Church/State Issue Resolved in Houston

First from the KPRC Channel 2 News web site:

Supreme Court Refuses Houston Courthouse Bible Lawsuit

HOUSTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review lower court rulings that a monument outside a courthouse featuring the Bible should be removed and that Harris County must pay the legal fees for the woman who sued over the monument.

Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford had asked the high court to vacate a ruling by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, who sided with a woman who sued in 2003 claiming a monument featuring the King James version of the Bible was offensive.

Second from Americans United:

High Court Refuses To Re-open Religious Symbol Case

A dispute over the display of an open Bible at a Texas courthouse came to an end today when the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the case.

The legal battle centered over a display in front of the Harris County Courthouse. Originally erected in 1956 by a Christian charity to honor William S. Mosher, a Houston businessman and philanthropist, the memorial is a glass-topped case housing an open Bible lighted by neon.

“Courthouses are not the place for religious symbols,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Government should never send a message that a person’s belief about religion is a factor in a hall of justice.”

The Houston Chronicle had the same article as the Channel 2.

Yeah! The good guys have won!

Praying for rain - Response by Atheists

Astrology anyone?

This actually happened to me yesterday.

I'm at a Starbucks drive thru ordering my usual triple grande latte. The girl taking my order is sweet and cordial but in the background I can hear someone cutting up and mocking my answers. It's obvious she's doing it for fun and I smile at the the easiness she seems to have in her humor.

When I get to the window there are two girls running the register. One is serious and hands me my coffee, the other is dancing, smiling, and singing. She's the one who was mocking me! In good humor I told her I could hear her in the speaker. She covered her mouth in surprise and apologized while flashing a huge grin at me. In response, while flashing an equally huge grin back, I said it was no problem and was quite fun listening to her. Immediately she asks me if I'm a Scorpio. Being a skeptic I know her chances of guessing my zodiac sign is 12 to 1, so you can imagine my surprise that she guessed it right!

Anyway, she was a Scorpio too and seemed to think since I found her funny and also showed a little humor that I must be too. With no time or interest in explaining why astrology is silly, I chalked the experience up to a good time had by all. It was fun!

What I'm grateful for

Here in the States on the fourth Thursday in November we have a holiday called Thanksgiving. It supposedly dates back to the 1600's or earlier when the Pilgrims came to America and needed help from the native American people. We celebrate that event by eating tons of food with family or friends and watching football on television.

Another custom, not practiced by everyone, but done by many is giving thanks or revealing what one is grateful for. It's another excuse to grovel for God and my family is no exception. God was always the No. 1 reason for being thankful and grateful. Every year it's like this and every year I write something like this:

I wanted to write what I'm thankful for as well. As I grow older I find I'm thankful for the wonderful genes my parents passed down to me. At 46 I'm still very active and able to play tennis within carefully thought out parameters. I'm reasonable healthy but feel the effects of gravity and over use everyday, so I'm thankful to the scientists that have designed drugs to allow me to continue to be physical relatively pain-free.

Here's the big one. You can equate this to your gratefulness in God. I'm very grateful for my husband and the hard work he does to allow us to live the way we do. He has very carefully managed his education, his time, and his energies to maximize his earning potential. I am aware of this situation and help to make this possible for him by keeping our household as stress free as possible. In other words, I'm not a drama queen.

I'm also grateful for the many friends I have that keep me honest. What I mean by that is my friends are intellectually stimulating and keep me from getting lazy in my skeptical thinking. I want to thank Sheila (a distant cousin) for being a friend in spite of our differing religious views. I'm grateful that you didn't stop emailing me and realize that being an atheist doesn't mean I'm a bad and evil person. I admire the strength of your faith and your willingness to talk about it without getting defensive. I know it's been difficult at times but you hung with me and I'm happy and grateful to call you my friend. We have both benefited from this wonderful relationship and it gives me hope for the future. Thanks!

I'm grateful for a great many other things too. Too many to account for here.

Peace and have a great Thanksgiving!

This is God?

