A 21st Century Existential Theology

When Jesus promised his disciples to send another comfoter, that would guide them into all of the truth, I don't believe that he had the Canon in mind.

I recently completed ...'s book on Postmodernism. I am so happy that I can report that I had drawn my own conclusions and preached about this subject, long before reading the book. I do in fact agree with a lot of what the author wrote about, but, having said that I am not fully in synch with his conclusions about the religion of post-modernism.

We do agree that post-modernism individuals ought to be able to move beyond their mystical religious roots, and learn to understand this thing that we call God as something other than a mystical abstract of some kind or another.

Like many others, I cam convinced that what our predecessors believed was true to this extent, they knew that there was something that existed which was beyond human comprehension. I am also convinced that there is a ghost in the machine, but on the other hand I do not believe that it is a ghost. And, I don't believe that it is abstract.

I have already distrubed some believers by saying that I believe that it is quantifiable, and perhaps that it is why it elects to remain in the shadows. Whenever I speak to believers who believe in God, they will tell me about 'their God', in other words what they believe to be God, however, what one often believes is not necessarily accurate.

How many times have you spoken with or read about a stranger, and were stunned when you met them that that they were nothing like you envisioned. I suspect that some of us are going to be disappointed whenever we as humans come into contact with the entity that we often refer to as God which has been referred to as Ra, Horus, Osiris, Vishu, God, Allah ...

All that says is that we have not known what it is before, despite our symbolic use of language and terms, which are symbols of things or ideas, to explain it. Is it a life force, or even a governing or yet a creative force perhaps?

Or can it be something that it completely detached, and none of the things that humans have prescribed to it, or proscribed from it? When it, apparently, visited Moses, he reported that he could not look at it and therefore it had to appear behind a cloud shield. At the same time when it visited Moses it was quantifiable and could be contained in terms of space-time, and restricted to a time and place that could be concealed by a cloud.

to be continued...,

Peace & grace

Poem: Evolving

Evolving
Time Independent
All of all
All in all

Quantifiable
Non quantifiable
Essence

Truth – real – pure
Source
Uniformity

By Rev. C. Solomon

Poem: In The Shadows In The Silence

In the shadows
In the silence
And yet so big while small

Yet eyes fail to observe it
Strained ears can't even hear it
But it is always speaking
And is the loudest voice of all

And even though we can neither hear nor see it
It still fills all and all!

Poem by Rev. C. Solomon

The Go For It, If it Feels Good and Do Your Own Thang Generation Part III!

Subject: They went for it, they did their 'thang' and consider what it costs in the final analysis.

Some of the baby boomers made it out unscathed. However, others did not and similar to the young man that I mentioned in part one, who I saw writhing out of his mind in agony near Zellerbach Auditorium, there are a whole lot of others, who wish that they had not done what felt good at the time.

For not only did many of those who experimented suffer the consequences of using poor judgment, the majority are still suffering the effects of a free sex, drug-filled, licentious and no holds barred existence. And a whole lot of X and Y generation adults, young adults and teenagers are suffering the effects of the poor decisions that were made by their parents.

Thousands of prenatal mothers carried and delivered babies that were drug infected while being carried in their mother's wombs. And in many instances their parents are carriers of socially transmitted diseases, or are still alcohol or drug addicted. And their grandparents? Well, lets just say that many of them are worn out after having raised a second generation of children during their twilight years.

to be continued...

The Go For It, If it Feels Good and Do Your Own Thang Generation Part II!

Subject: What Were Some of the Outcomes, Impacts, Risks and Associated Costs?

It didn't take long, after I relocated to California in 1973 from the Midwest, to find my way to the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. UC Berkeley had been in the news and on the covers of national magazines all during the turbulent 60's, 70's and thereafter.

I made my way to the campus because I wanted to visit the place where it all happened, and I got more than I bargained for during my first visit. I stepped onto the Campus of UC Berkeley, just off of merchant and student hang-out clustered Telegraph Avenue, directly into infamous Sproul Plaza. Sproul has been the center of student activities, demonstrations, marches, marchers and counter-culture activities for decades.

Practically anyone famous has either been there to speak, demonstrate, organize a student protest or to lead a rally at one time or another.

On the day that I arrived, there was a white minister preaching in front of the Administration building which abuts Sproul, as it is affectionately known as by the students. The towering clocktower was lurking just off in the distance, in addition to the gates which appeared to be a gateway to the remainder of the sprawling campus.

What was so odd about the scene that was taking place in front of me, was that 3 or 4students, as I recall, were surrounding the preacher as if they were exuberantly listening and methodically responding to his sermon. However, the closer I got I realized that instead of saying amen to confirm the word or to support the preacher, these youngsters, all males, were heckling him and matching his every utterance with expletives.

Each time that he read, quoted a scripture or made an utterance, his small listening audience would shout back ‘ah f***ck you, or you are just a f***cking liar. Then to my dismay and sudden admiration, the minister who was approximately 35 years of age continued to preach; he was completely undaunted and simply ignored the rantings.

For just as Stephen of the bible did when he was in the process of being stoned to death by his audience(he looked up into Heaven), this young minister continued preaching and maintained his dignity along with a graceful and loving smile on his face.

Now I on the other hand thought, let me get away from here before lightning strikes, for after all surely God was going to strike Sproul at any moment. So I left this unusual scene behind, headed elsewhere on campus and enjoyed the rest of the sites, the topography, the beautiful array of campus buildings, the towering eucalyptus trees and eucalyptus groves..., then afterward I headed back down Telegraph Avenue and hung out among the vendors.

I lived almost next door to Berkeley, in nearby El Cerrito California. Each day when commuting to work in San Francisco, one block away from the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building, I rode the bus down Arlington Street, Scenic Drive, University Avenue and onto the expressway in order to complete my 26 mile commute to San Francisco, which culminated with our crossing the towering Bay Bridge. I repeated the same routine each Monday through Friday, always passing about a block away from the Campus entrance.

The area that we shared atop the mountain, with Berkeley and other nearby cities, provided a continuous breathtaking and picturesque view of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. In front of our house was a lavish Country Club and golf course, and our neighbors were NFL players from the World Championship Oakland Raiders football team, business executives and other upper and upper middle class business professionals.

When it wasn’t too foggy in the Bay Area, you could see the city of San Francisco either from the massive first-floor wooden deck, which was surrounded with huge windows, and merged into the 1st floor's living room. The house was designed so that you could enjoy an ongoing picturesque view of the Bay Area from mostly any vantage point. And San Francisco was much closer when looking at it directly across the Bay, instead of traveling around the Bay by car, bus, boat, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) or even helicopter.

The Bay Area, particularly San Francisco, was known for among other things, unrivaled theater. I have seen numerous live productions at the Orpheum Theater, The San Francisco Play House, The War Memorial Theater, The Golden Gate Theater, The Lorraine Hansberry Theater..., including The San Francisco Ballet, The Nutcracker, Shenandoah, The Phantom of the Opera..., not to overlook the greatest theater of them all, the Poetry Slams, which often take place in smaller venues in and around Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley.

Shortly after relocating to the West, some friends from back East came out to visit both southern California, and me, in northern California. Since I was entertaining them, especially Becky, one evening I checked the newspaper in order to determine where I could take Becky after we went out to dinner. Becky and I made a joint decision to attend the theater following dinner.

Oddly enough, nothing much was happening in the theater district that weekend in San Francisco, but there was a performance taking place that evening at the Zellerbach Auditorium on the UC Berkeley Campus; it was entitled Gorf or something like that. So I said Becky, let's go over to Zellerbach and see this performance. Truthfully, I didn't know anything about Gorf, it was just something to do and both of us loved theater of all types.

So off we went to dinner at Hs Lordships on the Berkeley Marina, and afterward to Zellerbach in my friend’s borrowed olive green Mustang.

Now Becky was a nice woman and from a well cultured and coiffured family, she was tall, beautiful and did I say acculturated and beautiful? We made it to the theater on the Berkeley Campus just before the theater house lights went down. Fortunately or unfortunately, as you will see, Becky and I had been able to garner excellent seats in the Orchestra Section at the last moment.

The evening performance began with a nude cast walking out on to the stage and standing it would seem directly in front of us.

As the cast stood before us in full frontal nudity, I thought, uh oh, and trusted that Becky would remember that this was an unplanned event given all of the nudity that was staring us in the face: in other words what was taking place before us and the rest of the audience was not planned on my part.

Then I looked over at Becky and whispered, do you want to leave? And she immediately replied, yes! Wow, first the F' the preacher responses from the groupies, as the youthful preacher preached, and now this! And unbeknown to me at the time, this would not be the last time that I would witness nudity in the City of Berkeley.

I have had some great times at the historic college and in the college town, in fact since that time, U.C. Berkeley has become a favorite hang out of mine. I seriously considered attending UC Berkeley in the past, particularly, the Graduate Theological Union, however, God had other plans for me at UC Berkeley's Bay Area arch rival school, Stanford.

The last time that I visited the UC Berkeley campus, I participated in a 3-day workshop with world-renown authors and scholars from Zimbabwe, Uganda, Nigeria, The Caribbean, Cuba, The United Kingdom and the United States.

I was immediately accepted by almost all of my peers at the Conference, and I informed them that I was currently working on a paper myself entitled:

The Historical Successes and Failures of Black Male Leadership in the Americas, The Land Down Under and on the Continent of Africa.

The comments that I made about my paper created quite a stir, and afterward resulted in a prolonged discussion. However, my unfinished paper earned me an invitation to join this international group of scholars and writers at this year’s conference which is to be held in Lisbon Portugal later this year.

Now, as I previously stated, I have had great experiences (some unusual) in the city of Berkeley and on the UC campus, from Shattuck Avenue to the Clock tower; out on the Berkeley Marina where the upscale 5 star Dock of the Bay Restaurant and Club (owned by my pastor's brother Eddie, father of Diane from the group Sly and the Family Stone - both of them would often show up at the house) was once located; and there were restaurants and night clubs like the incomparable 2-story Hs Lordships, Solomon's Girunda's (now Skates Restaurant)on the Marina…

Both of the latter, a restaurant and the other a restaurant night club, sit right out on the Bay in part, or mostly atop the water. Both establishments are silhouetted by the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, and separated by the 2 mile long Berkeley Pier. A sweetie of mine from Pasadena and I once strolled romantically (about a mile out on the pier) one evening as if we were going to walk across the Bay and under the Golden Gate Bridge. And of course being a younger man then, I got my ‘smoocheroo’ on, right out in the center of the bridge.

From the U.C. Berkeley Lab down to Alcatraz Avenue or Dwight Way (home of the famous People's Park), U.C. Berkeley was and still remains the perfect setting to understand what happened and

what were some of the outcomes that resulted from the ‘go for it, if it feels good and do your own thang generation’!

Shortly after the scholarly conference ended that Sunday afternoon, I said my goodbyes to my new friends who were mostly headed to the airport, and headed down Telegraph Avenue to visit with some of the homeless people that I had been ministering to in the world renowned People’s Park. After leaving the park that day, I walked a block down Dwight Way and turned back onto Telegraph Avenue in order to catch a bus that would take me back down on the Peninsula.

But as I stood waiting at the bus stop for the bus to arrive, just around the corner from the house where San Francisco Examiner newspaper magnate's daughter Patti Hearst was once held after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army years ago, something appeared to be out of whack.

For out of the corner of my eye I could see the image of a man approaching from the left, my guess is that like the preacher, he was also approximately 35 years of age.

And, what appeared to be wrong before, soon after came into fruition when I slowly began to turn my head in the direction of the approaching intruder.

A practically nude man, who was carrying a box of Chinese food in one hand and a cigarette in the other, was walking towards me. He was shirtless and his underwear and pants had fallen to around mid-thigh. And you guessed it, his white limp dangling penis was fully exposed for the entire world to observe. Everyone who was in back of him got to see his uncovered rear end.

A crowd gathered around him before I could respond to his simultaneous request for a light for his cigarette, as surrounding restaurant and coffee shop patrons watched this surreal scene in amazement from their seats and tables in establishments near the corner of Telegraph and Dwight Way.

Now as I said before, it is not uncommon to experience or witness peculiar events taking place around the UC Berkeley Campus, however, this was a rare occurrence even by Berkeley’s, a self-proclaimed sanctuary city’s standards. Berkeley has always been considered a liberal city. In fact, Berkeley is commonly referred to in this area as the People’s Republic of Berkeley given the liberal positions that the city government and its citizens often take.

Berkeley is also a city that welcomes political refuges to come there for sanctuary, and on occasion these political refugees are foreigners, foreign nationals and sworn enemies of the United States of America. Berkeley is considered to be so liberal that someone once quipped that when the mayor of the city was sworn in some years back, that the magistrate instructed him to ‘raise his left instead of his right hand’ at the swearing in ceremony!

But getting back to the practically naked man who was apparently ‘as high as high could be’ from drug or alcohol usage (as he tip-toed shoeless, shirtless and nearly pantless down Telegraph avenue while hearing music that no one else could apparently hear), this event topped an incident that occurred on a previous occasion when I visited the 'outdoor citizens' at the People’s Park.

One day while visiting, I sat at a massive wooden picnic table with about 8 or 9 of the Peoples Park's permanent homeless residents, they were black, white, Latino, male and female. That day I brought my keyboard over and practically everyone that was seated at the table, mostly former musicians; each of them took turns playing the mini keyboard as it was passed around the table. I will always remember the female vocalist who also played my keyboard; she said:"we are homeless but not helpless"!

Then just as suddenly someone pulled out a pipe, lit it, took a puff and began to pass it around the table so that everyone that was seated there could take a hit off of the pipe. And, not out of disrespect to me as a minister, they also passed the pipe to me the Reverend. You could have called this a combination 21st century 'pass the peace and pass the pipe U.C. Berkeley style Eucharist service'.

However, instead of wine and bread at this service, each person, black, white, Latino, male and female took a hit off of the sage filled pipe. We were having communion true enough, however, this was neither an Indian powwow (peyote)nor a Eucharist service. Thank God that I can honestly say that I have never imbibed any chemical substances in my life, and I had no intention of starting that day, fellowship or not.

The other thing that made the pass the pipe experience so surreal was that it was taking place in broad daylight, in deference to the possibility of the Berkeley Police Department showing up on the scene.

After the ‘pass the peace-pipe ceremony’ was over, Rosie, an accomplished black homeless artist and regular at the park showed up and encouraged me to come with him to the other side of the park; I had been counseling Rosie on a one-to-one basis.

Rosie wanted me to meet his friend, who was affectionately known in the Park as the Hoola Hoop Lady. And when we walked up to her she was doing just that, hoolah hooping to the music that was coming from her boom box that was sitting opposite her on the ground.

She was, I would estimate, about 30 years of age, Caucasian and very striking, in that she not only hoola hooped, but her complete attire was a striped-colored bikini. Just to the side of her were two old-fashioned brown bushel baskets which she used to transport and to dry her laundry. Around the rim of each basket, hung pieces of laundry which consisted of colorful women’s lingerie and bikinis drying in the sunshine filled air.

Well, Rosie was very happy to see both she and her laundry (er herm) I noticed, and he invited me to join him on the ground in order to watch her hoolah hoop. So we sat on the ground as she continued her performance (in her bikini). Shortly after she stopped hoolah hooping to the music. Then Rosie introduced us as she took a seat on the ground (still in her bikini) and began playing on my keyboard (in her bikini). I tried to be polite and nonchalant, as this practically naked woman sat in front of us.

While she played, Rosie and another male, who turned out to be a retired professional keyboardist from the area began to take hits off of his sage-filled pipe.

Well, hrm hrm, I wonder if John the Baptist or Elijah, out in the wilderness of Judea, or Jesus and the Apostles ever experienced a scenario like that back in their time?

The bearded musician, who was apparently well known in the Fillmore, the Haight and up on the Divisadero was draped in black; he looked like a hold-out from the 60’s or 70’s, and wasted no time telling me about the glory days when his group took songs that were recorded by famous musicians like Jimmy Hendrix …, and 420’ed them. I asked, 420’ed the songs, what does that mean?

To be continued…Peace & Grace

Now in the event that anyone is wondering how I feel about the Bay Area, I absolutely love this place - I fell in love with it the first day that I stepped off of the airplane in South San Francisco, and my feelings about the place have only heightened since becoming a permanent resident.

America’s Burgeoning Homeless Demographic & The Ongoing Economic Crisis

Subject: The growing effects of the American social economic crisis on the American populace.

In light of what has transpired with the American economy over the past year (bank failures and all), many United States citizens are waiting for government to make everything better, and in the meantime to help them to stay on their feet. This is what happens when American citizens and corporations are overly-dependent upon the American Idol, a god that has failed to take care of the needs of all of its citizenry.

And out of this manmade crises emerges America's latest class of citizens, the homeless class. Many are still employed, some are underemployed, and still some have recently become unemployed. There are families as well as individuals (male and female), that are homeless.

