VirusHead

Today, I am participating in the Interfaith Fast.

Religious leaders from several traditions invite you to join with millions of other Americans participating in interfaith events in your local community on October 7 and 8th, for the breaking of bread, fasting, and breaking our fast together as we covenant together to live out the deepest calling in each of our traditions – the desire for justice and for peace for all people.

If you’d like to participate, do so. You can rsvp on Facebook.

interfaithfast

This fall, in an unusual convergence, many of our faith traditions share a season of sacred self-assessment and self-transformation. This holy season includes the month of Ramadan and the Night of Power (Islam); the High Holy Days and Sukkot (Judaism); the Feast Day of Francis of Assisi and Worldwide Communion Sunday (Christianity), Pavarana / Sangha Day (Buddhism) and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. Some communities of the First Nations have already begun to observe Columbus Day as Indigenous Nations Day, with practices that transform its meaning.

Since each of our traditions recognizes the power of fasting as a spiritual discipline, we call on all people of faith to join in a fast from dawn to dusk on Monday, October 8.

Newsbrief

Maps of War has a really interesting mapping of religion memes – spread and warfare:

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world’s most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds?

See full size

What shall we choose: democracy or theocracy?

The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party – a public information project from TheocracyWatch.org.

Global warming, climate change – however your political gurus “frame” it – is a global issue. Yes, it’s a moral issue. Yes, it’s a political issue. It’s also a survival issue.

Wake up.

I applaud Al Gore. Thank you for not giving up.

Go see An Inconvenient Truth.

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom — think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man’s fervent crusade to halt global warming’s deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his “traveling global warming show,” Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media – funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our “planetary emergency” out to ordinary citizens before it’s too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point – and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore’s personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life – convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

Wired has a story about Hacker Adrian Lamo, who has refused to give blood for DNA testing on religious grounds. His lawyer declined to specify which religion, but the article notes:

In prior court cases, members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have registered opposition to blood tests for alcohol content, based on certain passages in the Bible.

The JW prohibition is on the partaking of blood, as in accepting a blood transfusion or varying human blood products. Their biblical interpretation is that the biblical injunction to “abstain from blood” applies to blood transfusions. There are some changing views on blood fractions, blood products, and they don’t go so far as to eat kosher meat.

But yes, they will refuse a blood transfusion, even to save a life.

However, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no prohibition on blood testing or DNA sampling. JWs get blood tests all the time.

If any JW thus claims religious conviction as the reason to avoid…well….conviction, it’s pure mendacity.

If anyone knows of any of these cases in which JWs have claimed “religious opposition” to giving blood for testing of any kind, please comment with a link (or any other reference).

It seems to me that if DNA were the issue, they don’t need his blood. Still, I agree with the ACLU about the FBI’s DNA bank. Why should all our DNA be on record with the government? I’d like to have it for the family records, but I’ve never thought well of this total information idea — too much potential for total control, total tyranny.

Georgia encodes our fingerprints on the Driver’s License. I had meant to protest it – I really did – but I realized my renewal was up when I was 8-1/2 months pregnant. After standing in line for about an hour I felt like I was going to pass out. When I got to the front, I said that I didn’t want to be fingerprinted since I wasn’t a criminal. They said – “Well then, that would be your choice not to have a driver’s license in Georgia.” I gave up.

Whatever religious path this admittedly interesting character is on doesn’t seem to be the issue at all. My guess would be that it’s his quirky sense of humor at work, just making it that little bit more difficult for the system.