Fit the first-LC

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The first right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is freedom of religion. The founding persons must have given this great importance. The establishment clause has been interpreted to mean that the government cannot make laws favoring one religion over other religions. All religions must be treated equally by publicly funded groups and organisations, and all branches of government.

I have tried to explain this to people but they just seem to not understand. If you post the ten commandants in the courthouse we'll have to post the "The Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path" of Buddhism. If the teacher leads the class in christian prayer he will also have to lead then in a reading from the Talmud and the Qu'ran, etc. I tell people this and they say "No you wouldn't". I ask, "Why not?" and they just give me a blank look and say "You just wouldn't." They don't seem to understand why, they just know it's true.

Maybe I was missing something. I had been wrong before. Or a least I thought I was wrong, it turned out I was mistaken.

I decided to take a closer look at the "First".

"Congress"- that group of fools and miscreants that we chose the represent us in Washington. Usually because they promise to make our lives better by spending more and and taxing less.The chief body of the legislative branch of the federal government, the branch that makes the rules.

"Shall make no"- That phase is straight forward and doesn't require explanation.

"law"- the collection of rules imposed by authority binding upon human society.

"respecting"- with reference to or concerning somebody or something:

"an"- again this word common enough that I don't need to elaborate on it here.

"establishment" - to bring into existence, the act of forming, to create.

"of"- denoting reference to a thing; about; concerning; relating to.

"religion".

So basically what this comes down to is that the men and women who we vote into legislative office, can impose taxes, make treaties with other nations, declare war, regulate commerce and vote themselves raises. But they can't form a religion or tell you what to believe or even tell you what religion is.

But they didn't need to, by 1789 the year the Bill of Rights was written, "Religion" was well established, and most people had some idea of what religion was. This is where things get complicated and confusion pokes its head in through the gaps of human misunderstanding.

Lets look at few definitions of the crucial term, religion. I am not sure which if any of these definitions were what the signers of the Bill of Rights had in mind. I am more concerned about what many people believe today.

American Heritage Dictionary: Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

Unknown source c. 1200 AD: Conduct indicating a belief in a divine power.

Cambridge Dictionary of American English: the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship.

"The belief in and worship of a god or gods."

At last count, according to my reliable sources, the number of existent gods is one. One true God, ergo true religion is belief in or worship of that "one true god".

Any thing else is paganism, heresy, idolatry or popular fiction. False religion is no religion all.

The first gives you the right to worship god as you please, as long as you are in fact worshiping God.

The first Amendment continues, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (religion)". So you can gather freely at a church or house of worship. Get down on your knees and pray. Sing songs and speak in tongues. Read whatever version of the bible you choose, get cured of hemorrhoids and inoperable brain tumors and petition god to smite the homosexuals, the Yankees and the liberals.

But to genuflect to a false god, be it Shiva, Yahweh, Yoni, Elvis or money, is a false religion and therefor has no protection or right to equal treatment under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. The architects of our system of government did not intend that you, me or Joseph Smith could just make something up, call it "religion" and use that as a basis for flaunting the law or evading the April 15th dead line.

For many years now we have been told that Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto, and nature worship are "religions". And in today's Politically Repressed atmosphere no one is going to stand up and say "Hold on just a dang minute."

I don't agree with this thesis, but at least I now understand the ill logic behind it. It is a matter of opinion. And you have a right to your own opinion. If you would like I can give you an opinion of your very own.

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." –Bill Clinton, during his 1998 grand jury testimony on the Monica Lewinsky affair.

OWL

Oct. 30 2009
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outside-in

I suffer from depression. I've been on medication for about a two and a half years. It helped a lot but it stopped working about Christmas time. I felt like crying all the time. After a couple months my therapist Black-eyed Susan decided something had to be done. She talked to my doctor and he prescribed a different anti-depressant. But that caused another problem, a problem of a personal nature often associated with the use of anti-depressants by men. So we tried something else, and then when tried yet another prescription. It worked.

By then it was late June. April and May had been the driest ever recorded in California. I was feeling pretty good, but got upset one day and decided to get away for a while. By myself. I jumped in the car and drove up in to the mountains to the small resort community where I lived and worked for many years. It was a nice warm sunny day when I left but by the the time I got up there, a rise in elevation of three thousand feet, the sky was overcast and a light rain began to fall. I got wet. And there was lightening. Lots of lightening.

Lots and lots of lightening. All over northern California. Nearly 8000 lighting strikes over northern California the weekend of the 20th. But very little rain. So there was lots of lightening hitting the ground, extremely dry vegetation and no rain. The result was lots of wild fires. Somewhere around 800 wild fires. Most of them small and in remote areas of the forest. Which made them hard to put out. Some of them were in the high country where there is little fuel so they spread slowly or not at all. Some of the fires lower down spread quickly and have become a threat to homes and communities.

Then the air got thick with smoke. The light of the sun grew dim. Breathing was difficult, the air had a foul smell. It was warm and very humid. The haze cast an evil shadow over the world and everyone felt it.

My mental state had just cleared, I was optimistic for the the first time in months.

It felt as if my depression had sliped out of my mind and into the very air around me. What had been a personal internal perception slipped out became a part of the environment and was now affecting the whole society.

And they say the water contains prescription medications.

OWL

July 4, 2008