According to a recent report by the General Accounting Office in Washington DC, there are also 50 million Americans (at least) without healthcare insurance using last year's figures. One has to wonder about the number of Americans that have been added to the roles of the uninsured given the number of American citizens that have recently been laid off, down-sized or furloughed.

The senior population depends on the government to continue sending checks and to provide them with health care services regardless of the current economic downturn.

And, eleven and a half percent of the working population in the largest state in the union, California, are unemployed; and an even larger percentage of Californian's have been forced to take time off from work without pay. They have been given an ultimatum to either take time off or to be laid off from work.

It is even more dramatic when you keep in mind that 1 out of every 7 Americans is a California, so what happens in California, the most populace state in the Union, does not stay in California, it effects the entire nation

The President’s new stimulus package, that was expected to jumpstart the economy, hasn’t had the desired effect that everyone, except Republicans, would have hoped that it would have had by now. And day after day even more bad news keeps coming down the pike from different parts of the nation, especially from state and local governments, corporations, banks and in addition to everything else that has gone wrong price of gasoline is rising again.

So what is going to happen to America and the American people, for at times it seems as if America is shutting down? The number of homeless individuals and families continues to rise daily, as Americans continue to be dispossessed from their homes.

Many working people and formerly working people simply cannot afford to pay their monthly mortgages or rent. Some are watching their life savings, retirement and investment programs diminish or disappear altogether.

My question is what will happen to the homeless population of America, and what can be done about this displaced and growing demographic? Will shrinking federal and state aid coupled with help from churches and other 501C3 organizations be enough to help meet the needs of homeless Americans and until conditions improve, if conditions improve?

I have listed a few proposals that could help to solve America's current economic woes, the American people could do the following:
• Close its borders - no more immigrants (Pat Buchanan's idea)
• Ban Imports (The New Project for the American Century's (NPAC) idea)
• Export all aliens (From the white conservative’s wish list)
• Send black people back to Africa (again?) (Well, a lot of people would like ...)
• With the next stimulus package, send 5-figured checks directly to American citizens
• Put the Republicans in charge again (hee hee hee)
• Redistribute income (take from the wealthy and give to everybody else)
• Pray (The religious idea)
• Start a new war let's say with the DPRK
• Deport conservative Republicans (An idea that I have often flirted with - but like America's enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, what country in their right mind would take in American Republican conservatives)?
• And finally, America could get into the real 21st Century world, adapt to the new world order and learn to function within the newly emerging global world-wide economy.

America and Americans also need to make the internal structural changes that should have been made when the colonists arrived roughly 400 years ago: America needs to come to grips with its historical ‘we are the world and the buck stops here’ mentality.

My last statement does actually have a double meaning. Americans have been spoiled for so long and they really do believe that the bucks, from all over the world, should stop here and inure to the benefit of Americans. However, things have changed given that the emerging global economy has something to say about when and where the bucks will be stopping from hereon.

Now back to America's religious population that is comprised primarily of professing Christians, and I do mean professing Christians, for their actions often say otherwise. The lack of sincerity from the 'say one thing and do another American Christian majority' is one of the major causes for America's current economic woes, its racial and political polarization, as well as the economic disparity that has persisted between America's different social groups and classes.

Many religious groups and religious individuals have been arguing that prayer is the answer to the problem, and that the only thing that the American people need to do is to pray to God, then the problem would be solved. This combination of religious individuals and religious groups would likely be surprised to hear a Reverend ask, what good would prayer do?

For after all weren't these the same folks that concluded, after praying 9 years ago, that George H.W. Bush should have been elected president of the United States?

Ironically, when the crises heightened, following the invasion of Iraq, wasn’t it the same born again, I pray each day President George H.W. Bush who encouraged the citizens of the American consumer driven economy to spend instead of praying?

Who was Bush praying too? Isn’t it written in the Canon, that obedience is actually better than sacrifice (or prayer perhaps)?

The Americans who want everyone to pray for a solution have been some of the most egregious violators of the most inviolate principles of their own sacred texts. There is no need to pray for a new solution folks because the answer was provided thousands of years ago, many Americans have simply ignored it. In fact not even religious folks adhered to the message.

If religious Americans would have simply adhered to what is recorded in their most holy writ, America would not have become a greedy consumer driven nation, permitted Corporate America to have gotten out of hand or allowed an impoverished permanent underclass to have been born or thrived within America’s borders.

If religious people pray, they will receive the same message that they were given before and did not care to hear, if ‘my people’ who are called by my name, would humble themselves and pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways... For after all isn’t that what is written in the Canon? And clearly Christian Americans from the inception of this nation have been unwilling to turn from their wicked ways, but all the time they kept right on praying!

Greedy macro-economic religious Americans, including Christians and other religious groups have been willing participants in America's uneven, greed and consumer driven economy; they are also the one’s who most of all should be doing the right thing and setting an example for other Americans; and thank you Spike Lee for that borrowed phraseology!

So again, if the greedy American religious community would simply do what they are supposed to be doing, just do it baby, I believe that the problems that Americans are currently experiencing would disappear along with a lot of other social problems that have plagued this nation since its inception and even before. In America, what has always mattered the most it would seem, is garnering wealth!

There has been and still is sufficient wealth being generated in this nation to provide an opportunity for all Americans to earn a reasonable standard of living without the all too frequent downturns that have plagued our economy. The manner in which America’s wealth has been garnered, concentrated in the hands of the few and unevenly distributed is a major source of America's problem.

You know, God is apparently not dumb, crazy, stupid or intellectually lazy. God knows that the average greedy American is only concerned about the current crises given the impact that it is having on their individual lives. God knows that as soon as the crisis is over, that the average praying religious American will return to spending, consuming and business profiteering as usual.

The majority of Americans are not ready to make the real systemic and structural changes that need to be made within the country, or within them.

Factually, this country does not have to be in the self-made financial crises that it finds itself in, for this crises was values driven (the wrong values) and needlessly self-inflicted.

Think back to when the crises began, who did some government officials and American citizens blame the crisis on, especially Republicans? Answer, first off they blamed black American home-buyers (who they tried to exploit) for causing the problem. Afterwards, it was those pesky Democrats, democratic policies and finally former Democratic President Bill Clinton who had been out of office for a decade that they placed the blame upon.

And if past behavior is a predictor of future behavior, this is nothing new for after all who have Republicans historically blamed in the past for everything else that was not to their liking? Answer, historically, they have blamed everything on liberal Democrats and minorities. I am so glad that I am not a Democrat, because Democrats must get tired of being called liberal and blamed for everything that goes wrong in this nation, especially when the problems can often be traced back to the Republicans.

But it was not lost on the American voter that Republicans refused to accept responsibility for all of the screw ups that occurred during 'the 8-year George H.W. Bush reign of domestic and world-wide terror'. Along with his partners-in-crime, the six year Republican controlled Bush rubber-stamp Congress and the Supreme Court, all worked together in order to wreak havoc on the American people and the world.

You know, there is something far worse than being called a liberal Democrat anyway, just think what it would be like to be called a Republicat or a Republican Neo-fascist? It was the Republicans who had been practicing fascism over the eight year period that George Bush was in the White House.

Bush, Cheney, Condi, Browny (of you are doing a good job Hurricane Katrina fame), Rumsfool and the other Republican Party cabinet members took approximately 8 years to bring this country nearly to its collective economic knees. And if John McCain had been elected to office in 2008, he would have finished this country off by continuing mostly with what former President Bush and company had already started. He would have repeated the same behavior while expecting a different result as the old saying goes!

And what is this group of would-be cellmates, I mean former officials doing now? This same group of disgraced individuals that remain atop the American economic food chain after screwing up this nation and isolating America in the court of world-wide opinion, are living it up!

Cheney, who I affectionately refer to as Curly (after the former 3 Stooges character Curly) has moved into his newly built ultra-modern suburban Maryland home while the soldiers that he and Bush ordered overseas are still overseas mostly. Condi returned to Stanford only to be grilled by Stanford students for her stake in Bush's venal hegemonic foreign policy in the Middle-East and the world. She got so upset with one student that she even pointed her finger in her face, when she was being challenged about the Bush policies.

Condi is cute (hmm baby), but she ain’t that smart, and it would appear. One could only wonder what would happen to baseball if she became Baseball Commissioner, steroid users can you say rendition or GITMO?

And the rest of the Bushtanistas who left Washington, the nation and the rest of the world in recession after enriching themselves and their own economic demographic, continue to do what they did when they were in office; they continue to 'spend and spin' and propagate their lies and misdirection! We should rename the Republican Party 'the spend and spin party'!

Most of these people are still in denial and refuse to accept any responsibility for America’s current economic crisis. Instead, they persist in pointing fingers in every other direction but their own.

Besides, they have to have time and cover, in order to spend all of the extra cash that Bush helped them to acquire during his 8-years in office. And, while they are busy partying, the rest of the nation continues to struggle to make ends meet (and to undo the mess that was left behind by Republicans).

You know, that Republican deportation idea that I mentioned before, is sounding better and better all the time!

Let’s face it Americans, particularly those Americans who were seduced by American Republican greed and lies are just as responsible for America's current economic debacle as there Republicans pied-piper leaders were responsible.

Sadly, even foreigners who migrate to this nation typically did so in order to make money; and some of them are just as greedy as some other Americans. Once upon a time the people who immigrated to this country, claimed to have done so in order to garner freedom. But what many of them actually meant was that they came here to obtain the freedom to make a whole lot of money.

And much like rank and file Republicans, when the Bushtanistas came to power, many Americans joined along with them and sang their theme song: We’re In The Money!

And some of them continue to sing, many of America’s homeless (including the nouveau poor who recently joined the ranks of the homeless) are waiting for the government to come up with a solution to their problem while they continue to depend on government, church and other (501C3) subsidized and supported program handouts to keep them going.

Just how long can the current trend continue, given that the system is about to implode? Most Federal, State, Local governments and 501C3 organizations are smarting? Factually, the current scenario cannot go on for too much longer, and I have a few suggestions for America's growing homeless population. I will go into detail and explain what I believe that America’s growing population needs to do for itself in order to solve ‘their problem’, next!

And let me add one other caveat before closing for now. I do not believe that the solution for America's uninsured is to provide everyone who does not have insurance with health insurance. America needs to address the systemic causes that have led to America’s health care problem. Treating the symptoms will only last for so long

And before I close, you can add one more person to the list of homeless Americans, add the Values Party Republican Governor of South Carolina, Governor Mike Sanford to the list, man that woman's hips must have been something else!

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

To be continued…

Addenda: I learned from a San Jose California city official recently, that there are at least 7,000 known homeless citizens in the area. It is believed that the number is much larger, and the number of homeless citizens continues to increase daily.

The Go For It, If it Feels Good and Do Your Own Thang Generation Part I!

Subject: What are some of the outcomes (pro and con) of the Go For It, If it Feels Good, Do Your Own Thang Generation, where are they now?

I can still recall when I first heard the expression, ‘go for it’, being expressed. It seemed like all of the sudden everyone that I knew was saying to each other, “well then go for it”, and "if it feels good do it”.

And what these phrases meant was to throw caution, prohibitions and any other protocol to the wind and to go with your feelings.

Now in the event that you were not around towards the end of the 20th century, when the phrase became a part of post-modern America's parlance, during and after the turbulent and free-love 60’s, here is a definition of the phrase. According to the Free Online Dictionary, the phrase ‘go for it’ means, to expend all one's strength and resources toward achievement of an end or purpose.

The way the term was being applied when I first heard it was with a strictly sexual connotation attached to it. To be sure the term had to do with engaging in oral sex, and if one wished to engage in oral sex, the only thing that mattered was what one felt, in other words if you had an urge to do it then do it.

And about that time Americans stopped worrying about what their parents taught or thought about them, what the Bible, the preacher or God had to say about it – people went with their feelings and their impulses.

Soon, go for it and if it feels good do it, went beyond the bedroom. The baby boom generation began to carry the go for it message to college, in the corporate board room and everywhere else that they went. And soon afterward, people in my generation were doing everything. Oral sex became passé, Americans were trying out new drugs, going on drinking binges engaging in high-wire acts such as bungee jumping, tandem jumping from airplanes, and jet setting all over the globe.

So what were the outcomes of Americans throwing caution to the wind, along with other outdated Victorian, religious, parental, legal and other codes that had become passe?

Another phrase was soon added and incorporated into the American lexicon, it was ‘to do your own thing’. And today I am going to examine some of the outcomes that followed, after these three trends, to go for it, if it feels good do it and to do your own thing were practiced!

I will be discussing the breakdown of the American family, socially transmitted diseases (STDs), the abortion rate, addictions, substance abuse, chemical depends, out of wedlock births, the economy, corporate America…, and the impact that going for it had, legally, morally and ethically upon individuals, raising the X Generation and our societiy in general.

Peace & grace
Rev. C. Solomon

to be continued... I can still remember a young black man lying on a bench just outside of Sproul Plaza near Zellerbach Auditorium on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. He was completely out of his head, given his apparent extended ussage of psychedelic drugs. He went for it, and I thought then, as his peers simply walked by him, look where he is now!

Bad Uncle SAMericans: A Five Bedroom House With A Five Car Garage but No Room For A Homeless Person

Moral: Put the car and the dog outside, and bring a person inside.

A few weeks ago I had an epiphany. It occurred to me that 'Uncle Samerican homeowners', in many instances, own 4 to 5,000 square feet homes with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 car garages, not to forget that some Americans own multiple dwellings and vacation homes too boot.

Their garages alone, are about the size of what used to be the average size of an American home. And oftentimes the garages are finished, heated and also include insulation and drywall.

I have been on the inside of garages that are more attractive than the interiors of houses where many of American’s permanent underclass are forced to reside. So what is wrong with owning a home with 5 bedrooms and a 5 car garage?

The problem is that while many Americans place their expensive automobiles, leaf blowers, jet skis, the family dog, motorcycles… inside of their frequently heated wall to wall carpeted garages, there are as many women, children, crippled, dispossessed, elderly and blind citizens living outside in the streets.

I was walking down Market Street in South San Jose last week when I noticed a fence surrounding an area that contained discarded trash. On the outside of the fence sat an empty wheelchair. And lying down on the ground to the side of his wheelchair was a homeless man who had apparently slept there on the ground and in the trash throughout the night.

I began to wonder to myself, what is wrong with our society and why is it that we place more value on our personal possessions than on human life? How can we permit other human beings to live under such squalid conditions?

Many American families have separate outside houses built for their dogs, and still many times their pets remain indoors with the rest of the family. What is wrong with a society that will permit an animal (cat, dog, python, monkey or hamster to sleep inside of a warm house), and let another human being live outside in the elements?

I also observed an elderly black woman sitting at the bus stop last week at the intersection of First and Santa Clara Streets with a suitcase that may have contained all of her worldly possessions. She was waiting for the bus to arrive so that she could get in out of a chilly Bay Area night.

Just over a month ago, I noticed from the bus that I was riding on a man who had been sitting (day after day) at the same bus stop (in Cupertino California). On the days when it rained he simply opened up his umbrella and continued to sit as the buses and cars continued to pass him by. Even at night he slept in the same spot. He appeared to be wearing 3 or 4 pairs of pants in order to keep his lower body warm.

Whenever a bus arrived, the drivers would simply stop the buses on the opposite side of the bus bench, rather than open the door in front of the disheveled homeless man with matted hair. I got off of the bus one day and walked up and spoke with the man. He was very cordial, even though he did not have very much to say.

So again I ask, what is wrong with a society where believers and non-believers alike will return to their 4 and 5,000 square foot suburban and inner-city homes with 4 and 5 car heated garages, having passed by their sisters and brothers living in the streets so that they can park themselves and their automobiles and pets inside of a warm house or a garage? The same individuals could provide aid and comfort to a homeless person throughout the night. Do you get it, for in one night, Americans could eliminate homelessness forever from our land?

Let me repeat what I said before, there are automobiles sitting up in warm garages throughout the night while at the same time there are people, many elderly, living outdoors in America’s streets and alleyways.

Let this be a wake up call to all who claim to believe in the social dimension of Christ’s ministry, many of the same individuals who often repeat the story of the Good Samaritan. The question I ask is this, are you a good or a bad [Samerican]?

Neither 'Jesus nor the Good Samaritan (dog)' would have countenanced this kind of behavior or ignored this kind of human suffering. Either one of them would have done something to help a homeless person.

And even though they did not have automobiles or garages during their lifetimes, if they were here today I can assure you that the car and the pet would be in the driveway, and the homeless person would either be living in the house or sleeping in one of the 5-car insulated, heated and well decorated or ventilated garages or garage ports. Where are the 'Good Uncle Samericans'?

What other story does this remind me of? It reminds me of the story of a baby that was born 2000 years ago. There wasn't any room in the Inn for him either, so he ended up being born in a manger (let's call it a garage for animals). This same child later grew up only to be homeless. As an adult he said: the foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.

