Are Most Wars Fought Over Religion?

When I was just a little tot back in the 1960's, my grandfather told me that most wars were fought over or better stated in the name of religion. As I have grown older, I believe my grandfather was right as daily killings continue in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Even the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States were conducted with religious overtones and the resulting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are publicly being conducted as wars against radical Islam. In the words of Rodney King, 'why can't we just all get along'? My opinions about this subject are different from most people that live either in the United States or in some far away Muslim country.

To me there is a huge difference between a persons belief in God and organized religion. Years ago, the faith that I was born into, Baptist, turned me off of that religion because of their never ending need to control the lives not only of other members of the church, but also the lives of people in other counties that did not share the same belief system. When Ronald Reagan become the first conservative and religious leaning President of the United States - at first I thought that having a US government that was based on Christian principles would be a good thing. In hind sight I was completely wrong. Most organized religions are completely based on controlling the behavior of others and in the end all of the worlds major religions have at one time or another consider killing as a justifiable means to a religious end.

Do I believe in God? Most certainly yes. Do I believe that most of the worlds major religions serve God? Most definitely no. Maybe it has always been this way and the United States is just now seeing the world from the eyes of people that do not share our same Christian belief system? From my years of watching people from all religious backgrounds justify sinful behavior in order to advance a religious cause, I have started to see organized religion is a completely different way. Whether a person be a Baptist, like me, or following another mainstream religion - all of us are in one way or another controlled into believing that our religion had all the right answers while other religions were completely off base.

Even during the early days of the United States of America - our founding fathers knew what a state sponsored religion could do to citizens that did not agree with it. While the separation of church and state is not written into our nations original documents, there is no doubt that even hundreds of years ago our founding fathers also knew the dark side of organized religion within a free government structure. As the old biblical saying goes, 'there will always be wars and rumors of wars' in the world. The sad truth is that the very words of God are sometimes used by man to force control on other people that do not see religion in the same way as the majority.

Barack Obama's Church Could Derail His Campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has hit a few 'bumps in the road' recently in his bid to win his party's nomination for President. However, none of these 'bumps' has hurt him more than the revelation that his former pastor preaches words of hate in his Chicago church and the fact that Obama refuses to distance himself further from his controversial former pastor is starting to hurt Senator Obama's support among white Democrats. While it is true that white people, like myself, do not understand the true meaning of words spoken by preachers in predominately African-American churches - the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright were not only insulting to white Americans, but they bordered on a complete lack of patriotism and respect for the United States of America.

In Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech a few days ago, I heard words from him that I had never heard from any politician before of any race. While I listened to Obama's speech completely and live on cable television, I found myself agreeing with not only his opinion about his former pastor, but also about the state of race relations in America in general. The problem is that only a handful of people, like myself, heard the entire speech of Barack Obama in Philadelphia and the major American news media missed all the important aspects of what Senator Obama was trying to say.

Unfortunately, for Barack Obama - most Americans only hear short sound bites of what the presidential candidates say, unless they visit a campaign event and listen to the whole speech. While I consider Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech as good as or better than most delivered in my lifetime, 99% of Americans did not hear the words that Barack Obama said in Philadelphia nor will they ever. The only thing most Americans know about Barack Obama's former pastor is that he was seen on video - blasting white America and belittling all of us as a group of people. That was a wrong thing for Pastor Wright to do and Senator Obama is paying a huge political price for that mistake.

In reality, the past seven days have been the worst week for Democrats in a generation. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their blind ambition to become the next President of the United States have turn mainstream America against both of their campaigns. The only real winner during the past seven days has been Senator John McCain and for Democrats that is a real shame. Whether or not Barack Obama's preacher will be responsible for dooming his campaign is yet to be known. However, there is no doubt that right now Senator Barack Obama is damaged goods with many mainstream moderate to liberal white Americans and he needs to do more if he wants to become the first African-American President of the United States.

Price Of Diesel Averages Over $4 Per Gallon

While most Americans have watched the average price of gas rise to over $3.50 per gallon, the price of diesel has gone up even higher to where now the average price of diesel fuel is well over $4 per gallon. I am old enough to remember when diesel fuel sold for only a few cents per gallon back in the early 1970's. At that time, I was a young kid growing up on a farm where our annual cotton crop would have been impossible to grow and harvest without the aide of tractors fueled by diesel. How today's farmers are able to turn a profit when their tractors are running on $4 per gallon diesel fuel is hard to comprehend.

In addition to diesel fuel, some of our old farm tractors ran on a product called butane which sold for around 3 cents per gallon back in the 1970's. Butane along with propane were considered a junk waste by product back then and for years it was just burned off into the atmosphere until the oil companies found a way to make extra money off of them. Now, butane, propane and diesel fuel are more expensive than regular unleaded gas and why this change has taken place is something I do not understand. My guess is that federal regulations are somehow responsible for turning these fuels into giant money makers for major oil companies.

