Muslim Brownie Points

Tonight I went to the store to buy Kefir and a man started a conversation with me. He was polite and interesting to talk to. He told me in the conversation that he was Muslim. I didn't asked him, he offered the information. He told me a lot about himself. Usually people's favorite subject is themselves and I include myself in that group.

He told me about how his god had blessed him in a lot of ways. I wanted to tell him he had the wrong god but I left that subject for another time. He was just trying to show me how friendly and kind a Muslim can be and he said he would rather die than harm another person. He was trying to either make a new convert or score brownie points with his god. I'm not buying either one. I am a Christian and believe in Jesus Christ and that He and God are one God. I won't be converted. As far as his good deeds are concerned they won't count for anything when he dies and God asks him why he should be allowed into heaven. Muslims must earn their salvation by good works and deeds, eat a certain way, live a certain way, pray facing a certain way, in order to be accepted by their god. That takes God out of the picture. If I can do things to be accepted and loved by God then does that mean that if I don't do those things I'm not accepted and not loved. That takes away from what Jesus did when He died on the cross.

I wonder when it comes down to skin for skin, if his Imam were to declare a jihad, would he follow the dictate of his Imam or die before he harmed me? They are here among us and they intend to convert us. Be on your guard and don't be persuaded by their good deeds and kindness and convert to Islam. They believe there is one god. That's correct, but it's NOT Allah.

The man at the store told me how he met his wife. He said some friends of his introduced him to his wife and he talked to her for fifteen minutes. He told her about himself and his plans. He asked her if she had any questions and she told him that her parents would ask him the questions. He told her that she should ask the questions for herself. [As if that is a great gesture on his part.] He said that she was plain and simple and didn't use make-up or jewelry. He decided that she would make a good wife within the 15 minutes that he talked. They were married and have been married for 15 years. He sends his children to a private school and the tuition is $1500 a month. I asked him why he sends them there when it's so expensive. He said that they get religious training and a very good education. He told me that the boys and girls are separated. I'm wondering if I've seen his wife and children here at the store because he said they live across the street in an apartment complex. After I got home I remembered reading this morning about a Muslim school here in our city.

The long and short of it is he has the wrong god and is on the wrong path. I wish they would go back to their country and leave us alone. I asked this guy if he liked it here and he said, "Not really." Yet, he is buying 150 acres of land here to start his own business. He wants to start a goat farm and kill goats to sell for meat. He wants to be rich. I'm wondering if he wants to advance his religion and his false god. I feel sure he does. What other reason would he have for talking to me? When he found out how old I was he started to excuse himself from my presence. He said he thought I was about his age. That makes me wonder if Muslims are trying to reach a certain age group. They probably realize that older people are Christian, set in their ways, and know more than the younger people. Older people are not as easily duped.

The Web site for the Muslim School here in my city says that people should send their children to Mercy School because they have:
* Quran Class
* Arabic Class
* Islamic Studies Class
* Advanced Education
* We pray Zuhr and Juma Prayer

In other words they are brainwashed in this religion. Pictures on this Web site show the girls with a white head covering that is more than a headscarf. I hate seeing Muslim women with headscarfs on their heads. Makes me wonder what's under that headscarf. Do they have lice, or some other skin problem that makes them ashamed of their hair? These Muslims may be peaceful right now but give them a while. When there are more of them they will feel bolder and want more "rights".

Our legislature passed a bill to allow the citizens of this state to vote weather we wanted judges to make rulings and decisions based on international law or based on the laws of this country and this state. The local Muslim group CARE filed a lawsuit against the bill saying it was unconstitutional. They need to go back to their own countries if they want their own laws and don't like ours.

(AP)"A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday to block a new amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution that would prohibit state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.

U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange handed down the order after an Oklahoma man filed a lawsuit claiming the amendment stigmatized his religion and would invalidate his will, which he said is partially based on Islamic Law, also known as Sharia Law."

Stormy Weather

It's not really stormy here where I live. I was ill last night and tried to find a different way to say so. I bought strawberries from the local market and ate two last night and started to feel a lot like I did when I went to Mexico and got a drop of their water. Need I say more? Oh, ya! Fun. Enough about me.

Seems like real stormy weather here in the good ol' U.S.A. I turn on the radio talk shows and it's constantly something. I do appreciate them but there are moments that good news would be welcome.

