"We Need to Tell Them There is a God''

There's a sad irony that we have people running around this country hoisting their religious beliefs on others. Not only the Schiavo case but also the Red lake incident...

"We Need to Tell Them There is a God''
26 March 2005

An Illinois man erected “nine wooden crosses outside Red Lake High School” on Thursday night.

Greg Zanis, of Aurora, Ill., has traveled the country placing crosses he's made to honor people who have died in car accidents and school shootings. He calls his group Crosses for Losses.

Zanis said he puts up the crosses at the scenes of school shootings because he believes they happen because God is excluded from schools, so kids don't learn the difference between right and wrong.

"We need to tell them there is a God,'' he said.

However, in Red Lake, perhaps not everyone believes in the same God as Zanis. On Friday morning, two of the crosses were missing.

MORE & Links - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=629

that was 10, including the killer... so they feel he doesn't deserve a cross, I guess.

The same guy originally put up crosses for Harris and Klebold, but they were taken away.

Said he travels around doing thing. All fine and well, but he he presumes everyone is Christian and subscribes to his God.

All you have to do is accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

You don't have to actually do what He told you to do. That would be difficult, and inconvenient. Just pay Him lip service and you'll be rewarded with eternal life and a pound of processed American cheese food in the shape of a cross.

Legally I suppose I should call it "Processed American Cheese Food for Jesus", but that doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

I registered www.BuyJesus.com

I can't decide if I want to sell ridiculous trinkets or expose fundy hypocrisy.

Any suggestion or help welcome.

If you have an appropriately subtle touch you can sell them stuff that they'll take as a sincere reflection of their beliefs, while everyone else will look at it and say "what the hell's wrong with that nutcase"?

N.B.: I am not calling all Christians nutcases -- not at all. I am only referring to a certain type of so-called Christian.

of selling pdf's of bumper stickers.

When Bev Harris had a "Free Bumper Sticker" logo on her site linked to a down loadable pdf I thought it was a great idea.

That would be cool.

And sell the silly trinkets!

You go!

I LOVE those two BEAUTIFUL WHITE CENTRAL INCISORS... Are they crowns?

Who's your Savior -- and who's HIS dentist?

On edit: found the pic!



sw

Great idea. Try to sell Bibles and claim that the Holy Ghost guided you to recreate Jesus' signature in English.

Someone needs to tell the hysterical people outside the hospice that there is a God and Terri will be in a better place. Their outrageous rantings about death are quite troubling.

screamed at and harassed strangers (& their families) in their death-beds?


Me too.

and who defines this god? What kind of god would permit school shootings because god is excluded in this man's words or mind?

You should and see the lyrics in the post.

"I had wanted to meet the Dalai lama for a long time. He is a sweet and humble man who works tirelessly for peace. As an exiled spiritual leader and outspoken advocate for the Tibetan people, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. He has made a tremendous difference in the way the world understands peaceful movements for self-determination.

"We finally met in 2003 at an interfaith temple just outside Bloomington, Indiana. The Dalai Lama had named the temple, which is on the grounds of the Tibetan Cultural Center, Chamtse Ling or 'Field of Love and Compassion.' His older brother, Thubten J. Norbu, had spent decades working on the temple in fulfillment of a long-cherished dream.

"Leaders from sixteen religions and denominations were there to speak. The Dalai Lama wanted to impress upon everyone that 'all religions have the same potential and capacity to serve humanity.' He stressed that religious teachings should be a part of all of our lives. I understand that there are many paths to God, and I believe Islam is the correct path for me. Like the Dalai Lama, I respect people of different religious beliefs and agree that spirituality should be a central focus of our daily lives. Spirituality helps us achieve self-discipline, forgiveness, and love, which are so essential to a peaceful existence in living among others. .....

" I was grateful for the time I had with the Dalai Lama. I have come to understand that there are those who believe in God and those who make God a reality. The Dalai Lama is among those who manifest God in the journey of their everyday lives. Before leaving, I thought about how I would say good-bye, but then I realized that there are no right words. So I parted from him the only way I knew how -- with a hug and a smile. It just felt right."

- "The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey"; Muhammad Ali; 2004; Simon & Schuster; pages 198-202

Society at large determines the predominant absolute truths. If you're living in Saudi Arabia, God is Allah and Mohammed is His prophet. If you're living in the USA, it's New Testament Yahweh, aka Jesus. If you're living in Israel, it's Yahweh Classic. If you live in Thailand, it's Gautama Buddha for you. If you live in India or Nepal, you'll surely become acquianted with the multifaceted Hindu pantheon. If you're in China, welcome to the Divine Grace of Mao's Communist Party.

Each and every one of them is a-okay with all manner of unnecessary extra-curricular death. See, sometimes things get out of hand, and people have to die in messy and unpredictable ways. Feel free to attribute said murders to any and/or all of the gods, if it helps you cope or make a point. Whoever said religion wasn't flexible and accomodating?

Not long ago Maher was on Scarborough's show and Scarborough thought for sure Maher would be on his side about religion and all that since he was a guest on his show and Maher sometimes pumps Bush's Iraq war etc. and Maher made a good point basically saying what you just said. Depending on your location and what your parents brought you up to believe. Of course Scarborough scoffed at Maher and was like "yeah right."

very spiritual people.

that, as people were leaving one of today's funerals, an eagle circled overhead. It was explained that this is an important sign - it means the soul has made it's journey to the other side safely and the eagle will carry messages from the living to the other world.

