The Lord's Prayer

 Ah, I am easily distracted from my goals! I shared the Yahoo comment because I replied to it on the article. Yes, I still forget my vow to stop doing that. Better to reply here on my blog that no one reads either. Maybe I should try an offline diary?

As a child I was confused by the way we recited The Lord's Prayer (or the Our Father) in public school, and the way I was taught to say it in Catechism (or Religious Instructions.) 

I looked up the verse in my father's Catholic Bible (which I never knew him to read, he was agnostic,) and my mother's Protestant Bible (which she read daily, but maybe not the entire thing, certain verses that she loved.) 

The public school was using the King James Bible version, my church, obviously using a Catholic version. 

I have read all the New Testament, some, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, James read multiple times. I have read a lot of the Old Testament of the Bible. Do not get far in the "begat, begat, begat" stuff ~ too confusing,  nor Proverbs and Psalms ~ too many, too long and most boring. 

Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, you will love the one and hate the other. So I ditched my Bibles and became an atheist. I had long before stopped being Catholic. I could never reconcile using fertility rites with remembrance of Christ's death, and celebrating the resurrection. What does Santa, trees, lights have to do with birth of Christ child? 

I could no longer be Christian and celebrate those two high holy days. I could only celebrate them as American holidays. For better or worse, I choose to go along with family and their holidays. Biblical story of creation did not make sense to me, so yes, reading the Bible turned me into an  atheist. 

Yet I know many who do Bible Studies who remain Catholic or other Christians. I did my own studying. That is the difference. 

Serving Two Masters

 Surprisingly I do not recall the day I simply stopped going to church. I studied some world religions. I never found one to satisfy me. Then I did what Jesus said, threw away my Bibles. "You can not serve two masters, love the one and hate the other." I liked the illusion of electing government officials.

I did not actually serve the one and hate the other.  It was freeing, no longer trying to come to terms with a Santa, pagan traditions Xmas and a birth of Jesus one. I chose the American Holiday. Even "serving" that did not thrill me. Materialism.

Children with poor parents did not get treated with equality by Santa. Their wealthy classmate got the Flexible Flyer and they got new mittens and knit cap. It teaches kids greed. It does not actually teach them to be good for goodness sake, anymore that the Bible gets adults to be good.

It teaches them they will get a momentary reward for being good, not a lesson that being kinds, is, well good.

I read long ago about Jesus maybe not being white. Makes sense to me unless the holy spirit was an ET with white skin. St. Nicholas was not white either. Some posted on the article that as children they asked why Jesus looked white and not Arab. I was clueless as to world geography in relation to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Red Sea=Moses parted it.

I wonder if that is like now, Mississippi river drying up, river bed dry, so peeps an walk to an island, that used to have to boat to. Maybe there was a severe drought, the sea dried up and parted and legend had it that Moses did it in one day. 

Early Q anon conspiracy theory? What was I saying here? 

My big turn off was this: why send me to hell for eternity because I smoked? No longer being Catholic, I could not confess other sins to be a priest, do penance, and be forgiven, still getting my shot at heaven.

What kind of cruel God is that? Eternity? Let the punishment fit the crime. Maybe Hitler deserves a long time in hell, DJT, also, but Bill Clinton maybe not so much? I think we have our own hell on earth. No need for an eternity burning up in hellfire. Jesus' skin color irrelevant. If he actually existed at all.

Trying not to reply

 Trying not to reply to Yahoo comments. Was doing better, then Facebook took Farm Town down again, and nothing to do, all day to do it. I suppose I could do some housework or continuing cleaning out my FB history. OY, I cleaned out my Blogger blogs, only to come back again. And again. 

So, anyway, I went away from the black/white Jesus article. Showered, cooked squash, ate squash while looking for the comment I wanted to share. Took me back in time.

My Story

I wondered why I was attracted to long shaggy dark haired hippie guys with mustaches and beards.  They did not look like my father, older brothers, or even uncles. Aha moment.

I used to stare at the mural painted on ceiling, wall over the altar every Sunday. Every holy day of Obligation, Every 7 day Novena. Well, not that would have been walking around the church stopping at stained glass windows to pray the rosary. Every Catholic funeral.

I loved Jesus! I wanted to marry him, ie: become a nun when I grew up. 

That idea went out the window when I started reading the Bible, finding descriptions from what I was taught and what the catechism the nuns tested us on, & priests taught.

When a sister and later brother asked me to be Godmother for their new baby girl and baby boy, I wanted to say no. I was still going to church, but I no longer believed. I felt a hypocrite, because I was too timid to say no. 

I did, however, know that should the sis die, I would be sure the daughter was raised Catholic. The brother's wife did not want me, but he insisted. Those babies long grown up and I no longer give them birthday/Christmas $$$ gifts as my godparents had given me.