Why did Jesus speak these words? He did so because he was allowed by his fellow men and women to be homeless too!

I am also reminded that he left the earth by way of a cross! This is the storied life of an individual who gave so much to so many others right down until today (people that he fed, clothed, healed, ministered to...and is still ministering vicariously to today)!

Many Americans are living their entire lifetimes in the manner that Jesus did, without a place to be born, homeless as an adult, and leaving the earth crucified.

American Christians may not believe in post-modern theology, but clearly something is wrong with their current theology, a theology that permits them to turn their backs on their fellow human beings as they over-indulge in excesses. Why do Christian Samericans who pretend to lament the sufferings of Jesus Christ and identify with the Good Samaritan, ignore the suffering of their fellow human beings? For truly, what they did or did not do for the least of his little ones, Jesus said, they also did or neglected to do unto me!

In this writer's opinion, the American people have lost their collective minds. It would appear that the more that God blessed Americans, that many of the American people have become less responsive to the needs of their fellow human beings.

In conclusion, to those of you who have houses with garages (attached or unattached), how about placing the vehicles, jet skis, campers and even the family pet outside, and find a way to bring some homeless person inside. A homeless person would at least appreciate sleeping on a simple cot on the floor of your pristine garage (the manger) from 9:00pm to 7:00am the next day. And by the way, most homeless people are not dangerous - many of them are people just like you!

Rev. C. Solomon
Peace & Grace

To be continued…

Addenda: I have discovered that homelessness, when permitted to fester is symptomatic of a much deeper societal problem!

A 21st Century Existential Theology

In The 21st Century: What we need is an Existential Theology Born out of a Post-Modern Ethos

“our society is in the throes of a monumental transition, moving from modernity to post modernity.

“The transition from the modern era to the postmodern era poses a grave challenge to the church in its mission to its own next generation.

“Imbued with the vision of God’s program for the world, we must claim the new postmodern context for Christ by embodying the Christian faith in ways that the new generation can understand”

[All quotations by author ]

Many of my recent writings have focused on God and Religion in a 21st century context. I was pleased when a friend, Dr. Byrd, a long-time tenured faculty member at San Jose State University recently presented me with a book entitled: A Primer On Postmodernism. The author’s name is Stanley J. Grenz.

I scanned the book from end to end while in her presence, and I am currently in the process of reading it through in detail. I was stunned to learn that there was a whole group of us post-moderners out there, individuals that are viewing religion and God in a post-modern context (or simply put in the here and now). Dr. Grenz’s book was written in 1996, and he clearly did his homework.

I believe that we must have a unquestionable Twenty-first Century direct experience with what we call God, just as I pointed out in my prior writings (instead of there being an over reliance on the 2000 year old experiences and writings of our predecessors).

Is it that I don’t believe that what our ancestors reported is completely accurate? Or is the problem that all of the scholarship up to now that purports to explain what took place in the common era is faulty? My answer is that is none of the above.

I believe as I do because we are in the here and now, and I believe that God is in the here and now, therefore what is wrong with finding and dealing with God in the here and now as opposed to trying to understand God based on ancient texts and recantations.

In other words, why shouldn't we simply cut to the chase and go and talk to the source ourselves? Our predecessors claimed to have had several meetings with God, why wouldn't God want to meet with and converse with us in the present?

We need to rid ourselves of all of the mystery and mysticism surrounding God I believe. In other words we should demystify our understanding of God, then once all of the barriers between man and God have been eliminated, we should be able to converse with and deal directly with God on a one to one basis as we create our own experiences with God!

I suspect that God would be pleased to discuss with more enlightened beings ideas, thoughts and dreams that are closer to his, and whose thinking parallels ITS own thinking!

And what are some of the things that we might want to do with or learn from God? I suspect that a meeting with God would reduce everything else to its least common denominator.

Even Nietzche, if he were still alive today could not deny this: God is real to those who believe!

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Communication With God In The Here and Now Part II

Subject: Convening a meeting (minus any mysticism) with God in the 21st century!

We need to have a communication with God face to face in the here and now; the people need it!

Exodus 33:10 And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.

11And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

12And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.

13Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

14And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

15And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

16For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

17And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

18And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

19And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

20And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

21And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
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Based upon a more cerebral, scientifically provable and post-modern approach, I suspect that what we refer to today in English languages as God, which is not a name by the way, is apparently even bigger in scope than our predecessors ever understood.

And let’s give them, our predecessors, credit for knowing that there was something that existed that was bigger than them and also for passing along what they understood about the God phenomenon.

But let us carry the baton a bit further than they did, particularly given the new advancements and understanding that we have achieved in the 21st century, information that our predecessors simply did not have.

We have experienced the expanse of the ever expanding Universe, the heavens..., we have engaged in interstellar space flight, sent probes into outer space that have returned valuable information. In addition to the above we have the soon to be replaced Hubble telescope which is already peering towards the beginning of the Universe, space stations, and satellites in space that are gathering information.

And we will soon launch into space, The James Webb telescope, an even more advanced floating in space telescope than Hubble, that will permit us to look back to the beginning of time.

We have measured and explored the deep, and as a result have garnered knowledge and information that our predecessors simply did not have. Doesn't it make sense then that we would have knowledge that our predecessors simply did not have even in deference to their claims of having actually met God (face to face). Then why haven't we, given all of our advancements, met God face to face yet?

I believe that we need to put the past behind us given that the knowledge and understanding of our predecessors was at best elementary.

As opposed to relying on rudimentary understanding in order to make sense of what is undetectable with the human sensory apparatus, we need to update our framework(s) as well as the methodologies and approaches that we have been using in order to search for what is real, particularly as it pertains to God.

Having said that, we will have to pursue what is real or isn’t real with an open mind, while considering that all of what has been passed on to us by our predecessors may not be altogether accurate. Why should we do this? I suspect that we have traversed the same mystical mountain long enough, and now it is time to know and to get in touch with what heretofore has been 'the unknown mystery'! We need to solve the riddle.

In short, I believe that we need to communicate with the entity called God in the here and now, and we need to do so in a short period of time! And bear in mind that the historical descriptors and appellations that were used for God, just as I utilized, may no longer apply.

It is a fact that throughout history new descriptors and names have often been added and some dropped that pertained to God.

I truly believe that what we ought to be in search of is not ‘a God’, instead what we ought to be looking for is what is real, no matter what it turns out to be living, non-living or extra dimensional. I suspect that if the notion of God had not have been passed along to us from our ancestors, we would not have been pursuing after a God to explain the unknown. Instead, in a post-modern context we would we would likely be at work trying to understand what is and what is not real.

And our search in modern times would take place without any mystical or mythical practices or interpretations being attached to it. And, we would not want God to appear in a cloud today, for we have technologies today that would shield us from divine radiation, something that our predecessors apparently did not have

And what would be the upsides and the downsides of such an undertaking? Well, a lot of preachers might be out of a job, however, the majority of the people, particularly those who have staked their purpose in life on mysticism and religious dogma, will know the truth.

At the very least they will know that that someone in the time that they live in and with the knowledge and understanding that we have available has actually sought after the what is real as opposed to relying on truth according to myth, superstition, fable and what someone else said or wrote thousands of years ago!

And as I explained in a previous writing, the byproduct of discovering truth is freedom to know; freedom to think; freedom to realize; freedom to actualize; freedom to serve or not to serve; freedom to believe or to live your life minus the prospect or fear of some unknown quantity lurking about in the shadows that wants to hurt you when it may not even exist. What if there God was conjured up either by them or by their predecessors? Shouldn’t someone get to the bottom of this mystery?

Why am I so full of confidence with respect to pursuing after what in deference to those individuals who wish to stay with convention and past practices are saying and doing? It is because I am so convinced that there is something that has remained a mystery to us today that is very real and knowable. And, even though we have we have not done a very good job of defining it, given that is has been heavily influenced by religion and mysticism, it is in fact quantifiable and can be known..

And given the restrictions and sanctions that are imposed upon our minds for thinking outside of the religious box, one can never be sure that they know the truth when following after a religious model, particularly one that refuses to be scrutinized except by certain limited parameters..

“Whether God exists or not, God has worked for a lot of people!”

However, we need to be communicating with God or what is real via a two-way stream on a here and now day to day basis. Even in the Hebrew scriptures, portion of the Canon, humans were told to seek, prove and to find God (seek me early), the problem is that modern day have people have not engaged in modern day search to look for God.

Even today we still need to be in contact with and hear from our 'present helper' the ultimate source and resource, because things aren't looking too good for our future here on planet earth is it?

For example, just over an hour ago, I ran into a religious nut outside of the Martin Luther King Library in San Jose California. After we talked for awhile, I asked this minister a simple question. I asked, what is your name? He replied, my name has not been given yet. I said, using the Canon as an example, Jesus, John, Peter ... all had names! He continued to delve off into the mystical and I thought to myself, here we go!

Folks, we cannot continue to place our destinies, the lives of our children (he has been engaged in the process of proselytizing students outside of SJSU) and other loved ones in the hands of religious nuts like this man who clearly has gone over the religious edge.

Again, we simply need to find a better method of establishing communicating with what we refer to as God in the here and now, as opposed to depending on ministers, imams, modern day shamanists, double-heads, purported prophets and religious nuts to do so and then report back to us what God reportedly said.

When Moses and the children of Israel encountered what they believed to be God, they were on a journey just as we are on a journey through life today. These nomads were sequestered when Moses was instructed to ascend up into the mountain in order to have a direct communication with God. Now keep in mind that the people stood nearby, so that they would be convinced that God had descended and was in fact talking with their leader.

What was the difference this time? Why weren’t the people simply encouraged to enter into prayer into customary prayer, or why wasn’t a Priest dispatched to read the Urim and Thummin, and why did God request an occasional a face to face meeting with all of the men of Israel something similar to what was taking place this time with God the people and Moses?

The God of the old testament apparently believed in having face to face meeting with humans then, so why hasn’t God called for a meeting directly with us today? Could it be that we are looking to hear from God on the wrong frequency?

Again get the imagery here, neither the people nor Moses got down on their knees to pray in their respective secret closets, neither did God send a human with a message to give the people.

Our nation, and every other nation of the world I suspect needs to have a similar meeting, face to face with the Almighty, because neither our religious or political leaders cannot be trusted.

No tricks Moses, just as I would have wanted to do, wanted to see who or what was speaking with him, right on Moses! God rejected his request however, and explained that if Moses were permitted to look upon IT, that he would die. We learn several things from what God said, and the first is that God is viewable.

We learned from Moses’ experience, that with the proper precautions, that by using the human sensory apparatus, that God is or was capable of being viewed. We also learn that God is or was amenable to direct communication outside of one getting on his knees, bowing or lifting up holy hands until heaven. Humans can communicate with God outside of prayer!

“And, even if God is saving us from ourselves by not permitting us to look at IT, imagine what it would be like to simply have God to tell you that. Moses apparently had the opportunity to hear God speak using intelligible human language.”

I am puzzled, and I often wonder why we as a people have become so complacent, to the extent that we have not called for a meeting en masse with God (not the same as MegaFest, going to Mecca, having a church Revival or some such gathering). I wonder if similar to what the children of Israel apparently said to Moses, we don’t want to speak with God directly and we will hear from you, if our people have been conditioned to not want to speak directly with God, or is it out of fear that God really does not exist that they do not want to speak with God?

Now if this event actually took place before with Moses and the people as it has been recorded, it can certainly happen again, that way it would not appear to have been contrived or embellished by the actual writer who reported this story.

I am puzzled over the fact that in a post-modern world, if not before, that neither we nor our predecessors have come up with an updated replacement text for the ancient Canon (as well as other sacred books). Where was the outcry when Constantine thought to create the Canon! Where is today’s Constantine? Who is today’s Constantine, perhaps I am he!

What we need is ‘here and now book of verified encounters with God’, one that can be downloaded directly into the human brain and that could better help post-modern individuals to understand God not romantically, but in a post-modern 21st century context. The book(s) that we have relied so heavily upon, out of the past, are outdated and error prone.

The writer of the book of Revelations explains that it is fully God's intention to dwell among humans once humans evolve. So why aren't we chomping at the bit to live with God today, instead of just talking about doing it? If you are like me, you are tired of annual, monthly and weekly religious practices, festivals and teachings that point to a future period of bliss.

And if you are like me, you have had enough of the guesswork that we have all become accustomed to when attempting to translate predated historical sources. The end result has led to hundreds of conclusions about information that has come from the same sources. So how many more millennia, centuries, decades or years will we keep this up, particularly if we believe that God is present, and will hear from us and grant or petitions?.

Should a universal prayer for clarity by all of the interested parties on Earth be made? Many individuals will say of course not because you are the one that is mixed up Reverend, because “I happen to know what is true”, based upon what I have read and my own personal experiences.

According to the writer of the book of Exodus (perhaps Moses), God treated Moses as a friend, having explained to him, that there was a place beside God upon the rock. Perhaps we need to go back and find this rock again, and reconsider the typical religious position about what the rock happens to be? For isn’t it time for us to find that rock and to go and stand there ourselves.

I suspect that what will help us the most, is if we were to free ourselves from past conventions and set out on a new course of discovery in terms of finding and interacting with what is real: that should be our new approach!

More than all else, I can see that we are going to eventually have to put all of our once sacred texts into their proper historical contexts, so that renew the business of pursuing after what is provably real.

I for one am for putting aside all of the lexicons, commentaries, concordances, biblical aids ..., skipping over all of the other well known doctrines and going straight to the source to get a once and for all answer!

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Addenda: Once the communication link is established between God and man, can you imagine some of the questions that we will have for God. Here is a short list of some of the questions that humans might have for God or what is real once we connect with the God phenomenon:

1. What is and what is not true?
2. What are you?
3. Where are you?
4. Where are my deceased relatives?
5. Will I ever see my deceased relatives again, and will I want to see them again?
6. Am I going to die?
7. Is there really any such thing as Heaven or Hell or a resurrection?
8. Are the former, heaven, hell and the resurrection man made conventions real?
9. Can you take away my pain and heal me once and for all?
10. How can I get rid of present day governments, its leaders, a pastor, spouse...?
11. How can I get my kids to behave...?
12. How can I garner a sufficient amount of food, clothing …
13. My older brother would request an interplanetary trip in outer space.
14. What am I really suppose to be doing here?
15. Finally, I suspect that I would want to know what other things can we do that up and until now have been beyond human comprehension? How did you do all of this, where have you been, why have you countenanced the suffering of so many humans beings for example black people and the people who were crushed in the Twin Towers nearly a decade ago?

And after all of the other serious questions have been sufficiently answered, and I know that there are many more, I would ask God whether or not he could hook me up with some good looking chick (preferably a sister girl, one that is not too pushy or bossy? And did I say, good looking - I am not getting any younger? Hmm baby!

A Verifiable 21st Century Book of Truth For People of All Nations

Subject: An updated post modern 21st century book of truth as replacement or companion piece to Constantine's Canon.

Think about this, who actually forbade post-modern humans from having a direct encounter with God, or from having an updated 21st Century textbook, that would include recent experiences of man's encounters with a verifiable God ..., and a text that would prove that God or something really does exist in the 21st century?

One verse that was recorded in the book of Revelations, i.e., that if you add anything to this prophecy..., has caused more trouble and shaped more people's thinking about the entire Canon, including the book of Revelations than any other in scripture in the Canon has done.

We must keep in mind that the book of Revelations barely made it into the Canon. We must also bear in mind that the speaker in the book of Revelations was speaking about a single prophecy, when he said that nothing was to be added to the prophecy. And sadly, the warning has been attached to the other 65 books that are contained in the Canon.
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The new book of truth that I am proposing that should be created, could either become a companion piece or a replacement for the miscellany of the world's outdated, error prone and questionable religious texts. A new book could be a powerful instructor for people of all nations, particularly everyone who has been taught, before, that you either believe all of a certain sacred book or you really don’t believe any of it.

Balderdash I say for, you can believe and know God, and on the other hand not believe some of what has been written in certain religious texts!

To my critics and detractors, by compiling such a book we would be able to show individuals who question the existence of God, real proofs, and to provide them with an opportunity to test what would be proven to be more than a hypothesis. On the other hand rather than continuing to debate what is and what is not real and accurate, we could just simply cut to the chase and ask God to show up (see my previous topic).

One thing that I do know is that it is time for religious people to get in the real world and to put up or shut up, instead of talking about IT only as something mystical that is hidden away in a cloud. Again, I believe that it is time to put up or to shut up!

When we replace or add a 21st century accurate companion or replacement piece to coincide with or replace all of the world’s other sacred religious texts, I believe that it will enable us to draw more humans of all persuasions to what is authentic and what has been proven to be real.

Haven’t we done the 'I believe it dance' long enough? And, haven’t we ‘followed on to know’ long enough? I believe that it is time to know and to prove in the present what can be known, as opposed to simply relying on old stories from the past or by telling people to 'just believe'.

