the values of the church.

So the church asks us to give money to them so they can help the less fortunate, the poor or the down trodden. I think that a fine goal, so where does the money we give the church go? What money are we giving the church that we may not even be aware of?

An excerpt from Lo Bello, Nino The Vatican Empire © 1968 reads “In 1956, shortly after moving to Rome with my wife and children to take up my duties as a business news correspondent, I was faced with a household crisis – we were without water in our apartment for 28 days. Calls to Acqua Marcia, the company that supplies the water in our Piazza Bologna neighborhood, were all but futile…” (Lo Bello 9). Lo Bello went on to say that he discovered that the Vatican ran the water company, the gas company, the phone company and controlled the leasing of buildings up and down both sides of the street where he lived. Several attempts were made to get the problems corrected but they all met with negligent service and slow response. Most of what was wrong seemed derived of the age when Rome built the utilities; i.e., the plumbing was from the aqueducts dug below the city two thousand years earlier. He also states that the Vatican keeps its financial records in secret, and that they are the only sovereign state that never publishes a budget. “The Vatican is not only in the business of selling God. It’s total enterprise goes beyond God.”

Not only is it made clear that the Catholic Church is secretive of their money, it is also shown how rich the Vatican Empire truly is. We may not have been given a numerical figure of their holdings, but we are given an idea of how vast are the holdings, both in money, and in material pieces such as art, literature and furnishings, which make the Vatican rich beyond most men’s wildest dreams.

With all that money and power at their beck and call, what do the poor and down trodden get? Shelters are set up in the name of the church, and they will give them a hot meal and a blanket if they agree to worship and pray like the church believe. Hmmm, seems like the Inquisition hasn’t ended, its only changed tactics. Find the ones already tortured and tell them, “Believe as I do and God will provide for you.” Then when they conform so they can get the basic necessities of life, they are brainwashed in a Pavlovian fashion that “God” has provided. But doesn’t the food and blankets and clothing come from church driven charities and people giving up the things they no longer need to help the poor? So where did your money go?

One of our (United States of America) founding fathers and president, Thomas Jefferson, devoutly believed in and fought for separation of Church and State. Nonetheless, the Church, as a matter of record, has been very involved in the affairs of government. This double standard has prevailed through most all Church dealings. The church itself is a non taxable “entity” that claims to also be “non-profit”. But as shown above in the quote from The Vatican Empire, there seems to be an awful lot of wealth in those so called “non-profit” organizations.

It is understandable to take up collections for the betterment of the community as a whole. However, to create a business empire out of the sweat and work of others is not what true faith and religion are all about.

This greed shows the extent of power in the civilian work place which the Church has invaded for its own gain. Jesus himself denounced the act of commerce in the house of God in the bible;

“After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get those out of here! How dare you turn my fathers house into a market!…” John 2:12 (NIV Bible 921) So now we have the carnage of and bloodletting of war, as well as the church operating outside of the law and government of man but still as a corporate entity regardless of its intention. Still, there is the teaching right? I mean the church instills values of Godliness and morals for our masses and tries to teach how one might live their life in a Christian fashion with a proper understanding of right and wrong. “And let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” They use that a lot, but I think its because they live in a glass house. The truth is faith isn’t found in a church, or in the bible. Faith is found in the individual. Only in your own heart can you find it. Believe what you will, let no one shake the foundation of your belief and there have you found faith. Want to help the poor and down trodden? Don’t give money to a church, take non-perishables, clothes, blankets and such to the drives, and volunteer for community programs where shelters are built and worked on. And when it comes to morals and right and wrong teachings, don’t follow warmongers and unethical businesses. Listen to your heart.

The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories. “Johnny, do you have a story to share?”

“Yes, ma’am, my daddy told a story about my Aunt Carol. Aunt Carol was a pilot in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a small flask of whiskey, a pistol and a survival knife.

