Metal Working Before God Created The Earth??

If you believe in a evangelical fundamentalist God

What in modern times is the country Armenia, was in ancient times a very valuable resource for mankind…it is thought that much of mans knowledge of metallurgy was gained here around the ancient city of Metsamor.  It was occupied from around 7,000 BC to perhaps 1700 AD and was an astronomical site as well as metallurgical.

Excavation of the ruins has discovered a very large metal industry including a foundry with 2 kinds of blast furnaces.  The foundry is known to have extracted and processed gold, copper, and several types of manganese, zinc, strychnine, mercury, and iron.  Metal from the foundries of Metsamor found their way to Egypt, Central Asia and China.

Several Huge underground caves have been uncovered that are believed to have been storehouses for base metal, as well as a grain storage for winter months.  The first iron in the ancient world may have been forged here.

It is believed that metal working got its start there about 5,000 BC…one more blow to the Young Earth Creationists who STILL believe the earth was formed by a Mesopotamian god around 4000 + BC, and Tubal-Cain invented metal working well after the creation, but before the “Flood” on or about 2400 BC

There are many very ancient human sites around the Armenia/Turkey area going back at least 9,000 to 11,000 years or more.  The whole Babylonian/Turkey/Armenia/Iran/Iraq/Israel/Egypt area is the largest cradle of human civilization…although humans were not originally from there, when we migrated out of Africa to the areas they were found to be very conducive to human life.

Pretty cool chart about the petroglyphs and early writing in the area
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/Images/countries/Turkish%20pics/alphabetbig.jpg
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Health Care Republican Style

So from what I understand the Republican health-care scheme we Americans are going to get from them is like the following:

” By the time the New York Stock Exchange closed last Thursday, shares of United Health’s stock had shot up more than 8 percent and reached their highest value in more than three years. The company’s shareholders, including Hemsley, now the highest paid CEO in America, were suddenly much wealthier.

Owners of health insurance company stock continued to get richer this week. On Tuesday, Humana Inc. announced that its first quarter earnings would be so much better than Wall Street expected that it was raising its full-year profit outlook and instituting a dividend. The company’s stock price jumped 5.5 percent after disclosing that fabulous news.”  Full story

See the companies can make so much more money by denying/turning down medical bills from their customers.  They do this with the fine print, and 100’s of thousands of people are very surprised every year to find they aren’t covered for many many health problems.  Meanwhile the industry as a whole gets richer and richer and they can pay bribes to our Senators and Congressmen to keep the business flowing their way.

“To make this kind of money, insurance companies have to spend far less paying their policyholders’ medical claims than anyone thought possible.

They’ve been able to do that so far this year, despite the new health care reform law, by shifting many policyholders into plans that force them to spend more from their own pockets before coverage kicks in. Insurance firms also fatten their bottom lines by denying more claims.”

The Republicans basically want to get rid of Medicare and turn ALL medical problems to the private sector where they can skim money more effectively and control what the “little people” have.  Medical security is for them like communism…and they don’t really care because almost all of them are millionaires or better and they and their families will be O.K. no matter what.

And those poor fools on the outside…Tea Party…Just blindly go where the Koch brothers tell them.

Revolution anyone ? ™
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Random Days

Beautiful day for a drive up the mountain

Baked some bread today and it came out really well.  The blotchy look comes from melted butter on the crust.

And the Cactus flowers keep coming in like crazy

There Is Currently No Shortage Of Corporate Profits

“…There is currently no shortage of corporate profits or excessive executive compensation to explain away the failure of the private sector to create jobs. On the contrary, as The New York Times reports, “In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678 trillion.” And to add insult to injury, the top executives, who seem unable or unwilling to create jobs or adequately reward their workers, have increased their own compensation by a whopping 12 percent over the previous year, setting the median pay at $9.6 million per year for those in control of the leading 200 companies. The Times adds that “C.E.O. pay is also on the rise again at companies like Capital One and Goldman Sachs, which survived the economic storm with the help of all of those taxpayer-financed bailouts.”  (My bold & underline emphasis.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/the-false-debate-on-the-d_b_848457.html

Yes sir, it’s the top 1% of American elite against the rest of us…and they are definitely winning.