The way that we have been behaving has been as if to say that God hasn't done anything in 2000 years. My objective is not to help people to simply have faith in a belief in God, let me be clear about that. I am saying emphatically that I believe that it is time to meet God face to face, enough of this I just believe, that settles it so let’s just all go and share communion!
s
A new book of truth,I believe, will attract secularists, other critics, purists, skeptics, truth seekers and myth busters. The book ought not to be written from a perspective where blind faith is its central theme; instead its contents ought to be based upon recent verifiable and confirmable information. Direct and confirmable encounters with God ought to be included, and verifiable evidence that demonstrate actual participation by God. How can that be done?

As I explained to a skeptical and often cantankerous brother in a classroom discussion at church yesterday, the same Jesus that was active in the Common Era, ought to be active today. I also explained that we need to show people that God was and has been active in human affairs for over 2000 years. I pointed out that we cannot continue to rely on ancient texts and beautifully written stories as proof of the existence of God in the 21st century.

I went on to explain to the brother that a 21st Century book of God with actual current day experiences contained within it, would be more relevant to many individuals who are living under present day skepticism by codifying and putting into writing God’s presence and activities in the 21st century.

Isn't it amazing that so many religious individuals speak of a future time when they will live with God, when on the same token they do not seem to have any interest in living with God in the present?

We need to provide people with something that they can relate to today. As I spoke in this classroom setting, I noticed one woman who looked over at her husband and gave him the matter of fact look as I spoke. Ironically, the lesson yesterday was about Jesus when he attempted to do something similar to what I am doing now, on an occasion that is known today as 'The Sermon On The Mount'.

What did Jesus do then, you might ask? Well, among other things he attempted to update the message that had been passed down to the Jews, beforehand, by their ancestors. The radical Jesus taught about God in and from a new perspective to a disparate group of people who had been taught from the Mosaic Law. And what was the long-term result of his teaching the people a new paradigm, Jesus ended up being hung on the Cross. People simply do not care for having their beliefs subjected to scrutiny!

I am proposing that we do with people today, the same thing that Jesus was doing with Jews in the past by telling to them to place their ancient writings within their proper historical context, so that they can move forward. Do I expect everyone to accept what I am saying, some readers never will? If we are realistic factually change can be very hard for some people, even for this writer at times.

Jesus knew when he taught that not everyone was going to receive his message. Oftentimes, it takes time for individuals to accept new ideas, particularly when they have believed something else for so long. I actually thought that the woman who looked over at her husband was cute, in that she was laughing at me when on the other hand I understood but sympathized with her inability to contemplate change.

She was simply hearing something that differed from what she was accustomed to hearing, just as the people who were gathered at the Sermon on the Mount had done. There were many individuals on that mountain, it is fair to say, that never accepted what Jesus taught. There are many individuals today, in and outside of Israel, who still do not accept the teachings of Jesus.

As a change agent, I feel as if I am in great company when I am laughed at. There are too many religious individuals who need to be made to feel uncomfortable within their religious comfort zones. And if some of our religious people never change during their lifetimes, history has taught us that in time many individuals who appeared to be unchangeable, have been able to make the leap into a different direction.

The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of someone who had to be forced, on the Road to Damascus, to take a change in direction.

There are ministers who have been saying of late in the media that the Canon is under attack.

Factually, the Canon is not under attack at all, at least not by some of us. There are simply a group of truth seekers out there who are more interested in knowing the truth and teaching the truth as opposed to teaching people to base the most important decisions of their lives upon speculation, faulty texts, questionable scholarship and naive teachers.

Over and over again, Constantine’s Canon has been subjected to scrutiny, and to be frank learned men and women of truth recognize that there are major problems with a lot of the information that is contained within the Canon. In answer to another young minister's question that was put to me yesterday, we need to get ahead of this thing. Why? People can read, and soon they will storm the doors of the churches, mosques and synagogues wanting to know how come we, pastors, rabbis, imams..., failed to tell them the truth.

Now I am not saying everything that is included in the Canon is suspect. But on the other hand, what is stopping us from creating an even more viable and reliable book that contains verifiable information that people can understand without a thesaurus, a concordance, a commentary and 2 Bible Aids? Wouldn't that be better than trying to convince other people that they should believe in a never seen God, based on 2 to 5 thousand year old questionable and error prone texts?

In other words, I believe that we can show individuals a force that is active in the here and now, and we can teach them how to access, know and have IT to respond to us without learning Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Greek.

Perhaps the God of some believers did actually die in the Common Era, despite ITS ongoing 2000 year postmortem!

Again, how long can we simply teach other people about our predecessor’s experiences, as opposed to teaching them about our modern day experiences with the entity known as God, Jehovah, Osiris, Vishnu, the Great Spirit...? The questions that plague most non-believers today that pertains to God are as follows:
1). Well then where is this God?
2). Why isn't God confirmable or active in the present?
3). What is God?
4). How come I cannot see God?

As the years continue to pile on, many individuals have understandably concluded that what many of us believe to have been God, thousands of years ago, never existed at all and that we are a bunch of gullible nut cakes. And, they make a compelling argument. We have not made a very good case for the existence of God, other than to tell what we were told that God did 2000 years ago, instead of demonstrating convincingly what God is doing right now!

Too much of our present day cosmology is taken from information that was written by writers from years past, information that cannot be vetted today. To our detractors we sound as if we telling a fairy tale. As you continue to read this article ask, well, why wouldn’t God want to speak to us now? And on the other hand perhaps God is on the side of our detractors and is also asking, how come they don't ever say anything new or tell the people what I am doing in the 21st century?

Wouldn’t it be great to have an updated current, proven and tested guide (or CD) available for humans to digest? And wouldn’t it be great to have a guide with instructions in it that one could use to prove the existence of God today, or not? And how good would it be to have a guide that could instruct a person how to proceed in communicating directly with the entity, and have it to actually respond in a comprehensible fashion?

People need to be exposed to a methodology that works, one that will put them in direct contact with the entity. Now before you respond to what I have written with anger, cynicism, sympathy or sarcasm, I suspect that there are some individuals who would not want to know the truth anyway. While there are others that would prefer to simply keep things just as they are now, rather than to move out of their comfort zones.

And finally, there are others who still would simply not care one way or the other anyway, whether God exists or not.

My thrust continues to be that the entity that we refer to as God is approachable, although it is likely neither superhuman nor any of the things that our predecessors said or wrote when attempting to describe IT.

On the other hand all evidence to the contrary seems to point to a different conclusion, that the non-human supposedly spiritual entity is actually something else altogether, and it is even larger than the superhuman or spiritual God … of the past that all nations of the earth in some form or the other have been taught to believe.

How will we do this? We will do this with the help of the entity that either exists or does not exist. In other words, we would dispatch our 'wise women and men' this time on a fact-finding mission, one that is reminiscent of the Magi who came to look for the Christ Child. And if we find IT (I'm going) good, or on the other hand we will accept whatever IT turns out to be or not to be even it turns out to be something different than what we believed.

Elijah, at least, proved that God existed to the people of Israel by having God to show up and to provide the people with undeniable miracle. How come we cannot do the same today?

I frankly do not feel that believers have a reason to be afraid, or that they have anything to worry about when someone mentions subjecting God to proof; what is there to fear? I am convinced that IT is real, however, we don’t have to keep treating IT in the manner that we treat the imaginable Santa Claus. Humans are typically more likely to base their conclusions about God upon feelings, conjecture, interpretations, speculation or what some unknown or known person from the past or present wrote. Why not base it upon a 'close encounter of the fourth kind'?

Or are some believers simply afraid that IT might actually show up!

The way that it was done before is simply not good enough for some of us. Besides, I am not so sure that the entity is satisfied with such a simple accommodation, that is to continue repeating what other people used to say or told us about IT, i.e., I believe it, and that settles it. But does that truly settle the matter?

Because someone believes something, that doesn't settle anything in most people's minds neither should it. Most individuals personalize, anthropomorphize, visualize and believe in the God that they believe in! Did you get that, the God that most people believe in is a god of their imagination? And these same individuals will often tell you about their god?

Oftentimes I experience forces like gravity, centripetal, centrifugal …, acting upon my body and mind. And even though I cannot see the forces, there is no doubt about my experiences rather defining my experiences becomes the central issue.

Perhaps this entity cannot be seen, felt, heard or touched. However, believers and the individuals that we are attempting to introduce to the entity will certainly feel more secure when someone proves that what heretofore have been theories and fantastic stories from a 21st century perspective (information that has been passed down from generation to generation), has been proven to be correct.

One thing that we cannot do so far is to go back in time, however, what we can do is to prove whether or not the entity does or does not exist today.

A new Genesis, or book of beginnings I propose would begin with a more scientifically verifiable explanation of how the Universe began. In it we could include experiments that anyone can use to test what had been written down. Where some of the previous stories from ancient historical texts cannot be substantiated, or when we know that the material has been borrowed from other nonprovable and nonprobative sources or traditions, the new Guide would simply include confirmed information!

Our locus and focus would be more that of writing about what we know, and about what has been confirmed. Will the entity that has been referred to as God, Allah, El, Adonai, Vishnu, Krishna, The Great Spirit … be on board for such exposure? I suspect that it would welcome such exposure of the kind that would prove its existence. Some have written in the past that God is beyond finding out. Can it be that they wrote what they did because they could not find the detection method that could be used to find and to interact with God?

Now I know that some of you won’t care for what I am writing I’m sure, however, rather than continuing to tell other people that their God is not real and that yours is real, simply prove that your God is real. Or, are you afraid to have your belief, God or your god put to the test and to be proven wrong?

Haven’t believers been challenged in the past to prove God? Just think of how many more individuals, religious people, would actually serve God if they knew that God was real. Let’s keep in mind something that Jesus said to the Pharisees. He said: you have heaven shut up, you are not going in and you are keeping others from going in. The same holds true today. Many individuals will never come to know God, if the way to know God is based upon anything that believers do or say.

We must ask ourselves, how many people have we kept from entering into heaven because of our insistence on teaching God in a manner that is comfortable to us but not to the ones that we are trying to reach? I would prefer to say to an individual that I have nothing to hide and here is an experiment that can use, or you can go and create one of your own making in order to test whether God exists or not.

But similar to what Elijah once told his detractors: if God turns out to be God then serve him. Or on the other hand after proving the existence of God yourself, you will be able to say that God is real, and that your findings are not based upon conjecture, speculation or unquestionable texts, even if you still choose not to serve God. You might prove to yourself that there is actually a God, and it was not what you believed or thought it to be!

Now for those of you who do not like my idea about constructing a new Bible or a companion piece to the existing one with updated information contained with it, I have another suggestion. Why don't we simply ask God to show up so that we can ask a few questions? Or, is the real problem that you simply don't believe that God exists yourself?

Aside from being written in a 21 Century context, the contents of the new book ought to include themes that are relevant in a 21st Century context. It should be written with terms that we can understand of the kind that will not require a preacher, teacher, thesaurus, concordance or a Greek or Hebrew lexicon... Next there ought to be scientific information included, and 21st century state of the art understanding with regards to the elements, atoms, quarks, molecules, quantum physics, theoretical physics ....

And last but not least the book ought to contain philosophical knowledge, the secularist point of view point and what God for sure has to say to us today. And this will be information that comes again from God today!

Again, the people of the world need to have a serious sit down discussion with God today, as opposed to simply saying that even though I cannot see God, I know that God is there or that what writers wrote 2000 years ago is absolute.

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Communication With God In The Here And Now Part I

Subject: Communicating With God, the God Equivalent, the Singularity or the Unifying Principle in the here and now. The people of the Earth, similar to what happened when the ancient Prophet Jonah was dispatched to ancient Nineveh, need to sit down and have a serious and verifiable discussion with God.

Question: Will prayer, a ham radio, microwave or radio signal, telemetry, a space age listening device, telepathy .... or some other yet to be discovered more sophisticated communications device be required, or is glossolalia a sufficient method of communication, one that is sufficient to meet our need to communicate with the creator?

Psalm 46
1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

The psalmist clearly believed as most humans believe today that God not only created the Universe, but IT knows everything about the seen and the unknown Universe and is ever present to help humans within the Universal scheme!

So it would seem to me that the best place to go in order to understand the Universe and everything within, it based upon what the Psalmist wrote, including global warming, wars, humans murdering humans … would be with the creator of the Universe. The conversation needs to include world leaders, clerics, and members of the scientific community…

Too much of what we rely upon today and have relied upon in the past to help us to determine what is real and what is not real or which direction we should take, derives from antiquated information or conclusions that have come from primitive sources that predate us. And that is simply not good enough anymore.

Some of us believe that the older the document or tradition is, that it must therefore be accurate. However, when you think about it how there hasn’t been any new scholarship to support the claims of our ancestors. The fact of the matter is that old is not always better. And even if it were, there is something to be said for being in direct contact in the present with what our predecessors claimed to be in contact with or not, in the past.

We need to accurately verify the information that has been passed on to us, and to learn from the source of the information what is relevant today in a post-modern world.

From what we have learned from the past, ancient humans purportedly communicated with God either by osmosis, direct speech, and prayer, via prophets, casting lots, oracles, speaking in unknown tongues ... or as a result of a theophany.

Well let’s assume that all of what we have been taught occurred just as history has taught us, then how come we are not or cannot communicate directly with God today? Who turned off the lines of communication? Could it be that because all of the relevant information that we would ever need thousands of years later was provided for us in the past, and therefore God did not have a reason to communicate with us today?

Or suppose that on the other hand, that God plans to revisit us in the future after we have absorbed and utilized the ample amount of information that was previously disclosed to our predecessors, and left behind for our consumption. Did God plan to in the future which is now for us intend to disclose reveal more information of the kind that would transcend basic knowledge about the world and simple human survival techniques.

If we were to subscribe to the latter theory that God supplied us with ample information to survive for 2 to 4 thousand years, and since that time all that God has been doing is responding to our petitions (without disclosing any new information during that time period).

But I suspect that there is another possibility that we ought to consider. First of all do we believe that God has sense, is logical, rational, reasonable, methodological, intelligent, cognizant…, and even more than our predecessors understood? Then isn’t it possible that God could only reveal so much to primitive people during their time on earth?

Then why have more enlightened post-modern humans been satisfied to simply rely on the information that was revealed to primitive people, instead of seeking answers from the same source ourselves?

Have we simply chosen not to seek God for answers to the serious questions that plague us or that we need answers for ourselves in a post-modern world?

Again, sadly, for too many of us if something is ancient, then it must therefore me true or authentic!

In other words when it comes to ancient documents there aren't any forgeries, nor is there any such thing as historical misspeak.

Isn’t it ironic that we have listening devices stationed all over the planet (and soon some of these devices will be placed in space), given our hope that we will be able to better detect communications from other extraterrestrials up to and including God. On one hand it sounds laughable that humans are planning to place listening devices into deep space. Frankly, I am pleased to know that someone has made it their life's work to communicate with God or other life forms that share, or do not share the physical universe with us.

I make the following propositions:
1). I suspect that we have relied too much on people and information from the past, and that we have in turn surrendered our personal and collective rights to seek a personal and sustained dialog with the entity that we refer to as God, in the time period that we exist in.
2). That there is no reason to believe that if were to seek a direct communication or audience with IT, that we would be turned down, or that IT would not respond to us!
3). That perhaps the entity actually stopped speaking to our predecessors, or our predecessors stopped speaking with it except to ask for thing, and that neither scenario has anything to do with us today.
4). And rather than wasting more time reading commentaries, concordances, lexicons... in order to try to interpret the dialectic, or trying to determine what Paul or any other writer wrote down, or who was right or wrong, why don't we simply cut to the chase and go and ask God for answers to the questions that we need answered?

A new methodology.
1). We ought to use our resources (not just financial), to seek a direct dialogue or audience with what we refer to as God. Wouldn’t it be funny if IT said, I’ve been waiting for you folks to give me a call for some time now, so that I could increased your understanding beyond what you read or heard from the past, with regards to my creation and why you are here? The worse that could happen would be that we did not receive a response, or if we received a response with this message: "I’m not ready to communicate yet with humans".

Next, we also to understand by now that words are symbols of ideas, thoughts ...! And following that logic, we also need to understand that God may not be a Spirit as we have been taught to believer in this sense. The Latin and Greek terms, spiritus, spiro and pneuma were the terms used at the time to describe an entity or principle that could not be seen or heard but that apparently existed.

Each one of us, I’m sure, has experienced unseen forces operating on our bodies which could not be seen. Some perfect examples would be the wind, centrifugal or centripetal force…, And even though we couldn’t necessarily see the forces, we knew that they were there given their impact upon our tactile sensory apparatus.

2). We might have to approach God using a different methodology other than the ones that have been prescribed, that we have become accustomed to or the ones that have been passed down to us from the past. Perhaps using our understanding of quantum or theoretical physics or some other yet to be discovered technological or non-technological means apart from religion, we may learn to approach this entity with better facility and obtain better results.