In addition to farm tractors and some automobiles, diesel fuel is used mainly in big rig trucks or what some people call 18 wheelers. The very lifeline of most retail business in the United States would be helpless without these big rig trucks on the road delivering food and retail products to stores and supermarkets. Now, every week when my wife goes to the supermarket, she comes home all upset because the prices are going up every week while our family net income is staying the same. I'm sure almost everyone in the United States has felt the same stress and pressure that my own wife has faced as she tries to make her grocery dollars go as far as possible.

In my opinion, the rising price of diesel is the main reason that the US in facing a recession in 2008. Yes, gas has gone up too - but not as much as diesel has gone up and with all big rig trucks running on diesel fuel, there is no choice but for those drivers and the companies that employ them to pass along the higher cost of diesel fuel to the retail customer. In reality, if the federal government does not get it's financial house in order, fuel prices will continue to go up while at the same time retail spending will be going down dramatically. While some believe the price of gas will rise to $5 per gallon by summer, there is little doubt in anyones mind that the price of diesel will exceed $5 per gallon months earlier than it's petroleum counterpart gasoline.

Some Men/Women Never Grow Up

Have you ever heard the saying that some people never grow up? I have and I believe that saying, too. While some people think that some folks just stay young and naive because of the pressures of a grown up world, I believe there is something genetic about this issue – but I cannot prove it. Personally, I think I have matured alright, but down deep inside I love the think like and sometimes act like a young man instead of a mature almost 50 year old.

There is another issue that I would like to express here and that revolves around the fact that most people never change. In a strange way, our brains are wired to keep doing the same behavior over and over again while at the same time expecting a different result. Everyone has known a person that has these attributes and they have watched in amazement as people continue to make mistakes over and over again because they refuse to change their behavior.

The ability to learn from ones mistakes and make lifestyle changes to stop bad behavior may not be as easy for some people as it is for others. That is the area of human behavior that I believe revolves around genetic development. For me, change is one of the hardest things to ever master in life, but I do understand that if I have certain personality traits that are self destructive, I must change in order to survive and to be happy. I do not believe that all people view this issue in the same way and that is why they continue to make bad choices that always bring them back to a messed up life and a feeling of being out-of-control.

As children, we are all a blank slate when it come to experiences in life. Even in our first few years of life, we must challenge authority in order to learn valuable lessons to be used later on. All children were told by their parents not to touch a hot stove, but most children touched it anyway because of this internal need to rebel against authority. At some point in life, most people understand that the people in authority are just trying to help us to not get hurt and slowly they begin to mold into the mainstream of life.

However, there are always the few among us that never accept authority as trying to help and the rebellion inside of these people continues for the rest of their life. This genetic trait is the same one that causes adults to keep doing the same bad behavior over and over again and expecting a different result. There are smart people that are doing research into this area of the brain and I look forward to reading about their research at some future date. Until then, I will just accept that some people will never change for the better and I will also try and stay as far away from them as possible because I prefer a happy consistent life, rather than one filled with never ending disappointment due to an inability of the brain to adjust in order to correct bad behavior.

Passport Story Leaves Me Confused About Outrage

A few days ago, it was discovered that Senator Barack Obama's passport file had been accessed on three different occasions at the US State Department. Shortly thereafter, it was also reveled by the State Department that both Hillary Clinton and John McCain's passport records were improperly reviewed as well. While breaches of this kind are wrong and should not be conducted at a US agency like the State Department, I am a little bit confused about the level of outrage express by all three major candidates running for President of the United States in 2008.

First, when I high profile figure like John McCain, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama travels outside the United States – it is well known not only where they have gone, but the reason for their trip is usually well documented among the mainstream media which reports those trips to the public. Most likely, the level of outrage express by all three candidates is to hopefully head off future investigations by members of their opponents dirty tricks department hoping to dig up dirt as this years campaign moves forward.

It has long been known to people that are responsible for keeping American secrets that the US State Department often times is responsible for reveling our secrets to both friend and foe alike. The US State Department is filled with career diplomats that sometimes use their own judgment on what should be released to the public instead of following the law. In this case it does appear that some civilian contractors and one State Department employee did access sensitive information in an unlawful manner. The civilian contractors have been fired by their company and the State Department employee has been reprimanded for wrongly pulling up Hillary Clinton's passport file while conducting a State Department training class.

Most conservative Americans, like myself, worry more about intrusions from an ever growing government complex much more than anything else. It is in the very nature of most Americans to not trust their government and the bureaucrats that do the tedious work directed toward them by the Congress and President of the United States. There are few things that most Americans fear more than a lifelong bureaucrat taking a look into their background information and using that data to cause problems for the person involved. There are strict rules in place to allow as few people as possible, in government, from having access to the private records of Americans.

Once again the State Department has messed up and let low level employees and non employees see information on American citizens that was not allowed by law. Hopefully, this latest passport mess will be fixed by getting the State Department to update their procedures as to why and how people are given access to this most sensitive of information.