alfreda89: (Books and lovers)
We forget that groups forbidding certain relationships are not new. Governments and religions have forbidden crossing religious, racial, cultural, and sexual lines for friendships, marriages, adoptions, even where you were allowed to work or live. (And still do.)

One couple in the Netherlands were married forty years (to the horror of their neighbors) yet when they died, it was illegal for them to be buried together. Anywhere.

So cemetery plots were purchased on either side of one wall, one in the Catholic cemetery, one in the Protestant cemetery. And a pair of clasped hands reach through the tombstones and meet across the wall.

I hope it amuses them still.
alfreda89: (Blankenship Reeds)
An article over in The Atlantic asks the question -- We all know there are deal breakers in our search for The Right One. Is Religion one of those deal-breakers? Should it be?

It was for me. I realized that I could marry someone of another faith, but only if he respected my right to believe what I believed. Yet kids I'd met who were raised between two very different faiths usually ended up believing in neither.

Hard choices. Hard decisions. I know someone who was a devout Calvinist who married a Catholic, and loved her so much he agreed to let their children be raised Catholic. His family is still appalled, I imagine, although she is the most wonderful person you could imagine.
alfreda89: (FSM)
A professor has written instructions for his students should The Rapture happen before they turn in needed class work.

As for The Rapture itself, I've always been a firm believer in that if it ever does happen, no human will know the day in advance. I found out the fellow who is prophesying tomorrow as The Rapture is 89 years old. Let's be real, folks. Even if he's in good health for his age, the older you get, the more of a chance you have that today is the last day. So, looking at a time line for him, his Rapture may be days away!

I don't think the rest of us will get off so easily. We were sent here with an agenda. Fulfill it!
alfreda89: (Peppermint Peach Tree)
As part of my manga research while designing my first foray into manga writing and art, I've started getting RSS from several popular manga sites, including TheRumicWorld. Inuyasha Manga Editor Annette Roman has a nice post today about trees in fantasy -- as spirits, religious focuses, sentients, demons, and just friends who protect your home and make it a better place to live. Below, I have links to the kinds of trees she talks about, as well as sequoias and redwoods. We probably need a baobab tree, too....

I have lived in the southwest too long -- I would NEVER cut down a tree unless it was sick and threatening to fall on my house. Too messy a tree? Tough. Get an Arborist to make it look its best and suck it up -- or don't buy that house. I might get rid of something small like a crepe myrtle, but never a TREE.

(You can threaten crepe myrtles and get them to cooperate, if necessary. I dislike white crepe myrtles, because they tend to bloom puny and their husks don't fall off, spoiling their display. So I warned a white crepe myrtle when I moved into a house once that it was on notice and a red crepe myrtle would look great there.

I swear -- within the WEEK it was covered, and I mean covered, in white blooms. Prettiest crepe myrtle I'd ever seen. So it got to live. We discovered it had a Hack berry growing inside it crowding it, so we cut that down (under power lines -- they would have topped it every five years, and unstable Hack berries are dangerous, as Texans know). I fed it crepe myrtle food, and guess what? It's a lilac crepe myrtle. Thus proving my point -- it wasn't a white crepe myrtle.)

Da trees:

Wonderboom (In 360!)


Dragon Tree


Guilty Chinese Scholartree


Major Oak


Chestnut Tree of One Hundred Horses (Despite the legend, don't try this ever!)


Giant Sequoia


Coastal Redwoods


Postscript: New Major Oak link 02/16/2010; some people were having trouble with that 360 site.
alfreda89: 3 foot concrete Medieval style gargoyle with author's hand resting on its head. (Boobies!)
Oh, even the title cracks me up. I try so hard to be respectful of people's religions, but this is as good as The Onion....

http://creation.com/vampire-finches-of-the-galapagos
alfreda89: 3 foot concrete Medieval style gargoyle with author's hand resting on its head. (Ukrainian Easter Eggs)
From Newsweek:

The Texas-Size Debate Over Teaching Evolution (by Christopher Hitchens)

Sure, discuss Darwin's 'strengths and weaknesses.' Just not in biology textbooks.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/191400/page/1
alfreda89: 3 foot concrete Medieval style gargoyle with author's hand resting on its head. (Ukrainian Easter Eggs)
I officially declare Gov. Palin a dangerous choice, not merely an incompetent choice. (I say incompetent as opposed to untrained, because I saw what the mayor of Wasilla does (courtesy of Daily Show) and Palin's core beliefs are scary.) Assemblies of God beliefs Are scary.

Marlene Winell is a Bay Area psychologist who specializes in recovery from fundamentalist religion. She is author of Leaving the Fold: A guide for former fundamentalists and others leaving their religion. She is the daughter of Assemblies of God missionaries.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/15/151753/66?new=true
alfreda89: (Peppermint Peach Tree)
And also the sillier it gets. For those becoming confused by the players, here are cliff notes on Christianity:

http://holyoffice.livejournal.com/80073.html
alfreda89: 3 foot concrete Medieval style gargoyle with author's hand resting on its head. (Chai anime)
Fascinating article from The Washington Monthly about moderate religious Republicans leaving the party because they are willing to work with Democrats to reach their goals. (And have been essentially driven out by Rovians and the Religious Right.)

By Amy Sullivan

The Republicans were filibustering the Bible bill. On a Tuesday afternoon in early February, Republican legislators in Alabama took to the crimson-carpeted floor of the state house to oppose legislation that would authorize an elective course on the Bible in public high schools. The recommended curriculum for the course had been vouched for by Christian Right all-stars like Chuck Colson and Ted Haggard, but so far as Republicans were concerned, there was only one pertinent piece of information about the bill: It was sponsored by two Democrats. And now Republicans were prepared to do everything in their procedural power to stop it, even if that meant lining up to explain why they could not(could not!) stand for this attempt to bring a class about the Bible into public schools.


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0604.sullivan.html
alfreda89: 3 foot concrete Medieval style gargoyle with author's hand resting on its head. (Chai)
Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

TO read the headlines, intelligent design as a challenge to evolution seems to be building momentum.

{snip!}
Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.
alfreda89: 3 foot concrete Medieval style gargoyle with author's hand resting on its head. (Oxblood Lilies)
Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science

A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason."

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