Month: September 2011

Religion, Values

You Don’t Have to Be…

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

ERF You Dont Have to Be the PresidentIn 2009, I had the honor to be part in the handling team to prepare for the short visit by President Obama in Thuringia.

erf_pope2011_1In 2011 the President was followed by the Catholic Pope Benedict XVI, also visiting ERF and Thuringia, the heartland of the ‘renegade’ Lutheran church. Being the ultra conservative he is, he rejected the offered hand of the Protestant church.

The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history. [Lazarus Long]

P.S.: God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent-it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills. [Lazarus Long]

Food for Thought…

Uncategorized

9/11 – 10 Years After

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

What did we learn from 9/11?

What we did not learn is to my believe the real tragedy.

MuslimAmericaOnly extremes create extremism (and terrorism). I still miss the dialogue and that president Obama today reads from the bible sure is a short-sight, I understand to be American, but one reason all this happened! Is America Christian? Jewish? Islamic? Buddhist? Agnostic? Or all that and much more? The Islamic extremists believed that America is not the land of the free, but a anti-islamic enemy…

America represents the Western World. But from what viewpoint? Isn’t the world round? Where is the center of the map? Who is “better”?

Is the capitalistic world “better”? Lately we learn that capitalism – including the mighty America – supported dictatorships in the Islamic world. And only when the people stand up, America is there to help them?

The capitalistic world leads us in an unchristian world of greed (a mortal sin!) and unsocial behavior. The “shareholder value” is more important than employees, environment and social responsibilities. U.S. Banks kill money at a global rate, we (the banks, did not learn anything either from Lehmann Brothers and the reason of the global financial crisis this greed got us in.

NYC cab drivers
NYC cab drivers

And now, the leader (president) of that corrupt and greedy system cites the Bible of all possible sources?

We (especially ‘the U.S.’) believe that this, our system, is better than a tribal system as in the “Middle East”? I mentioned in my last blog entry: The sheiks are the leaders of their families. Their focus is on the benefit of the family, then the group, the country. Not in quick profit, but in long-term survival. Something America could – and should – learn a lesson from!

And something, anyone (like me), living of global tourism, should keep in mind and do his/her share to make change happen. No, I can not change this. But we all can!

To quote Lazarus Long again:
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides?

Hmmm… Food for Thought!