I left playing Bingo in MySpace today because I was enraged by a Meebo chat that was going on and before I started attacking others, I felt it was best to leave.

Yesterday, we honored the deaths of the 9/11 victims. A solemn occasion and one that reminds us of how far we have to go with understanding each other as human beings.

Yet, not more than even 24 hours later, I stumble into this chat room to innocently play my Bingo and there is this raging attack on a girl because she mentioned that she liked Nascar.  Ok, I don’t like Nascar, but hey, I don’t like a lot of things! Does that make her a bad person? No. It just makes her different.

But a group of people felt that this was enough to call her names and shamelessly attack her and her friends. Pathetic.

I finally made the statement that it’s no wonder we can’t have peace between countries when we can’t even have peace among our own human beings. And of course, I made the mistake of calling out someone who then made a statement about how much fun he/she was having picking on this person. I said, “I certainly hope you are not a Christian, [screen name]!”

Well that sparked a whole other feud! This person said to me that he/she was a Christian and that I had no idea what they say or how they felt.

I don’t? Didn’t I just see your faith and beliefs in action in the attacks on this other girl? Is that what your Jesus would want you to do? (And I don’t want you to send me hate mail. I do call myself Christian and I do believe in Jesus. I was simply referencing the difference between his/her belief in Jesus and my belief in what he taught.)

Then, another person jumped in and said, “I am Christian but I am also an American and I have the right to free speech.”

Since when does being American and having the right of FREE SPEECH give you the right to dismiss the teachings of Christianity? Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourselves.” Maybe that’s the problem? You don’t love yourself? (I won’t even go there right now in this post.)

Jesus loved the tax collector and prostitutes and accepted them non-judgmentally. He would talk to them about the love of God – the father, but you cannot preach to someone you’ve alienated through attacking their beliefs or lifestyle. Jesus knew that! So he welcomed them and accepted them and then told them about a life that is different from the one they were living.

Do you think Christianity would have survived so long if Jesus preached the way some of our so-called Christian’s are trying to today?

And to use the Constitution to push your hatred under the guises of FREE SPEECH is not only unpatriotic it’s down right blasphemy!

I am far from being a perfect model of Christianity but I am working on my unconditional love for fellow human beings day in and day out.

I find it a sad, sad state of human affairs when we feel the need to attack someone – a fellow American, who is also entitled to free speech – in the name of religion and patriotism.  That is a very FRACKED up way of translating your beliefs folks!

I think the clergy needs to really take a look at Jesus’ message again and start educating their congregations.  And you Christian’s – and you know who you are – who behave like these folks in the chat room, need to go back and re-read the teachings of Jesus.

Right now, all I’m seeing is lip service Christianity and Patriotism. And it’s sad. So very, very sad!

At first, I was very irritated that this person would jump to a conclusion such as they did. And then, I opened another e-mail from DailyOm, which follows.

The Upside of Irritation

Things That Annoy Us

There are many stories of spiritual masters embracing the presence of an annoying student in their community. There is even one story that documents a teacher paying an irritating person to live among his students. From an everyday perspective, this is difficult to comprehend. We generally work hard to avoid people and things that we find annoying so they don’t bother us.

From a deeper spiritual perspective, however, irritation can be an important teacher and indicator that we are making progress on our path. Being able to remain centered and awake even when we feel uncomfortable is much more impressive than doing so in an environment where everything is to our liking. No matter how good we are at controlling our circumstances, there will always be factors and people that we cannot control. How we respond to these experiences to a great degree determines the quality of our lives. The goal of spiritual development is not to learn to control our environment—which is more of an ego-driven desire. And while having some measure of control over our external reality is important, it is when we are confronted with a person or situation that irritates us and we can choose not to react that we know have made progress spiritually. It is when we have mastered our internal reality that we will have become the masters of our lives.

The more we try to eliminate annoyances, instead of learning to handle them gracefully, the further we get from developing the qualities that come with spiritual growth, such as patience, tolerance, and acceptance. It is often in the presence of people and experiences we find annoying that we have an opportunity to develop these qualities. Fortunately for most of us, our lives offer an abundance of opportunities to practice and cultivate these traits.

(Source: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2009/16909.html)

I am indeed very busy at work. And I’ve taken a lot of time out to talk to my daughter when she calls, to call my sister and do a check on how she’s doing, and yesterday I even took time to return a phone call to my best friend because I knew he wanted to hear from me.

All of that and working on finishing a clients website, fixing some glitches in my computer, arranging new business with my twitter friends, chatting with perspective clients and students on my company’s live Google Chat, and keeping up with my commitments to other social networking folks. And that’s only the beginning.

When this year started, I made the commitment to myself that I would be taking my business to the next level. This I do for me, and only me.

What has been a wonderful blessing is that I’ve met hundreds of like minded people along the way that are supportive to me in my goals. The beauty of the social networking I’ve discovered, is full of awesome people who truly want to connect and help each other.