She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy troops. She shot fifteen of them with the gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife, ’til the blade broke and then she killed the last one with her bare hands.”

“Good heavens,” said the horrified teacher, “What kind of moral did your daddy teach you from that horrible story?”

“Stay the heck away from Aunt Carol when she’s been drinking.”

Why Should We Vote?

Every four years, our government (United States) sets out to prove that the people still control this country by suggesting that we get to vote on who will lead us into the next four years. Do we really get to select the best man for the job? What power does our vote truly carry? And finally, if we did have the control we were supposed to have, why do we keep getting ourselves into trouble with those we elected to run things?

Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act III, Scene I (changed ever so slightly for our purposes) wrote, “To vote or not to vote, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.”

In layman’s terms, should you keep your opinion to yourself or speak upon the greatest sin of our electoral times, not voting?

How do we get to select the next man to run for the President’s seat? Well, to be honest, we don’t. A government elected group of people called the Electoral College get together and, based on what they think, put candidates into one of two political parties (either the Democratic or Republican party). The higher officials within these two parties choose who they want to enter into the “Presidential Race.” The only say Americans have in that process is we get to elect the people who run the parties. Can you say “snow-job?” Just because I vote to let a congressman speak for me in Senate hearings and majority votes about bills set to become law, that in no way infers that I trust him to be my advocate when it comes to someone seated to run the country. I don’t pretend to be either Democrat or Republican. If I vote, I choose who I think is making the most sense and give him my vote. For the last three elections my vote was counted and disregarded.

In Harris County / City of Houston during the 1996 Presidential elections, our population was 3,076,867. The number who voted was 855,893 (per American Votes vol. 22 Scammon et al © 1998 Congressional Quarterly Inc.). The elections could be drastically changed if our total registered voters turned out to vote, right? Wrong!!

The way our country designed the electoral process was; “The founders premised their insulated system on the ability of an electoral college of the nation’s most virtuous and learned men to rise above petty factions and select leaders with national vision.” (Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presidency Michael Nelson © 1989)

During the Primaries, anyone meeting the qualifications laid down by law can apply for candidacy to the presidential seat for the United States. The Electoral College then takes a majority vote to nominate people from that group for the candidacy. This approach makes sense if you have a direct voice in the Electoral College, but aside from those elected for that position, the rest of the population basically gets what they give us. How many people actually vote for the primaries?

The Encyclopedia Britannica “Electoral college: In the US, a group of electors chosen within each state to elect the president and vice president. Each state has as many presidential electors as it has representatives in both houses of Congress….although the constitution still allows electors to use their discretion, electors are usually pledged to support a parties candidate…whichever candidate wins a plurality in a state wins all the electoral votes in that state.”

Maybe it’s just me, but just because the majority of the people in the state of Texas vote for Dole, I don’t want him to get my vote. I put my vote in for a specific candidate and although he may not win overall, the vote itself would hold more meaning and more strength if it stood alone than if just because the rest of my district disagreed with me they get to change my vote.

Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 ,Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and more recently George Bush Jr in 2002 won a majority of electoral votes even though they received fewer popular votes than their opponents. This fact is also a matter of record in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The state of Texas over five elections voted as follows: Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Bush and Dole.

The winners, as a matter of history: Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton.

I came of voting age before the 1984 elections and my vote has been changed without my permission, and in the beginning of my age of voting, without my knowledge or understanding, at least twice now. How many times has yours been changed?

How do we as the public get to know how many and who were in the primaries? Is there a 1-800 number? More than likely it’s a 1-900 number! Money talks, even in elections, and especially in politics. In today’s elections, the guy who rises to the top is not always cream of the crop; and even if he/she is a great leader with strong influential abilities, how do we know what they themselves said and what they were prompted to say by everyone else in their campaign army?

