Sunday, October 25, 2015

Let's talk religion and politics.

I am going to bet that most of my readers have never heard of an ERUV. While it may sound like some sort of scary drone, it is not. It is a Jewish thing, specifically, Jews are not supposed to carry things out of their house on the Sabbath. In order to get around this rule, many communities have placed a wire that runs around their whole community and believe that as long is they stay within the boundaries of that wire, they are not in violation of their biblical requirements regarding the Sabbath. Here is a very short video on it.

Business Insider - There's a hidden wire stretched above American cities - and few people know what it is for.

I first came across this issue about 20 years ago when someone who worked on maintaining them told me about it. I worked with public infrastructure for most of my career and prior to that I worked in real estate with some work in factories, gas stations, restaurants, retail and trade shows. Of all the things I ever worked on, infrastructure is probably the most informative as it connects to everything else. While working in infrastructure I learned about hidden casinos and brothels that operate in our largest cities that are never raided by the police because they are ethnic.

Back to the Eruv, from a religious standpoint it is sort of insincere. While I am not Jewish I still find it insincere to find ways around following the tenants of your religion. I also find it to be a fantastic example of Jesus' complaints about the Jews of his day, of which he was one. Jesus complained that the Jews of his day were hypocrites who used inventive explanations of the law to use the law to do things that were not pleasing to God and then were overly legalistic regarding things that they wanted to stop others from doing.

I should point out that not all Rebbis support the use of Eruvs to get around what they believe the rule to be. It is merely an example of a modernization of biblical law to suit society.

Yahoo - Ben Carson would ‘love’ to see Roe v. Wade overturned, compares abortion to slavery.

The truth is that Ben Carson does not have any chance whatsoever of becoming President and to add to that comment, neither does Rand Paul or Carly Fiorina. None of them have a chance because none of them could get any crossover votes once people know what they believe. The funny thing is that the media, while attacking Trump, has failed to point out any of the crazy things these other three believe.

Here is a quote from Mr. Carson, “I’m a reasonable person, and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen", he then went on to say that rape and incest were not reasonable reasons. While I do not believe abortion is right, I certainly would not claim that a woman who had been raped was being "unreasonable" for wanting one.

Another thing Carson recently said was that homosexuality was a choice. As proof he discussed how straight people came out of prison gay. Getting raped in prison is not the same thing as becoming gay. I would love to see the statistics this guy believes he is reading, they are nonsense. The truth is I am worried about any man who thinks he could be gay under whatever circumstances. Growing up, I never wondered whether being gay might be more to my liking, I liked women. I would like Mr. Carson to find me these adults who went to jail straight and then came out gay, he should have them talk to the cameras about how they made that choice, I will wait. The man is an idiot and unfortunately unsure about his own sexuality.

Yahoo - Fiscal Times - Trump Knocks Carson as a Seventh Day Adventist as Iowa Polls Shift.

This one is just great and the ultimate example of hypocrisy. A few months ago Carson questioned Trumps beliefs in Christianity and then he also went so far as to say that Muslims should not run for President or at least not have a chance at winning. Trump stated that Carson was a Seventh Day Adventist and said that it was a fringe movement. Carson's response was to be offended. Well, the truth is just about every Christian group believes that Seventh Day Adventists are fringe Christians.

Just to be clear, the Seventh Day Adventists have predicted the end of the world multiple times in the 1800s. If any of you remember what I wrote about a few years ago when there was an idiot going around saying the world was going to end, I said that the only true measure according to the bible of a Prophet was whether or not he was ever wrong and that if they were wrong then they were a false prophet under bible law. Nothing has changed in my belief and religions started by false prophets are false religions. I would say the same about Seventh Day Adventists. I don't doubt their sincerity; but, to say that a church that incorrectly predicted the end of the world multiple times was not fringe is silly.

The article seemed confused by why Trump brought up Carsons church. The answer, while confounding to non-believers and the media is relatively simple. Most Christians will not vote for Carson in the end anymore than they would vote for a Muslim. Mr. Carson is being pierced by his own petard.