Presented for your reaction... I encountered this car in a CVS parking lot. Thanks to the amazing abilities of technologists to compress cameras into cell phones, you get to see what I saw. I was with my family (wife, and three young teens).
I Asked my kids what they saw. What do you see?
More below the fold...
While I am an atheist and have my doubts about the existence of a man named Jesus, I'm all for the values attributed to him. These values are well described in,
Jesus Without the Miracles by Erik Reece in the September 2005 issue of Harpers Magazine.
The Harpers article speaks of the Gospel of Thomas (a gnostic text) and the Jefferson Bible. Jefferson took a King James Bible and cut out all the miracles. He was left with the core teachings of a man called Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas is also, apparently, without miracles.
Those teachings include:
# Be just; justice comes from virtue, which comes from the heart.
# Treat people the way we want them to treat us.
# Always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion.
# Consider valuable the things that have no material value.
# Do not judge others.
# Do not bear grudges.
# Be modest and unpretentious.
# Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid.
If you believe in these core teachings (whether you believe in Jesus or not) you must see the contradictions presented by the collection of bumper stickers in the photo above.
If you are like me you see a selfish, angry, fearful person who is attempting to mask his or her base emotions with Jesus. As if the Jesus fish makes it OK for this car owner to insult and hate his or her fellow Massachusetts residents.
The bumper stickers and the Jesus fish represent such opposite ideas that it makes me wonder what kind of manipulation was required to make this vehicle owner blind to the contradiction. (I truly wish I had met the car owner so I could have pointed out the contradictions.)
The Political Right has done this brainwashing and they've done it well. So well in fact, they have contradicted every value Jesus (or any rational being) might espouse:
Be just; justice comes from virtue, which comes from the heart.
Does torture come from the heart? Is torture just?
Treat people the way we want them to treat us.
Apparently that means killing or being responsible for the deaths of 600,000 Iraqis. It means torturing prisoners. Great. Do you want people torturing you? Apparently, the Bush administration does.
Always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion.
130,000 troops, 3,000 dead, yup. That's a peaceful resolution.
Consider valuable the things that have no material value.
Tax breaks to the rich, oil subsidies, low minimum wage - it's clear what the current administration values.
Do not judge others.
Homosexuals, liberals, the list is endless.
Do not bear grudges.
Cuba is a good example of this, North Korea might be a better one. Tell me again, why are we not talking to North Korea? (Even James Baker, former Secy of State under GHWB, recommends talking toNorth Korea.)
Be modest and unpretentious.
Mr. "I've not made any mistakes" Bush. Such a modest guy.
Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid.
How many years has the US withheld payments to the UN? Why? What were we hoping to get in return? Why are we not in Darfur dealing with the Genocide? They must not have much oil in Darfur.
Sorry for my anger. And for the record, I did, at first, judge the owner of this vehicle. But as I wrote this diary, I realized what I was doing. It is hard not to judge the person, but I can judge the behavior. The behavior is inexcusable.
ARB