I really think, but haven't read every thing there is to read on the subject, that the Arab world is trying to keep the ciaos going and going. Isn't that the best way to start the down fall of a country? So who is going to be the leader of these "new" Islamic States? I know of at "least" one arrogant person who would apply for the job. Na, sports take too much of that persons time.

I'm really sick of our country helping out other countries and being put down in return. And "put down" is an under statement. They'd like to put us down about nine feet under. So why is our president going to the there aid?

One good spot of news; Michele Bachmann says she is going to form a exploratory campaign for president in June or possibly sooner. I saw a poll asking if I would vote for her. I didn't bother to answer it because I just imagine it was done for the purpose of finding out who the press needs to focus on and trash. How about trashing the press? Press, consider yourself "TRASHED". I have no idea why I still turn on the television? Habit, I guess.

Palin? Bachmann? Oh, thank you God. I just hope we make it until then. That's what I said about the last election too. And we took over a lot of house and senate seats. Get on your knees America. Pray that we get the chance to turn this around. We won't do it without God.

Native American Influence

A neighbor brought her grandson to our house Saturday. He told me it was his birthday. I had forgotten. He is thirteen years old now. I've known him since he was a wee lad. He wanted to visit with my husband but he was fishing. My husband said he thinks the lad wants to learn to fish.

The rest of the day I tried to think of something to buy him for his special 13th birthday. I was very pleased he had come here to tell us because my own son does not bring his children to see me very much. It's usually a special occasion.

Because this young man had come to see me I wanted to do something nice for him. I didn't have a lot of money to buy a gift so it would have to be something inexpensive. I had to go to the farmer's market to buy apples, oranges, and onions and while I was there I looked at the honey. I picked up a bottle of honey thinking of my neighbor's grandson. I bought one for him. Then I went to the dollar store to find pillow cases. I found some nice tan cases and a birthday card for him. I knew I had some material at home with a Native American motif on it. I stopped at another dollar store to try to find wrapping paper with a Native American design but there was none. I bought a lime green gift bag and tissue paper. I also found a very nice fake leather, dark green journal book that I thought he could write down his journey into manhood. I also bought him a pair of green flip-flops. Armed with all these things I went home to begin to make him a present.

You ask, what on earth could I make with these items? I worked on finding the material with the Native American motif, setting up the sewing machine, washing the pillow cases and after that I had to eat. The next day I worked on making a border for the pillow cases. I have one of them sewed on the pillow.

When I've finished with the other pillow case I'll put all these things in the gift bag and on the card I'll write:
Dear _____,

Now that you have begun your journey into manhood I want to give you some gifts that symbolize my wishes for your life.

1. Honey: When I bought the honey I thought of your health and how sweet you are. I hope you have perfect health all your life and that you remain as sweet as this honey.

2. Pillow case: When I decided to make you these pillow cases my wish for you is that you always have a place to lay your head to sleep. That you always have a home to call your own. I also wish for you to dream big. Let you dreams and plans for life make you soar like the eagle.

3. Flip-flops: When I saw the flip-flops I thought about where your feet would take you on your journey. I wish for you to say on a straight path and that you let God of heaven lead you all your life. These are mens size because you are becoming a man now.

4. Dark Green Journal: I wish you to write down every day something that happened to you that day. Write letters to God and watch how he helps you and answers your letters. Keep your journal because some day you will have children who will want to know what it was like when you grew into a man and you will have this to help guide them.

5. Apple & Orange: I wish that you always have something good and healthy to eat. That you never go hungry as you grow into a man.

6. Picture of John Wayne: I want you to have this picture that my father purchased. He bought about a dozen of them. He loved John Wayne and admired him. He was a lot like John Wayne. I hope you have positive roll models for your life and this is a good one to have.

I hope he likes his gift. He's a special young man about to have the journey of his life.

Granting Rights to Apes, Plants, and Pond Scum

Granting rights to apes, plants, even pond scum

By: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz
Our Sunday Visitor
October 19, 2008

G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book "Orthodoxy": "If any human acts may be loosely called causeless, they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as he walks; slashing the grass with a stick....The madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. He would think the lopping of grass was an attack on private property."

Today, if that healthy man was in Switzerland, some Swiss would think it was an attack on the grass itself. In Ecuador, it may soon get him sued by someone representing the grass. And in Spain, he couldn't wield that stick against an ape because it could bring him to court.

These are all examples of a worldwide trend toward granting animals, plants and even things like streams juridical "rights." Some of the strongest impetus has come from animal-rights activists. The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is notorious for advertisements equating eating meat with the Holocaust, the captivity of animals with the slavery of blacks and now asking ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's to use human breast milk rather than cow milk.

