Danes feel Obama is greater than Jesus

[kandrathe]

Weren't you an advocate of freedom, where people can decide for themselves what's best?

I am not literalistic, legalistic nor a fundamentalist. It would be pretty hard for me to explain to you where I'm coming from, and probably with your self-described limited understanding, would be hard for you to understand.

My interest is in the human experience, and the universal pursuit of truth and purity. I believe, for example, that focus on existence or non-existence of a deity is secondary to broader truths of how we interrelate with other people, other creatures, and the world. Unless a deity suddenly appears and solves world hunger, then I really think worrying about whether or not there is one is irrelevant. There is one, or there is not one. Atheist, or theist, Catholic, Islamic, Jewish, Protestant is irrelevant and a distraction from resolving real world issues. However, even the Bible, Torah, Koran, Tao Te Ching, the Vedas or etc. offer ideas, concepts, knowledge, and wisdom that a seeker of truth might sift through for just a glimmer of insight. Humans are just as smart, or stupid as they were 10,000 years ago although less ignorant about how some of the observable world works. But, we seem to be just as ignorant as we've always been on how to care for each other, or live together without violence, selfishness, meanness, and the rest of our worst traits.

You claim that these philosophies are antithetical to harmony. I disagree. Vehemently. Without a positive structure we know the atrocities we are capable of, and even with a seemingly positive structure, some individuals will take advantage of the "momentum" for greed, and power. But, by all means, feel free to continue to undermine, criticize, and ridicule.

Jester, for example, focuses on Mother Teresa's adherence to her belief, rather than her sacrifice and devotion to the cause. Were people better off due to her? I'd say yes. Would they have been better off being shipped out of the Calcutta slums to the best hospitals in London? Surely, but who was going to do that? She was criticized for accepting money from the wrong sorts of people, but that charity meant life or death to thousands. It's hard to discern moral correctness, and ultimately she too was merely an imperfect human being capable of making mistakes. She went with what she had, and she made a difference. You and I haven't even contemplated doing anything nearly so bold. When any of us gets up from behind our computers, sells off everything, travels to the worst garbage heaps of humanity in this world and tries to make a difference, then maybe our opinions would amount to more than a hill of beans.

Edit: To add, something I read to my boys this year at Christmas time, because they are ready to contemplate the philosophical truth of it.

<blockquote>DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.</blockquote>
<blockquote>VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.</blockquote>

So... Do I believe in the power of things unseen? Damn skippy I do. When we believe, and apply ourselves, we are capable of almost anything.