Sort an' Support

I notice a lot of those magnetic car stickers lately -- the ones that are shaped like a curled-up kind of ribbon. Some are yellow, which usually say "Support the Troops" or "Support Our Troops." Some of those ribbon magnets are red, white, and blue and say something like "God Bless America." There are tons of those things lately, and they're fine with me but I don't use them. For one thing, there are too many of them anyway -- and I'm still happy with my bumper stickers. They stick on the bumper and take some scrubbing to remove them, if I ever do. Unlike the magnets that can be picked off and moved around, whatever.

The "Support the Troops" ribbons puzzle me. They make me wonder how so many people can put on a magnetic thing to support their troops, but just don't give enough support to put a permanent sticker on the bumper about it. They want their support to be easily removable and not to mess up their cars too much.

What also puzzles me is, what does it mean? How does anyone, especially around Waupaca, support troops? I assume they aren't talking about financial support -- that could get pretty expensive. Thousands of soldiers would cost a bundle to support, especially if a lot of them had wives and kids to support, too. One person couldn't even support one troop, much less thousands of them. So we can rule out financial support.

But then I'm back to the question about support -- what does that mean? I'm sure people would say "moral support" probably. To do that, it would take more than just putting a magnet on your car, though, wouldn't it? But if that's it, then the magnet should pretty much just say, "I support the war in Iraq" or "The war in Afghanistan" or any war for that matter. Because if one supports the troops, meaning they're behind them in what they're doing -- they're in a war. So then one must support the war. Otherwise they wouldn't have to be supporting the troops. I'd maybe buy one of those magnets if they ever came out with one that says, "End the War" or "Let's get out of Iraq." Something like that.

Not that I'm against the troops. I can't say I support them, except through tax money that pays for whatever they need. But I can't support the death that has come to some 1,600 or more of them. I would be dishonest to say I support them when I've never visited a war-injured soldier in a hospital or done anything out of my normal routine to indicate support. If I were off across the world laying my life on the line, a bumper magnet wouldn't mean a whole lot to me. A letter would help, but you can't send letters to just anyone in the service any more. They won't get delivered to just anyone -- you have to have a name, have to know who you're sending something to.

Everybody who drives around with those things on their car are just doing their usual daily things -- going to work, going shopping, driving around town, doing whatever. How is that supporting the troops? And when they read in the paper that another one died, or a few others were gravely wounded, there's no change in their routine and no tears shed. I don't call that support either.

I guess if I were saying I support the troops and really meant it, I would move to an area near a military installation, where the troops' families live, and I'd offer free babysitting and other help to a family who has a loved one in the war. Somehow just putting a faddish magnet on my car does not feel like support, and the reason it doesn't feel that way is because it's not support. It's just something people do when they want to crow about how supportive they are, and they support Bush and the war. Bringing all those troops home before any more get killed would be the kind of support I could support.

Dying Will

I don't know why a directive about what people should do when you're incapacitated and at the point of death should be called a "living will." I guess, because you write it while you're still living. Whatever it's called, and while I can still think for myself, here's what I'm thinking:

Maybe I better write out some thoughts on the subject here and now, before Congress and the Right-Wingers get their laws passed to make death illegal. I don't think of myself as superstitious, but maybe I am because somehow thinking about writing something about becoming incapacitated, or being in a vegetative state . . . well, it makes me uneasy. Like, maybe I shouldn't talk about it because when you mention something, all of a sudden it seems to happen. But I'll have to take my chances on that because it would be worse to have something happen and not have at least written something.

So this, in a sense, is my Dying Will. Hopefully somebody will think to look here if I'm laid up somewhere in some hospital listening to the dripping of an IV and the ticking of a clock. I hope what I write will be legally recognized and binding, if the time should ever come. With any luck, this will never be needed, but after this Schiavo affair, who dares to press their luck?

People who know me will already know this: DO NOT (capital letters) DO NOT keep me alive beyond my natural capacity to keep my own self alive or beyond the ability to sit up and rehabilitate myself. If my brain is gone, that means my SELF is gone. No one should be allowed to force my body to go on when my self is gone and beyond hope.

And as for people who do not know me, they have no business and no right to be meddling in my life or death. If I can't eat or drink, for whatever length of time my children decide is long enough, then let it be and let me go. I absolutely hate force feeding, and there's no need to be forcing tubes into my stomach to fill it with mush. If they want to fill those plastic bags with beer and flush it into my stomach, that's one thing. But some sort of colorless, tasteless oozy goo that's supposed to keep me fed -- ick!

