Recent Evolution Battle in Billings

http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/12/06/features/life/26-genisis.txt

By JEF SUTHERLAND
For The Gazette

Jef stated, "Somebody brought to my attention recently how much public information promotes evolution to children."

This very first sentence tells much. This man is a liar right off the bat. To his 'attention recently' give us a break Jef! This is a blatant lie. You are a great pretender to say you just recently learned about evolution!

Look at this article and one can see he is just another fundamentalist 'teaching the controversy" like no one has ever heard of it. How original Jef.

I was amazed to see the number of comments posted for this article. I noticed only one honest Christian, she admitted to what the whole mess is really about. The Christians want God in the public schools, of course their God that is.

The Christians are under the incorrect perception that people can not be moral without God (again their version of God). Not true, but that is the crux of the issue at hand. It is not really about evolution or science; it's about pushing the belief in God.

It has been proven all over the world, that the most religious nations are not more moral than the so called secular nations.

Like the infamous atheist Mr. Hitchens says when he challenges the faithful. "Name one moral thing a believer does that can not be done by a non-believer? He has not been given one example.

Abstinence not a waste per Barbara

By Barbara
The abstinence message is sound and can save lives, if heeded. Simply put: no sex, no sexually transmitted infections (STIs)."

Well duh, but not realistic

She then says
'People run stop signs and suffer the consequences of their actions. Does this make the stop sign’s message dangerous? Should we stop spending money on stop signs? Money spent on abstinence education is not a waste. What is a waste are the people who will die from HIV/AIDS because they didn’t heed the abstinence message.'


Reader Comments:

My comment was
An Abstinence ‘only’ program is as successful as AA. Only 5% never drink again.

Longinus
“Way to go Barbara! You have got my vote. “(Is she running for office? Probably, its preachers and politicians promote this ‘only’ option)

gfguy

“Interesting analogy to the stop sign. Yes, people who run the sign suffer the consequences. However, we do offer driver's education which helps to prevent accidents.
Burying your head in the sand and thinking that teaching abstinence only will solve the problem is naive at best. Giving them information to help them make careful choices is the best we can do.
Oh, and Ms. LaRue, it sure is nice to hear that you think of people with HIV/AIDS as a waste. You're just brimming with compassion. "


patriot wrote on Dec 23, 2008 7:45 AM:

“Barbara, your comments are well stated. Abstinence in conjunction with other programs to reduce STI's may represent the best way to combat HIV/AIDS. Planned Parenthood presents only their agenda and seemingly dismisses any other programs as not effective or worthy of funding. "

The Winter Solstice

Three local churches are offering a special “Longest Night” service on Monday night.
'Everyone, regardless of church background or lack of it is welcome'

This would be the last thing I would do for the Solstice, exactly because of my "lack of it"
Instead, at my place we are having a bon fire tonight. One and all are invited, even if you have or had a church background. I promise we will not be sitting around praying and singing hymes. It's a purely secular social event with no strings attached.

Doll

I will discuss this later.

To die on your own terms a right?

McGrath seeks suspension of right-to-die ruling

AG McGrath hopes to stop anyone or at least postpone people from using their right to die. He plans to prolong the suffering of terminally ill Montanans who wish to end their lives with medical assistance.

I quess he doesn't want anyone going to hell. Becasue of course in the bible it says suicide is wrong. In most cases it is, but in this situation it's called mercy. As usual the religious try use the bible too determine what is moral and what is not, when in fact it is far from giving good advice.

This may sound callous, but do people realize how expensive it is to die in the U. S. of A.? Why should a dying person pay big bucks to a hospital to keep them alive as long as possible against their will. That's callous and immoral.

Coming Out Gay in Montana

This is about Bridget’s Your Turn editorial in the IR 12/10/08

From this editorial, I learned that the Montana Legislature considered requiring all gay and lesbians to register as sex offenders. Outrageous! The last decade was a dark time under Republican rule.

Bridget said she was told by the clergy say she ‘must be silent and celibate’, and that her wish to marry another woman was wrong and made her ‘less deserving of God’s love’.
She said she despaired over this. I say she was disparaged.

I always wondered how or why people like her would want the love of a God such as this.

She despairs again over the passage of Prop 8 in California.
It is because of these laws and the public perception of gays why there is a higher incidence of substance abuse, depression and suicide in her social group. It’s true. But appealing to the “true” Christians by being a gay Christian doesn’t work. If you’re a Christian then one has to understand why the true believers are so against the gay community attempts at marriage.

She quotes the bible and pleads for people to ignore the Old Testament and only heed what Jesus says about our neighbors and the poor.

