Jerreigh@contemplayshuns.com

Mike Huckabee | Putting God Into The Constitution

Holy Bible thumpin', Batman.

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee wants to change the Constitution to God's standards, abolish the IRS and stick a pole up somebody's tailpipe if they mess with the Confederate flag.

That last sentiment hardly seems consistent with what a preacher should be preachin'.  I wonder if Jesus would go around sticking flagpoles up people's tailpipes.  Or approve of people who do.

Which brings me to another thing ole Huck seems to worry about.  He's afraid gay sex leads to bestiality -- folks sticking their flagpoles up the tailpipes of animals.  Or, more precisely, he wants you to be afraid of that so you'll vote for  him because he's against it.

It may be time to start prayin' that ole Huck don't get elected.

I was a bit creeped out when ole Huck was one of the three Republican candidates who raised their hands to say they didn't believe in evolution.

We're seven years into a presidency where science not only doesn't matter but is actively subverted by ideologues who rewrite papers by government scientists to remove scientific findings that don't match their theology or ideology. We don't need another president who wants to attack science.

But the thing that scares me the most about ole Huck is his idea of changing our Constitution "so it's in God's standards."

Holy Taliban.  Has ole Huck read any history?  This country was started by good religious folks -- many, but not all, of them Christians -- who packed up and left Europe to get away from the kind of religion-controls-politics environment ole Huck is peddling.

There's a reason our Constitution doesn't refer to God, forbids any religious test for holding public office and states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  It's because the people who fought the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution had lived through the kind of hell ole Huck wants to bring back.

The people who wrote our Constitution had parents or grandparents who had lived through things like the Salem witch trials.  And they knew first hand about places in both the "old" and "new" worlds where you had to change religions if the king or other person in charge changed religions and where praying to the right God in the wrong way was enough to get you killed or thrown in jail.

That kind of thinking's still around.  Lee Maynard takes the title of a very funny book about rural America, Screaming With the Cannibals, from the notion that the Kentucky Holy Rollers across the river from his hometown of Crum, West Virginia, were cannibals.  He opens the book with a scene where he's in that Kentucky church, screaming with the cannibals.

I hope my kids and grandkids don't have to endure a world where who you pray to and how you do it matters.  If you call yourself a "Christian" and believe that's a world you want to live in, all I can say is you're wrong.  Go read about the Salem witch trials and life in Puritan America, if you don't believe me.

Maybe ole Huck really believes the stuff he's peddling.  Or maybe he's just pandering to the the worst instincts of the rural voters of South Carolina.

Either way, I pray ole Huck disappears from the political scene very, very soon.

That's my two cents' worth.  What's yours?  -- Jerreigh@contemplayshuns.com

Is There Golf In Heaven?

Is there golf in heaven?

If so, I wonder how I’ll play. Better, I hope. But not perfect. In the cartoons, golf in heaven means a hole-in-one every time. But what’s the fun in that?

Will Tiger be able to play with Ben Hogan? Will I be able to join their foursome?  Or watch at least?

It's the challenge that makes golf fun.  And the frustration.

So, if there’s golf in heaven there must also be frustration and pain. Interesting thought. Maybe heaven's different than we think.

What about sex? Surely there’s sex in heaven. Otherwise, those guys turning themselves into martyrs with the promise of all those virgins are in for a nasty surprise. What about fetishes? If there’s sex, will there also be sex fetishes? Surely, it won’t all be missionary style.  Except for the missionaries, of course.  If a missionary tries a new position is it still a "missionary position"? Do they practice monogamy in heaven?  For eternity?  With the same person you were married to on earth?  Even if you didn't like them?  What if you had more than one spouse on earth?

What about chess, tennis or other competitive activities? Or football?  Will the players get hurt? Competition’s important to a lot of people. But if there’s competition in heaven, that means there’ll be winners and losers. Another interesting thought.

Ice cream. I hope there’s ice cream in heaven. Pistachio and that homemade ice cream with fresh peaches and lots of cream my parents made when I was a kid. I can hardly wait to taste that again.

What about work? Will we have jobs in heaven? Work's extremely important to some of us. Or will we all be “retired” in heaven?

Will we need money? Will we all have enough? Will some of us be rich and some of us poor? Hope I get to be one of the rich ones. That would be a nice change.

While this may seem frivolous, I think it raises some serious theological questions. Literature's full of stories about how we have heaven and hell mixed up in our descriptions of them here on earth.  And I think there's some truth to that.  A heaven where everything's perfect would be pretty dull. But the concept of heaven raises some interesting questions about religion.

I guess we'll all find out someday.  Or will we?

That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours?  -- Jerreigh@contemplayshuns.com

Thought for the Day | God Is Too Big

"God is too big to fit into one religion."  -- Bumper sticker

Will we share heaven with our enemies?

Will the suicide "martyrs" who blow up people in the name of Allah share heaven with their victims?

Will the plantation owners of the Old South share heaven with their slaves?  What about the Irish Catholics and Protestants who killed one another in the name of Jesus?  Or the millions upon millions of people throughout history who have killed, tortured or otherwise mistreated one another simply because they prayed to a different God -- or prayed to the same God in a different way?  Or for no other reason than that they could?

What about the American soldiers who have tortured prisoners at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere?  Or George Bush, who claims to be pro-life and pro-family?  Will he share heaven with people whose lives he destroyed or disrupted by fighting the wrong war at the wrong place in the wrong way?

This is not a trivial question.  One of the seven habits espoused by Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is to "begin with the end in mind."  He suggests visualizing yourself on your deathbed.  What would you want your friends, family and colleagues to say about you as they look back on your life?  Is that what they will say?  If not, Covey says, then change your life to change what they will say.

But what if we take it a step further.  When you die, will you go to heaven?  Will you have to share heaven with your enemies?  If so, what will you say to one another?  What will you say to God to justify being allowed in despite what you've done to your enemies?

If there's a heaven, I hope to be there.  Someday.  Not for a while, I hope.  But there are some people I've wronged along the way that I'm not looking forward to seeing there.  I wonder if saying I'm sorry will be enough.

What about you?  If you claim to be a Christian and say the Lord's Prayer, what treatment are you asking of God when you pray to have your trespasses forgiven in the same way you've forgiven those who have done you wrong?  I think that's  a  dangerous prayer  for many of us.

That's my two cents' worth.  What's yours?  -- Jerreigh@contemplayshuns.com

 
Photo:  NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Moses Gets Chisler's Block