A Religious Rant

Rant in Three… Two… One…

Listen,

I’ve about had it up to my blessed eye holes over this nonsensical Muslim bashing that we’re seeing from Steve Harper on down to the morons people populating the comments sections of every freaking article on Islam.

The one that set me off is the idiot judge in Quebec who threw a woman’s case out of her court because she was wearing a hijab.  She wasn’t suing someone nor was she charged with a crime.  She just wanted to get her car out of jail.

He son had been caught (illegally) driving the car without a valid licence.  The police had impounded her car.  I have no issues with that.  My issue is this piece of work told the woman she could not be in their court with a hijab on because the court is a secular place.

Just to get her car back.

Now tell me, do you think if someone was wearing a yarmulke or a turban for religious reasons this judge would have told them to take off their hat?  Maybe her honour should call Steve Harper and warn him about the guy in the second row of the House of Commons who has the temerity to wear that blue thing on his head.

After all, this is Canada.  The House of Commons is a secular place, well isn’t it?

Maybe I’m way off base here, but a secular society doesn’t mean you can’t live your religion, you just can’t jam it down my throat.  It means we don’t base our laws on some book written hundreds or thousands of years ago by someone who had a mystic vision or maybe just gathered up a bunch of legends and said this is the word of Diety.  Simple, no?

We’re also supposed to have Freedom of Religion or Freedom from Religion (whatever floats your boat) but that seems to be changing too.

What this means is neither the Queen nor Steve nor anyone else gets to tell you or me what religion we have to belong to, and they can’t tell us what religion we can’t belong too.  That part still seems to be working, at least for the most part, but now it’s turning into you can still have your religion, but only if you do it our way!

When people first started to come to North America, a lot of them were trying to get away from people who told them they were doing religion wrong.  People are still coming here for the very same reason.  And what does Steve and Jason and Chris say?  You’re doing religion wrong!

Isn’t that what’s happening in Iraq right now?  ISIS isn’t running amok killing everyone, just the ones who do religion wrong.  ISIS is religious bigotry on steroids, the same religious bigotry that we get from Steve Harper’s minions.

Think about it.

Look, if it is so all fired important to see the faces of people taking the citizenship oath, wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to have a woman judge with an all woman staff to handle these events?  We wouldn’t need many, a few teams that would go out every few months or when the need arises to welcome the new Canadians into our citizenry. 

I almost use “our family” there, but Steve has gone and tainted that too.

And as for the judge in Quebec who doesn’t like hijabs?  She’s as bad as the rest.  She claims that his court room is secular, but I’ll wager there’s a Bible sitting on the corner of her desk.  It isn’t all that long ago we had to change the rules to allow atheists the ability to promise to tell the truth because they wouldn’t swear on a Bible.

I’m no Biblical scholar, but I have read the stories.  Remember when Jesus told the story about the Samaritan? From that story, I’d say that Jesus wouldn’t have stopped the Samaritan from getting into heaven.  He’d probably welcome that Samaritan with open arms.

Why do I mention this?  Well you see the Samaritans were a lot like the Jews at that time… But they did religion wrong.

The way I figure it, when we shuffle off this mortal coil, the first question at the Pearly Gates will not be which book did you follow or whether your house of worship had pews or mats.  The first questions will be were you kind to strangers?  Did you help your neighbours?

And I think that Steve, and Jason, and Chris, and the Quebec judge are not going to have comfortable eternities.

End rant.

Peace.

BC

Stephen Harper, Nobel, and Me

When I first heard about Stephen Harper’s “nomination” for the Nobel Peace Prize I laughed.  Actually I did a quick Google search about it.  Other than the B’nai Brith announcement, there was only one other hit.  A RWNJ blog about how the Lefties’ heads were going to collectively explode over this.

“Yeah,” I thought’ “explode with laughter.”

Well it looks like he was partly right.  A bunch of people really do have their knickers in a knot over this.  There are petitions and blogs and Twitter Wars and all sorts of ranting and raving about this.

What I’m going to do is to ask you to step back a bit and look at this without kneejerk reactions and vehemence.

What does this “nomination” mean? 

Nothing much, really.

Other than the fact that some guy (Frank Dimant) is putting up Stephen Harper for the award.  There isn’t a lot here to talk about.

When I checked the Nobel site, there are a record 278 nominations this year.   47 of these are organizations and the rest, I assume, are people.  What this says to me is that there are going to be a lot of losers.  If you are interested in the list of 2014 nominations, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) has a partial list.

This year’s short list, according to PRIO, includes Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, the Afghan girl shot by the Taliban for going to school, and others. 

Another nominee for the 2014 award is Vladimir Putin.  But he’s not on the short list, at least not according to PRIO anyway.

A Nobel nomination is usually for disarmament, or for peacemaking but can also include things like multicultural understanding or food security.

Being a cheerleader for Israel’s retaliation on Palestine or shouting at 2014 Nobel Prize nominee Putin doesn’t really seem to make the cut.  Even if Steve wore a short skirt and ferociously waved his blue pompoms, I don’t think he’s going to be a Nobel Laureate.

I’m sure that Harper sees it much differently than I do, but a Nobel nomination is not a huge deal.  There have been a few people besides Harper and Putin that most people wouldn’t want to have over for dinner.  Past nominees include Hitler, Mussolini who was nominated twice and Stalin who was likewise nominated twice.

So how do you nominate someone?  The Nobel Prize Organization’s website gives the rules.  Basically, if you or your group want to submit a name, there is a list there of who you need to submit it for you.  Your MP is one, a judge or a University Professor (like Frank Dimant) would be another. 