The probability of what I am saying may be high, but at the same time it would frighten many individuals who are vested in religion and in religious experiences, to know that God could reached by means other than the ones that we have become accustomed to.

What we refer to as God might be a mathematical construct, or some other intangible. It might be a principle or another non-physical entity or state wherein conversing with it could simply require the use of different methods or tools or perhaps something that is already located within the locus our brains. We must understand that a non-biological entity would not have ears, a mouth…, and it could still exist and have communicative abilities!

Exodus 34:23 "Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.

In the past the methods that we have been taught to use in order to communicate with the God phenomenon have either been to approach God using our minds (mental telepathy), through prayer, by speaking in tongues, by consulting with oracles or mediums… or by appearing before God!

We learned about these methods mostly through religion, mysticism, myth and superstition, and they were passed down to us by our ancestors and parents. Science, on the other hand, religion's nemesis, has for a long time considered religion and the entity known as God to be a non-viable mythical construct that was created in human’s collection imagination and was passed on intergenerationaly.

And there were also plenty of humans around who did not attempt to confer with the entity known as God because simply put they did not believe that God existed, or they had never heard that there was an entity that existed at the time like the one that we refer to today as God. In different primitive cultures just as it is today, God was known by many appellations, for example, El Shaddai, Jehovah, Allah, Osiris, Horus, Vishnu, The Great Spirit, Baal...

I am convinced that there is something that exists that is at this time still beyond the human intellect, but at the same time I am convinced that it may not be any of the well-intended things that we were taught that it was before, and that it is comprehensible and capable of being approached.

If the men of Israel were required to meet three times a year with the entity, I am certain that it would not be offended by our requesting an audience with IT today, of course we would be bringing CNN and the other network news stations along to film and to record the event. Wouldn't this be better than waiting for what most believers, particularly Christians, are waiting for, a final meeting with God (when it is too late) on the last day?

to be continued...
Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Go To Hell?

Imagine If There Was Neither Heaven Nor Hell: Was Carlton Right and Then What?

I am afraid that too many of my fellow human beings, especially religious ones, actually want other people (that they know and do not know) to go straight to hell, particularly the ones that they feel have wronged them. And just think about the number of times that you have thought about or told someone else to "go to hell", or "to go straight to hell"?

Another thing, how come the Christian United States of (call fire down from heaven and burn them up) America, and its military and military contractors named one of its most lethal missile systems (that has been used to destroy thousands of innocent lives recently), Hellfire Missiles?

I suspect that what really happened was that God created man, and man created hell and all of the known theology that is associated with it.

It seems to me that Hell would be uncharacteristic of God. And based upon all that we know of a loving God, it is both incomprehensible and inconceivable that God would have created such a place. When you think about it, what would God gain from creating such a place where humans would suffer without end? Hell sounds like a machination of the human mind that was derived from and by the human ego. I suspect that humans must have created the idea of a tormenting hell instead of it being the other way around!

By now, many individuals in the Christian world are aware that recently defrocked Bishop Carlton Pearson appeared to reverse himself several years ago, given the new direction that he took when he began preaching ‘The Doctrine of Universalism’.

I am going to defend Carlton this time, and let me preface what I am going to say by stating up front that I am not in any way an apologist for Carlton, in fact I am not even a fan of Carlton's. Why am I not a fan? About a decade ago, I was personally offended by Carlton when he was the keynote speaker at the Cathedral of Faith in San Jose California, I was one of the few blacks that were in the audience that day.

It was American Black History Month and Carlton wowed the predominately white audience that subsequently jumped up out of their collective seats and cheered and danced from the balcony to the rafters, when Carlton made the following statement:

...if you had not enslaved us, we never would have found Jesus.

I thought to myself, what a nut? I wondered to myself if Carlton had ever considered what took place when Deacon Evangelist Phillip was dispatched by the Spirit to minister to the Ethiopian Eunuch (see the book of Acts), who was returning from Pentecost at the same time that the Spirit descended upon Middle-easterners and other nationalists in Acts the 2nd Chapter.

The Ethiopian Eunuch, later completed a great evangelical work in the land that was then known as Ethiopia (which later came to be known as Akeebeland and of late Africa). The Ethiopian brought the message of the gospel to Ethiopians, and guess what Carlton, chains were not required in order to convert the Ethiopian Eunuch to Christ? And chains were not required in order for there to be what is known today as the Coptic Church, the Christian Church in Ethiopia, or black Christian churches around the world!

I have been suspect of this brother’s motives ever since. Now having said that, what appears to be, by all accounts his supposedly latest gaffe, deserves the attention of serious bible scholars.

I suspect that some individuals would be disappointed if after all of their labor, service, sacrifices and abstaining from sin, that their shunned evil counterparts would not burn in hell at the end of time as they have been taught to believe. You know what I mean, BURN BABY BURN, because they deserve to burn!

However, and when you think about it, does it make sense at all that the loving God (read John the 3rd Chapter), that most humans believes that exists, the one that had the ability to and afterward did apparently create the Universe and everything within it (including all forms of creatures), also decided to do the following: Create beings to inhabit the Universe, and if they failed that he would place them in a place where they would experience a punishment so severe, unthinkable, unimaginable and unbearable? This place would be called Hell!

Folks, what kind of perverse pleasure would a non-egomaniacal God derive from creating such a place? In fact, it would grieve God's heart to do such a thing, even if you and I were to create such a place.
!
For what purpose, or what pleasure would God derive from punishing beings in a place that IT created called Hell, a place that would burn 'bad humans' for not 100, 300, 1000, 1 million or 1 billion years or more in a place called Hell where they languished in an eternal lake of fire?

May I speak for God and the nature of God? Given the very nature of God, eternal Hell does not make any sense at all. In fact these conflicting notions one of a loving and just God, and ITS alter ego wanting to persecute humans for an unimaginable billions and trillions and trillions of years does not jibe. God is the God of light, purpose, wisdom, love and thoughtfulness, and he used all of these qualities in creating the Universe and everything within it we have been taught to believe.

Finally, when you consider the book of Revelations that talks the most about this eternal place of torment for the condemned, this book barely made it into the Canon/inerrant and unadulterated word of God. Since the creators of what we know today as the Bible didn't put much stock into the book of Revelations how come we place so much confidence in it?

Folks, The human body is not eternal and never has been! So how could it withstand everlasting torment?

Now some of your counter arguments will be, but Jesus talked about hell. But let me stop you right there, for we only know what men said that Jesus said, but on the other hand did Jesus really teach about hell in the manner that has been recorded in the Canon.

I believe that Carlton, my fellow-laborer in the Gospel may not be too far off after all on this one. Having said that Carlton, let me repeat what I said before, it was not necessary for black people to be enslaved as a prerequisite to finding Jesus. And I would not expect to hear this kind of nonsense coming from an apparently black man. However, perhaps Carlton has evolved with respect to that conclusion as well.

Carlton also, interestingly enough, apparently experienced his epiphany and turnaround when he visited the African continent a few years back. During that time, Carlton like the late El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, who also returned from Mecca with a new revelation about black and white, had a serious turnaround. Who knows, perhaps now he has taken back what he said at the Cathedral of Faith, at least let's hope so!

Again, to those serious Christians who are seeking after the unbridled truth, this matter is worth further review!

And to the ones who would ask, particularly those who know that the Canon is not the inerrant or unadulterated word of God, would a loving God who came to give life; one that created an entire Universe and populated it with all forms of life get so angry as to want tell people to "GO TO HELL", and to burn the very fallible creatures that he created, forever and ever in a lake of fire without end?

Pray about it, because any conclusion that the God that we know by nature would create an eternal place of torment like hell, makes no sense and it is simply not consistent given what we know about God!

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon


Addenda: Too many, especially black ministers who are so adept at teaching and preaching someone else’s story, need to seek the Almighty for themselves. There they can learn firsthand about the true nature and purpose of God, and how God can be relevant in a post-modern 21st Century Context!

Living (Briefly Under The Same Roof) With Conservative Republican American Neo-Fascists Part IV

The real reason why Dumb became angry earlier that day, and reported what I said in innocence, to the Program Manager Tonya (see previous entries) was apparent!

When I ran into Dumb and a mutual bus acquaintance at a bus stop in Cupertino California several months ago, my bus acquaintance was surprised to learn that Dumb and I knew each other. After I explained that Dumb and I were both wards of the same religious shelter program, a political discussion ensued.

Now that I was away from the Shelter, I felt free to speak directly with Dumb. Ironically, my bus acquaintance and I had a couple of discussions in the past about the current conditions in America, particularly with its economy. And even though we did not agree on every single point, we were civil and listened to the other ones point of view.

Dumb was included in the conversation, and as to be expected Dumb did what neofascists always do, he engaged in labeling his opposition as 'a liberal'. I responded explaining that 'neo-fascists' like him, are the ones along with their policies who brought ruin to this nation over the past 8 years. When I said it, Dumb muttered under his breath and repeated back what I said, 'neo-fascists'?

Dumb was angry and launched in a diatribe about how liberals went wrong, in spite of the fact that George Bush and his party had been in charge of America over the past 8years. He said that the liberals were responsible for the current economic crisis, because they failed to regulate the housing industry, in particular Fannie Mae, and of course he tossed in the name Barney Franks in order to solidify his position, just as he and Dumber would often do in the Shelter.

You see all of the problems in the United States, particularly with respect to the current economic crisis and America's recession were caused by liberals and Barney Franks, according to Dumb and Dumber.

I countered that whenever the Democrats tried in the past to regulate anything, that they met stiff resistance from the Republicans, and that it took the Supreme Court finally to step up and to rebuff then President George Bush Jr., given that the Republican controlled House would not do it. I gave examples not only of how Bush and the Republicans had been repudiated by the Supreme Court, but by America's closet allies among other things.

It was President George Bush and company who refused to respect the other the other two equal branches of government, particularly Congress.

By this time the bus driver approached the bus bench where we were debating, with keen interest, his body language indicating that he wanted to listen to this debate. Dumb's anger with me showed on his face, as his face began to change colors. Oftentimes in the shelter I would simply make a few of what I felt were cogent remarks in order to debunk the constant mythologizing and fabricating by Dumb and his missing side-kick Dumber.

However, outside of the shelter, I ripped Dumb and his arguments to shreds. The bus driver and my bus acquaintance laughed at Dumb, and the latter chimed in with his own examples to prove that the problems that America was suffering in its current itteration were the result of conservative policies and politics..

The conversation carried on inside of the bus as the bus driver indicated that it was time to load up. The three of us sat on the side benches near the driver in the front of the bus, facing each other. Dumb was exasperated, given that he lost the dialectical debate, particularly in front of the driver and our mutual friend. Dumb reached his stop on Stierlin Road in Cupertino before I did.

I smiled at him and wished him a nice day as he left the bus. He gnarled back an indistinguishable sound, as he departed from the bus. I then looked at him and laughed.

Dumb is a vindictive man, and clearly decided to get me back at me later that day for the complete shredding that he endured, by telling his inside contact, Tonya, the Program Manager that I had violated his privacy by telling someone that he lived in the shelter. Factually, Dumb had moved out of the shelter a week or so before this incident took place.

The problem was that he had been lying to individuals about where he lived. And the reason why Tonya showed up at the shelter that evening hoping was really to get back at me for what took place on the bus stop that day. Having said that her rebuke was of no effect, it only demonstrated for me what I already knew that she was involved in a non-professional manner with some of the shelterees.

Ironically, before I left the bus that day, my bus acquaintance said, I saw your picture and the story about the shelter, just as you pointed out, in the Saratoga paper. He added, I didn't know that you were a minister, and then he added that Dumb told him that he lived in the nearby city of Mountain View. This is the other reason that Dumb was angry at me, because he had been innocently exposed - to man that he lied to.

What am I trying to convey here? First of all Dumb and Dumber are not alone, there are millions more like them in America. And what cannot be lost on this type of individual are the dangers associated with individuals like them.

When you speak with a fascist, you are talking to someone who is self-assured that the conclusions that he and his group-members have drawn are simply right the right ones and therefore there is no other way but there way.

As a pastor and minister, I have run into this type of attitude and behavior with religious conservatives. The whole world got a glimpse of what fascist religious conservatives were like during the Bush years.

Fascist Christians, joined in with fascist politicians in order to force their will upon America and the world. And as far as either group was concerned, they were simply right about everything, and you were simply wrong if you did not agree with them.

In terms of thought and behavior, neither of the two group any different from the other, they were organized around a small set of ideas, and to them their ideas and conclusion were sacrosanct, to the extent that they would attempt to force them down the throats of other people. And much in the same manner that the Christian Churches in Austria and Germany were supporters of Nazi fascism, religious fascists supported the political fascists and their movement in America.

As they proceeded with their scorched earth policies and practices, it was made clear to everyone else that dissent would not be tolerated. Neither side will tolerate dissent, or tolerate a differing opinion. Each one feels as if they alone are the moral arbiters of the Universe, and that it is their manifest destiny to go around forcing their dogma and their will on all other people.

Facts don’t make any difference to them, given that their feelings and their opinions are the facts. It is amazing to me as I reflect on the manner in which fascists behaved during the Clinton Administration, when it was clear that the fascists were not only in disagreement about the Clinton policies, there was clear animus if not downright hatred being directed towards Bill Clinton.

As the incompetent George Bush led the spiraling down of this nation towards the abyss, over the past 8 years, neo-fascists who did not agree with the Bush policies, were nevertheless very discreet in terms of expressing their feelings in public about George Bush.

However, as soon as someone other than the Republicans were in control, the vitriol, animus, anger and hostile behaviors and criticism returned. To be around a neofascists is to be around a person that is obsessed if not possessed. These folks in my opinion could care less about what the majority of the American people want; they simply care about what they want.

It was predicted on a Sunday news magazine yesterday, that Cheney's approval ratings would probably return to the 50% percent range within the next year. It was also predicted on Fox News, I believe it was, that the Republican Party's ratings would also approve over the course of the name time. All I can is that he American hasn't learned yet what the Republican Party extremists are all about yet, particularly following the Presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush II, then the American people need to review the manner in which they decide who should and who should not lead this nation of ours.

For my dollar, we need confront American fascism, of the kind that we experienced recently from the Republicans, with the same vigor as this nation did when it participated in an Allied victory against Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, because fascists are fascists, regardless of color, nation or stripe. And, I predict that if the fascist party does not regain control of the reigns of Party during the next election, we can expect more terrorist attacks in this nation, however, they will not come from outsiders.

Let's get the FBI to begin following these people around, and to listen in on their conversations and begin a counterinsurgency or COINTELPRO against them, because they are the real enemies of America and the America n way of life!

Peace & Hope
Rev. C. Solomon

P.S. Where is the Reverend today? I left the shelter and have continued on with my life, ministry of teaching, and my latest project working with Homeless Individuals in hopes of helping to lift the homeless from the state that they currently find themselves living in.

And here is something for all Americans to consider. There are an inestimable amount of homeless individuals in this country who spend each day and night living in the elements.

Included among them are women, children and the elderly. I prayed about it, and asked God what could be done and how could I help?

And here is what I got back from the Divine Mind. There are so many American homeowners, who house their automobiles in compartments that could be used to house human being. In other words, put your automobile outside in the element (at the very least at night) and permit someone who is homeless to at least sleep inside of your one, two or three car garages, for that is the humane, if not the Christian, Muslim, Jewish... thing to do. And if everyone who has a garage would do so, homelessness, would be eliminated in America within one fortnight!

Responding To God’s Petitions Ought To Be Our First Priority Part II

Subject: What to Ask For When You Pray? For We Also Have The Requisite Ability To Grant Petitions To God Part II

When God needs something done in the human biological world, he more times than not calls upon a human (not an Angel) to answer and to fulfill his petitions. However, petitioning works both ways, just as the prayer (communication) line works both ways, it is a 2-way line. There are numerous examples in the bible when God called upon humans to obey his petitions, Jonah for example, and the petitioners ran the other way.

The following is a sample of what typically happens when God needs something done in the human world, or when God wants something from us.

1. God calls us, but typically the line is always busy. (Rarely does anyone take out the time to hear from God, or to try to answer God’s petitions, for most of us cannot conceive of God needing to have his petitions answered by humans).

2. But suddenly, a call comes into God on the 2-way line, and it goes something like this.

Dear father in heaven, I call upon you to help me or a loved one, or to give me or a loved one something, or to straighten out someone (that has somehow offended me by any means necessary), or to heal me or someone who is dying or in poor health. And just as suddenly without waiting to hear from God, the prayer is ended and the communication line is terminated before God can in turn relay his petitions to the 2-way caller, or respond to at that time to his or her request.

The following is what God wanted from the caller, and what the caller would have been petitioned for, had they waited. Remember God petitions us too!

1. I need you to you love, forgive, help, understand, to serve someone else today?
2. I need you to obey my word which is essentially this, to love me and your neighbor as yourself? I need you to abstain from destructive behaviors and other things that distort and hurt other people and yourself?
3. I need you to place me before yourself?