Religion is supposed to be comforting to those who believe. This does not provide comfort but manipulates those who suffer with fear and misery. I found this truly disgusting beyond words.

Also I found it weird that Goldie Frances is not the real name of the person who wrote this article and it was changed for "security reasons." First this God kills people and send them to hell just because they were born in the wrong place and now the writer feels he/she needs to be anonymous because God can't protect him/her.

This is one of many reasons I don't believe. This god makes no sense to me.

The arrogance in this article was sickening beyond belief.

Their prayer: that faith in Christ follows cyclone
By Goldie Frances*
Nov 19, 2007

Bangladeshis left homeless by the Nov. 15 cyclone wait for relief goods at the village of Maithachomohoni in the country’s southern coastal area. The official death toll is 3,100 and climbing, and, as one media worker noted, "Untold numbers of survivors were in urgent need of food and water in ... one of the poorest areas of the world.

More.

What would you do?

The scenario: My next door neighbor has a 2 year old bull mastiff that weighs 135 pounds. "Sam" was diagnosed early with hip dysplasia which was very expensive to fix. My neighbor Mary loves this dog as if he were a human and refers to him in human terms. She is also moving in 4 weeks to Qatar.

The problem: When she is gone in the evening she leaves the dog outside because "it is cruel to leave a dog that size in the house by himself." He howls and barks nonstop until she gets home several hours later. Constantly from 6:30 PM to 9:15 PM at least 3 nights a week, but it seems much more than that.

What I've done so far: I like Mary a lot. She's nice and sweet and she's on my tennis team. She's very weird about animals, giving them human feelings and emotions, which is the problem. After one bad night when the dog was out past 10:00 PM I had to let her know the barking was unacceptable. Since then she's been good about getting him in the house before 10 PM, but now, since daylight savings time, and it's dark here around 5:15, the barking is worse.

Tonight I called security (we live in a gated community with a roaming guard) and asked what to do. You see, I don't want to get the community association or the sheriff involved but I needed to know what my options are if she doesn't comply, which I don't think she will for reason mentioned above. Worse case scenario is calling the sheriff and having her fined. Perhaps I'll just have to mention that fact to her.

Updates in the future.

Church rejects interfaith service on its property

Hyde Park Baptist says it didn't realize Muslims were leading annual Thanksgiving event.
By Eileen Flynn
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, November 16, 2007

Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, the city's largest interfaith organization, announced Thursday that its annual Thanksgiving celebration Sunday had to be moved because Hyde Park Baptist Church objected to non-Christians worshipping on its property.

The group learned Wednesday that the rental space at the church-owned Quarries property in North Austin was no longer available because Hyde Park leaders had discovered that non-Christians, Muslims in particular, would be practicing their faith there. The event, now in its 23rd year, invites Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Bahais and others to worship together.

Organizers had booked the gymnasium at the Quarries in July and made the interfaith aspect clear to Quarries staff at that time, said Simone Talma Flowers, Interreligious Ministries' interim director.

Several Muslim groups were acting as this year's hosts for the event. Kent Jennings, associate pastor of administration at Hyde Park, released a statement Thursday that said church leaders received a postcard about the service Monday and only then realized that it "was not a Christian oriented event."

The postcard also "promised space for Muslim Maghrib prayer and revealed that the event was co-hosted by the Central Texas Muslimaat, the Forum of Muslims for Unity, and the Institute of Interfaith Dialog," according to Hyde Park's statement.

"Although individuals from all faiths are welcome to worship with us at Hyde Park Baptist Church, the church cannot provide space for the practice of these non-Christian religions on church property," the statement said. "Hyde Park Baptist Church hopes that the AAIM and the community of faith will understand and be tolerant of our church's beliefs that have resulted in this decision."

Central Texas Muslimaat and Forum of Muslims for Unity are local Muslim nonprofit groups that promote charitable works and education. The Institute of Interfaith Dialog holds regular interfaith gatherings that aim to teach non-Muslims about Islam.