I'm not sure if the word "ick" would stand up in court. I'll translate -- it means "NO!"

Also, at whatever point of "end-of-life" I happen to be at, I expressly and emphatically prohibit any governor of any state and any Senator, Congressperson, or President of a state or of the United States to even think about me. They should just go about their business of running the government and not try to run people's lives or create problems (or solutions) for people's families -- at least not mine anyway.

I also prohibit any religious nuts to hover over my life and death, and if they have a need to pray for something, I will be wishing that instead of praying for me, they would pray for an end to war, and then go out and dedicate their lives to that end. Oops! Maybe "religious nuts" isn't specific enough to hold up in court either. I'll just translate that into "people who have a desire to pray and preach." Especially those who desire to pray and preach over my death bed. I once knew their God, and I remember from reading the Bible that their God has instructed people to pray in private. If they have a need or desire to pray, they should follow those instructions and go home, go into their closets, and pray in secret.

I'm highly annoyed and downright agitated at the large numbers of people who have been hanging around the hospital where Terri Schiavo lays dying. They pray and cry and beat on drums and make fun of the police and all manner of inappropriate behavior to attract attention. If they truly cared, and if they truly believed, they would be at home praying privately and sincerely. If they really need publicity, they should go over Niagara Falls in a barrel instead of making a very ill person's misery more miserable than it already is.

Now I'm off the subject -- but then again, it was Mrs. Schiavo's miseries and misfortunes that inspired this write-up. So here's what else I invite people to do and not do, if I'm in a dying condition: feel free to laugh, tell jokes, liven up the joint, sing, dance, and play. Nurses and doctors will keep you quiet because of other people there, but you can always whisper and tiptoe around while you're singing and dancing. I doubt if I'll much care to be hugged and kissed and cried over. It's hard to let go of somebody and say good-by, but it doesn't have to be sad and dreary. If I'm going anyway, I may as well go with happy people saying good-by instead of sobbing, sniffing dreary people.

Long-term care and therapy can cost thousands of dollars a year. I won't have that much money, and I sure as hell don't want someone else trying to pay for it. That kind of money should be used for living, not dying. The government might pay some of the bill, but how long can that last? The relatives who are making decisions for me at that point in life (and death) will just have to be upfront with the doctors and hospital bill-collectors and say, "Nobody is going to be paying for all this treatment and medical care." That's one sure way to guarantee they won't keep me hanging on for very long.

One other thing -- I will definitely demand that there be no cameras and videos in my room to capture on film or in a photograph my incapacitated body or writhing, contorted facial expressions -- the way they did to Mrs. Schiavo. What a horrible heartless thing to do to someone. I hate being captured on film now, so what would I say if someone is flicking cameras at me when I can't even speak or act the way I would want to? Please, no pictures. No publicity.

I can't think of any more at the moment, but as a parting shot, people should remember that when it's my time to go, I've always said "when you gotta go, you gotta go!" Some of Smoky's haiku was pretty good, especially the one that went like this:
Snowbanks decaying,
Now is the time for dying.
Yet, the robin sings.

GOP Plays GOD

Currently in the news is the tragic life and times of Theresa "Terri" Schiavo, a tragedy made worse by the political grandstanding of the Bush brothers, religious leaders, and various members of Congress. At this moment, I don't know if she is still alive, but she has been off the feeding tube for five days now and has been resting comfortably. Fortunately, she has no awareness of what has been going on in her name, and the political exploitation of her condition.

Can anyone figure out the Republicans? I can't, and I was one of them myself in times past, but the party was different then -- more governmental and not so moralistic and full of religious babble. I have grown to become a liberal in my old age, and the GOP seems to have shrunk into something I can't figure out. It gets odder all the time, and I suppose there is no hope for recovery and going back to the grand old days of the party.

They are all rallying figuratively to the bedside of the dying Ms. Shiavo, trying desperately to force doctors or judges to reinsert her feeding tube, and trying desperately to grovel their way up the moral high ground. It's all well and good that they see themselves as defenders of life, but at the moment, in addition to Terri, there are quite a few thousand other people subsisting and existing on feeding tubes and other life support systems that may also be disconnected one of these days. Those other people don't count because they aren't a big political plus for the Republicans.