A day or two later, the caller who hung up prematurely, cannot understand why God hasn’t answered his or her petition. The caller is thinking, weren’t we taught to take our petitions to God, and wasn’t it my right and duty to go to God in prayer?

So God sends someone else to explain to the petitioner why their petition was not answered, and to explain what God wanted from the caller. The messenger says that God said that he has answered your prayers all the days of your life, and:

1. God will answer your prayers when you ask things or for things that are in keeping with my will.

2. As God has already given you life; parents who loved, raised and still love you; siblings; shelter; water; food; warmth; primary and post-secondary education; a spouse; children; home ownership; automobiles; vacation; travel; healings; friends; finances; savings; investments; joy; access to me; peace and more, that he will continue to answer your petitions and grant you what you have not asked for, when you seek me and respond to my expressed petitions to you.

3). God desires that you will seek to know his will daily, instead of continuing to ask for things for yourselves, keeping in mind that it is already God's will for each one of us to prosper.

When you think about all of what God has provided for, over the course of a lifetime, and by comparison the number of times that we have ignored or rejected God’s petitions wholesale, it seems kind of unfair for us to continue asking God to grant our petitions for more things for ourselves, our friends our lived ones. God is not Santa Claus.

It is time for us to learn to ask God, what is your petition for me today? Next, we ought to grant God’s petition which in the end with benefit humankind as well as each one of us, including loved ones.

Think about this everyday, all of what God has granted and be thankful instead, then ask yourself what is keeping us from granting God's petition that we have placed on hold?

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Addenda: Trust me for your next breath.

Years ago, a friend pastor from another state ministered at the church where I pastored. He told a story of how he lost faith in God and told God that he could simply no trust God anymore. Next, he told this story about a dialogue that took place between he and God.

Friend: God, I cannot trust you anymore.
God: Can you trust me for one more year?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for one more years.
God: Can you trust me for 6 months?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for 6 more months.
God: Can you trust me for one month?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for 1 more month.
God: Can you trust me for a week?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust for a week.
God: Can you trust me for a day?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for a day.
God: Can you trust me for an hour?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for an hour.
God? Can you trust me for another minute?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for another minute.
God: Can you trust me for another second?

Friend: No God, I cannot trust you for another second.
God? Can you trust me for your next breath?

God's last query put everything into perspective, all of us
are here as guests of God and by the grace of God, God does
not have to permit anyone of us our next breath, therefore
we all to seek the one who has granted us life and so much
more and grant God's the few petitions that he requires of
us.

Our answers to God ought to always be, yes and amen!

Living (Briefly Under The Same Roof) With Conservative Republican American Neo-Fascists Part III

Subject: American Style Fascism & Fascist Must Be Eliminated

There is more than one story here; one certainly has to do with the deficiency of the shelter's Program Manager Tonya and the manager of the shelter program. I will leave it to the area churches to be more proactive and to look into what goes on inside of their churches when they turn their churches over to strangers. And having said that, I would not want the shelter programs to go away because they are a valuable asset to the individuals who are served by them.

However, what should not be lost in this story is how fascism, if it is allowed to fester within any environment, will lead to verbal as well as physical abuse of the kind that many individuals experienced firsthand in this particular shelter. The same came happen in the general population.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The shelter in one sense was a microcosm of the United States of America. On a day to day basis a cross-section of the American male population lived, ate and slept there together.

Fascists live among us, just as they did in the shelter and in Hitler's Germany and Austria, some are religious and some are not. Dumber is actually a secularist. American fascists have a network of people like themselves who believe they are the true Americans, and the rest of us are squatters. Fascists believe that they have a divine right to make the rules that the rest of us should follow, or there will be consequences to follow.

It would often appear that they feel that the rest of us, non-whites, do not have any business being here, or that we have anything to say that is worthy of being listened to by them. One night I dangled the olive branch in front of Dumber anyway, that is after he began speaking to me again. You see Dumb is also an atheist, and one night he asked me a question about religion. I shared my viewpoint, and for 30 days he stopped speaking to me at all (something that I was actually thankful for I might add).

On this occasion when I had apparently been pardoned for my previous unknown infraction, he began to talk to me again, and here is what I said? I said: one thing that I am certain about that we can both agree upon is that all Americans should have equal access to the opportunity structures of this country.

Dumb thought about it and replied: no, I cannot agree with that. In fact he explained that he wanted things to be the way that they were when the Constitution was written. And we all know what that meant. It was a time when certain white male landowners, who paid taxes, controlled the American landscape and enjoyed all of the benefits and the advantages of being an America. Dumb wanted things to be that way again. Ah it wasn't a surprise to anyone I'm sure that Dumb felt that way.

Just as fascism festered in Austria and Germany for years before exploding into the Third Reich and World War II, Republican Conservative Fascism continues to thrive in America, as has been evidenced by appearances of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and vitriolic non-patriots like Rush Limbaugh. The neo-fascist fire continues to smolder in the ashes in the aftermath of the Republican rejection by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

These individuals continue to try to recruit other people to their cause hoping to one day take over the reigns of power of this nation again.

Rush Limbaugh, wealthy, fat and dumb, has made it clear that he hopes that President Obama, not his policies, as he later stated would fail. What kind of a patriot is that, and he supported the Patriot Act? These two are not the only ones, other shock jocks like Hannity, Savage, and even journalists like Anne Coulter and many others Republican fascists continue to oppose, in an obstructionist manner, the policies of America's new President and America's new administration in Washington.

They could care less that the majority of the American people voted for the current administration in order to repair the damage that Republicans did to this nation over the past 8 years. Cheney continues to argue in the midst of all evidence to the contrary that "we were right".

Fascists, 'do not care' about right or what the majority of the American people have decided upon. This small minority of malcontents that never could have won the White House in the first place without the help of misguided Democrats and Independents simply want to have things their way. They are much like a religious cult where logic, reason or light cannot penetrate the minds of their adherents.

For even when the previously failed policies of conservatism resulted in these two malcontents being perpetual homeless shelterees, they still returned to argue that conservatism was right and that everyone else was wrong.

What happened to the Patriot Act? When it comes to people like these, one marvels that it was Republicans like these who called for its implementation of the Patriot Act several years ago in the first place, and they are the very ones who have been behaving as non-patriots.

This reminds me of the period shortly after President Bill Clinton took over the reigns of power over a decade ago, when the late Senator B. Goldwater (co-founder of the conservative movement in America, warned his own Republican party that they were behaving like obstructionists to then newly installed President Bill Clinton. What would he be saying today to his own party?

Our modern-day Republican fascist’s obstructionists are carrying their message, often mixed with lies and misrepresentations, to whoever will listen to them. Why? They do so in hopes of regaining hold again on the reigns of power the American government, and to prevent other than what they believe in happening until they gain regain hold of the seats of power in the American government.

And, like certain religious practitioners who spread religious fascism, the ones who are intolerant of those with a varying opinion, they are promoting their message in the same intolerant manner, as such with a hell-fire mushroom cloud meaning attached to it. Their goal is simply to instill fear!

If you listen to them, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, and it began when President Obama took over the reigns. Fortunately, as I heard one of their own say recently, that the American people are not stupid. And he was right, we are not stupid, we know a rat when we see one and whereby to get their way!

I can recall one day when Dumb and Dumber were smugly attacking me; both men having assumed that since I was black (proud to be and wouldn't have it any other way), that I was a Democrat and therefore I must have voted for President Obama. The truth is that I was not a Democrat, and I did not vote for the nascent Senator from Illinois.

So, I simply set back and let them talk, until I had given them enough rope to make complete fools of themselves (something that the two of them practiced almost daily anyway).

Then I informed them both that I have been a registered independent voter for years, and that I have voted for the best candidate regardless of Party Affiliation, and finally that I didn't vote for Senator Obama. I also explained I did not vote for John McCain or Republican fascism either; I voted for the person that I felt was prepared and could do the best job.

Both of their mouths hung open and silence ensued on both their parts, at least for awhile. Their mischaracterization of me failed, and it demonstrated what a couple of fruitcakes both of these men happened to be.

You would think that these two pseudo-patriots would have backed off after that, but true to Republican neo-fascist form, they simply began to attack from another vantage point, (and their underlying message was that you either agreed with Republican fascism fully or that you were still nothing and nobody).

What was lost upon both of them, that had often been expressed by most shelter wards and on more than one occasion was this,

again, these two dunderheads who supported 8 years of Republicanism, live in a shelter, when they aren't living in the back of Dumb's rundown gray station wagon.

I am proud to say that these two dunderheads and the program manger do not represent the spirit of most Californians that is unless you live in Simi Valley or Orange County California. These two belong back in one of the bible belt states, where either you believe all of it, the bible, or none of it. Also, you aren't anything if you don't believe all of it and that is conservative Republican hogwash.

Republican neo-Conservatives have suspended the use of meaningful thought, dialogue or discourse. And similar to the obnoxious VTA Conservative Republican bus driver who asked me the other day, 'why do Democrats hate Bush', and I told him that 8 million of them crossed over and voted for Bush, which shut him up - both of these guys are equally as obtuse, inane and just as ignorant as the driver was!

Do I sound as if I am angry? The answer is yes, but not just because of these nitwits. I am concerned about the mindset of the American people! Why? I am angry and concerned because the insidious infestation of neo-Conservative fascism needs to be destroyed at its pernicious roots, and I am not sure that everyone understands what is going on.

It is not a simple matter of 'the conservatives lost the election so let's be all be friends'. We need to eradicate the spirit of fascism that persists in our nation, and if necessary, we ought to rewrite a New Patriot Act just for them (one that makes Republican fascism and obstructionism a crime against our form of government and elected officials).

These folks are nothing more than white supremacist/hegemonists that are set upon controlling the United States and the world for white hegemonists, and that kind of fascism must be rooted up at its core. Now isn't it interesting that just over a half decade after Hitler, Nuremburg et al, that Nazis are still being sought out, captured and tried for their crimes against humanity.

Yet in America, the same individuals who sought to destroy Aryan fascism years ago are silent and tolerating modern American-style fascists and fascism. Why aren't we going after American Nazis in the same America that we went after German Nazis? Isn't the problem simply this, Americans do not recognize the requisite risk and danger that these people pose to our nation? Or is it because some Americans still sympathize with a white supremacist ideology?

Dumb, as I reported earlier stated that he was against all Americans having equal access to the opportunity structures of this country. What gives him and other fascists to decide who should and should not have access? Perhaps then the rest of us should also deny Dumb and Dumber equal access to the homeless shelters and parking lots in the back of superstores in this nation, where the two have spent a considerable portion of their time during the Bush-Republican Administration’s worldwide blitzkrieg.

If we fail to do what we need to do to get rid of this infestation, it will grow again and wreak more destruction upon America, the American people and the world, and while doing so they will continue to blame others for all of the problems that they caused.

The entire world it would seem has been hurt following 8 years of Republican conservative fascism, and conservatives are chomping at the bit to come back and give us more of the same.

And can you believe that former Vice President Cheney, the highest ranking fascist in the nation, if not the world, is still proclaiming, 'we were right'? Hitler would be doing the same thing if he were still alive. And who knows, perhaps he is for someone is inspiring these fools.

Will America ever experience the kind of violence coming from Americans, that the world experienced coming from Germany and the Third Reich? I have already given you examples of how that men living in a shelter were either physically or verbally abused by two modern-day Republican fascists.

Keep in mind that we have militia groups popping up all over this nation, especially in the West and the Midwest. Why are they organizing? Folks it is not to protect themselves. Like Timothy McVeigh, these folks are planning a preemptive strike!

These people will not behave like the Native Americans once did and permit someone to take the land from them as they believe that all of the ethnic groups and immigrants are doing 'to him'. These malcontents would nuke this country and everyone in it, similar to what their fore parents did in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, before permitting that to happen.

And just as these two imbeciles that I lived with had sympathizers in the front office that covered up their malfeasance, and hid it from upper management, while pointing to what appeared to be their so-called good behaviors; we have other sympathizers in America who are behaving in the same manner with other homegrown neo-fascist conservative Republican terrorists. The latter are sympathizers who will allow fascism to thrive until it reaches critical mass.

One of these two men demonstrated physical violence on their fellow men on more than 6 occasions in the shelter as I pointed out earlier. And how long will it be before the remainder of mentally deranged, and angry white failed pseudo-patriots begin to take out their anger on other Americans?

Where is the angst this time? Where is the outrage and the call for war to root out fascism this time? I suppose that the difference this time is that it is white bred Americans who are behaving in the same manner that Hitler did in the mid-twentieth century. Americans must not take this lying down, these people are dangerous - they are terrorists. The Republican Party is breeding a whole new group of Timothy McVeigh styled terrorists right under our noses.

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Finale to follow!

Living (Briefly Under The Same Roof) With Conservative Republican American Neo-Fascists Part II

continued...,
Subject: American Style Fascism & Fascists Must Be Eliminated

In an American homeless men's shelter, a conservative neo-fascist Republican was permitted to physically attack wards of the shelter and nothing was done, however, telling someone outside of the shelter that a neofascist was a shelteree was considered egregious by the program manager. The moral: Neofascists stick together!

Dumber is an x-Marine, and has a certain patriotic vigor that goes along with his apparent hatred of everything that does not walk, talk and breathe conservatism, even though conservatism has clearly failed him.

He walks with a swagger, and pumps his chest out as if to say, 'go ahead, and make my day'. Fortunately for him, I am a minister or I would have, several times in the past, made his day. In fact, I will never forget the day when one evening we were waiting to enter a church. I responded to a comment that Dumber made, and he ran up to me as if to hit me. Dumber had his fist balled up and pushed his fist towards my stomach area.

Frankly, the whole thing caught me off guard. It was kind of cool that day, and I was standing their in my full length all weather coat with both hands in my pocket, and I was wearing a suit, shirt and tie underneath. After his curious display, he smiled and played it off. I let it go that time but immediately thought that will never happen again!

I knew that I could handle both of these dunderheads either physically or mentally, but at the same time I was concerned about other wards in the shelter. On the first two occasions, when both nationals, one from the Middle-East and the other from Sri Lanki told me that they had been accosted by Dumber, the latter 3 times. I told our Sri Lankan shelteree to report it to the Program Manager, not knowing at the time that she was a partner with the two of them in their crimes.

With respect to the Middle-Easterner who shared his experience with me 3 or 4 weeks later, without knowing that someone else in the program had been accosted by Dumber, he dropped his bag on the ground with anger when I told him that another shelteree had been physically shoved by Dumber on 3 separate occasions.

He said, do you mean to tell me that the Program Manager knew that this man had been violent with other people in the shelter, and that when I told her what he did to me, she minimized it and said nothing about it; he was furious. I suggested that he do the following in the event that the behavior was ever repeated, I said: take out your cellular phone and call the police and have them come to the shelter and intervene. And he liked that idea. I told him that I personally told the Program Manger, what the Sri Lankan told me that had been done to him 3 times by the ex-Marine.

I knew that the ex-Marine was a sociopath and that he had some psychiatric issues. So I had hoped that Tonya would have done something about the matter, but she did not. Well in a way she did for yet another ward of the shelter that was white, one who had stood his ground against the verbal political onslaught of Dumb and Dumber on a previous occasion, was warned by the Program Manger to stay out of Dumber's way. Apparently Dumb was out to get him. Now get this? She knew this and apparently did not do anything about any of these 3 situations, except to ignore the victims and to tell one of them to stay out of Dumb's way.

And just as I told the Middle-Easterner to do, I had already resigned within myself that if anyone ever even thought of hitting me in the shelter, that I would simply call 911, and have them come into the shelter and address the matter, given that the behavior and skill level of the shelter managers and the Program Manager had always been sub par by any reasonable standard.

Furthermore, I explained to the wards, who all respected me, that going to the staff would be a waste of time, and with respect to the program manager it would be an incredible waste of time because she was actually in cahoots with the two of them. A short time later another shelteree took my advice, and went to the police after he had been accosted by another shelter, not Dumb or Dumber. For doing so, he was tossed out of the program, and the initiator of violence remains in the program until this day.

Again, both Dumb and Dumber were shrewd enough to show a completely different side to the Executive team which resided in a different location in Cupertino California.

Not so long after sharing with the Program Manager how individuals in the shelters were being physically abused by Dumber, I was a victim of a daytime shelter theft. The only person left behind when I left the shelter that day at 8:00am was the shelter manager; he was the one with the key and was supposed to lock the door. I looked at my raincoat before leaving, because the weather forecast was that there would be rain tomorrow, and I knew that I would be in good shape.

That evening when I returned to the shelter I discovered that my raincoat, London Fog type, had been taken. I told the shelter manager on duty that night, and I also announced to the other men that my coat had been taken. I waited to see what would be done about it. Within 72 hours I hadn't heard a thing back, but in the meantime, trying to catch a rat, I also called and left a message for the Program Manager Tonya regarding my stolen article, and true to form, she never returned my phone call to this day.

