Clean livin’ son. Clean livin’

The link below is to an interesting vid on the front page of NBC News.com from a couple of weeks ago. Is there a fight ramping up over the death penalty again?
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/debunker/crime-deterrent-debunking-death-penalty-myths-n40571

Also making its way around the interwebs, is a letter by convicted killer Ray L Jasper who is scheduled to take in his last breath on March 19 of this year.

I’ll probably ruffle the feathers of a few of my left-leaning friends with this post and surprise those who know me from my UU church with my opinion on the death penalty.

I am from Texas however and as the comedian Ron White says, “as other states are trying to abolish it [the death penalty] my state is putting in an express lane.”

After I viewed the NBC News video from that link above though I couldn’t help but come up with my own monologue about

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Top o’ the mornin’ to ya

Deist O’Jules here folks and I wish I could say I’m as chipper as my post title reads.

It is not quite a week since the earthquake in Japan.  As if having the biggest earthquake in recorded history weren’t enough, the Japanese quickly got punched with the waves from a tsunami.  And then, the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Today, that is the most pressing issue is containing the spent fuel rods and trying to keep the six individual reactors from going into meltdown. But the amount of radioactive material, steam, etc that has already been released into the air, ground and water is scary.

The world right now is scary.

There is yet again unrest in the Middle East. It’s been happening since humanity can remember but this time it is happening all over.  Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.  Hell you name a country in the Middle East and some sort of protest has happened since the beginning of the year.

There is our own protests that have been happening in the midwest… Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana.

The Chinese threatening to put us in the sleeper hold by cashing in all the debt they bought from us in T-bills.

[sigh]

Things are looking pretty crazy folks. We might need to brush up on our fire making skills and bust out our tin foil hats.

Here is an on the ground view of the power of the waves of the tsunami.  It’s an absolutely incredible video and amazing that the person with the camera stayed as long as he/she did.

are we a Christian nation?

Polls, data… sheer numbers would suggest a majority of this nation (at this moment in history) is Christian.  But our founding?… the founders?  What of the future?

Christians, with unwavering confidence on this topic, will state the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.  I heard Glen Beck, who is now some sort of born again, evangelical Mormon or something, yesterday state that the founding documents were based primarily on Deuteronomy.

He’s an idiot and wrong the same way Christians are wrong about the U.S. being founded as a Christian nation.  You can keep saying it but it doesn’t make it true.

I’ve been re-reading a book called Faith of the Founding Fathers that gives a kind of breakdown of most of the founders and which side they sat on the religious fence.  Fascinating stuff.

What I’ve learned is that the founders were quite deliberate about keeping religion out of government and the public square.  When they do mention God it is terms that were very, VERY Deistic… Nature’s God, Divine Providence, etc.  And what they left out of the founding documents speaks volumes.

I highly recommend the book.

I will also point you to a really well written post on the topic over at: http://recoveringfundamentalists.com

Jim Etchison and Brian Sasville have a written a really good post on the founders, Jesus and about how history is written (and rewritten) by the victors. It’s somewhat long, but a good read.

Happy Friday everyone.

wherein the Deist and Deistette praise God OR….

W E ‘ R E   F A R M E R S !!

So during the four weeks when I was doing the demolition and reconstruction of our kitchen (see post below) I decided since I was in a building kind of mood I would construct a little raised garden bed.  “Little” is the key word here.  It’s only two and a half feet by five and a half feet.

It’s really cool though.  I can hardly believe it. (click the thumbnails to see bigger pics)

Emmie and I have talked about doing one since… well since before we even met.  For a little more than a decade I’ve had the notion of living off the land, raising a few chickens and goats and having a garden that could sustain my family.  Keep in mind I know nothing about country living or farming and ranching but like I said for years I’ve had the desire to do this. I even bought my own little piece of Texas about nine years ago with the hopes of doing it some day.

Emmie told me when we first met online that she has had the dream of being able to have her own vegetable garden for years as well.

Well, she ain’t much but here it is.

Our little plot of earth that will soon release her bounty.  🙂  And with God’s good grace and laws of physics He has set in place (and hopefully despite my complete lack of knowledge) we will have at least some fresh veggies from our own garden.

We started by planting seeds back in February.  That may have been a bit early but like I said we don’t really know what we’re doing.