Many churches have gone under fire in the recent years with many anomalies associated with their financial aspects. Pastors and other leaders have been accused of embezzling their group’s money and other assets on personal spending with some even getting scrutiny from the senate and congress. Being such a potent part of society, these religious groups have established the fact that all men are humans and all fall for the same reasons, lust and greed. All human beings are gullible and all want the easy way out from time to time. May you be a priest or preacher, all people are humans and are liable to make mistakes we humans are very good at making.
In some parts of Asia, there are religious factions that are considered to be so powerful they are wooed by political leaders for support. These groups have a large majority of the population in their congregations and have members from all walks of life. And they all have one thing in common; they search for meaning in life as they go through it. The inspiring words of their helicopter-riding preachers who have million dollar houses and luxury cars seems to take them into another plane without poverty and despair. We will be sure to see more and more people turning towards religion for meaning in life, the current environmental disasters and the effects of global warming are starting to be felt causing economies to crash and the weather to go wild would get more onto the bandwagon. Whatever the country or belief, religion has the ability to take us into the realm of the supernatural as we seek meaning for daily life.

I came upon the discussion in the New Humanist where it takes on the sudden resurgence of religious beliefs even in the upper middle class who are educated and well versed in the modern virtues of daily life. As I see it, the resurgence is not only contained within the country but all over the world which has seen a lot of people going back to their roots in religious beliefs to get through life even if one is armed with all the knowledge from college and from years of accumulated experience.
In the USA, Born Again Christians are all the rage with the Austin’s Lakewood Church a good example of a religiously based society that mixes business with faith. The founder of the church says there is a direct link between the two for realistically speaking any religious faith has an arm which deals with financial wealth and management which it is sure to have and obtain. May it be through book sales, donations and other sources, all have a form of financial presence in society that members do want them to be accountable and transparent for all to see. With respect to the church in question, the founder admits that his church is a family run business with the preacher being the main spiritual leader and producer of their much watched television program. The stadium they use has been renovated to the tune of a hundred or more million dollars to enhance the experience for its members. The earnings of their gospel church goes into the theme of 40 million plus from donations, another 40 or so million from book sales and some more from other business ventures. In one of his books, a reporter once asked why there is no mention of Jesus in his main ideals. The pastor replies that they are indeed backed-up by verses from the scripture inside the book which uses plain and simple everyday language which he then reinforces with the word of God. The said book is a best seller among Born Again Christians who first and foremost are termed as “the Rebels of the” religious world. They mix the scriptures with song and drama of eloquent speeches whose aim is to entice more members as they preach the word of God.

The damage has been done and what we are doing with either supporting these types of work is either to fuel the fire that is already raging between all races and religions making it burst into a conflagration that might spell our end. The Danish government’s reply to the outcry of Muslims is outrageous and is a sign that better relations and understanding between people from all over the world should be at the main agenda of the UN, where even the Secretary General has received fire for his statements towards the said cartoon. 

The root was a cartoon but the implications are far reaching than the pages of the newspapers they were printed on. I am a Roman Catholic and how would you feel if Jesus was in that cartoon instead of the Prophet Muhammad, or the great Buddha for Shinto’s? the effects might be too hard to quell and such insensitiveness to issues like these which are so trivial and could have been avoided in the first place fuels the rage and anger of young Muslims who have been educated in radical Moslem thinking infusing violence into the spreading of the word of the prophet as part of the whole deal. I am not a Muslim but I feel affected by such insensitiveness which was done just for fun or the right to express ones self. You be the judge, should the said cartoons have been allowed to go on to the presses again and again? Or should the media have recognized its role in the protection of the rights of those who might be affected by the fallout of such short sightedness? 

