Facebook poll:

Should “In God We Trust” be taken off our currency?
- YES! YES! YES!
- It probably should be.
- I don’t care either way.
- NO! NO! NO!
- It probably should remain on there.

My thoughts:

Since the Declaration of Independence makes it clear that governments created by humanity derive their powers from the consent of the governed, not from any gods, I think it should only be decided by a vote.

Furthermore, if one’s faith — or lack of faith, or indifference — is threatened by having the motto removed, one’s faith is pretty shaky.

And if one wants the motto to remain simply to coerce others to honor one’s personal religiosity, then one deserves to have Thomas “freedom of religion” Jefferson fly out of his tomb and clock one’s noggin with a cornerstone of Monticello.

And if one believes America will suffer the more if she doesn’t appease God Almighty with a phrase on her currency, one believes in a rather insecure and wimpy little god almighty.

And if one doesn’t know that the motto didn’t appear on any U.S. currency until after a civil war in 1864–almost a hundred years after the birth of the nation–then one is also ignorant of the history of the great United States of America.

So, since there’s not a “vote on it” option, I guess I don’t care either way :-)

Ram Bomjon from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal, may be enlightened.

While some say he is the reincarnation of the Buddha, Ram himself has clearly stated he is not (Duhhh…like, dude, Siddhartha Gautama already reached nirvana, so, like, why would he be coming back here for another round?)

A couple of years ago, in 2006 and 2007, he gained a lot of media attention for spending months in meditation — supposedly without food or water. Unfortunately for Ram, the further he moved into the jungle to be alone and meditate, the more people followed to hang out with him, until thousands of visitors were making the trek to watch him sit all day in unmoving silence.

I vaguely remember the media bubble popping with rumors that he’d been proved a fake. Then I ran across this video investigation done by a crew from the Discovery Channel…

Let me see if I have this straight: a boy goes off to be alone and meditate. Strangers throw a party on whatever spot he retreats to in search of solitude. The world puts him on a pedestal, then denounces him as a charlatan.

I’m guessing Buddha Boy, who, after the media’s feeding frenzy disappeared into the jungle for a year and then reemerged briefly in 2008, is glad the world moved on. Actually, I’ll bet he doesn’t care whether the rest of us have moved on or not…the world is what it is.

Watch the documentary embedded below, or click this link: The Boy with Divine Powers.

The following is a presentation of ABCBSNBESPN Sports.

Jim: Here we are at halftime, and billions of people across the world have tuned in to the Gaza Strip.

Walter: Not an Olympic-sized venue by any means.

Jim: It’s about six-miles wide on average; runs for 25 miles along the Mediterranean Sea. It’s claimed by Palestine. And what we’re witnessing today is a rout.

Walter: Coming into the game, Palestine considered the Gaza Strip their turf, but honestly, I’m not seeing evidence of a home-field advantage. Israel is pounding them to dust.

Jim: If this continues, the Israel Zionists may hand the Palestine Islamists one of the worst defeats in Super Gaza Bowl history.

Walter: This game is even more surprising after Israel’s anemic offensive performance against Lebanon in the playoffs.

Jim: The Zionists have clearly worked out the kinks. Where Lebanon’s defense — led by veteran Coach Hezbollah — showed the Zionists a lot of different formations, that’s not the case today. In fact, we’ve yet to see much of a defensive strategy at all out of the Palestine Islamists.

Walter: I’m guessing Coach Hamas is trying to come up with one in the locker room right now.

Jim: As well he should. Otherwise the Zionists are going to come out in the third quarter and continue to punish Palestine with a crushing ground game, while firing bombs at will deep into Islamist territory.

Walter: That being said, we do have two more quarters, and in the Super Gaza Bowl, anything can happen!

Jim: Some people may not realize how lucky we are to get to see this game at all. Earlier this week, a large group of left-wing protesters tried to stop the game. They were pleading their case to league officials right up to the kickoff.

Walter: I’m guessing they didn’t have much luck stopping the game?

Jim: Not a chance. When it comes to fans who’ve made it here to the Super Gaza Bowl, football truly is a religion.

Walter: For more about that, along with a brief history of the Super Gaza Bowl, let’s take it to Melissa who’s made it down to the field…

Melissa: Thanks, Walter. This series between the Islamists and Zionists is considered one of the best and most hard-fought rivalries in all of sports. Overall, the Zionists own a sizeable lead in the series, but when it comes to this game all bets are off. The coaches have no problem getting their players fired up for this contest and, as we’ve seen today, the fans are equally fanatical.

To understand why this game is so important to Israel and Palestine, you need to go back to the beginning.

The original Super Gaza Bowl was played in ancient times, but back then the Palestine Islamists were known as the Arab Sheiks. Likewise, the Israeli Zionists were known by a different name: God’s Jews.

Believe it or not, the God’s Jews franchise was located in…Palestine of all places! But that was a long, long time ago — back before the original American Redskins moved out of Washington DC, before the Mexico Stampede moved out of Texas, even before the Spanish Conquistadors left Florida.

For thousands of years Palestine was home to one team: the Arab Sheiks. Their games with God’s Jews took place during the regular season. But all that changed when the Britain Monarchs came to town.

Ever since God’s Jews left Palestine, they were forced to play their games in other teams’ stadiums. By 1917, the Britain Monarchs had grown tired of sharing their stadium with God’s Jews, and that’s when they struck a deal with the International Football League (IFL) so that God’s Jews had to play all their games in the Arab Sheiks’ home stadium. The Arab Sheiks protested, and then the IFL decided to move the games with God’s Jews back to other stadiums across Europe.

