Beliefs @ MindSay

It is my perception that Christianity though it is America's #1 most practiced faith, is suffering from an image problem and it is the Christian believer and how they perceive the world and others that is causing this chasm.

 

How Christains are living their life may not be in line with who Jesus was. Do you agree?

 

How do feel about Christians and their faith? How do feel about Jesus?

 

Chaps

The Dutch Cartoonist was arrested!

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24665094/

 

So the Dutch are now bowing to the Muslims and arrested the cartoonist over the Muslim funnies.  And if you read more about the cartoonist work, he doesn't just make fun of the Muslim's.  Christians and other ppl of strong beliefs are targets for him also. 

 

What is our world coming to that you can't voice an opinion about things that we all know are just wrong and if you don't laugh about them we all would go crazy.  Watch pretty soon, other countries will follow in the Netherlands path and start arresting anyone who makes fun of Muslims.  Carlos Mencia better watch out because he makes fun of EVERYONE and he will be one of the first to get arrested!

This just in... Rev. Wright isn't running for office! This might be a shock to those of you who have got this impression from the incredible coverage he's gotten in the past weeks. The whole fiasco has been fascinating for me.

I think it is interesting to see the reactions to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sound bytes. It is interesting to me because of what it says about people in general. They will condemn a person at the drop of a hat, based on very little information, and apparently they'll spread that condemnation around to others that have associated with them, mainly just the other person in the spotlight. He is just one of many people who have been made to seem like a  horrible person for his controversial comments based on a few snippets of their life. I just love how two-dimensional we can make other people seem while maintaining our own depth, free will, and critical thinking skills.

I don't sit here and pretend that I am superior in the matter. I'm as guilty of this as anyone who is likely to read this. Quite frankly, Mindsay is an illustration of this tendency. It is a largely impersonal medium, where what we write in the moment is likely the only thing we are being judged on. One sentence that we say can be a potential hang up. I'm sure there are quite a few people by now that don't particularly like me here on Mindsay, based solely on one or two things I've said.

In contrast, our family and friends can get away with saying things that we don't agree with, holding beliefs we don't share, and we still will rationalize and justify their behavior. At the very least, we are able in some way to drop it. For example, I don't deny that I have racist family members. I don't consider myself so racist, though I also don't claim to be as free of such irrational, judgmental tendencies as I'd like to be. However, I daresay my friends and family probably think I'm a good person and love me regardless of my faults. And, in turn, I don't think that these people are bad. All in all, they are largely good, likable people.

Based on the short clips of Wright's sermons that many of us didn't try to put into context, Wright was made to seem like an evil man that a Presidential candidate shouldn't associate with. That presidential candidate was then said to be a bad person because he associated with that man closely. Even though that presidential candidate never specifically endorsed the things they showed Wright saying, even though he pointed out that he is a real person with his own, separate beliefs like the rest of us, even though he is capable of thinking for himself just like most of us, people are using this against him.

If I had tried to use this argument with someone, I'd consider myself to be a hypocrite. I associate with all sorts of people that say and do things that I don't agree with. Some of them I look up to in many ways. I would even consider some of them very influential on me. That doesn't mean that because I regularly associate with them that I suddenly endorse their every word. It is, in fact, possible to associate with people without believing in everything that they do.

I'm calling for everyone to just be a little more realistic; to stop assuming that others are less capable than ourselves in holding our own, separate beliefs.  I'm pleading with you all to join me in trying to be conscious of the fact that we all have aspects of our beings that aren't captured in a few moments or sentences.

Is there other life in the universe ?
A thought provoking sequel to What If . . .

Astronomers find system with five planets
By Maggie Fox,
Health and Science Editor

55 Cancri

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA scientists said they discovered a fifth planet orbiting a star outside our own solar system and say the discovery suggests there are many solar systems that are, just like our own, packed with planets. The new planet is much bigger than Earth, but is a similar distance away from its sun, a star known as 55 Cancri, the astronomers said on Tuesday. Four planets had already been seen around the star, but the discovery marks the first time as many as five planets have been found orbiting a solar system outside our own with its eight planets, said Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San Francisco State University. Life could conceivably live on the surface of a moon that might be orbiting the new planet, but such a moon would be far too small to detect using current methods, the astronomers said. "The star is very much like our own sun. It has about the same mass and is about the same age as our sun," Fischer told reporters. "It's a system that appears to be packed with planets."

It took the researchers 18 years of careful, painstaking study to find the five planets, which they found by measuring tiny wobbles in the star's orbit. The first planet discovered took 14 years to make one orbit. They said 55 Cancri is 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer, a light-year being the distance light travels in one year -- about 5.8 trillion miles. The newly discovered planet has a mass about 45 times that of Earth and may resemble Saturn, the astronomers said.

HARBORING LIFE?

It is the fourth planet out from the star and completes one orbit every 260 days -- a similar orbit to that of Venus. "It would be a little bit warmer than the Earth but not very much," said Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona. The planet is 72 million miles from its star -- closer than the Earth's 93 million miles, but the star is a little cooler than our own sun. "If there were a moon around this new planet ... it would have a rocky surface, so water on it in principle could puddle into lakes and oceans," said Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. But the moon would have to carry a lot of mass to hold the water, he said. Water is, of course, key to life.

"This discovery of the first-ever quintuple planetary system has me jumping out of my socks," Marcy added. "We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual." Marcy and other astronomers strongly believe that many stars are hosts to solar systems similar to our own. But small objects such as planets are very hard to detect. Technology that would allow scientists to detect planets as small as Earth is decades away, the scientists agreed.

The researchers have been looking at 2,000 nearby stars using the Lick Observatory near San Jose, California, and the W.M. Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. They have posted images of what the planets may look like on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/telecon-20071106/. The inner four planets of 55 Cancri are all closer to the star than Earth is to the sun. The closest, about the mass of Uranus, zips around the star in just under three days at a distance of 3.5 million miles.

Animation Descriptions

1. Animation Part 1: Journey to a Star Rich with Planets
In the first part of an artist's animation, we take a journey from Earth's surface to the newest member of the 55 Cancri planetary system.

2. Fifty-five Cancri in the Night Sky
This wide-angle photograph of the night sky shows the location of 55 Cancri, a star where astronomers have found a record-breaking five planets.

3. Animation Part 2: Journey to a Star Rich with Planets
In the second part of the artist's animation, we fly out to see 55 Cancri's habitable zone (green) and the orbits of its planets compared to our own.

4. Our Solar System's Cousin?
This artist's concept illustrates two planetary systems - 55 Cancri (top) and our own.

5. Plentiful Planetary System
This artist's concept shows four of the five planets that orbit 55 Cancri, a star much like our own.

What are the possibilities of there being life other than our own in other star systems in other galaxy's in the endless universe ? Anything is possible. Wouldn't it be interesting to connect with other life in far off places ? To learn or share our thoughts, ideas, technology or belief's. To find answers to our most sought after questions and concerns. To find solutions to our most difficult problems. What would we do if we encountered such life ? How would we react ? Are we open, understanding and civilized enough to be able to accept life from another world ?

Until such an event occurs, the question still lingers in my mind . . .

What If . . . ?

 

       There is no need to look any further then inside yourself to find the divine.....The spark lives inside everyone from your first breath...and has been and always will be....The question is how to understand this truth and how to over come the dogma and guilt that has been ingrained in our pysche by organized religion since childhood......search and you shall find....