In fact nothing was ever done about my stolen article; the Shelter made zero attempts to restore my stolen article of clothing, and I knew that they would not do anything, at least from the Program Manger level down to and including the shelter managers. What was never lost on me was that the last person to leave the shelter that day was the shelter manager, the same person who would adjust the clocks in the shelters, where he could, slightly ahead each day by 3 or 4 minutes so that he could leave earlier than he was supposed to leave.

And this leads me to today's topics, and why the sinister infection of fascism must be rooted up and destroyed in America just as it was when America and many other nations went after Hitler, at the grass roots level. Fascism is sinister and those who participate in it are shrewd. Fascism is like an ebbing river that starts out as a trickle and begins to expand as more volume, people in this instance, is added to it, and then it becomes a rushing violet stream.

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

to be continued...

Sciptures, Writings and Texts In The Bible That God Wouldn’t Agree With

Subject: The Bible is not inerrant, and is not completely the word of God:

I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I didn't speak to them, yet they prophesied. They said that I said, when I never spoke to them. Jeremiah 23:21

Keeping the above in mind, let's consider some of what has been recorded in the Canon that God would not agree with.

1). For the love of money is the root of all evil... 1 Tim 6:10 Original King James version

Answ. This statement is categorically untrue, for the root of all evil was here long before money or any other form of currency ever existed! Clearly, the love of money was and is not the root of all evil. What about the pride of life, the lust of the eyes and the flesh...?

2). The entire book of Job.

Answ. Most of all of what was attributed to God, words that God reportedly said in the polemic book of Job, a book which was intentionally placed in the wisdom or poetic section of the Bible did not happen and the words were never spoken as they have been recorded in poetic Job.

Poetic license was in effect by the author of Job. We have the poetic version of the story of Job recorded in the Canon. Many of the additions were put there to add color to the actual story of Job. Certainly, there was neither a stenographer nor a tape recorder present at the time to record the breathtaking dialogues that were recorded in the poetic book of Job.

3) There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6:4 KJV

Answ. This text was borrowed from another oral tradition. Bible conservatives simply came up with an explanation in order to make the story appear to be true. So who were these giants?

4). A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things Ecclesiastes 10:19 KJV

Answ. Perhaps, in the wisest man who ever lived's world, but we all know that money does not answer everything, even though I am sure that a lot of American capitalists today would agree with his conclusion.

Clearly God did not inspire Solomon to speak or write something that is so inane, wretched and patently untrue.

I will keep adding to this list, for the Canon is not the inerrant or unadulterated word of God that we have been taught to believe that it was and is today! The canon was written by men, in deference to those ministers today who have stated publicly the following: the bible is under attack. The bible is not under attack, people simply want the truth, and that is what they should want themselves.

Jesus, was the most vocal critic of much of what was later written and has since been recorded in the Canon. Jesus said, you have heard by them of old times ..., but I say unto you...! What he was saying was that these sayings, many of them recorded in the Canon and taken from Hebrew texts did not originate with God.

The Apostle Paul even admitted that some of what he stated in his epistles to the circum-Mediterranean churches, was written by permission. In other words some of what he wrote clearly did not come from God, instead it was his opinion or ideas that were by the Apostles. On occasion they gave permission for him to say and to what he did (see Acts 15:12-23 for example), which was subsequently put into writing. .

Now keep in mind that this is the same man who went about arresting and having tortured and killed those individuals who did not share his religious opinions.

Much of what is recorded in the Mosaic Law, and other parts of the Pentateuch, was also borrowed from other sources. And Jesus even made it clear that Moses' permissive ideas about divorce did not come from God.

Before I go any further, I must talk about motive because most individuals will wonder what Reverend Solomon is trying to do. If you read some of my previous writings, you know that it is my hope to help liberate God's people from error prone texts and the tyranny of religious persecution, so that they can be free to seek after what God actually did express as ITS will!

Clearly, we need to hear from God in the here and now. Remember, Jesus said that the truth makes one free. God's people need to be freed from error prone texts, and those individuals who will make them slaves to error prone texts. God's true word does not entangle minds, neither does it contradict. In John 3:15, it is written that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe on him would not perish but have everlasting life.

Most Christians believe Constantine's Canon instead of Jesus Christ, and the dangerous admixture of partial truth with fabrications and malapropisms can be especially dangerous.

Next, would God agree with the Apostle's characterization of the rapture? In Paul's letters to the Thessalonians as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 17 KJV. Paul Wrote:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Paul was clearly under the impression that he would still be living when the rapture took place, and the dead were raised. From all appearances, the Apostle has been dead for about 2000 years now. Shouldn't we discuss this matter? Was the Apostle Paul wrong? And by the way, all of us have believed that God has said something to us at one time or another which turned out not to have been God after all!

Love, Peace, Grace & Learn
Rev. C. Solomon

to be continued

Living (Briefly Under The Same Roof) With Conservative Republican American Neo-Fascists Part I

Subject: American Style Fascism & Facists Must Be Eliminated

Simply electing Senator Obama Hussein to be the President of the United States over the next 4 years was not enough...

Patriotic Americans must go after and destroy Conservative Republican American fascism with the same moral turpitude and vigor that it assisted other nations of the world in doing to destroy German fascism and Hitler’s Third Reich...

The two are the moral equivalent of one another other, that is American Conservative Fascism and Hitler’s German Fascism, and we must once again rise up and destroy fascists and fascism

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had the distinct displeasure, recently, of residing under the same roof for 90 days with two American neo-fascist conservative Republicans. It was the worst 90 days of my life and after experiencing these two American Nazis, I understand better the meaning of the phrase 'black hole'.

A black hole typically referred to as being in space, is an area that is so dense that light cannot penetrate it. I discovered and experienced two humans on an almost a daily basis who were the equivalent of human black holes, frankly, zero light could penetrate either of these two mutants. Having said that I learned a lot from these two Neanderthals which can be summed up in two words Dumb and Dumber, the names that I came up for each one of them.

When these 2 individuals arrived on the scene at the shelter, one shortly after the other (both recidivists of this and other shelter programs), they immediately separated themselves from the other 13 wards with a certain amount of arrogance and elitism. When you saw one, you saw the other.

In fact, when the second of the two showed up at the church where we were staying at the time, he simply took over the space where I had been sleeping without any regard for the fact that someone may have been sleeping there before his arrival. The reason for this kind of arrogance was clarified shortly afterward, for it did not take long to realize that Dumb (the taller of the two) and Dumber (the short stocky one) simply made up their own rules in the shelter, and most of the time they got away with what they were doing.

It soon became clear that the reason that they got away with all that they did in the shelter was because the Program Manager, was in cahoots with them. She was also a Republican, and a critic of President Obama Hussein among other things.

Now even though Dumb took over my sleeping spot so that he could sleep next to Dumber, I decided as a Christian minister to simply turn the other cheek and to ignore both of their misbehaviors at the onset. Periodically they would kamikaze other men in the shelter program with their almost daily jibes and barbs about liberals, liberalism and President Hussein Obama.

The program manger appeared to be a nice lady at first; she was hired about a week before I arrived, but soon after it was evident that she was not to be trusted because she showed favoritism to certain individuals in the shelter. I initially experienced her running interference for Dumb, given an occasion when I ran into Dumb out on the bus lines one morning.

That morning there was another gentleman present at the bus stop who unbeknown to both of us knew each one of us individually. When I disembarked from my bus Dumb was sitting there and talking with my bus acquaintance. I addressed both Dumb and my bus acquaintance. The latter asked, "and how do you know him, Dumb? I responded that we are both living in a shelter program together.

I didn't know at the time that the prideful Dumb (a conservative Republican) had been misleading the public with respect to his living circumstances, and what I said was obviously done in complete innocence. Having said that, anyone who knew or had seen Dumb around would know that he was either homeless or simply liked wearing the same clothes everyday. Dumb never changed clothes while living in the shelter; he always wore the same outfit, and he was always unkempt in appearance.

Sometime that very day, Dumb called the Program Manager and told her that I had violated his privacy by telling our mutual acquaintance that we were shelter mates. I believe this happened because that same night Tonya, the Program Manager, drove out to the shelter church were we were staying that month and made a global announcement while looking directly at me. She ended her soliloquy while looking directly over at me and asking, "do you have any questions"?

What did she say to the group? She said: "you cannot violate another ward's privacy...” Now I know if it had been the other way around, and he had violated my privacy that she would not have made a similar trip I'm certain, but there was more to this story than my simply telling someone, in answer to a question, that the two of us lived in a shelter program.

First of all, I wouldn't have cared whether anyone told another person that I lived in a shelter or not. I tell everyone anyway that I am a minister who lived in a Shelter Program, and I did the same at the time. In fact, before leaving the Program, I did a write-up for the Shelter Program and also gave an interview to a local Saratoga California newspaper with regard to my experience of living in the shelter.

Now what was so funny about that is that Dumber, Dumb's follower and protégé, actually grew up in Saratoga California, and without being asked to participate, he made it clear to the visiting journalist team that they had better not place his picture in the Saratoga Newspaper. They explained that they would never do that anyway, besides, one of the journalists explained, we would have to have a signed release before placing your name or picture in the paper. Why was dumber so defensive?

I'm sure that wearing a mask for years would have been devastating for Dumb as well as Dumber if their friends knew that they had lived as they had done for years in shelters or in the back of a station while President Bush, not Democrats, controlled was in charge at Washington DC. For while the two of these homeless Republican fascists paraded around pretending to be one thing in public, both were something else in real life.

Both of them were homeless recidivists of numerous shelter programs on the Bay Area peninsula. They were chronic homeless individuals who lived in a gray station wagon, behind Target stores or wherever else they could find. They were hardly the kind of representatives that any group would put in the forefront that was trying to sell a political ideology to the public.

What could they tell the public except, follow Republicanism and live in a shelter or the back of a station wagon; continue loosing your jobs, homes and other economic opportunities while those at the top reap get richer and enjoy unprecedented tax breaks?

As I continued to watch and periodically be attacked politically and cynically by these two jokers, I began more and more to take notice of what was driving them. There was this confident swagger and braggadocio coming from both of them given that they were Conservative Republicans (a group that represented 'the truth' as they saw it). These two white bred individuals clearly felt that they were 'the true Americans', and that it was their manifest destiny to have individuals who thought like them to run the country and the world!

They would often speak in lofty terms of virtue and hard work, when the truth of the matter is that they were two of the worst offenders in the shelter for that matter when it came to doing their chores. Now on the other hand both men rose to the occasion when it came to volunteering in front of the executive staff over at another location. For there they pitched in almost daily, passed out foodstuffs, ran errands and so on, but when it came to the shelter it was like pulling teeth to get either one of them to do anything.

And trust me, you would never want to eat out of a dish or drink from a tumbler that either one of them used before, particularly Dumb, anyway. Dumb, the unkempt former Respiratory Assistant, did not seem to know the meaning of personal hygiene, and when it came to cleaning up behind himself, well he apparently never cleaned his person either.

His idea of washing a dish was simply to run water over it, or if a large container was placed in the sink with dishwasher fluid in it, I often did that hoping that guys like these would wash their dishes, Dumb would simply dip his cup or bowl in the dishwater, give it a cursory rinse and throw it in the rack to dry.

I began to notice the contradictions between practice and what these two often pontificated. And in typical Conservative form, they always spoke from rehearsed Republican talking points and by using Republican kamikaze tactics. The latter consisted of never permitting you to complete your sentences, or to constantly interrupt, accuse you or redefine what you had to say.

This was only, however, the beginning of their obstinacy, arrogance and obdurate behaviors. On 2-separate occasions, individuals in the shelter reported to me that they had been physically shoved by Dumber, particularly in the kitchen area at one of the churches in Sunnyvale California where we resided.


Rev. C. Solomon

to be continued...

Responding To God’s Petitions Ought To Be Our First Priority

Subject: What to Ask For When You Pray? For We Have The Requisite Ability To Grant Petitions To God Part I

In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, since we do not know how to pray as we should. Romans 8:28.

I wonder just how often when the prayer line between God and a human is opened, is this singular request made, “God what is it that you want from me?”

I believe that prayer is the highest activity in which a human can engage. When you think about it, what other activity can you engage in that could be more important than speaking with The Almighty, and having the Almighty speak back to you?

In Romans the eighth chapter, Paul wrote: we do not know how to pray as we ought. What he was saying was that most of us will enter into prayer, when neither the subject matter nor the manner in which we pray are suitable with God.

The other day when I was meditating, God gave me this message, it was that "whenever you pray and ask me for something, instead ask me what I want from you"? How humbling, and what an interesting fete compli I thought (for on the other hand I considered, what had I been asking God to do for me or someone else or to grant me or someone else)!

Of the many types of prayers that one can pray, most of us would have to concede that the prayer of petition is the one that is often most likely to be made from or for us. When we pray, or when we have someone else interceding for us in prayer more often than not we are asking about, or for something for ourselves or for someone else. That is not to say that a petitioning type prayer cannot be accompanied with thanksgiving.

I pondered the new insight that I received and considered the following. If I do as instructed, and I will, each time that I go before God in the future, I will give my petition a second thought. On the other hand I will always be reminded that prayer is a 2-way street. And in this context I should not be concerned only about what I want when I engage in the highest activity that a human being can enter into, I ought to be concerned with what the Almighty wants from, and for me.

Will I grant God’s petition, and then go about figuring out how to give God what IT wants from me, as I have always expected God on the other hand to do for me? I suspect that most of the time in the past that the odds have been about a million to one in my favor that God gave me what I wanted, when rarely did I even consider asking what it was that God wanted from me?

From hereon, my prayers will be, "God, what do you want from me today"? And you are welcome to join me…, for at the end of the day we can grant God's petitions too, just as God can grant us our petitions. We expect God to grant out petitions, so how about granting God's petitions from hereon?

Think of all of the petitions that God has granted for you over the span of your life. Here are some examples: life, food, parents, shelter, a spouse, family, a home, numerous automobiles and appliances, an education, travel, health, a church, a career, finances, and the list goes on.

Don't forget and join me when you pray, instead of asking God for something, first ask God: what do you want from me? This ought to be you new model for prayer!

Comments?

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Should We Believe Them? Bishop (Takes) Preachers And Moolah Moolah

If the only thing that matters is what some of them have been saying, the following is what takes place in Heaven each Monday Morning.

And if you didn't know any better you would believe that someone is on the take!

In a room that is similar to the New York Stock Exchange, traders are busy running around trying to determine two things, how much money was raised worldwide and how many new members recently joined the worldwide groups of Christian churches during the past week, especially on this past Sunday, a rare fifth Sunday in the month.

You see, each Sunday God calls for an accounting report from all worldwide ministries that is to be turned in the following morning. This report is to show God just how many new members joined from week to week. And God wants to know how much money was raised over this past week. I can just see the sad look on God’s face when he learned that receipts were down, even though memberships were up. God wondered: where is the money?

Now instead of 40Zbillion, Trillion, Trillion being raised in Christian Churches on earth last week, the tally came closer to 39Zxbillion, Trillion, Trillion dollars, and heaven received only a paltry sum of the total amount raised. God was upset!

But in fact God wasn’t as upset about the number of new members that joined the roles, for like the ministers on earth he realized that the amount received is more important than head count, in other words its all about ‘The Caesars’. But where, God thought, is the rest of the money? Not even God could see where the money was going!

Sadly, God had no other choice but to send down a heavenly host of angels from the Heavenly Gate Trading Floor, to question and defrock millions of ministers on the earth. To these ministers, the angels explained that the tokens that God gave them to begin their ministries with had been misused. They were also told that even though the worldwide recession had impacted giving, still the ministers could have taken what they were given up front to pray for people(seed money), and garnered some interest with those donations.

You see, there were other mega ministers waiting in the wings (no pun intended) for their chance to win souls, I mean bring dollars to the Lord.

Bishop Takes boldly decided to speak up, so he alone went and stood before God and said, Texas is a big state and we do big things in Texas, however, we have been hit hard as well by the current economic crises. Bishop Takes said, I donated one of my luxury vehicles and garnered a tax write off in order to demonstrate my sincerity and that money was given to the ministry.

God said, Bishop Takes, there is no excuse, and that he and other ministers needed to come up with more creative ways of fleecing the flock for after all Bishop Takes, God said, weren't you the one that said that "my church is a business"? Bishop Takes was given 90 days to raise more moolah, or he would loose his position as Supermega Minister of the Worldwide Christian Federation of Mega Mega Moolah Moolah Ministries.

Dollar Bishop was pleased because secretly he always felt that his ministry was superior to that of Bishop Takes, even when both men pretended, in public, to be friends. Bishop Ong, friends of both men tried to appease the situation and offered his counsel. Bishop Ong suggested that both ministers convene a joint Revival and raise more money than has ever been raised in the history of mankind.

