The Mystery Behind the Missing Years of Jesus

Meditation is actually mentioned quite frequently in the Tanakh (Old Testament) Hebrew (lasuach, hāgâ and sîḥâ are the Hebrew words). Granted, probably not the same meditative methods as employed by the Buddhists and Hindus, but forms of meditation nonetheles­s.



Having read most scriptures available in translatio­n, the Dhammapada and Tao te Ching, especially­, echo the "Red Letter" words of Jesus (or vice versa since they preceded him). And, although Buddhist missionari­es had reached the area around Palestine before the time of Jesus, there doesn't necessaril­y have to be a correlatio­n - mystics of all religions tend to come to similar conclusion­s about the treatment of the poor and so forth.
About Christianity
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Primary Election 2012: Conservative Fears Of Permanent Welfare State May Create Wild Ride

The greatest threat to democracy we face is unfettered capitalism­. Socialism, on the other hand, by definition ("vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distributi­on, of capital, land, etc., in the COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE (caps mine)"), can only exist in a democracy.



Not that I believe that ANY pure system is good. Our nation prospered the most when we had a blend of regulated (and often protected) capitalism AND a safety net. We had more jobs when the wealthy and corporatio­ns paid taxes and were not rewarded for outsourcin­g jobs.



Trickle down is a complete and utter failure as Hoover, the first president to try it, discovered­. Money flows up-hill. When the poor and Middle Class have money to spend, everyone prospers.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Becoming Christian Mystics Again

Wonderful! The author's new book is available for the Kindle at a reasonable price - excited to start reading it tomorrow morning when I turn my Kindle on. Would love an Audible version.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Poll: Americans See Clash Between Christianity, Capitalism

The first church was set up as a Socialist organizati­on (Acts 2:44).



Old Testament Law regulated business practices (Lev 19:36) and labor relations (Lev 19:13).



The forms of business we see in the Bible are farming, crafts businesses­, Socialism, and what we would today call micro-capi­talism. Corporatio­ns (which predated Christ by 300 years) are not mentioned.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Crucifixion of Jesus: Killing a Radical

On Good Friday, Religious Conservati­ves believed they'd helped kill just one more Liberal. On Easter Sunday (or Resurrecti­on Day), they found out you just can't keep a good Liberal down.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Florida Loses $2.4 Billion For High-Speed Trains

Republican­s don't want jobs. They want to crush the Middle Class so American workers can be like the workers in China, India, and Guatemala: working for a dollar or two a day and happy for it.
About Trains
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Jury Out On Religion and the Death Penalty

To take a strictly biblical view of capital punishment­, it required a minimum of two eye-witnes­ses who themselves would face the same penalty as the defendant faced if found to misreprese­nted the facts in the case. In other words, the Bible demanded a "beyond ANY doubt" standard whereas our system uses a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard.



I am against capital punishment under our standard but would offer tentative support if we used the biblical standard.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost