QUOTES OF THE DAY
CHRISTIANITY
"Always treat others as you would like them to treat you."
-- Jesus, Matthew 7:12
JUDAISM
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor, That is the entire
Torah; all the rest is commentary."
-- Talmud, Shabbat 31a
ISLAM
"No one of you is a believer until you desire for another that which you
desire for yourself"
-- Sunnah
BUDDHISM
"Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful."
-- Udana-Varga, 5:18
HINDUISM
"This is the sum of all duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if
done to you."
-- Mahabharata 5:1517
NATIVE AMERICAN
"Respect for all life is the foundation"
-- The Great Law of Peace > Iroquois Confederacy
Rhino here:
So a federal court rules the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional due to
the 2 words that were added in 1954 during the red scare; "under God". Not a
big deal to me one way or the other as I've never been a big fan of the
pledge, but if we really are supposed to have separation of church and
state, then isn't the ruling obviously correct. Trouble is the U.S. isn't a
lot of things it's supposed to be. One thing it isn't that a lot of people
seem to think it is is a Christian country. That's an easy one for me. I was
raised Jewish. But truth is the U.S. is a wonderful patchwork quilt of
religious beliefs. The challenge is to be able to respect each others
beliefs, even if we don't understand them.
A wise man once described Christianity as being like 7-Up, and Islam being
like Coca Cola, and Judaism being like Dr. Pepper. He said real religion is
like water. It's inside all of them, runs in the rivers and falls from the
sky. Following is an excerpt from an entertaining and informative article
from The Gate. To read the entire article, see the web address at the bottom
of this post.
"One Nation, Under Vishnu
In the most religiously diverse country in the world, why should God get the
only plug?"
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist, 6/28/02
...America is teeming with saris and yarmulkes and monk's robes and funky
prayer beads and glorious ornate temples of every shape and size. There are
more Muslims in the U.S. now, for example, than there are Jews or
Episcopalians. America, spiritually speaking, is not what most people think
it is.
A quick look inside any apartment building in any major city outside of,
say, Vermont or maybe Montana reveals a veritable kaleidoscope of faith and
divinity: Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew, Atheist, Wiccan, Pagan, Sikh,
Atheist and Buddhist, living side by side and borrowing cups of sugar or
sticks of Nag Champa from each other, stealing each other's newspaper and
bootlegging each other's cable TV. It's a beautiful thing, really.
But nowhere is religious funk and spiritual diversity more prevalent and
visible than in the classroom, which since the mid-'60s has seen an
explosion of immigrant cultures and beliefs, a dazzling and unprecedented
intermixing of faiths and backgrounds and languages and deities and kids
with names that give your tongue a workout.
And hence it would seem to require negligible rationale or subtlety of mind
to see that "under God" is really rather inane and exclusionary and
insulting to a vast and increasing chunk of the soon-to-be-voting populace.
Alas, Conservatives still believe little Johnny should be kneeling in school
and praising Jesus (and no one else) for the glory that is his math quiz
every day, whereas Liberals believe he should keep that sort of thing in the
church or risk warping his little mind.
Meanwhile little Daniel and Sunjat and Tenzin and Amir and Uma Das Gupta and
Moonstarr and Ling Tso sit idly by, rolling their eyes and sighing sadly and
wondering why there's so much intolerance and misunderstanding in the Land
of the Free...
TO SEE THE ENTIRE ARTICLE GO TO
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2002/06/28/notes062802.DTL&type=printable
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright
law ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html ). All copyrights belong to original publisher.
7:29:54 AM 
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