The Revival he said could be called The Mega Mega Moolah Moolah Revival Conference. He went on to say that an unprecedented admission fee to attend the event would be 2 mega megas per person. Anyone who couldn’t come up with 2 mega mega’s was told to stay home!

Bishop Ong also recommended an entertainment venue for MMMMRC that would include 'The Mega Mega Moolah Moolah Land Choir', featuring their latest hit single 'Moolah in Boolah Land'. Comedian Weave Harvey would provide 'G' Rated comedic entertainment each evening. Other entertainers would include Christian rappers and steppers, along with modestly attired dancing girls in bikinis known as 'Christian Girls Gone Wild'.

Bishop Williard of New Land Jersey called to endorse the idea but needed clarification about Boolah Boolahs. In New Land Jersey they do not have Boolah Boolahs, in fact they have lost all of their Moolah Moolahs, the new governor and his new revitalization/stimulus programs notwithstanding. However, there was a typing error on the memorandum that Bishop Williard received, it should have read Moolahs and not Boolahs.

God listened and chimed in, you men have 90 days to come up with more moolahs, boolahs or super boolahs, call it what you will. God also wanted more members added who could give until it hurt, and suggested new giveaway campaigns, for example for every new member that joined one of the federated churches, they would receive coupons to be special guests at events like the Mega Mega Moolah Moolah Ministry Revival Conference. And, of course they would be required to bring their checkbooks, gold cards, welfare EBT Cards and SSI monthly payments along with them.

Word has it that the idea caught on for even though the members of these ministries and the unsuspecting public were loosing their homes; unable to keep up with the cost of living and their kids were being forced out of school because their parents couldn’t afford tuition, the Members of Moolah Moolah and Boolah Boolah Land Churches, decided, that they would still have to give sacrificially.

This was significant given that most of their members were already giving over 50% of their annual incomes to the Moolah Churches, and still most of these people chose to move outdoors with the growing number of American homeless so that they could support the Mega Moolah Moolah Ministries event. Even women who wanted to be loosed did not want to be loosed from their fiduciary responsibility, they wanted to give until it hurt. And hurt it did!

We will have to check back in 90 days from now to see whether God was pleased with the amount of Boolahs or Moolahs that were raised, or the number of new members that were added to Boolah Boolah Land for God wants the membership of Moolah Churches to grow, and for more money to be raised. One has to wonder, whatever does God do with all that Moolah?

Bishop Takes and friends had a lot to do for God did not appear to be pleased that not enough members were being added daily to the ministry or that enough Moolah Boolah or even Zoolah was being raised.

And word has it that some old school minister was trying to get into the conference for half-price, sadly he was turned away. The fact of the matter is that Simon the Sorcerer of scripture couldn't afford to purchase salvation or to attend Mega Moolah Moolah!

How much moolah does it take, I wonder, to save a soul?

Prologue: The scene shifts to heaven at the winding up of the Mega Moolah Moolah Revival Fest, and God was not happy. Bishop Takes and the rest of the ‘underTakers show up and stand before God; it is judgment day. God asks, and what is this that I see where all of you have ‘taken in members and enormous sums of money’, however, that such a small amount of your leftovers have been sent to Heaven?

Bishop takes explained that after he got ‘his take’, and the rest of the ‘underTakers' got their takes, that there was not a whole lot left over.

God was angry and replied, then go and sell all that you have your bling bling, and your other luxury automobiles, rings, properties, airplanes, chefs, studios, TV Programs, personal pilots, masseuses, stylists, manicurists, chauffeurs…, and give what you have, sacrificially, to the Kingdom of God yourselves.

Bishop Takes and the rest of the ‘underTakers’, went away very sad when they heard this!

The moral of the story is that in this life there are givers and there are takers. And it is sad how much has been given to the takers, by the givers who can't really afford to do so. We are going to have to replace religion, as Jesus did in his time on earth, with something else. Too many of today's religious leaders, not just Bishop Takes, Ong and Dollar are fleecing the flocks! By the way, what is the cost of the seed offering to get prayed for or to receive a blessing today? I hear that there are some people out there who need to be prayed for. I wonder if they can afford prayer?

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Addenda: And if there is a moral to this story it would be, should our ministers continue to behave like greedy American corporate barons? Clearly ‘American Capitalist Church Syndrome’, a phrase that I coined and adapted to a sermon and preached in Monterey California, is alive in well in a faction of our American Christian churches. God’s model would be different, for even if large sums of money were raised in a legitimate faction, the monies would be used to lift America’s permanent underclass, not to purchase luxury homes, cars, vehicles, trips …for the clergy!

Two important closing announcements:

The Ebangel Church of Maryland came up with a new and creative way to meet their financial commitment for MMMMRC. Word has it that they used their heads and decided to acquire a liquor license for their Family Life Center Ministry so that additional revenue could be raised for the Mega Moolah Moolah Moolah Conference, and the idea worked.

Not only was Ebangel able to raise more than its share of Moolah Moolah, there was enough leftover to pay for detox programs for members of their flock who consumed too much of the oogle!

Final Announcement: Muslim prisoners, members of the Nation of Islam have been complaining lately because their wealthy spiritual leader who resides in a Mansion refuses to put any money on their prison books so that they can purchase coffee or cigarettes!

Caveat: God could be pleased with what appears to me to be irresponsible nonsense, but read my sermon entitled American Capitalist Church Syndrome/

The Defacto President of the United States During the George Bush Years Speaks Out

Dick Cheney said, "we were right", but fortunately for Dick, the majority of the American people, America’s allies and most of the rest of the world disagree with him. Newsflash for Dick Cheney, the People have spoken and they did so convincingly in the 2008 General Election. The People said, we neither want you nor George H.W. Bush!

Dick Cheney, the 3rd member of the Bush Trinity, is at it again. He has been making his presence felt in American airwaves. Clearly, he cannot accept the repudiation of his and George Bush’s failed policies of the past 8 years, by the American people. He doesn't seem to understand that he was never elected to any office by the American people (he was selected by the former President), so why is he challenging the President that was duly elected by the overwhelming majority of the American people? I say, keep this obstructionist off of the air!

The only that he is doing, in his apologist role, in my opinion is to certify what all of us knew all along, that it was Dick Cheney who was the real President of the United States over the past 8 years; George Bush was the front man.

I can still recall when I was strolling down Constitution Avenue roughly 9 years ago when a young man stopped me to discuss politics. The Washington Memorial stood in the background as we talked. He wanted me to understand why the American people had to stop Dick Cheney, even though it was George Bush who had recently won the Republican primaries and its subsequent nomination.

The young man emphatically stated that George Bush was only the figurehead for the Republican Party and that Dick Cheney was the real power by the scenes. I raised this issue with this young fiery political wonk. I said that Dick Cheney would never be elected president and on that we agree, however, I went on to say that I wasn’t so sure that the figurehead was more powerful given that he could never be elected.

In other words, the pupeteer Dick Cheney, could only be considered dangerous if the puppet, George Bush in this instance, got elected President.

Just recently, Republicans admitted that they had planned to do with Vice Presidential running mate Sarah Palin what they did with the ill-equipped President George Bush if were to become Vice President of the United States of America. They planned to take control and mold her and shape her just as they did with the nascent know nothing George Bush. In other words she would have been told what to say and what to do.

By admitting this, they only revealed what the majority of us already knew and what others suspected, that George Bush was not equipped or prepared to be the president of a Banana Republic, much less the President of the United States of America. And folks, we were right!

Dick, would you go away Cheney, is passionate about defending the failed policies of the Bush Administration, because they were Dick Cheney's along with the idelological kabal that he was a part of policies. Another name for this group might be The American Republican Reich! Since being repudiated by the American, given the dismal failure of would be President John McCain, George Bush III in disguise, you seldom hear anything from former President George Bush.

hy? I suspect that no one in his past administration has given him his talking points whereby telling him what to say and do! And to tell you the truth just as his father never really agree with much of what Ronald Reagan stood for, I suspect that if you get right down to it George Bush, President 42, didn't agree with a lot of what he was told to do by his political handlers.

If Dick Cheney along with the other current poster child for the failed policies of Conservatism and the Bush Administration, Rush (Lintball) were to ranting and raving as they have been doing, they will ensure that a non-Republican will be elected as President of the United States in the next election.

Being a conservative Republican or a Dick Cheney, is to never say that you are sorry. And to the Bush men, both George H and George H.W. Bush, both stooges and tools in the hands of the Republican Party, I make these comments: get in the real world.

The more honest of the two, Daddy Bush, initially repudiated the proposed policies of then Presidential I never say I'm sorry either candidate Ronald Reagan, particularly when he called for America to become a kinder gentler nation. When George Bush wouldn't dance any longer and said 'read my lips...', and then went back on his word his party turned on him, and Bill Clinton coasted to victory.

When will the men of the Bush family realize that they have been nothing more than patsies in the hands of a marginalized group of aberrant Republican conservatives?

Peace, Love & Grace
Reverend C. Solomon

P.S. Dick Cheney may never say, I’m sorry, for what he and his compatriots along with the puppet President George H. Bush did to America and the world, but even if he never does, the rest of us know one thing for sure and that is that Dick Cheney is a sorry human being!

The Two Klans: One Republican Conservative and the other In Disguises

I have written and often spoke about the schizophrenia that thrives in America’s Ku Klux Klan organization, in that members of the Klan often evoke the name of Jesus Christ(who was a Jew) as their savior; have as their other most dominant symbol religious type robes and the cross of judgment, yet interestingly enough they hate Jews. Has anyone told either the Klan or its members that Jesus was a Jew?

It occurred to me recently that two present day American groups primarily, KKK members and Conservative Republicans have a lot in common. For one, the majority of their members are white, second they are certainly not the most erudite people in the world and finally they are fixated on their groups fixed points of view while claiming to be the people of God.

My personal assessment of the Conservative Republican Klan member or politician is that he and she in many respects are one and the same, one wears a suit and other dons a robe. But make no difference about them, they are one in the same. Yesterday,

I had what started out to be a pleasurable bus ride down scenic Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino California. However, shortly after I boarded the bus I came under the attack of an unsolicited self-described Conservative Republican bus driver. I thought to myself as he began to recant the Republican/Klan talking points, that here they go, and can you believe that the dismal showing over the past 8-years of Bush-Cheney and the 6-year Republican controlled House and Senate, that any of their sort would want to show their neo-fascist faces in public again.

Being trapped at first on the bus, I simply tried to ignore him, but then it became apparent to me why he made his living as a semi-skilled bus driver, for what else would be qualified to do because Joe has a monopoly, thanks to John McCain on the plumbing profession. He fired off a question in the air asking, why do you Democrats hate George Bush so much?

I didn't tell the idiot that I was not a Democrat, rather I responded that Republicans did not have sufficient numbers to elect Ronald Reagan or George Bush. I explained that if it were not for cross-over Democrats, then neither of these Neanderthals would have been elected. Eight-million democrats crossed over and voted for Ronald Reagan. He didn't have a reply, so he tried to move on to something else.

He then asked the riders, do you people believe in term limits? Most of the audience was already bored with his antics, and he received only one or two replies before I intervened and asked what did he think about McCain-Feingold? Sadly, the dummy didn't know what McCain-Feingold was, but added that anything that Republican Presidential hopeful McCain was for, he was against.

He continued to attack President Obama, a man did not vote for, but he clearly assumed that I did. I pointed out that the Republicans had been in charge for 8 years and look at the condition of the country. I went on to ask him rhetorically then why was he attacking newly elected President Obama given all of the damage that had been to America by Bush-Cheney and the Republican Klan. He had become visibly annoyed with me, not only because my queries and answers trumped his, but because I was not participating in the Republican shuffle.

In other words I wasn't dancing according to plan. Republicans often like to incorporate the Socratic Method of questioning in order to keep their opponent off guard. They have a few set questions, and they will hammer you over and over again with those questions.

Another twist, a passenger came aboard who set diagonally across from the driver. He listened to a few barbs and chimed in that Bush behaved like Hitler did, and he added, I am from Germany and I know! Now that every person on board the bus, including the newcomer were against him, he decided to play the whole discussion off and began another discussion on something totally unrelated.

I thought at that point, perhaps you should just return to Republican Klan Conservative boot camp, because we just wiped the floor with you. I have yet to meet a conservative Republican who can fix his mouth to say that he or the Klan Party compadres were wrong. Conservative politics is in fact conservative religion. These folks are worshippers of the conservative idol and while invoking the name of Jesus like their militia and hate mongering counterparts, their true God is the God of neo-fascism.

Frankly, I am bored with the whole lot of them and wish somehow that they would simply go away never to be heard from again. Will that happen, no, not likely, however, you can't blame me for wishing that they would! I suspect that from hereon when climbing aboard a bus, I should ask the driver are a Democrat, Independent or Klan Republican, then I can decide whether or not I feel up to taking the ride through fairy land that I'm likely about to be subjected to.

Love, peace & grace
Rev. C. Solomon

To be continued … American conservative neofascism is apparently not dead yet!

Conservative Republicans and The Ku Klux Klan Have a Lot In Common

I have often written and spoken about the schizophrenia of the United States of America’s Ku Klux Klan movement, in that members of the Klan often evoke the name of Jesus Christ(a Jew), their other most dominant symbols their religious type robes and their primary symbol of judgment - the cross- and interestingly enough they have Jews.

Has anyone told them that Jesus was a Jew? It occurred to me recently, that both of these groups, Klanspeople and Republicans have a lot in common, specifically in a few well known areas.

For one, the majority of their members are white, they are certainly not the most erudite people in the world, they are fixated on the points of view, and they both mostly claim to be the people of God. My personal assessment of the Conservative Republican Klan member is that he or she is certainly not members of the erudite group of people in the world.

In terms of their ignorance, they are second only to their cousins in the Klan or in
American militia groups. I had what started out to be the pleasure of taking a bus ride down Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose CA. Shortly after I boarded the bus I came under the attack of an overly friendly, I thought, Caucasian bus driver. It was a beautiful day and I was looking forward to enjoying my extended ride when suddenly, I came under the attack of neo-fascist Conservative Republican. Can you believe that after their dismal showing over the past 8-tear Bush President, and the most recent general election that any of their kind would still be showing their faces? In public.

The bus driver as predicted lobbed the first volley, having explained to the listening bus audience that

Peace & Grace

Rev. C. Solomon

To be continued … American conservative neofascism is not dead!

The Bible Is Not Just A Book About God II

Taking It to the Max: You can believe some of it, without believing all of it, and still believe in what is real!
Rev. C. Solomon!

Part II. A Bible Full of Errors.

Most scholars know that the bible is full of errors, some numerical and others chronological. There are also an incalculable amount of misspellings contained within the Bible. The term bible derives from the Greek term biblias which translates as ‘the books.

Next we must take into consideration all of the errors that are a result of translation, mistranslation and interpretation. There are also stories that were borrowed from other traditions like Gilgamesh and even Greek mythology that are used as sources for ’the books’, and yet individuals who would read the bible are taught that the bible is a source that derives from heaven itself.

If you were to consider all that was said and done prior to the ‘the books’ coming into existence, you would realize that the books are not the exclusive source that one should use to learn about God. People found God before there was a bible.

For those who use the bible as a source, they often demand that it be accepted in its entirety or no at all. Frankly, the bible has been tampered with. Certain texts do not have any manuscript support, and there are instances when terms were intentionally altered in order to make certain ideas agree.

Where is the bible that Jesus wrote, that God wrote or that the Apostles wrote? That bible simply does not exist. Now there are many religious individuals today, particularly Christians, who have said that the bible is under attack. If seeking the truth is an attack, then those of us who are seeking the truth are attacking it. On the other hand those individuals who are not interested in the truth are doing a great document a disservice, for whether everything in the books is true or not, it remains a formidable document.

Now having said that, there is enough said in the bible to help one to discover the God idea and to begin on a path to the truth. But no one should be told that if they don’t believe or accept all 'the books' that they are somehow a pagan, heretic or an apostate, or on the other hand that they should not accept any of it if they cannot accept all of it.

The bible is limited in many respects. In one respect it is limited by the very people that created it and the sources and source documents that were used to create it.

Our knowledge today is far superior to there’s, but yet many of our scholars, preachers and philologists rely on the understanding of post-modern human beings who were limited in terms of their understanding at best.

What should the bible represent to anyone who wants to use it? It should be used as a source document and as a reference. And at the same time it should be examined with a certain amount of skepticism in mind. If our ultimate objective is to find the truth, then we are compelled to consider other documents and sources along with the bible in terms of our quest for knowledge and what is real.

And finally, if you think about today’s bible and all of the revisions and new translations that have arisen as of late, who knows what the authors of the various books were actually trying to say, the latter does not suggest that what they believed was always accurately translated. There is even disagreement between modern day translators and modern days translations. Does this suggest that perhaps those who will ought to simply strike out and seek to uncover what is real for themselves today without an overreliance on questionable texts?

Love, Peace & Grace

Rev. C. Solomon