The GOP-guys in Washington cut their vacations short so they could rush in to drum up a bill to save Terri's life by sticking the food tube back into her body. Anything to keep her breathing for another day, or week, or year, or decade. Suddenly those big boys in Congress have become experts in medical science, particularly in the field of neurology, and are pushing their opinions on a helpless woman and on the citizens of the United States. We are no longer safe from government even in our own very private hospital room. The opinions and recommendations of dozens of experienced medical personnel with years of training and education are no match for the opinions of politicians who received their education from a 10-minute edited video of a helpless woman who is not only being exploited by the politicians but by her own parents as well. In the pictures and video, Terri looks around, makes facial movements that are supposed to represent intelligent responses, and basically reacting the way any person operating on brain-stem function would. Never mind the 15-years' worth of serious, highly educated professionals who have studied numerous cases such as Schiavo's and have determined from her movements and actions that she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. They aren't saying she's a "vegetable," as the pro-lifees like to say. They're saying she is a real person who should be entitled to pass away in peace because her brain has vegetated into a state of non-recovery.

Do those doctors and Schiavo's husband, Michael, want Terri to die? Of course not. But they know from having to go through the past fifteen years that they can no longer forcefeed a person just to keep her body alive in this condition and in such a cruel manner. I am certain that they realize how hard it is to let go of a life, but they are also wise enough to know when it is time to let go. Don't the Christians always say, "Let go, and let God." Well, too bad they never follow their own advice. If they did, Terri would not be in this condition, and judging from my feelings of putting myself in her place, and the feeling of everyone else I know, I am certain she would not choose this form of "life" for herself.

The political grandstanding and backslapping and numerous court proceedings have only served to prolong Terri's suffering and have done nothing to enhance her life and liberty. What the federal government is doing by meddling into this very personal family affair is beyond me. One can expect whining and meddling from the fundamentalists because it's what they always do with other people's private lives, but the federal government has government business to attend to, and that's what we elect them for and pay them to do.

The GOP leaders are hard to figure out because they are the guys who want to severely limit medical malpractice suits, exactly like the one that provides the money to pay for Terri's care all these years. These are the same guys who are hell-bent on cutting medicaid funding and changing the bankruptcy laws to make it more difficult for people to stay alive and receive necessary health care. And this is the party with the moralistic preaching about the sanctity of marriage -- one man and one woman -- and yet they blatantly disregard this woman's husband and make efforts to usurp his moral responsibility to act as her legal guardian. You have to feel the agony of the parents, for sure, but don't those religious people agree with the Bible verse about a woman leaving her parents to give her husband authority over her life. This whole fiasco is hypocrisy in action.

Life is so sacred to these Republican Party proclaimers, but . . . um . . . have they forgotten their fabulous war? During all this while, the same fellows who go overboard and stay up all night to save the life of one hopeless woman when at the same time, under cover of secrecy, they express no emotion for the caskets carrying the mortal remains of once-healthy young soldiers who are being shipped home from Iraq after having to die to pay for Bush's disastrous foreign policy maneuvers and his misguided, mismanaged war on terrorism.

Most of us have learned since childhood that death is a natural part of life. While we can, we should respect the value of life, but no one can do that unless they also accept the inevitability of death and respect a person's right to die with dignity and peace. As old Grandpa Robbins once said when he realized his mind was beginning to leave his body, "Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to someone."

Saving a Life

The people who are protesting the courts in Florida and the people, including family members, who are trying to get Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted believe they are saving her life. Their intention is really to prolong her death. She has been in her current condition for fifteen years, unable to eat, unable to walk, talk, or do anything for herself. That is not living. It is a cruel trick of nature and the wonders of modern medicine that are keeping her body nourished, not so much to keep her alive as it is to keep her from dying.

Suffering severe brain damage in 1990 from a chemical imbalance caused by an eating disorder, Terri had a heart attack and has been in a coma-like state ever since. In that fifteen years, there has been no successful rehabilitation or improvement in her condition, and her doctors have describe it as a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery. The papers continue to print the two famous photos of her, both from about four years ago -- and both with her mother, with one in which the mother is kissing her on the cheek and in which Terri's eyes are a blank stare. The other, more convincing to those who try to save her shows Terri smiling at her mother. The mouth shows the smile, the eyes show the blankness of the brain.