Some organizations affecting modern campaigns include: corporations, labor unions, interest groups, public action committees, the national party, state parties and third parties. Campaign groups today consist of: campaign workers, media consultants, public attitudes, the candidate’s family, a running mate, political allies, campaign strategist, schedulers, advance people, advertising experts, issue experts, fund raisers, pollsters, computer analysts, and sometimes the incumbent President. Oh yeah, and don’t forget the candidate himself.

With all these people hanging on to the candidate, how can they be expected to form their own opinion? Everyone in the campaign telling them how to stand, what to say, how to act, dress, walk and think. If they can’t remember who they themselves are, how can we be expected to form an educated opinion about them as a leader for the nation’s best interests? I don’t care what the polls say he should say; I want to know what HE says and how HE would react to the problems of the office when a split second decision could decide the fate of living, breathing Americans who don’t have the time to wait for that next poll to come out.

Campaigns, like Christmas, have gone too commercial. It has become a fight to see who can dig up and throw the most mud at their opponent. We all know nobody is perfect and that’s not what we as a nation need to be looking for; what we need is an honest person who has the nation’s best interest at heart and who will not embarrass us when people see who we have chosen to represent this country as its leader and chief.

Do we really get to pick the best man for the job? No, our powers of selection are pretty much forfeited to the Electoral College. What power does our vote truly carry? Not much, considering that if we choose to vote one way and the majority votes another, then they can and will give our vote to the other guy. Finally, why do we keep getting freaks of political power in office? Because the Electoral College gets the say in who can and can’t run for candidacy, and because the ones who do get in aren’t who the huge following in the campaign party want us to believe they are.

When our founders began this system, I don’t think they had our population numbers in mind. As the population grows, we have a wider base of possible candidates to choose from. Let them apply. Then the Electoral College can shave down the numbers based on the legal requirements of the position and qualifications of the individual vying for the candidacy. Then have each one write a short bio and campaign platform consisting of 4-5 paragraphs. That should be released to the press and let us have a preliminary vote where only the top gets to the primaries. Then the parties can squabble like wolf pups fighting for meat to select who they endorse. Once that has been done, hold the final elections and pick the best person for the job based on the total counted vote of the population, not the lesser of two evils.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.

The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognise that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things – your family, your health, your children, your friends, your favourite passions – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.”

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else – the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. “Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.”

I expect an explanation is in order here.  A lot of people may be thinking that I am creating this blog to start arguments or pick fights, they would be wrong.  This is yet another blog about social issues and problems that claims it will stay neutral… heh, yeah right.  Nobody believes that, but what I will do is try to put up both sides of the argument in a fair and impartial manner.  I will link to news articles and media information and try to write posts that are legible and if not comprehensive, at least somewhat informative.

My hope is that you will join in and talk about the post.  By talk I do not mean get all up in arms, insult, flame or otherwise attack each other or me.  What I am hoping for is well written responses in a debate like format that may enlighten one another to our general social beliefs and differences.

In an age where social problems are viewed through the rose colored glasses of the politically correct, and to voice one’s views sparks a room full of people to fall into silence, stand up and shout, “YES WORLD, I HAVE AN OPINION!!!”

This web site isn’t for the follower. It isn’t for the weak willed. It’s for those people who like me are tired of being told by celebrities, reporters, politicians, and a variety of media & advertising what our beliefs should be. Read the papers and watch the news, form your own opinion, then come here and share with those willing to communicate. Hear what others have to say, but listen to your heart.

Lets show the people we elected to office, and that run our media that we are not the sheep, but the shepherd. For far too long they have passed laws that control and pin us into stereotypes. Break out and be heard. Here we can answer the polls on our own. Not because some agency decided you would answer how they wanted you to, or because you fit into their idea of the “public consumer,” but because we care.

Bring an open mind and a strong opinion. Be prepared to be bombarded with facts and counter facts. Believe what you want and debate your point of view. This site might not change your mind, but maybe it’ll help open it some. I hope you learn new things and enjoy having a place to be heard.