Such as, “love your neighbor as yourself”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, and to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

She says, “We must reach across the imagined divides between “liberal” and “conservative” and honor and respect each other as humans.” It is and never will be an imagined divide. People have been killing each other over this so called imagined divide. It’s real and dangerous.

For generations and today many still question what Christianity is or means? There is a theory Jesus meant you and I must still follow the law and then I learned Paul claimed we are not to follow the law and the only way to salvation was through Jesus. This was his attempt to remove the Jews from his new religion. He wanted as little connection to the Old Testament as possible. Christianity was to be the religion for the gentiles. Today it’s common to hear the evangelicals call themselves Judeo-Christians. This way they can use the law to suppress the very people supposedly Christ set free.

This only goes to show how the ‘faithful’ believe whatever is convenient.

Bridget Whearty, a Helena native had a feature story about her marriage in California.

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/06/19/local/top/50lo_080619_marriage.txt

Dangerous legislation per Beth

By Beth Emter - 12/10/08
Montanans should be aware of very dangerous legislation currently sponsored by Max Baucus and Jon Tester — the Freedom of Choice Act (S.1173).

The Freedom of Choice Act is deceiving in its very title. FOCA would deprive Montanans, as well as the American people in all 50 states of the freedom we now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. It would also counteract any and all sincere efforts by government to reduce abortions in our country. FOCA as it is currently written would take away parental consent laws, laws requiring abortions be performed only by licensed physicians and laws limiting particular abortion procedures like partial birth abortion. FOCA would recklessly disallow states the freedom to regulate abortion as their citizens see appropriate. Additionally, FOCA would require Catholic hospitals that provide childbirth and other health care services to provide abortions, thus shutting down health care facilities in some of Montana’s most remote communities.

Is this freedom? No. Is this choice for Montanans? No. FOCA is simply wrong for Montana. We cannot reduce abortions by promoting abortion.

Beth Emter

29 Hidden Valley Loop

Clancy

Company Christmas Parties

For some reason we are having our office Christmas party mid-January. It would be nice if they called it a New Years party. I wish all Christmas parties would become New Years Parties instead. I am not alone in this I am sure.
Supposedly attending a Company sponsored Christmas party is up to the employee. But, is it really? No! Peer pressure forces one and all to celebrate Christmas whether they like it or not. It is not good for your career if you do not play along.

I will from now on respond to "Have a Merry Christmas" with "Have a Happy New Year" not "Happy Holidays"

Assisted-Suicide in Montana

State plans to appeal assisted-suicide ruling
By JENNIFER McKEE - IR State Bureau - 12/10/08
Montana’s top court will make the final call on whether Montanans have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide.Attorney General Mike McGrath said Tuesday the state will appeal a recent Helena District Court ruling which upheld the right of terminally-ill Montanans to seek doctor-prescribed medications to end their lives.“Clearly this is an issue that needs to be decided by the (Montana) Supreme Court,” McGrath said Tuesday in an interview with Lee Newspapers.Helena District Judge Dorothy McCarter ruled late Friday that Robert Baxter, a 76-year-old Billings man who had suffered from leukemia for years, had the right to end his life using physician-prescribed drugs. McCarter held that the Montana Constitution, which guarantees both the right of privacy and human dignity, protected Baxter’s right to end his life.Baxter died of his illness Friday, before he found out about the ruling.Kathryn Tucker, of Seattle, legal director of Compassion & Choices, a national nonprofit patients’ rights group that was also involved in Baxter’s suit, said Tuesday she agreed with McGrath that the serious matter deserves review by the state’s highest court.
“We will urge the Supreme Court to affirm (the decision) and I think the chances are they will affirm it,” she said. “But I do think it’s important to have this be a state Supreme Court ruling.”McGrath said the state had not yet formally filed the appeal. He said lawyers expected to do so in the next few days.That appeal could last many months. In the meantime, lawmakers at next month’s 2009 Legislature will also take up the issue. Representative-elect Dick Barrett, D-Missoula, has sponsored a bill that would enshrine McCarter’s decision in state law and better define how physician-assisted suicide would work.Tucker said she thought it was important that lawmakers have such a discussion and begin to spell out how terminally ill Montanans exercise their right to doctor-assisted suicide. She said a reasonable waiting period is important, but cautioned on setting barriers too high.Barrett’s bill will originate in the evenly-split Montana House of Representatives, where it’s likely the bill could die on procedural grounds without the Legislature as a whole ever speaking on the issue.If that happens, Tucker said, Montanans will “still be able to make (an assisted suicide) request and physicians will still be able to write these prescriptions.” Physician-assisted suicide would then become “an unregulated right.”