With hundreds of people expected to attend and only a few days to find another site, Muslim organizer Shams Siddiqi said they couldn't find another facility. That's when leaders at Congregation Beth Israel, Austin's largest synagogue, offered to host the celebration.

"Symbolically, that's a very good thing," Siddiqi said of the joint Jewish-Muslim endeavor.

Of Hyde Park's decision, he said it was "unfortunate that people still feel this way in this day and age."

Some Christians object to praying with people of other faith backgrounds or allowing those people to worship in their sanctuaries.

Hyde Park Baptist, an evangelical megachurch at West 39th Street and Speedway, is not a member of Interreligious Ministries, and church leaders were not planning to participate in the service, Flowers said.

Every year, a different faith group hosts the Thanksgiving event, which typically includes food, prayer, song and dance. Last year, St. Louis Catholic Church hosted. This year, because the Muslim groups did not have their own space that was large enough, they decided to rent the Quarries, a 58-acre property near MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and Duval Road that the church has owned since 1984.

Flowers said she was disheartened by the church's decision. "As a Christian, my first response is, what would Jesus do in this situation?" she said.

She also stressed the importance of respecting all beliefs and said Beth Israel's involvement is a blessing.

"They said, 'It's an honor to be able to provide the space, especially knowing our co-hosts are Muslims,' " Flowers said.

Synagogue leaders said they would arrange space for Muslims to make their evening prayers, Flowers said. "What a great testimony of inclusion."

My Daemon

Stirring it up again

That last post was pretty creepy, wasn't it. We don't have much contact with this side of the family but it's obvious there's some serious mental problems there. Even knowing that this cousin is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet the religious stuff will creep you out quick. She's helped us out of a few minor jams and was always willing to go that extra mile, but the religious stuff gets too much for me in a very short amount of time. Fifteen minutes is all I can take. It's bad.

I've been stirring it up again with my relatives. The latest question I asked was what is a "child of god?"

The answer, no surprises:

I believe everyone is a child of God. I try to respect everyone as a child of God. When I disagree with someone I try to remember that they are a child of God and treat them as such. Sometimes I am more successful at this than other times, but it is what I believe.

My response:

(Please read this in a light airy tone. I'm trying not to be too serious.)

But there is no scripture in the Bible that supports this notion. How do you know that everyone is a child of God? Just because you believe it doesn't make it so. I will say that I do understand why you feel this is the right thing to do. It feels moral to you.

I suspect that this is an expression that is left to each individual to interpret. I've heard it several times and I bet if I ask each person to tell me what it means to them I'd get a slightly different answers from each person.

I'm not saying that it's wrong. I'm just saying that should raise some red flags about some aspects of your religion.

I can remember the song "Jesus loves you" from my brief stint in Sunday School before the age of 7. It scared the living daylights out of me. Even at 7 I knew he had been dead for a very long time so there was no way anyone could know that he loved me. It was creepy to me, even at that age.

This is how I feel whenever anyone says "Jesus loves me" or "God loves me" or she's a child of God. How do you know? The concept of God being so mysterious that we can't know him, yet this kind of thing being assigned to him by mere mortals is troubling to me. How do you guys keep it all together?

Faith is a weird concept to me. To much to keep track of. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?)

More email from family

This time it's from my husband's side of the family. It's seriously creepy.

The names have been changed to protect the delusional from God.

Dear Family and Friends,

This is one fast way to get the news to many of you. We praise the Lord for the gift of a son to Mike and Debbie. John was born late last night and weighed in at 8.5 lbs. Thank you for your many prayers over the months. As my mother said,
"It's a miracle!" Truly this is.

John is beautiful and doing well. Please keep Debbie in your prayers for her to gain her strength. May this new family be bonded in love to each other and to the Lord.

I must add a p.s. It is just great for the Lord to make me a grandmother as well!

We praise His Name for all His goodness to each one of us.

Blessings and love,
Sonia(Grammie or whatever they may choose to name me.)

It continues to amaze me when I get emails like this. The pandering to God is so horrible one wonders why a person would grovel in this way. It seems so immature and juvenile. How does this person face each day?