One cannot blame the parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, for their efforts since it must be the worst thing in the world to let go of a child and say good-by. I would not want to be in their position. On the other hand, if I were in their place, I would hope that I would not be so selfish in trying to retain posession of my child's lifeless body and miserable existence. I would not want to expose my child to the worldwide media exposure that shows her as she is. And I would definitely not want her near the radical fundamentalists who carry on with their public tears and prayers in the streets outside. I would not welcome the smug attitude of men like Bo Gritz who tries to enter the hospice to bring her bread and water. That's an act of selfishness on his part, to make a spectacle of himself and to get publicity. He knows she can't eat it even if he did get in and put it to her mouth.

Her husband, Michael, has tried for the past few years to have doctors disconnect the tubes that prolong the poor woman's death and do nothing to enhance her life. She has been denied death with dignity and peace. Because of her parents and the outside religious factions the pressure the courts and the legislators, Terri has had every shred of dignity removed from whatever was left of her existence. With the dignity and peace gone, she virtually has nothing left. The only thing she has had for years is a bland mushy substance being oozed into her stomach through a tube implanted in her side.

Would any of us want to be in that condition? No one would want that, and yet they think that's what's best for Terri. So many times over the years, whenever someone has died after a lengthy illness or even a short traumatic illness that has robbed a person of their health and well-being, I have heard people say, "It's a blessing" when the ill person has died. And here we have a slew of people who demand that the doctors and the courts deny that kind of blessing to Terri Schiavo.

Her parents have said she could be rehabilitated if given the chance. If the past fifteen years haven't offered a chance or possibility of rehabilitation, why would the next fifteen years be any different. Is she to lie there until she is 80, until her parents have long gone, just to please the people who want to play God and keep the mush oozing into her stomach? I'm all for the wonders of modern medicine, and I don't believe in God, but for those who do -- don't they ever question whether God has been trying to bring Terri to be with him in Paradise, only to be thwarted continually by well-meaning parents and medical technology. In times past, Terri would have died with dignity and little fanfare.

Every day in this world feeding tubes and other life-prolonging measures are removed from people who then pass away quietly, and no one bats an eye. Terri has become the darling of the right-wing of America, the sweetheart of Randall Terry and Bo Gritz and George and Jeb Bush. That the Governor of Florida and the President of the United States, including the Republicans in Congress, have gotten involved in this affair is a shame for a woman who cannot speak for herself and, if she could, would probably not want this at all.

According to her husband, she had told him she would not want to be kept alive on tubes, and would not want to lie in bed helplessly for even weeks or months on end, let alone years. She just never wrote it down. It's probably one of those things we all sit around and chat about, but never put in writing. We all have said we wouldn't want to live that way because we know it wouldn't be living. But when it comes to our making choices for other people, we force them to live that way. It's not right, and Michael Schiavo knows it.

Existing at Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, Terri is waiting out her miserable existence while others carry on and debate and file lawsuits and other claims to her existence. President Bush sticks his nose in with the comment, "In instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presuption in favor of life."

White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan says, "Everyone recognizes that time is important here. This is about defending life." It's true that time is important, especially now when Terri's feeding tube has been removed and she is on her third day without it. There isn't much time for her. The Florida judge who ruled that the tube could be removed has sided with Terri and her husband. In order to reverse the judge, even the GOP in Congress gets its nose into this very personal, very family, affair and has tried to rule against the judge. They even went so far as to trying to subpoena Terri to appear before the Senate. Do they expect her to fly up to Washington with her tubes intact, or do they expect her to just drive on up and get rolled into the Senate chambers on a gurney? And then, what do they expect her to say -- "Thanks, boys! Keep up the good work." Mr. McClellan is incorrect about "defending life." Everyone recognizes that this is more about prolonging and avoiding death and about sentencing Ms. Schiavo to possibly another 15 or 20 years of lifeless misery. It is also, I suspect having mostly to do with the GOP's politics-as-usual, with fighting liberals and pandering to the self-righteous fundamentalists.