How Jesus Became A White Man

 https://www.yahoo.com/news/long-history-jesus-came-resemble-121923976.html

The Long History of How Jesus Came To Resemble a White European

My post title a bit different that the article. Their title and article a bit too long. I did not finish reading. No images. I would follow links that did not take me to images, just the artists' names, so lost interest.

Comments on article, predictable. Why do people bother? Non-Christians will not be convinced Jesus existed; Christians long "you will go to hell" comments. Middle Eastern people were dark skinned: not they were not, they were WHITE. Mary was born in Palestine. No the was not.

I had to keep stopping to fact check. I learned Mary was born in Herodian Kingdom of Judea. Um, where was that? Oh, could be Israel, Jordan, Jerusalem, Palestine. Turkey? I wonder. Countries along the Red Sea? 

Mary was 13. Was not. Where does it say that. The Bible. (No, her age is not mentioned in the Bible.) Raped. Pediophile. Life expectancy was 49; common for girls to marry at 12. 

One bright fella wished we could find the body of Jesus, run DNA test to see who his real father was. That guy believed the Biblical account, yet did not know that Jesus' grave was empty, his body rose up into heaven? 

Best comment by m

Why are we talking about this. Everyone knows he doesn’t exist. You travel to all the kids houses in one night. Oh shoot that’s the other guy this one had endless bread and turned water into wine. I get made up figures confused. Which one does the hidden eggs?

Whole Earth

 The only flag I would fly is a Whole Earth flag. 

Christians and others, but mostly Christians, insist that their God created the earth. He did not create countries, humans did that. They decided it was okay to claim ownership over areas of land, give it a name, rule the people living upon that land. They fly flags; They fight. I want your land to be my land. I want your natural resources to be my natural resources. I do not want your people to come to my land.

One earth, people should be able to move about it freely without restrictions. Imagine a no borders world! Of course, I understand, that can create problems. People bringing diseases or invasive species into other areas. 

I happened upon a PBS series: The U.S. and the Holocaust Some one who favored allowing Jews to immigrate to the United States said something I often say: there is plenty of room in the United States, let them come. How many Jewish lives could the United States have helped to save if they had allowed an influx of Germany (Poland, etal) Jews to flee Nazi Germany?

Does the United States have enough jobs and natural resources to support a large influx of refugees and immigrants? Probably not. Droughts and water shortages, limiting available water for drinking, growing crops, bathing and all else that needs water. 

Could the government place refugees on large stretch of unoccupied land, and let them create their own towns, their own jobs? The government owns all unoccupied land, so bring back the Homestead Act. Let newcomers settle the land, much like in pioneer days. Humane would be to give them tents and seeds to get started. If they arrive with all their worldly possessions, they might have useful tools. They also might be skilled professionals ~ doctors, nurses, technicians. 

I have never been able to travel, but got to meet people from around the world, living in the "International City," Long Beach, California. I love learning about their cultures, their religions, and getting to taste their foods. 

What a wonderful earth if people stopped hating the others, rather than embracing them. 

Pesky Facts Meme

 

I fact checked these quotes. I need to read the works of Thomas Paine. How do I really know that he wrote the above quote, for a fact. Things we were taught as children or common knowledge, we learned as adults that they were false.

Like George Washington saying he could not tell a lie, "I chopped down the cherry tree." Or that Jimi Hendrix said: "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

He may have said that, but it was not an original thought. People point out that William Gladstone said "We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will the world know the blessings of peace."

It is also reported that Sri Chinmoy Ghose words were "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then there will be true peace."

And also, "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace," attributed to Mahatma Gandhi . 

The internet also will bring up information about Thomas Paine, George Washington, Jimi Hendrix or Thomas Jefferson's dates of birth and deaths. I can not vouch for accuracy of that information anymore than I can truly say the meme's quotes are facts.  But I did try to verify. 

Biased Liberal Media Is Not News

Biased Liberal Media Is Not News commented:  

At conception a new life is formed. Abortion murders that life. They illustrated the post with an at least 3-month-old baby. A newly fertilized egg is invisible. To be gross, I would tell them to look at a handful of sperm and spot the one that will fertilize the egg. The egg is smaller than the smallest tomato seed. That fertilized egg is a group of cells with potential to grow into an embryo, fetus, given birth at full term. Once breathing that newborn has been given life.
Wannabe Pennsylvania governor shares their belief that life begins at conception. Might say that cancer begins at conception, also. One abnormal cell begins to multiply. People will argue the point, which is irrelevant. An 11-year-old raped child whose parents want to terminate the pregnancy should have every right to do so. A child's body is not physically developed enough to deliver a baby. Labor and delivery pain is bad enough without forcing a child, as a friend described it, to shit a watermelon. It is tremendously painful for a fully developed woman to give birth. Cruel and unusual punishment to force children or developing teens to endure such torture.

I am not being politically correct using the plural pronoun. I started to type "she" but it could very well be a "he" so settled for "they."