Reader Comments:

thedukeofhelena wrote on Dec 10, 2008 6:27 AM:
" Let's hope this passes in the Montana SC. Being terminally ill myself, I and too many others should have the right to a physicians help to end our lives when they become too unbearable and painful. Why this has to be appealed in the first place tells me that there are still others out there who deign to tell me when and how I should live my life. Stop being so selfish and pass this constitutional right. "

I agree with the duke, the theocrats will fight this tooth and nail.

Sherry Jones cont.

I was lucky, and was able to see author Sherry Jones who wrote the controversial book "The Jewel of Medina" at Carroll College, Helena, Montana Thursday the 4th of December.Sherry is a Novelist, journalist and once was an Independent Record Reporter, and a Montanan.The publishing company Random House, self censored themselves and dropped plans for printing Jones' book because they were told “The Jewel of Medina” would offend Muslims and could “incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”Sherry was informed that a sorce within academics told them that it would be a "declaration of war" because the same person claimed the book as soft porn.This book controversy has been compared to the Salman Rushdie's, “The Satanic Verses.” He is calling Random House’s action “censorship by fear.” This is no known fatwa for Sherry, maybe that is only for heretics within the faith.It was only after Random house backed out, that a fire was started at the book’s publisher in Great Britain. They responded by postponing the publication in the U.K. But, Sherry told us that her book has been published in Serbia. She said a cleric there also called the book pornograhic and insisted it was pulled from the shelves and turned over to him. But, by the time the stores opened the next business day, they were sold out. Yeah!The book is now for sale in the U.S. and in other countries such as Germany, Denmark and Italy. Another 20 publishers worldwide have shown interest.Sherry has written a historical, fictional story that may have a profound impact with women in the Eastern world. Becasue of this, there were two security guards at the book signing for her protection. When asked if she was afraid she said No. She said we all die eventually. Nothing has happended so far, and she doesn't expect it will.The story is about A’isha bint Abi Bakr, Muhammad's youngest wife. I have only just started to read the book myself. It's too early to tell if I like it or not. I'm not a snobby reader, so I'm sure it will be a fine read. Sherry says her book is over 90 percent historically accurate. I like that. It took her five years of research to fill out the story, since there is next to nothing written about women of the past in the middle east. Not much better the western world. Men dominate history. Therefore this book is a feministic look back.Her next book will continue the story of Aisha after Mohammad's death and the civil strife that followed.Sherry has been called evil names by both American's who are anti-Muslim and the usuall suspects from the Muslim community. When asked if she found any conficts with her religious beliefs and those she wrote about. (I found it strange when the host pointed out to her that "father" so and so was in the room. Carol is a Catholic Collage) She said no, she then stated she had been very religious as a youth until her twenties and now she believes "God is Love".I sat there and blinked, and then it hit me! Cool! If it's true, because we atheists are told over and over again God is Love, so I thought. turn it around and that means Love is God therefore God is only a feeling, a human emotion and nothing more. Now I get how liberals see God. Rose colored glasses anyone?

So called traditional Marriage?

Marriage in the Bible?

Abraham, the great Jewish patriarch, slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or Jacob, who fathered children with four different women. Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all polygamists.

The New Testament model of marriage is worse. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion"

Should anyone today turn to the Bible as a how-to script for a modern marriage? I think not

'The Jewel of Medina' to speak in Helena

By EVE BYRON - Independent Record - 12/03/08
Author Sherry Jones will speak at Carroll College Thursday evening. (Photo courtesy Mariah Jones.)
Novelist, journalist and former Independent Record Reporter Sherry Jones will be in Helena Thursday to present a lecture on her controversial book “The Jewel of Medina.”

Jones was invited to speak at Carroll College after professor Barry Ferst learned that the book’s initial publisher, Random House, dropped Jones because of concerns “The Jewel of Medina” would offend Muslims and could, according to Random House, “incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

In fact, a fire was started in the building housing the book’s publisher in Great Britain by people opposed to the publication.

Those incidents led to a whirlwind of world-wide publicity, even before the novel was publicshed, with Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” calling Random House’s action “censorship by fear.”

The Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Republic, as well as newspapers and magazines throughout the world, carried stories about the controversy.

The book eventually was published in Serbia, Germany, Denmark and Italy, and also was picked up by Beaufort Books, which started offering “The Jewel of Medina” for sale in the United States in October. At this point, 20 publishers worldwide have shown interest in it.
“When I heard of Jones’ book and the controversy surrounding its publication, I knew this book and the presence of its author in Helena would provide an excellent opportunity for my students and the community to consider inter- and inner-religious conflicts and literary censorship,” said Ferst, who teaches “Islam: Philosophy and Culture,” among other courses at Carroll. “It is valuable to the public to see the struggles an author goes through in producing an historical work that may have a profound impact on a current geo-political situation.”

Jones remains amazed at the hubbub surrounding her book.

