Wow, you move out of the Middle East and you totally stop hearing about it! Today’s the Hajj, Muslims’ annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
This would have been a big deal in Dubai, here’s it’s relegated to a photo or two on Yahoo! News. Weird.
Posts Tagged ‘religion’
Hey, the Hajj!
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010iPhone and the Cardinal Sins
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Apple’s new iPhone 4 they revealed yesterday. It seemed like I’ve wanted an iPhone for the last three and a half years. Oh wait, I have (see iPhone).
In fact, I’m pretty pissed off that I don’t have one.
One of the reason’s that I’d like a real job – I mean, other than health benefits, sick days and vacation days – is for a real paycheck of which I could spend gobs and gobs towards an iPhone and data plan. That’s where they get you, you know, that monthly data plan on top of the already outrageous cellular plan. I just can’t afford that right now. And that upsets me.
I’m also really jealous of my friends who do have iPhones, which these days is most of them. Every time I get an email from a friend and the last sentence is “sent from my iPhone” it grates my nerves. Why do they get an iPhone and I don’t?
Mostly because they’re not a temp, I’d assume.
In fact, now that I think about it, other than “sloth” I think I experience the full set of Cardinal Sins each time I think about the iPhone:
Wrath: see above
Greed: I want I want I want I want
Sloth: n/a
Pride: I’m supposed to be an Apple fan without an iPhone?
Lust: Okay, similar to this case to envy.
Envy: see above
Gluttony: My Motorola RAZR works just fine, really.
So wait, did I just prove Apple evil? Crap.
Forgive me Steve Jobs, for I have sinned …
Jefferson on Equality
Friday, March 19th, 2010Looking up Thomas Jefferson after my post yesterday about Texas and education and that whole mess, I found something interesting regarding TJ and his writing of the Declaration of Independence:
[Congress] also altered his wording regarding equal rights. His original wording is here in blue italics: “All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable.” Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”
Good to know.
Still ‘Under God’
Thursday, March 11th, 2010Can’t say I’m pleased with this: “Court: ‘Under God’ in Pledge is constitutional.”
In summation – a federal appeals court ruled that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and printing “In God We Trust” on currency doesn’t violate the separation of church and state.
So I guess because it doesn’t say which God it’s okay?
Let’s reinterpret the First Amendment to the Constitution. Can’t have an Congress-established religion? Then it’s an “appeal to patriotism, not religion.”
Nevermind the fact that “under God,” which was added to the pledge by a 1954 federal law, was lobbied for by the Knights of Columbus – a friggin’ religious group!
Now I realize that our country is something like 78.5% Christian (CIA World Factbook, 2007 estimate), and if you added the 1.7% of the population that’s Jewish and the 0.6% that’s Muslim we have eight of of ten Americans worshipping the same Abrahamic God.
But why’s it got to be on the money?
Seriously!
Pet Care, Post Rapture
Thursday, February 18th, 2010Check out this BusinessWeek article: “Caring for Pets Left Behind by the Rapture“.
For a fee, this service will place your dog or cat in the home of a caring atheist on Judgment Day.
Awesome.
