Values Boiled Down to Essentials

Sifting through the rants and rhetoric coming from the values folks, I have gleaned the following Big Three on their agenda to save the world from Satan: 1. Undifferentiated cells in the womb are full-fledged persons with rights, so just shut up about that. Values 1, Satan 0. 2. Gays are trash with no rights because the Old Testament says so. And if the OT was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for the values folks. Values 2, Satan 0. 3. God smiles on US soldier deaths in Iraq, and He thinks abuse and torture is fine because God smiles on the values folks. No contest. Values 3, Satan 0. It’s true, there’s no use trying to reason with the 23% of the population that argues a zygote has a soul. There may be cogent reasons for being anti-abortion, but saying a clot of cells has a soul isn’t one of them. Just remember, the hard-core values folks also say the world and all its wonders including mankind was created 6,000 years ago. It’s also true that Jesus was raised believing in the ways of the Torah. And he died believing in the Torah. But he felt abuses had occurred within those teachings. He didn’t think they were good enough even back then and that’s what he was railing against...when he railed...which wasn’t often. I’ll grant that God is in the White House. But he’s also in my bathroom. If God is anywhere, He’s everywhere. It’s a huge stretch to believe that God is so tickled to be considered a peer of Karl Rove’s that He’s fine with White House fascistic policies and the killing, abuse and torture in Iraq and elsewhere. So here we are, once again, in a war. And theologians aren’t even wrestling with the Thou Shalt Not Kill precept anymore. It’s okay. We were attacked. It’s okay. Those people don’t believe the way we do. It’s okay. We’re protecting ourselves from something that might happen sometime somewhere. Anything goes. We’ve got the might. We’ve got the right. It’s okay. But it’s not okay. The policies our government is following are ugly, imperialistic, oppressive and immoral. With regard to the Red Cross stating that our practices in AbuGhraib and Guantanamo Bay amount to abuse and torture, Aaron Brown said on CNN last night, “This becomes semantics at some point, but, if you're sitting in the chair or chained to the chair, it's not a semantic argument.“ Jamie McIntyre who covers the White House for CNN said, ”It doesn't necessarily embody the U.S. definition of torture...clearly, the Red Cross believes this has crossed the line and the Pentagon is arguing it hasn't.” There is something so rank about these arguments that it’s difficult to consider they have validity in even the lunatic fringe. A zygote’s rights do not deserve more protection than those of a fully grown man with children who has to fight an unnecessary war promoted by an idiot. The rights of a clot of undifferentiated cells in a woman’s womb do not deserve more protection than the rights of a gay adult living in the USA who abides by the laws of the USA. Abuse and torture as defined by the Red Cross is abuse and torture. The latest tally for US soldiers killed in Iraq in November is 136. That tops the most-killed tally of 135 from last April. About 1,1oo US troops have been killed since Bush said “Mission Accomplished”. And 400 have died since sovereignty was handed over. These deaths are all okay because a sociopathic group of hawks in the White House want to rule the world? That is insane. Oh...and here’s something I wonder about. The Christian religion didn’t really get off the ground until it became the official religion of Rome in 313 AD. Protestantism dates back to 1520 AD when Martin Luther burned the papal bull in public that demanded he recant his doctrine. Pentecostalism started around the turn of the century in 1900. Since Jesus died a devout Jew and therefore couldn’t get into George Bush’s newly-formed born-again heaven, would Jesus have to become born-again, that is renounce his own religion and confess that he is his own Savior according to born-again requirements, or would the born-agains give Jesus some slack for not understanding what Christianity is all about?