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Spring

Finally got my camera back from my daughter and thought I might take some cactus flower photos…they’re coming up by the thousands

Spring has finally sprung here in the Southwest.

Republican Right Wing Religionists At It Again

Some really strange and evil thinking going on in Washington these days…and it’s all coming from Republican legislators

From Psychology Today by Dave Noise, March 13, 2011

“E Pluribus Unum has never been considered controversial. The motto, which is Latin for “out of many, one,” was adopted by the Founding Fathers in 1782 as part of the Great Seal of the United States, intended to represent the federal nature of the nation – out of many states, one country. The framers sharply disputed many issues in the formation of the nation, but E Pluribus Unum was not one of them.”

I admit I’ve never thought about the motto, I understand it and believe it fits our country perfectly, but I’d never much thought of it.

“Not so fast. The Religious Right, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) and the Congressional Prayer Caucus (yes, our government actually has a Congressional Prayer Caucus), wants you to know that E Pluribus Unum is, well, almost un-American.” My emphasis.

“The CPC, a leading voice of religious conservatism on Capitol Hill, recently wrote a letter to President Barack Obama, chastising him for referring to the motto E Pluribus Unum. The letter may very well reflect a new milestone in the culture wars, for never before has E Pluribus Unum been portrayed as controversial. But according to the CPC, Obama’s reference to E Pluribus Unum amounts to an anti-God statement. See the letter here.”

So let me get this straight…the president mentioning the US motto E Pluribus Unum is somehow sacrilegious or blasphemy???  And to top all that they want the president to issue a corrected version

 “With all the credibility of public figures who believe the world is only six thousand years old, the caucus wants Obama to “issue a correction.” Apparently, referring to the E Pluribus Unum motto is now sacrilege in the Christian right’s America. They also say Obama isn’t mentioning God enough in his speeches and that he shouldn’t refer to “inalienable rights” without mentioning that they come from God.”

So now Republican legislators want to be able to control how the president thinks and presents ideas and policies.  It’s not enough that they have made a practice of opposing every damn thing the man says and tries to do…now they want control of his mind and speech.  They embarrass me and I feel they are destroying what little sanity still remains in political life in America.  They can’t come out and say the man is a N***er…that would be racist, so they publicly attack the man relentlessly (and call him names in small little social circles) and unfairly in any other way they can.  The Republicans are spoiled, child like, evil demons who aren’t getting their way and are having a hissy fit.  They are like our own little group of political terrorists.

I have never been so mad at politicians in my life…

Revolution anyone? ™
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Republican Version of Health Care?

Well Arizona Republicans are unveiling their version of a health care plan to us poor citizens.
Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, said that SB 1593 eliminates existing laws which require that companies that want to sell their insurance to Arizona residents be licensed and regulated by the state Department of Insurance. They say the increased competition will provide more opportunities for Arizonans to get the coverage they want at a price they can afford.  I’m sure nothing could go wrong there. 😦

Ms. Kate Brophy McGee said that is good news for those who don’t want or need that kind of coverage and the costs entailed. Conversely, those who want coverage for specific conditions can shop for a policy which includes that.  The bad news is of course that unregulated non-licensed companies will be free to do whatever they want and run their business in a shady manner and the poor insured people will be screwed many times over…again.  Part of the Republican agenda is to unregulate most all businesses.

Also to be considered is that the legislation wipes out more than two dozen mandates for what conditions must be covered for policies issued in Arizona. These range from chiropractic care and breast reconstruction to even how much time a woman would be allowed to remain in the hospital following child birth.  And let’s not forget that unregulated private insurers would be free to dis-allow anything they want. It would be much worse than the present day system where you often have to get a lawyer to make them pay up for many illnesses.

The Republicans are destroying the middle class in America and the above is just one more way they are f*cking over us.  We Democrats are helping to put these clowns in office…we have to get off our duffs and vote in ALL elections.  Set up rides for older voters, do the neighborhood walk door-to-door, volunteer to help your party.  Lets make the coming elections a shutout for Republicans.