But the big problem remained: God’s Jews wanted their own stadium. And after playing in Palestine, they really liked the facilities of the Arab Sheiks.

It all came to a head mid-century when God’s Jews suffered a series of devastating losses to a relatively new franchise: the German Storm Troopers.

The Jews-Storm Troopers games weren’t so much competitions as they were one-sided blowouts. In fact, the games grew so one-sided that sports fans stopped tuning in at all, and for a while, many people didn’t know the games were still being played. This resulted in huge revenue losses, and the IFL decided if it didn’t take action soon, there might not be any future games at all.

So, in 1947, God’s Jews changed the name of their franchise to the Israel Zionists, and the IFL moved them into the home stadium of the Arab Sheiks, forcing the Sheiks to give up half their locker room. This was the same year the Sheiks changed their name to the Palestine Radical Jihad Islamists, or simply “Islamists” as most fans refer to them today.

Now, you might ask: Why would the IFL move God’s Jews into the Arab Sheiks’ stadium? Why not make them share a stadium with the Britain Monarchs? Or the Turkey Turkeys? Or the Russia Mos Cows? If you ask the Islamists, they’ll tell you the other IFL members ganged up on them. However, the chairman of the IFL maintains it was because the Arab Sheiks already had the biggest locker room of any team in the league.

Whatever the case may be, sports fanatics can’t argue with the results: a quintessential intrastate rivalry with intensely loyal fans on both sides. You’d be hard pressed to find a contention with a better combination of history, tradition, and championship implications. And the fire, passion and hate between these two teams is unlike any other. This game literally stops the world.

Back to you, Walter!

Walter: Thanks, Melissa. And just to let you know how big a rivalry this game has become, the United States — the world’s largest football equipment manufacturer — donates $2.5 billion annually to the Israel Zionist franchise.

Jim: Two and a half billion dollars! My goodness. What do you think the Zionists buy with all that money?

Walter: I don’t know Jim, but made-in-the-USA “football equipment” would be my guess.

Jim: Heh-heh. Me too, Walter. And it looks like the two teams are coming back on the field? All we can say for sure is, blowout or not, all the rabid sports fanatics are in for a treat this second half. And you can watch it all, right here on ABCBSNBESPN Sports…

President George W. Bush finally seemed to be channeling Thomas Jefferson last Friday on a rare occasion when he shared his personal thoughts about different religions:

I believe in an Almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That’s what I believe.

Yes, he did leave atheist Americans out of the equation, but this was about his personal belief, which doesn’t include a world without a universal creator intelligence, so I won’t knock him for that. It was just nice to hear him say praying to a higher power by a different name doesn’t automatically put a free-delivery tactical nuke in your mailbox.

What further almost knocked me out of my Barcalounger was when Bush drew attention to the fact that not all terrorists are Muslim, which has been inferred by the religious right so many times since 9/11:

…we had a person blow up our – blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City who professed to be a Christian, but that’s not a Christian act to kill innocent people.

I know Bush has been a big bad dumb wolf in sheep’s clothing most of his Presidency, so don’t call me a fan of his continued march toward dictatorship. But I also think when he says something right, his words — and these latest words aren’t very popular among his evangelical-bomb-Iran-and-bring-on-Armageddon friends — should get some due attention.

So, even if he only said these words for show, I do now know that the thought of coexisting has at least crossed his neuron-starved brain, which is more than I used to believe.

More from Bush:

We are having an Iftaar dinner tonight – I say, ‘we’ – it’s my wife and I. This is the seventh one in the seven years I’ve been the president. It gives me a chance to say ‘Ramadan Mubarak.’ The reason I do this is I want people to understand about my country. In other words, I hope this message gets out of America. I want people to understand that one of the great freedoms in America is the right for people to worship any way they see fit. If you’re a Muslim, an agnostic, a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, you’re equally American.

And the value – the most valuable thing I think about America is that – particularly if you’re a religious person – you can be free to worship, and it’s your choice to make. It’s not the state’s choice, and you shouldn’t be intimidated after you’ve made your choice. And that’s a right that I jealously guard.

Secondly, I want American citizens to see me hosting an Iftaar dinner.

Read Bush’s full address to his Iftaar dinner guests here: President Bush Attends Iftaar Dinner at the White House.

Read More: George W. Bush, freedom of religion, Christians, Muslims, Iftaar dinner

Zeitgeist the Movie is one of the most addictively informative movies I’ve seen.

As evidenced by public education in America, making a learning experience as entertaining as prime time TV eye candy is not easy. But Zeitgeist the Movie comes close.

And it delivers the goods. And it digs deep. And it connects the dots. And it makes sense out of chaos.

WARNING!

Zeitgeist the Movie will more than likely threaten your comfort zone.

That’s ok. It threatened mine, too. So did my first date, public speaking classes, and college calculus. But those were all big learning experiences, and most of the time, great leaps in learning aren’t too comfortable. However, they can be very satisfying — if you hang in there.

As many viewers have noted, it’s not important the you believe everything Zeitgeist the Movie presents. What is important is that you think about what it presents and think about the reasons for your beliefs, whatever they are.

The film is almost 2 hours long, and is divided into three parts: Christianity, 9/11, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Enjoy!

Click below to watch, or visit www.zeitgeistmovie.com.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~Jimi Hendrix.

“It’s just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice…right now, between fear and love.” ~Bill Hicks.

“The revolution is now.” ~Zeitgeist the Movie.

Zeitgeist was created as a not for profit expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are…

That being said, it is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.

Read More: Zeitgeist the Movie, Christianity, 9/11, Federal Reserve, rfid, iraq war, hidden history, new world order, world government