I hate to see anything, or anyone, die. But death isn't the worst thing that can happen to us. What Terri is being forced to go through is the worst thing. A big part of life is facing death, of knowing when it's time to let go of it, and when to move on and be at peace. I wish Terri could live -- I wish we all could live, to eat and breathe and laugh and cry and work and play. Terri can't do any of those things, and no amount of rehabilitation attempts will alter the fact. To the Bush brothers, and to the members of Congress, and to the media-grabbing prayer groups and big mouths in Florida who are bombarding the place, and even to the parents -- I would say, leave Terri alone. You have already taken away her dignity and pride. Give her back her privacy. Give her peace and rest.

Creating Evil

Creationists claim that God created everything "in the beginning," as the Bible says (Gen. 1:1), and as it also says, "All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). If one accepts this as a fact, as they must if they believe the Bible is true, then their dreaded and hateful Satan had been created by their loving God because Satan (if he does exist as they claim) had to have come from somewhere. Either he was created by God, or he would have created himself, or would have been created by some other Creator. Accepting the concept that God is the one and only creator requires one to accept the concept that God created Satan, and thereby created evil.

Creationists are fond of quoting the first four words of the Bible, "In the beginning, God," as saying that God, being in the beginning, is actually THE beginning of everything. Since God is the beginning of things and the beginning of time, nothing could possibly have come (been created or have existence) before God did. Therefore, Satan's coming into being or existence had come from, and by, the will of God.

Satan is held responsible for all evil and has been called "the father of lies" and "the prince of darkness." Yet, in creating Satan, God had then created the means by which evil entered the world. Therefore, God must be regarded as the Father of Satan and the Grandfather of lies, and the creator of everything that is considered evil in this world. People would not have thought of evil if God hadn't created it in the first place, so why blame people. When the time of Noah's flood came around, God had regretted creating people because they were so wicked, so he destroyed them all. So why didn't he just regret creating Satan, and then just destroy him instead of making the people pay for it. It's in Genesis 6:5-7 where "God saw the wickedness of man was great . . . And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created . . . for it repenteth me that I have made them."

So wouldn't it have made more sense to just destroy the evil he had created instead of the people? If God is purely holy and righteous (as is claimed), he could not have created anything associated with evil. If God is perfect (as is claimed), he could not have made a mistake. If Satan was a mistake, then God is not perfect, and he is not a god. So if they believe in God, then they have to say that the creation of Satan was intentional. If God hates evil and cannot associate with it, as Christians claim, would they explain how God could have created it then?

If Satan was created before Adam and Eve (as is claimed) and if God was especially fond of his newly-created human beings (as is claimed), then why not use his power and love for them to prevent Satan from entering the Garden of Eden? If God knows the future (as is claimed), he would have known that Satan would deceive and destroy God's human beings. So then God had the power and authority to destroy Satan or to diminish any power Satan had. By not doing that, one must assume that God permitted, or even desired, Satan to enter Eden and corrupt mankind.

God, having had the power to create evil and doing so, makes it wrong for anyone to condemn evil because they would be condemning God's handiwork or condemning God's will that evil flourish. So to condemn evil would be evil in itself because you'd be condemning that which God had made, and which he wanted to make. God sees to it that you can't win either way.

If they say God did not create evil or create Satan and cannot stop him, then that means Satan has power over God, and so God cannot be all-powerful -- and why worship him? Or, if Satan did come from God creating him, why would anyone want to worship the Creator of evil? If God didn't create Satan, then it means God is not the only Creator, so why would he be the one to worship? I would think this puts Christians in a puzzle, but they don't seem to be concerned. They claim the Bible has all the answers, so why does it cause all these questions that nobody can answer. God gives the answer, as they claim, so here's what he says in Proverbs 16:4: "The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."

God hates evil? Here's a thought: If I say I hate the color of yellow and then paint all my walls yellow and then complain to everyone that I hate yellow walls, wouldn't they think I'm nuts and wonder why I painted the walls yellow on purpose. Don't I have the power to repaint the walls, or do I have to spend the rest of my life living with them and hating them for being yellow? The Bible doesn't have the answer to that. The Bible doesn't seem to have the answer to God either. All people can say is that God is a mystery. Well, ain't that the truth!

Oh, Man!

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." (Gen. 1:26-27)

God is said to be perfect. If he were not perfect, he could not be God. If man were made in God's image -- male and female -- they then should have been made perfect, especially in the beginning when everything was new, including the human beings. Yet things barely got started when these image-of-God people, the very first two, made a mistake and committed a sin. So they must have been imperfect, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to sin. If "image and likeness" doesn't specifically mean perfect like God, it doesn't matter. Humans still shouldn't have had the capability of sinning because how could a perfect God create imperfect beings? And why would he want to?