Many have heard of the news regarding the Danish Cartoons that had the Prophet Muhammad humiliated beyond context of his significance to his followers. He is the Supreme Being to Muslims from around the world and even stems from the tree of Abraham who during the same time existed besides each other as Christianity was becoming prevalent and was heavily persecuted by the Romans. How would you feel if your faith was attacked in the same manner? As we all know, many Muslims have felt outcast form the events in history that highlights their handiwork in what has become a standardized form they are to take their whole lives. In the United States, many people say that the borders of discrimination have long disappeared but there is discrimination at work in each and every turn. Ask any Chinese, Jewish, Muslim American and they will all tell you the story of their being discriminated against on the basis of their color and religion. A recent TV show I came to watch had an Investigative TV Crew stage a scene where there was a young Muslim woman who was out to purchase a loaf of bread from a bakery with the clerk refusing to serve her due to her religion (the clerk was part of the act), and sadly many people failed to uphold the right of that said woman who was an actual Muslim but was born and raised in the United States. One man drew fire from the clerk but not to defend the young lady but to defend himself by asking if the clerk has heard any news of any Palestinian or Jews (which he happened to be) blowing up anything recently which can cause him not getting his loaf. One White Supremist even praised the attitude of the clerk for refusing to sell to the young Muslim lady. He cursed at the camera crew and the host (who happened to be of some other race) saying they were not Americans and that they deserve hell.

We all fail to recognize the need to live in harmony with each other for this earth we live on is just one earth. No second chances, for if we end up destroying it, we don’t have anywhere else to go to. Time will come when all of us will be gone from this earth and all of us would return to what we were made of, the earth itself, dust. All of us would turn to dust after we die and that only has one color, grey or brown. We might have similar DNA yet we hate each other so much which still baffles most people. Look at each and every child who does not know how to speak, take one from each country on this earth and place them in a room and you will not see any prejudice or violence. Inside that very room they are just kids, kids who don’t care about religion or skin color or where they were born. 

I’m still amazed at my daughter’s friendliness towards everybody, the mailman, the kid who lives off the street, the stranger who passes by, all she says is “HI!” and her face lights up with a smile even though she doesn’t know that person. The innocence of youth is what we loose first as we get an education on this earth, as we learn right from wrong which should be one of the things we shouldn’t change with ourselves. “Give a smile from time to time, it’s free, it makes people happy and it doesn’t cost a cent.”

In today’s political war of the worlds, secularism is a dying cause for go anywhere and you find violations of such a law ever existing. In the Philippines, church leaders go out on the streets calling for the ouster of their president besides prominent political figures. In Burma, Monks march on the streets to promote better openness and to show the rest of the world that their government is not doing enough for the people. In the United States, most candidates avoid areas of religion though Muslims and other religions and races continue to be persecuted for their beliefs. The United States of America was founded on the principle of separatism between the church and the government and that is very much evident in the provision of the Constitution of the United States of America which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This basic principle defines the line between the people and their religion. There is supposed to be no racial or religious prejudice in the United States as the provision states but that cannot be farther than the truth. There are Americans who see America as for the American and that means all those decent form their forefathers who worked the land no other. 

The persecution of people because of religion has been raging wildly in the streets and minds of people from all over. Right after the attacks of 9-11, Muslims suffered greatly from such actions and people, sometimes friends have fought over such differences. Never mind the true stories of the people who lived and died during the event. Never mind the Jew who pulled out a Muslim on the street as they made their way out of the danger zone. Never mind the unselfish acts of heroism people showed during times of need that saw the world in black and white, life and death. 

At this time Natural law has been divided into two main areas; the law of man and the law of Nature which is said to define what where and how things happen around us. This in turn relates to most modern views of the so-called natural Law, the definition of which is still an enigma to this day even with all the sciences and theological bodies that try to define and give meaning to it. Analyzing religion from all sides, we have a common fact in that all of the sects/groups have a single being at the top, Jesus for the Christians, Muhammad for the Muslims, Buddha for the Shinto and so on and so forth.

Summing all of this up, the term “Natural Law” is still a vague yet seemingly defined concept that causes us to go back to the questions our ancient forefathers asked themselves, why are we here, how does the world and nature work out as it does and what may be the future for us in this ever-changing universe which “Natural Law” controls but whose true meaning is still out of grasp. Many philosophical and scientific genius have defined it but to look back, their definitions lead to more questions rather than answers. Science as we know it is an evolving body of knowledge and Philosophy as well is such that both have a common function, which is to give us reason, a reason to find ourselves in our place in this time and space and time of thinking as we evolve into the future human race. No one authority should claim supreme authority for man is a thinking being capable of creating his own view from what is happening which makes the task ever more difficult. The true definition of Natural Law might be out of reach but we are all embodiments of the said law however incomprehensible and vague it may be.