“As an author, you expect criticism or bad reviews, but some of the stuff was so off the wall and so unfair; I never expected it, especially from people who hadn’t read the book,” Jones said.

She started working on the first draft in the winter of 2002, partly in response to the anti-Muslim rhetoric after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. At the time, she was attending the University of Montana in Missoula and working part time at the Missoulian newspaper.

“I heard a radio essay by a Muslim woman that was very moving. She ended up saying that because of the treatment of women under Islam, she had to give up her religious faith,” Jones said Tuesday, speaking by telephone from her home in Spokane. “I thought that was just terrible. I thought something like that could happen in Christianity, if the fundamentalist faction of Christianity really took hold and turned back the clock on women’s rights.”

As Jones began looking into the role of women and Islam, she read stories of the Prophet Muhammad, who Muslim’s believe was the messenger of God, whom they call Allah.

She learned Muhammad had nine wives and four concubines, but could find few works translated into English that told of their lives.

Jones was particularly intrigued with A’isha bint Abi Bakr, who was born in 613 A.D. and engaged at age 6 to Muhammad, who was more than eight times her age. She became his favorite wife and after his death, led troops in the first Islamic civil war.

“I felt a lot of compassion for this young girl, the fact that this young girl grew up to be an amazingly strong, powerful woman. I was curious how that happened,” Jones said. “She went from being a girl controlled by men to a uniquely self-empowered woman.”

Jones used her 28 years in journalism to unearth as much information as she could, then based her fictionalized version of A’isha’s life on those facts. Six years and seven rewrites later, the book finally was published.

She’s quick to note that this is a fictional novel, made up in her mind about what it would be like to be a young girl married to a much older, powerful man, and living in a house with 11 other women vying for his attention.

The book portrays A’isha as a willful child initially focusing only on her own wants and needs initially but eventually growing and evolving into the mature woman who became a prominent figure in early Islam.

Since the book’s release, it’s been called everything from a “flawed jewel” to a “jewel of a story.” Some reviewers call it “solid historical fiction” and say A’isha is an unforgettable character, while others say it’s riddled with inaccuracies, distorting and sensationalizing history in order to get people to read the novel.

Even with all the controversy, Jones enjoyed writing “The Jewel of Medina” and already has penned the sequel, about the life of A’isha’s and other early Islamic figures after Muhammad’s death. It’s slated for publication in 2009.

“(A’isha) was a remarkable heroine in Muslim literature,” Jones said. “For me, A’isha was, and has been, throughout all the stress and difficulties of the past few months, an example and an inspiration.”

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com

Washington D.C. Nativity Scene

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a nativity
scene in Washington, D.C. this Christmas. This isn't for any
religious reason though.
They simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin
in the Nation's capitol. There was no problem, however, finding
enough asses to fill the stable.
[Thanks to Les Pourciau]

Area churches and vehicles vandalized

I would love to find these punks and bonk their heads together!

They are obviously teen trouble makers and what they are doing is harmful to the reputation of those like me. The church goers will automatically assume these kids who did this are atheistic, hate god, and evil. NOT!

Their angst is misplaced, when the kids wrote 666 on the wall, they blew it. Whenever there is any reference to Satan, the fundies go nuts. This is why they say atheists worship the devil. Ridiculous, but that's how they see it.
I might have to write a letter to the editor to defend us unbelievers against being found quality by association with these hoodlums..
I would also bet these kids come from a ‘good’ Christian home, maybe even go to the Christian High School. Either way, they are stupid brats and nothing more.


By ANGELA BRANDT - Independent Record - 12/02/2008

Vandals struck a Faw Road church over the weekend, causing more than $500 in damage.

The pastor arrived at the Fortress of Joy Sunday morning to find graffiti, according to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.

“God is dead,”(no, never existed) “Christianity is slavery” (trueish) and “666”(not something an atheist would write) among other sayings were sprayed in black paint all over the outside of the church.

Another church on the 100 block of Valley Drive, the Church of Nazarene, fell victim to a recent spree of criminal mischief, Helena Police Chief Troy McGee said. Police received a report of broken-out windows from the church early Sunday morning.

These crimes follow a spree of vandalism to buildings and vehicles in the Helena area.

Authorities have received more than 50 reports of broken windows across the city in the past two weeks. Vandals have mostly broken windows and taillights on vehicles, apparently with rocks and possibly baseball bats, McGee said.

Investigators are still determining whether the incidents are related.

Reader Comments:
chamules wrote on Dec 2, 2008 6:02 AM:
"You forgot the vandalism at the Helena Christian School High School where their bus was spray painted with anti-Christian graffiti. Sick. Helena used to be a nice town "

This is a typical knee jerk reaction. Chamules is wrong, this is still a nice town.