With the election of President Obama to the Oval Office our country has a renewed awareness to racism. The question is are all acts that offend someone of another rac, racist?

No is the answer that I would come to. All people have prejudices that we learn when we are young. As we grow older we know that these prejudices are not right and we try to keep them out of our lives but from time to time we forget to censure ourselves and  we allow a rude comment to escape our lips.

The difference between  racism and an accidental moment of rudeness is that a non racist will understand that they were wrong and apologize for it. A racist will defend  the statement.

Racism is hatred it is not just being rude or insensitive. Most of the time only the person that knows if they are a racist is the person that offends. Of course past actions can give us a clue as to a person's motives but we must allow for people to change. We all have become the person we are today by being the person we were in our youth. My father always told me that there was no shame in making mistakes so long as we learn from them. 

From now on when I cross paths with a racist, or a rude person, I will do what I can to help that person understand their mistake and change  what is in their heart.

Commonly the first question I hear is, "is there a god". Obviously I do not know for a fact if there is but I see no evidence that a god exists nor even a reason for a god to exist.

“An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m an agnostic.” Carl Sagan

I am not against the idea of a driving force in the Universe. I like Rudolf Otto's idea of a "Mysterium Tremendum". Being as the Universe has always been here, in some form and will always be here, in some form and all knowledge can be obtained from the secrets the Universe holds it is my belief that The Universe is "The Mysterium Tremendum".

A belief in the universe being the supreme being is Pantheism. 

"I believe in Spinoza’s god who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of all that exists, not in the god who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”    Albert Einstein

Spinoza was credited with being a Pantheist even though he denied it at one point.

As Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship a god they are actually worshipping "The Mysterium Tremendum". If a religion claims god's omnipotence and omnipresence but then claims that god is good but not evil then that religion has contradicted itself. One cannot do all and be everywhere if one is not found within both good and evil.

A religion that worships a god that is good and loving but never evil is actually worshipping goodness and their god is simply the deification of that goodness. In contrast they demonify evil as the devil.

I do not believe that there is a force anywhere that plays this Universe like a checkerboard deciding the fates of everything in it.

Obviuosly the next question must be, is there an afterlife? No. There is no end to life so there can be no afterlife. We are all just a bunch of atoms and molecules that have arranged themselves into what has become our bodies. When we die these atoms and molecules simply change and our bodies become something else. We are in fact only a very small part of an enormous, living, ever changing Universe.

As far as the soul, well there is no proof that souls actually exist but I do believe that we all posses a soul. I do not believe that this soul floats into the sky if we are good or sinks into the bowls of the Earth if we are bad. But I do believe in a heaven and a hell.

The soul that we all posses is passed on to us from the people in our past and we in turn pass it on to the people we meet every day. The things we believe in, the people we are is passed on from generation to generation in our families and among  friends.

We all have someone in our past that was a major influence when it came to shaping who we would become.  Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, siblings, teachers, coaches etc., these are all people in our lives that through their actions and advise help us to become the adults we are. In turn we pass what we received to the young people in our lives that we influence.

If what you pass is a good influence upon them then you aid in passing your soul on to heaven. If you insist on being bitter and passing on hatred then you willingly send your soul to hell.

I personally do not believe in "the power of prayer", I find it senseless. If there is a god and he/she has a plan for the Universe I am sure he/she would not change the plan because one person's prayer needed to be answered. 

As for those that claim prayer aids in the recovery from illness I would say, BULL. People that pray might indeed heel faster or with better frequency than those that do not but there could be an easy explanation. We have all heard the saying "what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve". The prayer is a way for the person to get the brain to make the body heal. Each and everyone of us has the ability to aid in the healing of our own minds and bodies, from within.

 Laughter has been proven to be one of the most succesful ways our body heals itself.

What is the bible? Is it a book that is the devinely inspired word of a god passed to us through his prophets? Maybe, but the evidence tends to discredit this.

Awhile back I went to the local bookstore to buy a bible and koran. The aisle of bibles was about four stacks high and about forty feet long. It seems to me that there are many people that have taken god's words and changed them. There was only one koran. The muslims might have some faults but at least they do not change the words and meanings of their sacred book.

If god wrote the bible why have so many humans taken it upon themselves to rewrite it?

I do think the bible has many good parts to it and more people should read it. I do not think of the bible as a book of answers as others do. I think of it as a book of questions. The answers are within each individual and the way we answer those questions determines who we are.

As the years go by and we learn more about the past more and more of the bible is PROVEN to be a book of fiction. I do not see this as being a bad thing. The stories are still good and the words can still bring comfort and meaning to people's lives.