So if you want to nominate me for the $1 Million paycheque… kidding, just give it some real thought and don’t go rushing trying to nominate anyone simply because they aren’t Harper.  Deal?

Laters!

BC

On second thought, if you want to sign a petition or send an angry email then fire away.  Someone needs to take Steve down a peg or two.

Thanks for the Spam Stephen!

Dear Stephen:

Just a brief note,

Thanks for your ham handed poorly planned elimination of spam on my computer. 

Prior to your plan to rescue me from spam, I was getting a few of these special emails a week.  You told these people that they had to get my permission before a certain date to send me emails.

Well guess what.  My spam consumption has gone up to a remarkable level.  I wonder how many other people are getting more spam than they were a few weeks ago?

I was conscientious, I tried to check every one of those permission emails before I clicked ok, I thought I recognized every one of them as a company that I wanted to hear from… but it looks like I may have goofed.

It now seems that every Tom, Dick, and Harry who has something to flog now has my email and is sharing their business phones, security systems, holistic remedies, and just about anything you can think of with me.

Somebody sold my email and I’ll wager they’re selling it again and again.

Now that we have this wonderful law, what am I to do with all this newfound spam?  Can I forward it to you?  Is there a clearing agency that will contact these people and make them stop or face fines?

I seriously doubt that any of these wonderful offers are coming from Canadian sources. 

Maybe they come from the same office where my friend David works.  You know him, he’s the guy that calls from Microsoft’s virus alert team to let me know that my computer is spreading viruses all over the internet and he’ll fix if for me if I’ll just do a few simple commands on my computer.

Did you know that they have a 1-800 number in case the person who takes care of the computer isn’t at home?  Seriously, my wife told him that she couldn’t do it, but I could and he gave her a contact number.

I contacted the police about this, they said it wasn’t their jurisdiction, but they were good enough to give me the government site where I could lodge a complaint.

I never heard back from them, I thought I gave them permission to email me.

Anyhow, I’ll just go back to my old method of dealing with spam… Delete, delete, delete, until they get the message that this is pretty much a dead zone for their wares. 

It worked last time.

Thanks again! Banana-head.

Yours in annoyance,

BC

Letter to Harper re: Palestine

Dear Stephen.

It’s been a while since I last wrote, but I was wondering about some things and I hope that you can help me with them.

Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot in the news about the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  Frankly, there is much here that I don’t understand, but mainly I don’t understand your position on all of this.

You might want to call me anti-Semitic because I am not pro-Israel or because I’m not anti-Palestinian but you’d be mistaken.  I have nothing against the people of the Jewish Faith any more than people who are Christians or Muslims for that matter.

What I am though is anti hate.

Look Stephen, I’ll agree that for the Hamas militants to fire rockets into Israel is wrong, but is the bombing of the Palestinians right?  The response of the Israeli government to the Hamas rockets, some 300 or 400 I understand, has been the dropping of hundreds of Israeli bombs on Palestine.  The response of the death of 10 Israelis has been the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.

My question is when will it end?  Will it end when the last Palestinian lies dead in the street because there is no one left to bury him?

What do you think history will say if this occurs?

Will Benjamin Netanyahu be celebrated as a great hero, or will his name be listed alongside other notables like Stalin?

What will history have to say about Stephen Harper, if it even remembers you at all?

If history is nice, you might be remembered as a Neville Chamberlain type.  You had the ear of Mr. Netanyahu but chose to support him rather than to create a lasting peace in the Middle East.  If history is cruel, you could end up being Mr. Netanyahu’s Mussolini.

Even the Americans, the staunchest of Israel’s supporters are trying to get the offending sides to sit down and work out a compromise, and yet you distance Our stance from theirs.

You seem to support the Israeli government with an almost religious fervour and that troubles me.

You, me, the Israeli government, and Hamas all have something in common.  Our religions are all derived from the God of Abraham.  We are all related.  We share a common God.

Does that bother you?  It bothers the Hell out of me.

These are rival factions of the same family beating the life out of each other and it appears that the one side has the power to do the other in.

And you?  You’re cheering them on.

They tell me there is a special place in Hell for those who do nothing when evil occurs.  Do you suppose there is a worse place for those who cheer on the evil doers?

We are told that Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers” so why aren’t we working towards peace in stead of sending Mr. Baird to the UN to chastise those who want the fighting to stop?

While I’m thinking of the Bible, there are very few actual words of God recorded.  I mean quotes like “Thou shalt not kill.”

Or are you one of those who believe in the “end times”?  Are you looking forward to the Apocalypse and think that the Balkanization of the Middle East is just another step on that journey?

How long can this situation between Israel and Palestine go on until someone says “Enough” and takes up arms in support of one side or the other?  And then the fun begins…

I really don’t fear God unleashing the Apocalypse.  God promised Noah that He would never again eradicate humankind after the great flood.

If God is all powerful and hates the unbelievers the way some think He does, why does He allow them to have children?  Why wouldn’t He just wave his hand and render all the offending religions and Nations barren?  Within decades there would be no one left to fight, only the Chosen Ones would remain.

No, if there is to be an Apocalypse, it will be caused by man and fought by man.  If Jesus should arrive at the end, I doubt that he will be dressed in armour and riding a white steed.  He’ll more likely be dressed in a poor man’s robes, ministering to the sick and dying.

He’ll likely be preaching again too.

“Look what the word of man hath wrought.  Come to me and let us create a new world where we can live in peace.”

I doubt that you’ll be invited Stephen.

Laters,

BC