The third person who came along was Cain, who was capable of jealousy and committed murder. What sort of creation was this? Any craftsman would have been fired from his job if his first three creations had been such disasters. He couldn't claim perfection if his first three creations turned out so disastrous, and his fourth ended up being murdered.

Then within the next few generations, God's mistakes just kept multiplying until they far outnumbered any good creations. It got to the point where he regretted ever creating them all in the first place, so it was time to get rid of the whole bunch of 'em and start over. So he drowned everybody except a few, but it wasn't long before these new humans came back and continued to get worse than they had been before. God tried making laws and killing off a few in order to make them toe the mark, but they kept right on being sinners. Finally after about 5 or 6 thousand years, he managed to come up with the first perfect human being (called Jesus), but we can't exactly count him because he wasn't necessarily in the image of God, but was supposed to actually be God himself. And then he, too, ended up being murdered and is said to have been the perfect sacrifice.

So after all the time he's had, the perfect Creator has not yet been able to produce a perfect person. Perhaps he should be fired. His work is not up to par.

PLANS OF SALVATION
In the beginning God created mankind. Then he immediately made a law that man should not know the difference between good and evil (Gen. 2:17 -- "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" -- forbidden). It seems that salvation was originally supposed to be found in human innocence and ignorance regarding good and bad. But then Adam and Eve did a bad thing by disobeying God, but how could they have done any differently? They hadn't learned right from wrong, so how could they be expected to know they were doing something wrong? Even our human laws are more sensible than God's were -- a four-year-old won't be sent to prison for stealing something (although we do try to make the parents responsible for the behavior of the child they brought into the world). But God's not the least bit responsible -- he blames the kids. And not only those two kids, but every generation that ever follows them! Innocence could not save their souls any longer.

So humankind was then cursed with death and sin. God tried again later by choosing Noah to warn people of God's wrath and point out the way of salvation. All humans (except Noah's clan) were destroyed, and nobody had listened, so salvation only came to Noah's family. Later on, God came up with an entirely new plan of salvation. He picked Abraham to be the father of this new group of chosen people who were to be saved by God's choice. If they descended from Abraham, they could be saved, but everyone else was out of luck.

And God selected Moses to deliver a whole set of God-made laws and rules for these chosen people to obey, and Moses led them to the Promised Land and God blessed them all. But it wasn't long before that plan of salvation failed, too. Eventually God came up with a new idea. He decided to send down his son, Jesus Christ, to earth to teach people about salvation by faith, but they still had to obey God's laws along with the faith that God's son was the Messiah. After Jesus lived awhile and taught the people, it was time for him to be crucified for God's ultimate plan of salvation, which was to make his son the sacrifice for people's sins. So in a sense, God sent himself to earth in the person of his son in the form of a man, then arranged for his own (by way of his son's) murder in order to save humankind from his own wrath. It was kind of a confusing, round-about way of salvation, but God said by doing that, he had conquered sin and death. Thereafter, if any person would believe in Christ, he would become a new (innocent) person -- just like Adam and Eve were at first -- and so we were kind of back to the original plan of salvation, but instead of being born once and being innocent, people had to be born again.

It would have saved everyone (especially God) a lot of time and trouble if he had simply stuck to his original plan of salvation at the beginning of time, but what do we know? Remember -- "Father Knows Best." I do feel a need to question why there was a need to have bloodshed and death in order to save humans from God's wrath. God shouldn't have had to do all that to conquer sin and death when he already had the power and authority over it to begin with anyway. So today, the Children of God (Christians) are seeking the Promised Land (Heaven) by trusting one of God's Plans of Salvation. What will be his next plan of salvation when this new one fails like the old one's did?

Graven Images

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

We've been seeing a good share of letters to editors from people who desire the establishment on public property of graven rocks carved with an image of the supposed Ten Commandments that God passed on down to Moses umpteen-thousand years ago. People claim they are still relevant today and that our laws in the U.S. are based on those rules written by God. Most amusing and misinformed are letters, such as the following:

"The 10 Commandments represent a general statement of morality handed down to mankind thousands of years ago . . . thereafter codified into English common law. These commandments merely set forth the difference between right and wrong to provide a compass for humanity . . . as those principles necessary for the conduct of positive human behavior . . . the 10 Commandments are not a religious text, and should remain on public property for all to see."