But PETA's revision of nature's moral standing is beginning to spread to the law.

Spain will soon grant rights to life and freedom to all 350 apes there, making it a penal violation to keep apes for experimentation, circuses, television commercials and filming, among other things. This effort was initiated through a project started in 1993 by Princeton University professor Peter Singer and Italian philosopher Paola Cavalieri, who have said the higher primates should be given human rights. Singer is notorious for his statement that parents should have up to three months after the birth of their child to decide whether or not the child should live. Critics have asked instead why bullfighting was not targeted, but supporters said this action is the "tip of the spear" and that other species would soon follow.

The European Court of Human Rights has agreed to hear a case from Austria in which activists want a chimpanzee declared a person. The 26-year-old chimp was a resident in a zoo that went bankrupt. Donors offered to provide for it, but Austrian law only allows persons to receive gifts. Austrian courts rejected the activists' claim and so it was appealed to the ECHR. Analysts believe the court is likely to rule in their favor.

Switzerland has gone further; its constitution now requires that people take account "of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." Asked to clarify, the country's Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology issued a report calling it morally impermissible to cause arbitrary harm to plant life. It gave this example: If a farmer mows his field, that's OK. However, if in walking back home he used his scythe to lop off some flowers "without rational reason," that wasn't OK. But the committee was split on whether it was wrong because of the farmer's attitude or because he brought harm to the flowers.

Mother Earth's rights

Still, in the annals of environmental law, the constitution that Ecuadorians overwhelmingly approved on Sept. 28 is unprecedented. Never before has a country enshrined fundamental rights for nature as part of its foundational law. The new document reads: "Persons and people have the fundamental rights guaranteed in this Constitution and in the international human rights instruments. Nature is subject to those rights given by this Constitution and Law."

The group most responsible for this language is a little-known public interest law firm in Chambersburg, Pa., called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. It was consulted because it has already helped get similar language into ordinances in several small towns in the United States. An organization spokesman was not available for comment. But a recent press release from the group touts that "Ecuador is now the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights."

And the release adds that the group "has assisted communities in the U.S. ... to draft and adopt first-in-the-nation laws that change the status of ecosystems from being regarded as property under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing entities."

In legal terms, these laws are making nature into a juridic person. According to Garrick Small, a professor of property economics at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, giving this personhood to nature "personifies an inanimate thing, or at least a subhuman thing. That resonates with raising the earth, or nature to the stature of at least a human, but more likely to that of a god."

Oddly enough, Ecuador's constitution gives nature the name of Pachamama, which is the name of an Andean goddess that roughly translated means "Mother Earth." Pachamama has "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution." And, according to lawyer and bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that researches science and culture, anyone in the world now has the right to bring a lawsuit on behalf of Ecuador's Pachamama or any part of it, like rocks, piranhas or pond scum.

New pantheism

Small, a member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, added, "If there was not a creator, then there is probably little ultimate meaning to 'person' as we understand it, and then frogs can be persons." And that, he said "is very close to pantheism."

Catholic teaching is clear that the created order is made by God for our use, but that humans have a responsibility for caring for it. "Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2415).

But efforts to raise nature to a godlike status is dehumanizing.

According to Smith, there is a concerted effort to lose what he calls "human exceptionalism," the idea that humans are unique in all of creation. Human exceptionalism, he said, expresses "the idea that human beings have unique moral value and moral worth. We are the only moral species and the only species that has a concept of rights."

If we are made equal to nature, he said, "then universal human rights go out the window."

"The logical consequences of this law are impossible to comprehend. If nature is a person, then viruses and bacteria are persons as well, since they are part of nature. So what happens then?" Smith said.

Adam and Eve were vegetarians?

A new document by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, "The Bible and Morality," points out something surprising from the Book of Genesis: God told Adam and Eve to be strict vegetarians. It was only after the Great Flood that God told Noah, and all humanity, that people could eat meat and fish.

Here are the texts: In Genesis 1:29, God tells Adam and Eve, "I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food." That's it. And then he says that all the earth's animals are supposed to eat only plants, too.

Then in Genesis 9:3, God tells Noah and his sons, "Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants." And he says that "dread fear" of humans will come upon -- apparently for the first time -- all the earth's animals.

The commission's scholars cite the expansion of God's covenant as part of their argument that respect for life in biblical morality "may well go beyond the interests of humanity alone to the point of warranting a new reflection on the preservation of animal and plant species."