Did this friends e-mail support that belief for me? No. But it was only one e-mail. I have many more e-mails that support the belief I stated in the paragraph above.

Irritating yes.  A belief check for me? Yes.

I can’t be everything to every one – especially to people who do not believe what I say, jump to conclusions about what I’m doing, and lack the self-esteem to trust that I’m their friend and not ignoring them. That’s not where I am in my growth.

So, this was a wonderful example of the Universe working with me in my growth. While I might have felt guilty reading this persons e-mail before, or gone off on some kind of negative tangent with myself, the DailyOm was waiting for me to point out the significance of what just happened. (I just love synchronicity, don’t you?)

I am grateful to the friend (yes, I still think of him as a friend, even if he doesn’t believe it) for sending me that e-mail and allowing me to see the beautiful, blessed synchronicity in the events.  I am also grateful because he’s given me the reminder to see how blessed I am with so many wonderful, supportive friends I do have on all the social networking sites I belong too.

So this is for you all my Twitter Tweeple, Facebook Friends, MySpace Buddies, Digg Pals, and the folks at The Million Mind March community. Thank you! Thank you for being the wonderful, beautiful people that you are! And thank you for the honor of your friendship!

You have blessed my life in ways you will never know!

The original post claims that:

The Dalai Lama has stunned left-leaning followers by proclaiming “I love President George W. Bush“.

Why are the left-leaning followers stunned?

If you are a true follower of the Dalai Lama and his messages, this wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest! In fact, it’s EXACTLY what I would expect him to say!

The very idea that someone is less worthy of love – unconditional love – just because we do not agree with their politics, world view, or model of the world, is the very reason terrorism and hate exists today.

I can’t stand George Bush’s politics, nor the decisions he’s made in the past 4 years. Does that mean he’s undeserving of the Unconditional Love of the Divine which we are all supposed to be showing the world? NO! If anything, he deserves more of our love because of it!

I can’t help but wonder how different our world would be if we stopped hating those we disagree with and just loved them more because of that very reason.

I’m going to literally “piss” (excuse my modern colloquialism) a lot of you off with what I’m about to say and if so, that’s a good thing! Maybe it will cause you to take a long hard look at your narrow mind and look into the infinite mind of GOD!

In reading the article about the man who lived like Jesus for a year, I scrolled down to read the comments. I wanted to throw up – some of them made me physically ill.

One person used the comments to support his anti-gay agenda and anti-abortion agenda. Dude! Did you forget that when the Disciples asked Jesus about Old Testament Law with “Master, Which is the great commandment in the law?”  (KJV MAT 22:36) How did Jesus respond?

Did he say, “The entire book of Leviticus is the most important?”  No.

Did he say, “The entire 10 laws of Moses is the most important?” No.

He replied:

Mat 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with  all thy  heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Mat 22:38  This  is the first and great commandment.

Mat 22:39  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour  as  thyself.

Mat 22:40  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

(KJV)

(And for those who would take me to task about my understanding and research of the Bible, let me refer you to e-sword software. I use it in place of my Hebrew-Greek Study Bible because it looks up the meaning of the original words faster. But I have studied the Bible in it’s original languages and I suggest others do the same. E-sword software is free here: http://e-sword.net/ but I warn you, comparing what was written to how it was translated will make you question a lot!)

Okay, that being said, Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. He doesn’t include any exemptions there. Jesus DOES NOT say:

Love your neighbor as yourself unless… he’s a homosexual, or she’s a lesbian.

Love your neighbor as yourself unless… she’s had an abortion, he/she is a doctor that performs abortion, or he/she works at an abortion clinic.

Love your neighbor as yourself unless…he/she is an alcoholic and drinks anything but wine, he/she is an addict and abuses drugs, he/she smokes cigarettes, smokes pot, or does anything else that doesn’t fit into your narrow minded brain.

Love your neighbor as yourself unless…he/she is NOT a Christian.

If you are going to quote the Biblical law and expect that it should be followed, why are you taking only ONE of those laws out of the entire book? If you want to be held according to the Biblical law, then you have to take every last one of them mentioned in Leviticus not just Leviticus 18:22.

You cannot pick and choose which one of the laws are acceptable and which are not! If you are going to QUOTE any of them and declare them an edict from GOD, then you need to QUOTE them all and LIVE them all!

You alleged Christian’s that walk around quoting scripture without a clue about what you’re saying are no different then the hypocrites that Jesus spoke about!

Additionally, the Bible IS NOT the definitive work on Jesus’ life! One person wrote in the comments that Jesus didn’t drink beer, he drank wine. How the HECK do you know that? Yes, wine is mentioned in the Bible in reference to the wedding miracle and it was a standard drink for the time, but how the heck can you claim to know what Jesus did? Were you there?