Oh, yeah? Not a religious text? When people make that claim, it only proves that they haven't read the Bible verses lately that spell out those commandments. Take a look at the beginning of some of it:

"I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness . . . Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain . . . Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy . . . work six days and rest on the seventh . . . ."

Some day I'll have to look up "English common law" but my guess for now is that it doesn't contain much about graven images and Sabbath days. But I do know for a fact that United States law, as stated in the Constitution, says nothing whatsoever about God or idols or swearing or Sabbaths or coveting or adultery, and so forth. About the only two of the Ten Commandments that would break secular laws would be not to kill and not to steal. You can go to jail for those things, but even killing is excused if it's done in self-defense and in war. In fact, in war, the government demands that thou shalt kill. And the Commandment doesn't give any exeptions -- it merely says "Thou shalt not kill." No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

So, as for the people who wish to have those big rocks carved (graven) with an image of God's laws, or the Law of Moses, or whatever it (they) could be called, I always wonder a few things. For example, do they have a big plaque hanging on a prominent wall in their home with the Commandments listed? Do they have, or even want to have, a huge rock bearing the likeness of the Commandments in their front yards? Or are there any of those boulders cemented into the front yards of all the churches around the country? I don't know of any church that has the Ten Commandments posted on their yard at the front of their building "for all to see." And yet, all those people are pushing like the dickens to have those big rocks plastered in public parks or on the lawns of the county courthouses or in some other prominent place on public property.

The saying goes, "Charity begins at home," and I would say the same for the Ten Commandments. Cement a big Ten Commandment rock in your front yard, or even your back yard behind the garage if you'd be ashamed to have the neighbors see it. Then when you do that, maybe you can try to get one put on public property. But then, maybe if you do that and have the rock in your yard to read, you won't need to hike over to the courthouse to read one.

Better still, those people who push for the rocks and monuments to Moses' laws should just memorize them -- at least the 10 big ones. People who don't read the Bible don't know that God gave Moses some 200 or so Commandments, not just 10 of them. But at least memorize the 10 that seem so important to everyone. I'm an atheist and can rattle off the 10 listed in the book of Exodus. They read a little differently in Deuteronomy. And also, before expecting people to follow these "rules of conduct" I would have them clarify which day of the week is the Sabbath? Saturday is the 7th day, so that seems like the agreed-upon Sabbath for mankind. But the Christians who want the rocks on public property are taking Sunday as the Sabbath. So before we go any further with these monuments, let's at least agree on a Sabbath day for all people. And then, speaking of that, how is it to be kept holy? By rushing home from church to catch the Packer game? Yelling at the players and referees while slurping down a few beers? Real holy of people to be doing that on a Sabbath, regardless of what day it is.

The main question I like to have answered about the Commandments is the first one, about having "no other gods" before Moses' God. Well, if there is ONLY one god, the ONE in the Old Testament that talked to the Israelites, then why would he even bother telling them not to have other gods if no other gods even existed anyway. What a waste of a Commandment. Isn't that kind of like telling your kids, "Don't ask for any bludah for supper." Well, "bludah" doesn't exist, so why would they even ask for it, and why on earth would a parent tell them not to ask for someting that didn't exist?

It's probably because there were plenty of gods and creators around in those days, and the other gods already had made laws against killing and stealing and what-not before Moses was even born. Our best bet is to have laws based on secular humanism, where you care about and respect other people so naturally you won't want to kill anyone or steal from them or lie to them or take their wives or husbands. With humanism, you can be allowed to be human, and you can lust and covet and cuss if you need to, and there's no law against that. Otherwise everybody would be in jail by now. Or in hell.

I don't worry much about the Ten Commandments. I have no gods to worry about, and I've never coveted my neighbor's wife or his ox or his ass, and I've never killed anything unless you count bugs. The rest I've probably broken at one time or another, I suppose. I do have a graven image in my yard -- it's a hard plastic head that looks like a rock but has a face carved into it, and I have a graven image of two children playing (another hard plastic yard ornament) and also an image of an angel and another of a rabbit and a couple of frogs. Damn! My yard is full of graven images, but as long as I don't worship them the way the Christian Fundamentalists worship the graven images of the Ten Commandments, I'm probably doing all right.