Remember, in the 2012 presidential elections the Republicans will probably front a evangelical fundamentalist religious candidate such as Romney or Huckabee…we really don’t want 4 or 8 years with a religious fundamentalist leader again…George Bush was bad enough and he was an idiot.  Romney and Huckabee are very smart and they DO have an agenda they will not speak of.
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More Thoughts on Christian Morality

Today we humans do not consider it moral to wantonly kill people of other cultures, nor do we consider it moral to indiscriminately rape and savagely beat women and children, also we think slavery is an abomination that should be stopped at all cost.  This behavior however was condoned by the Old Testament God.  He purposely (if we are to believe the Hebrew goat herder writers) sent out Hebrew warriors to eliminate whole tribes and existing cultures of the land.

We do not do these things today because we have grown up as a people and culture.  Most good people would not do these things the early Hebrews did even if a god said too.  We have evolved a morality that far transcends the OT God. We properly value human life; women and children, and never want to see slavery in our lifetime.  (Well, I think the Republicans want to see “wage slaves”…you know, about $1.00 per hour…so they can “*Compete.” (*make more profit))

Anyway I think most humans have a prior notion of what is moral and what is not.  As Jerry Coyne says in his latest (4-22-11) blog post…“If you respond that God is good, and would never ask people to commit immoral acts, that too shows that you have a notion of morality that’s prior to God.”  My emphasis

Mans concept of morality has constantly changed, unlike the imaginary God, who says himself that he never changes.  In the 1950’s, in America, you could be sent to prison for a very long time if you practiced sodomy (this lingered on until the 80’s or 90’s in some cases), or even tried cunnilingus on your legally married WIFE. In New York recently a man was charged with Adultery of all things. The various churches & religions have tried to keep a long list of things as chargeable criminal offences both in the bedroom and everyday life, but we as a race and culture have finally started to grow up and realize that the Churches&Religions were/are pushing evil and poisonous worldviews.

One of the great attributes of the human mind is to be able to think logically and make good decisions; it’s too bad that so many Americans do not use that ability when they ponder religion.

Religion does NOT hold exclusive rights to the Morality card…we humans also have a very large share of it…always have.

Religion…its given people hope in a world torn apart by Religion–Jon Steward

Revolution anyone?™
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Morality Probably Doesn’t Come From Bible

Is the Bible the source of morality?  Many people think not.

How can this book be an arbiter of morality when God advocates the killing of people for adultery, for disrespecting their parents, homosexuality, masturbation (or was that coitus interruptus), kidding old bald people…things we do not even consider crimes today.  How does this morality stand up to the fact that God directed the Hebrews to molest, kill, rape (save the young virgins though), destroy, and enslave people, to bash babies against a wall, to run a sword through the abdomen of pregnant women?  Whole tribes and cities…this is certainly Bronze Age human mentality at work…not a God.

There are countries around the world who don’t worship a Christian God and they have as much morality as anybody.  Thinking back over the disgraced Christian church leaders and ministers, priests, etc., in Christian lands–they may have even more morality…and they certainly didn’t get it from the Bible.

Some of the countries who are lowest in religious belief are some of the safest places on earth.

The Christian God himself (if he were real, which is debatable) has committed inexcusably horrible, and depraved acts… that God is an utterly immoral being.

Morality does not necessarily flow from the Christian Bible, it has many other sources.

Did you know?
In California now the police can search your cell phone without a warrant if you are arrested.  However if you put the cell phone in your cars glove-box or trunk they need a warrant to get to it.  And, if you’re using an Apple iPhone of course that means your every movement for the last year is available to The Man.  This countries getting more and more like a communist state.  Seems the fourth amendment is going the way of first amendment freedom of speech.
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Creationist Lose Again

Just one more brick in the wall separating real factual evidence and religious, creationist, ID, YEC  nonsense.
Human language almost certainly started in Africa (where WE as the human race started coincidentally) and it started MANY years before the Bronze Age (c.4000 +-BC) It has been speculated by many that the invention of language was the beginning of man’s rising intelligence and domination.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6027/346.abstract

Puts a whole new outlook on the “Tower of Babel” story from the Bible, Huh?
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