Even Josephus, the great historian of the time, mentions Jesus of Nazareth in passing. There are no other known documents other than the writings that are included in the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the texts from Nag Hammâdi that even reference he existed. And they focus on his teachings not his daily habits!

Now this comment makes me wish that Jesus would come back and set the record straight right here, right now:

From what I read in Bible I know Jesus wouldn’t approve of homosexuality and abortion like Obama does! How can that crazy man compare Jesus to a man who approves all of this things? It made me sick to see him talk like that about Jesus!!!

Despite belief to the contrary, Obama is our President elect. He IS NOT the new Messiah!

How in the name of anything that is Divine can you even begin to compare the two? If Jesus wanted you to mix Politics with the Kingdom of God, don’t you think he would have led the revolution and established the New World Order himself?

You religious zealots make me sick to see you talk about Jesus that way!

The Bible, the same one I read that you allegedly have read states in Hosea:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…
(KJV Hos 4:6)

If I were introduced to the Christian faith by believers such as this, I would’ve ran to the other side of the Universe to get away from them!

Jesus taught that we were not to judge, yet all I see is judgement and condemnation out of people professing they are Christians or Christ followers.

Jesus taught love – unconditional love – which is the love of GOD. Yet all I see is hatred and contempt for anyone who doesn’t believe as you do.

Jesus taught compassion, and all you know is cruelty and tyranny against those who do not believe as you do.

Jesus, the Christ (a title, not a last name, meaning the anointed) must be a different historical figure for me because I could never see Jesus making the kind of rude and critical judgments on the world as I see supposed followers do.

I am so glad that I learned Christianity from believers who walked the walk as well as talked the talk! Their loving acceptance of me then – as a non-believer – made me want to have what they had. There was a joy and happiness about them that I wanted. There was a peace and glow about them that I wanted. That’s what led me to Christ – THEIR EXAMPLE!

If the examples of Christianity that I’m seeing is what Christianity is becoming, then I am saddened. Deeply saddened for the faith as a whole, and for those who preach a message of condemnation, judgment, hatred, and dogma in the name of one of our greatest teachers – Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.

I really didn’t think much about the whole article until I read one line that stated, “A small religious party is campaigning to ban groups from charging for their services…”

Now the article didn’t state which ‘small religious group’ this was, and I of course, am making a leap here when I assume it would be a Christian-based belief system. But whether Christian-based or not, I have a problem with this statement and a few others in regards to killings, assisted suicides, and death penalties.

If I remember my Bible correctly, Exodus 20:13 (KJV) states: “Thou shalt not kill.” Which is one of the Ten Commandments given to Moses, and is supposed to be upheld by any religious belief system that adheres to the teaching of the Old Testament.

The problem I have with the current moral judgments of people under the guises of their religious beliefs is that they seem to be situational ethicists or situational moralists. Meaning, it depends upon the situation as to whether killing is acceptable or not.

I don’t remember the tablets saying, “Thou shalt not kill, except….”

The fact that the Yahoo article points out that a small religious party would find the services acceptable as long as there was not a charge, goes a little against the grain with me! I’m not making a moral judgment on whether assisted suicide or mercy killings are acceptable or not, what is irking me is that a group of allegedly ‘Godly’ belief systems would even think that killing is acceptable as long as there was no financial gain.

Does this imply that poverty equals piety? And does the fact that money is removed from the transaction make it more palatable?

Many years ago on my spiritual path I had to resolve an inner conflict with the fact that as a seeker of the truth, how could I justify the death of another in any given situation. How could I say that murder was wrong but yet justify the murder of the criminal by use of the death penalty? Murder is murder. Killing is killing. There’s no gray area here.

My truth became just that. Murder, killing, or being the cause of death to another living being was unjustifiable. I chose to no longer support the death penalty. I chose to catch and release insects rather than kill them in our home.

Now, I want to point out that I am human and there are some exceptions that I have to make in order to live peacefully within my home. Unfortunately for field mice, there’s no humane way for me to catch and release them. So, I do, when forced to, use a circular trap that causes a humane instant death rather than wait for our cat to give it a slow and agonizing death. And while this may sound totally corny to you, I do feel terrible for having to do so and apologize to mother earth, God, and the mouse for having to kill it.

I don’t know where I stand personally on the subject of taking your own life in order to die with dignity. This is something I will have to meditate on further now that it’s been called to my attention.

Having been raised Catholic originally; I was always taught that only God has the right to take a life. But I know now through my spiritual walk that God doesn’t kill people, although through our lack of understanding death we attribute it to the Divine. And I say this as ‘my truth‘ and not to imply that you should believe the way I do. You need to decide your truth for yourself.

So, I propose the question to you, fellow seeker, when is murder or killing another – or yourself – acceptable to you and why?

To read the article that posed the question to me and prompted this writing see:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081214/ap_on_re_eu/eu_switzerland_dying_with_dignitas