Heathen's Greetings: Atheist Campaign

Rich Cholodofsky, Triblive.com, Nov. 17, 2012; FFRF.org; Wisdom Quarterly

Annie Laurie Gaylor (ffrf.org)

PENNSYLVANIA - Residents rallying to keep Ten Commandments tablets posted on school property in Connellsville and New Kensington are going up against the Freedom From Religion Foundation (ffrf.org), a Wisconsin-based atheist group with a growing presence in the state.

In the past two years, the group has challenged discounts for churchgoers at restaurants and college basketball games, Nativity scenes at public buildings and state lawmakers’ attempts to declare a Year of the Bible.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation does not pick its fights; it only responds to complaints from citizens, said its co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor.

“I don’t know what is going on in Pennsylvania to put out that kind of fundamentalism. It’s something you would expect to see in the Deep South,” she said. “Our ultimate goal is to defend the First Amendment. We’re not picking on anybody.” More

 

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Judaism: Happy New Year!

S. Mendelson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
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It's not easy being Jewish, feeling a lot of animosity because of everything the New Israel does and the residual racism outside of cosmopolitan areas in the country. It's just a cultural identity, not so much a religion for most younger Jews. When we want spirituality, Buddhism looks the most attractive Why would that be?

One supposes that there's something in the genetic memory or implicit cultural awareness of there being Jews in Himalayan India where Jesus and other Jewish travelers went due to there being a large trading settlement there (see Holger Kersten). The similarities between Mahayana Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity are stunning -- a messiah (Maitreya), one GOD (impersonal Brahman) that encompasses all the gods (personal heavenly/space visitors) who get worshipped separately as if they were One but with different names and attributes. 

What is there to say about Rosh Hashanah? Nothing other than to point out how far the Gentiles have taken Jewish lore and practice and made it completely other in the name of one mushroom figure. Happy New Year.

• THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS

Pro-Israel and pro-peace, is it possible? J Street thinks so.

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