What Is Best In Life? To See Your Women Driving Before You, and Hear the Lamentation of the Men

Any Schwarzenegger fans out there will hopefully by chuckling right now.

Anyway,
As discussed in this article, there is a ban in Saudi Arabia prohibiting the women from driving/operating a motor vehicle. Failure to observe this can lead to arrest, and in some cases, public whipping. Pretty rough. The logic is that giving women the freedom to drive would give them greater freedom outside the home, and could very likely lead to them engaging in unladylike behavior.
However, it has also been argued that preventing women from driving would force them to rely on a male driver, anyway. Which somewhat nullifies the point of trying to keep them from socializing too much with other men outside the home.
A report prepared by "A well known conservative academic" has been prepared for the Saudi Shura Council, stating that if women are allowed to drive, then it will be the end of virgins in Saudi Arabia. This information is given in spite of the fact that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world in which women are not allowed to operate cars, but not the only one in the world with virgins.
Shocking, no?
In protest of this law, many Saudi women have recorded video footage of themselves driving, in an effort to spur others to resist the rule. And King Abdullah has stated that the ban could perhaps be re-examined.

Until then...

Nice Going, Hertz.

Well, Hertz has gone and blown it, firing *twenty-six* Muslim employees for not clocking out during their daily breaks for prayer. Even firing a single employee would have been pretty gauche of them as a business, but when you get anywhere past, say, three or four, then words like "discrimination" and "Religious Tolerance" start to get thrown around.
Not to mention "Lawsuit".

Muslim Youth Win AK-47s, Hand Grenades in Qu'Ran Recital

So, I am having some difficulty believing this is true. It seems too perfect an example of the kind of stereotypes that our Western culture has adopted about Islam, the epitome of yellow journalism.
And yet, there is more.
The New York Times? Really? Wow.
Honestly, this really makes me a little unsure of how I should feel. The label of the extremist, AK-47-touting, turban-wearing Muslim is an image that is all too subtly present in our pop culture, (and probably just as present in our social subconscious). I would be more comfortable with the assurance that the above article is a fabrication, something that WE have invented to justify our own misconceptions, rather than proof of its accuracy. The fact that the contest was orchestrated by the Shabab - a group that has been linked with Al-Quaeda, is even more uncomfortable news.
So what are we to do with this information? Well,
In the same way that within Christianity, you have the Westboro Baptist Church and the Salvation Army, it is important to remember that militant religious groups are in no way representative of the religion as a whole. Extremists will exist in all fields, and where there is extremism and the possibility of disagreement, so also is there the possibility for violence.
For now, I'm hoping that none of those AKs will be put to use.

SCANDAL.

There are NO HATS in the Bible. Seriously. Not one hat, nor even a single mention of hats.
Don't believe me? Go to biblegateway.com and check it out.

No.
Hats.
At all.

What can the Christian community really make of this? If God never intended us to cover our heads, (as evidenced by the profound lack of hats or headgear in the bible), then is it not a a terrible act to wear anything upon your noggin?


The Face of Sin

In fact, it is probably just as bad to be anything but bald, as hair would cover your head in much the same way as a hat. In FACT, Leviticus 13:40 states, "A man who has lost his hair and is bald is clean."
Q.E.D.
I'll go get my razor.

Today Cathedrals, Tomorrow Street Corners

So, coming out of class a few days ago, I saw this.



If you can't read that, it says 'Discover forgiveness for all your sin, and eternal life in the living Jesus, not church".
I sat and watched people walk by this man for several minutes. Every few seconds, he would shout something like "we are not robots - open your eyes," and, "It's not about church, it's about God." To is right, a woman was handing out pamphlets and CDs. Most people either ignored them both, or politely turned her down. One young student shouted "Yeah!" as he walked past.
I grabbed a CD and a pamphlet, and returned to watching. Gradually, the flow of students trickled down as the next wave of classes started, and that left him standing alone.
I approached him.



His name was Micheal.
We chatted for some time about his message and the idea of God as a whole. His basic message seemed to be that proof of God was all around us, in the beauty and complexity of creation. "Chaos begets chaos" was his argument. "There is no way this Earth could come from something like that."
He mentioned the human eye, I mentioned the Giraffe's Cochleal nerve. He pointed out my analytic way of approaching the world, I addressed his incomplete proof of God's existence.
"It's not about churches or organization," he told me. "It's a personal journey. Each person has to find god for himself."
I didn't bother pointing out that he was here *telling* people to "find God for themselves". Ultimately, Michael was an open-minded and moderate Christian, for someone preaching on a college campus. He said that he respected my views, though he also insisted that I would only truly experience God if I abandoned them, and gave in to faith.

I've always thought that it's important to listen to people who believe something strongly enough to forcibly press their ideas on other people. Hopefully, it is these people who have the best-formed arguments for their own opinions, which lets you examine a viewpoint at its utmost.
The CD turned out to be music that Michael wrote and produced, and surprisingly enough, falls somewhere in the "House" genre of techno. Some of it wasn't half bad. Had I not known the context of its distribution, I might not have even guessed it had any Christian associations.

Just goes to show that prophets come in all shapes and sizes.

And He Struck Down Upon The Sinners With His Holy Bat'Leth

So, you believe in the Jedi Church, eh? Perhaps midichlorians flow in your blood? Have you found a life within the balance of the Force?
Well, nuts to that. You should join a *true* religion, a properly monotheistic faith, like Judaism or Islam.
Or Klingon Christianity.
Oh yes.
It's a thing.

What, you thought all those klingon weddings took place without His holy presence? Pfft.

First Gay Presbyterian Minister Ordained

Which is awesome. And more importantly, this is not necessarily a isolated event. Now that the ban on homosexual ministers has been lifted completely, there could be any number of homosexual ministers in the future. I'm not Presbyterian, but that's very cool.