The story of Noah's Ark is a great story unfortunately there is no way it could have happened. Here is a short list of reasons it would have been impossible:

1)There is not enough water vapor in our atmosphere to allow it to rain for 40 days and nights.

2)If it were to rain for 40 days and nights the barometric pressure would have killed most of the animals and all of the humans on the Ark.

3)The bible also claims that water came up from the earth from geysers. This would have poisoned the atmospere and would have caused death to those on the Ark.

4)There were not enough humans on the Ark to allow for a viable gene pool and ensure the survival of the species.

5)There were not enough humans aboard the Ark to have created the gene variations that we have.

6)Plants and animals are not evenly dispursed upon the face of the Earth. Each area of the planet has species that are indigenous to only that area.

The list goes on...

A question that I would like to have answered is this: If god is perfect then why did he feel it necessary to change the way he wanted to be worshiped. God wanted to be worshiped one way by Abraham and his descendants but then Moses told the Jews that god wanted to be worshiped another way and then along comes Jesus and god wants to be worsiped in yet another way. If something is perfect there is never a need to change it, is there?

Here is another question that I have pondered: If the bible is to be taken literally in the beginning, Genesis, why is it symbolic in the end,Revelations?

All of these creationist nuts want us to believe that humans look like god because we were made in his image and that the universe was created in seven days.

What these people do not understand is that the first humans did not look like us and they did not have the ability to talk and their mechanical skills were not very well developed.

The order of creation in the bible does not quite fit the way the Universe actually unfolded. For instance the Earth was not created before the Stars.

The book of Revelations has some pretty weird stuff in there and even the most devout bible thumpers will say that it is only symbolic of the end of times. In fact Martin Luther felt the book was offensive. Thomas Jefferson refused to include the book of revelations in his bible.  

When it comes to how the Universe was created scientists may never know all of the answers but they are collecting new evidence every day.

Evolution is a fact. It is called a theory because science has not figured out exactly how or why it happens, but we know it happens. The Planets in our solar system orbiting the sun is only a theory. We know they do, that is a fact but we still do not know how or why. Einstein still has the best theory in his Special Theory of Relativity.

The two most important happenings in the christian religion are the birth of Jesus and his death on the cross and resurecting three days later as Christ to be with his father, The Lord

There are a couple of problems with these two events. First christians got the birthdate of Jesus wrong. Now I would like to give them a pass on this as record keeping was not very good then and even during times of modern record keeping.we still get birthdates wrong.

Moving to the death of Jesus there are a couple of items that I am not willing to give a pass on they involve the historical way that the Romans crucified people. They did not do it the way the bible claims he was crucified. First the shape of the cross would have been in the shape of an upper case T not a lower case t. Second the mounting of Jesus to the cross is wrong in the bible. Jesus's hands would have been tied but not held with a spike and his feet would have been one on each side of the cross with a spike going through each ankle from the outside of the ankle into the side of the cross.

These are important evidence that suggest the accounts of the bible are incorrect. One of two things must then be true, either the bible is not the devinely inspired word of god or god is not perfect and he got the facts of the death of his son wrong. 

The biggest problem that all religions have is that people interpret the things they learn about the religion. I cannot understand how anyone can say that they follow a religion of Peace and Love but then find hateful meanings within the religion's teachings.

If a religion is in fact good and teaches Love and someone reads hate into some of the passages of its sacred book then something is wrong. Either the religion is not one of Peace and Love or the reader is misunderstanding what they are reading.

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Rev. Ken's ten suggestions

Life is precious, treat it responsibly. 

."Seems simple enough but so much can be read into this as well as left out of this. I do not say thou shalt not kill. Sometimes death is a more appropriate response than saving or giving life. I  care not for either abortion nor capital punishment. I wish we no longer needed either of these. Unfortunately society has to have them both for the greater good of ourselves. We do need to try, as best as we can, to limit them. This is not easy as we need to define lines in the sand and then try to never cross them. Of course from time to time as society grows there will come need of redrawing these lines. Let us all try to keep in mind that when discussing life and death we need to err on the side of life. When in doubt and no consensus can be reached let life be the answer.

War equals death and death is bad. This does not necassarily mean that war is always bad. Sometimes war is an evil that must be perpetrated upon the nations of the world for the benefit of a greater peace. But never for a greater piece.This is the part that confuses many that would wage war.