When the Romans came, they adopted and created their own set of laws that became the standard for legal; theory and which was to become a part of the Roman Empire’s reason for success in their conquest of the known world. They formulated laws that derived from the natural laws of Aristotle’s times that stated things happened for a reason combined with their view of man’s reason in the whole equation. Government was created and the senate was formed, comprising of people from everyday lives when it started, turning into a circus and playground for the rich, famous and influential in the empire’s later years. The Romans worshiped gods and deities which were descent from the ancient set of beliefs which were from the foundations of faith created by men in Aristotle’s time as they sought for an explanation for why man was here and who was making all these events possible. The branches of sciences have been defined and they were being improved on by the many so-called experts of  the day.

Christianity was a growing religion which was based on doctrine that there was only one GOD who was responsible for all the events and was the embodiment of early understanding which had quite a loose division between religion and the sciences. The coming of Jesus (which is still a controversial fact that scholars are debating to this day) which is said to be the embodiment of GOD who became man along with prophets who preached the works of GOD (this is the time when many of the world’s modern religions figures were formed such as the belief in the prophet Muhammad who was said to be a descendant of Abraham) into their own right or religious groups.

Who was the individual that coined the said term? Well, after much searching and research, as it turns out, no one? Yes they are strewn all over on t-shirts, bumper stickers and posters plus hundreds of other stuff yet in the most basic definition, the term “Law of Nature” has no scientific basis and is mainly a creation of man. The term “Law of Nature” has been found to be a generalized terminology used to describe the whole body of laws that man has formulated through the ages into a singular definitive description hence the term, laws of nature.

Natural law was seemingly conceptualized by the Greeks when the decided that there was something that controlled the things that happened around them. The coming and going of the stars, the moon and stars plus the changing seasons, they looked at is as if it were following a set pattern. This pattern was the defined lay of nature. In a time when man was starting to ask the question why am I here and what purpose do I have for being here it was a plausible explanation. This is also the time when the many sciences were developed and formulated, separated from the theoretical or philosophical world by trying to define using set measures, such as the concept of time, seasons and many more which allowed these natural factors to be predicted hence making them into a foreseeable event. The factors which also say make the flowers bloom during the said months and bear fruit best when a set of conditions were set allowed cultivation of domesticated crops ending the nomadic lifestyle.

Our condolences to the family of the late Benazir Bhutto due to her untimely and unjustified death. Her death has sparked outrage from all corners of the world pointing again to extremism as the most likely culprit. Some blame those who do not want to relinquish power, others still blame those who aim to promote disarray in the volatile Muslim world. At a time when Muslims cry oppression from all sides, people have turned into that fear using it as a weapon brainwashing thousands upon thousands of people to become martyrs for their faith.

It has been said again and again that the Koran never has any mention of killing as a way of punishing the guilty nor does it state that dying for the faith fast-tracks their entry into Mecca. The Koran abhors violence and is founded on peace with man and all other things. People have used religious beliefs and infused them with personal and even political workings turning the good news into something straight out of a terrorist training camp. Even the lowly peace loving Mickey Mouse, the ultimate symbol of fun and kids has been used to promote propaganda regarding political views.

She was the first elected Woman in a Muslim country to take the role of leader, though her career was marred by accusations of corruption and other issues who in the political world hasn’t been. The future of Pakistan now lies in the balance and the world is holding it’s breath as they try to resolve the internal turmoil which will hopefully be quelled by the elections scheduled early next year. Where do you get justification for killing another person just because she/he stands for a different political view? Why do people end up dying as they aim to serve the many? Many questions have been asked and the sparks of turmoil have been lighted anew in an already volatile political area that is Pakistan. No religion on this earth is founded on violence and corruption ask any religious scholar and you will find the true nature of violence as being based with man himself. Violence is the easy way and the truth is the hard way (which may be the reason for many embracing the easy way). Our deepest condolences to her family and to all the victims or unjustified killings that happen all over the world in this time and season of supposed joy.