War should be waged as a last resort. I am paraphrasing from "The Art of War" but this is what The Sun Tsu believed two thousnd years ago and it still rings true today. He also believed that the best and most prepared warriors would never have a need to go to war.

War may solve a problem but it always leaves us with a new set of problems and they can be even worse. Many brave men and women die and for what? Well usually it comes down to Money. The Money may be disguised as oil or water or diamonds or whatever else one country has that another wants. Truth is most countries have something that others want and need something that others have. Trading these wants and needs seems so much more sensible to me.

In todays world regime change of evil dictators has somehow come to be a reason for war. Why? A country could pay a dictator to go away easier and cheaper than fighting a war.  And war is never the way to spread ones form of government nor religion. If either of these is worthy of being spread they would not need a war to do it.

Now of course wars and abortion and capital punishment are not the only times death needs to be reduced. All living things need to eat to continue to live. Plants and animals are both alive and we need to kill them to eat them. Responsability comes into play here. Just because their final destination is on our dinner table does not mean that we cannot treat them with compassion while they are alive. Abuse of even our future meals is an abomination.

Death is not the only way that we act irresponsibly with precious life. Physical harm, mental anguish, emotional distress are all weapons used by some upon others. We all have feelings and we all are vulnerable. For one to prey upon another and act in ways to take advantage of these frailties is blatant disregard for life. Even the most heinous of individuals should be alotted our respect.

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Remember the Universe and keep it healthy

No doubt this a tough one. No one feels like giving people the respect they deserve all the time. Frustration and aggravation can make us all do and say things that we should not. Often it is an unassuming stranger or even some one that is just trying to help that gets the brunt of our anger.

I was watching Sports Center a short time back and I heard Lou Holtz say something very profound. He said, "The ones that deserve your love the least are the ones that need it the most." He was talking about football players but his statement translates well into modern civilization.

Our crime rates continue to climb, children are being abused, and terrorism has become the new biggest threat to our safety. The people that commit these atrocities deserve our love the least, no doubt. Perhaps if they recieved our love their hearts and souls would be healed and their need to cause pain would cease and desist.

Being an advanced society is not easy. It takes a little enlightening for us all to begin to understand that even the people we dislike are deserving of the respect that we want for ourselves.


Most of us will never come into contact with a terrorist but each of us comes into contact with someone that needs more love and respect than most of us would be willing to give. The bum begging on the street corner, the "crack whore" trying to make enough for that next high, even the despicable child rapist looking for his next victim, are all in need of better treatment than most of us would be willing to give. Do not confuse my want for us to love and respect these people with being soft on wrongdoers. Sometimes tough love is the best love.

On a more practical plane we need to remember the people in our everyday lives. When your child breaks an expensive item and then lies about it, or the boss demands you mis your anniversary dinner to finish a report that may not even be that important, the nieghbor that shoots your dog because it was in his yard, just remember they are human beings that all need your understanding as much as you would need anothers when you do wrong. Quid pro quo as it were.

Respect is what makes the world go 'round. A marriage can be between two very loving people but if there is no respect for one another it is doomed to fail. The boss can be an absolute jerk but if he/she is respected by the workers a strong company can be formed.

Respect can maintain relationships and the lack of respect will destroy them. Respect can heal the world and the lack of repect just might destroy it.

Take not what you do not need, leave it for those with less.

First off let me say I am not advocating anyone take by stealing. I am talking about wasting. Americans waste so much everyday, if only we would stop.

People all over the world have nothing and we just throw stuff away. We go to buffets and pile food on our plates then we throw some of it away and just blow it off by saying I guess I wasn't as hungry as I thought. I drive down the street and see that people get tired of something and just put it out to the curb to be thrown away. I understand sometimes it is time for something new but others can still get use out of used things. Is it too much trouble to call a charity to come pick it up?

I have been seeing a commercial lately about some charity that is advocating getting a laptop to every child in the world. This has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Most of the world does not have potable water or enough food to eat, and this group wants to take them laptops. Why not take them a balony sandwich and a glass of water. I would imagine the only people getting anything out of this charity are the people scamming money from it.

What are we willing to do to make the world a better place? Are we willing to to do something that is as simple as not doing anything? Are we willing to just stop wasting? Stop wasting food, stop wasting electricity, stop wasting gasoline, stop wasting time etc. etc. etc.. Stopping the waste and saving it for others is not quite the same as giving to the needy but it is close.

I plan on updating this page from time to time as more questions come in. If you have a question you would like to ask me I will do my best to answer it as honestly as I can or give you the direction to find the answer for yourself.

rev.ken@universalchurchoflove.com