Yes it is. Thank you for sharing this.

not one shared by everyone who lives at Red Lake-three funerals were in the Native American tradition.

And when I was a Christian, I didn't equate Jesus as God.

Sounds like you would appreciate reading the entire post.

I don't always read links because of some problems with my slooooow computer. But your link was worth the read. When one realizes that Native Americans were forbidden to openly practice their faith until around 1970, that many Natives were shipped off to Indian schools where their language and culture were often violently suppressed and Christianity thrust upon them, merely taking away the crosses seems to me to be a very mild reaction.

I'm glad you took the time to read it.

That this guy would venture on to sovereign tribal land is astoudning to me. But not everyone in this country understands what we have done to these people.

I'm Christian and a lot of people believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. It never made sense to me because Jesus always reffered to God as "father." So why would he call himself father? Jesus' is supposed to be God's son. :shrug:

Such things have been going on for thousands of years. Wars have been fought to tell others that they are worshiping the wrong gods. Belief defines right and wrong. If a belief entails a doctrine that insists a particular belief is necissary to be good then those that lack that belief are considered evil. And evil must not be allowed to prosper.

jacked up and ready to bleed for it.

-- close to it.

The smarmy little maggots are crawling over everything. Shredding the Constitution like an army of termites, gnawing away at civil liberties, blathering on television about their pet issues.

"Crosses for losses" is a tidy little coloring book rhyme, but it doesn't address the idea that responsible citizenship does not include lecturing others on religious principles, particularly when the lecturers themselves are such hysterical, anti-science, anti-woman, anti-civil liberties kooks who ever got up and walked.

we have freedom of religion and freedom from religion as well.

He didn't get the memo!

speak for him. Poor God. Everything is screwed up and he is so sad. But what can he do? He's only God. He's not the President or anything like that.

The sooner people realize this the better off we will be. But will they ever?

That Hoosier had better watch it. Wasichus aren't the only ones who have spiritual protection, you know.

... or an electric chair or something even as ordinary as stoning. Th Madison Avenue Christians would have a hard time wearing a guillotine or an electric chair around their necks, and who'd take much notice of a rock placed on the ground to mark a death?

Come to think of it, we'd better come up with a device for killing people that makes a nice icon or we won't get a chance to kill the next Jesus. On third thought, it's possible that he's shown up a thousand times in the last century ... but it's been inconvenient for the franchise-holders.

And thank goodness they didn't shoot him. Wayne LaPierre would be a televangelist of the Southern Baptist Rifle Association today, instead of just a secular pain in the ass.

day that they can finally put something from the Bible in a gov't building.

Columbine High School.

Typical press hound. All piety on the outside and obsessed with media attention on the inside.

it totally pissed me off. Who the hell was this yahoo white man to show up on the rez and put up CROSSES for cripessakes! What a presumptious insult to a people who live more spiritually than most so-called "christians" EVER do! How DARE he intrude on their mourning with his tawdry symbol of these peoples' historic oppressors.

And now, reading what this idiot has to say for himself pisses me off even more! What unmitigated gall!

I'm glad that woman took two of them away. Maybe she will inspire some of the others to follow suit. Some of the people there are Christians, so maybe they're fine with the crosses. But the act of an outsider imposing HIS schtick on a community in mourning is unconscionable.

It's THEIR memorial to build, they don't need any "help" from a patronizing publicity hound.

I'm speaking as someone who has lived for several years now among the Ojibwe in Minnesota, who have taken me in as family.

sw

I'm only speaking as someone who honors and respects their traditions and was appalled by this idiot's actions and words.

“Mitakuye Oyasin – We Are All Related"

I loved the John Trudell lyrics, wonderful article!

sw

... you use as your avatar? (Is it a sculpture?)

Would like to bring it into my image file just to enlarge it and look at it!

Thanks...!

The most famous early image of a human, a woman, is the so-called "Venus" of Willendorf, found in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef Szombathy in an Aurignacian loess deposit in a terrace about 30 meters above the Danube near the town of Willendorf in Austria.

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfdiscovery.html

... at least, below the neck. (Gotta get back to my exercise program at 24 Hour Fitness!)

Thanks, kerrygoddess!

I hear that. Who has time to exercise when we're trying to save the world! LOL!

a few thousand years old. And I got it right here on DU in the avatar file.

To find the avatar file, go to either the "Lobby" or "Latest" page and click on "options" in the row of icons at the top of the page, then chose "edit your profile". You'll find the avator collection by clicking on the link provided.

It's a fairly well-known image, however, so I imagine you can also find larger versions elsewhere on the net.

sw

on edit: I see Kerrygoddess beat me in answering your question, AND posted a nice larger image to boot! :D

Ask a question -- get an answer and --

"Learn something new every day!" (Maybe two or three things if you're lucky!)

Now I need to find someone who had experience with twin-size trundle beds -- I want to buy them for my grandchildren's room and don't know anything about them --

(Get ye to the Lounge -- but, first, to bed!)

Peace, sisters (and brothers)!

:hug:
sw

Meeting John Trudell two years ago was a great honor. I've been an admirer for some time. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a performance... DO!

I hope you'll visit our blog again. You perspective there on this piece would be welcomed.

A man of insight and great strength.

We confuse (and hide) "God" with religion, it's exclusiveness, judgments and limitations. Religion...lessens "God"...who is not exclusive of any religion, belief or unbelief.

There would be nothing inherently wrong with being Christian if that really meant honoring God through the example of Jesus. He loved, served and healed. If all those who proclaim him as their savior expressed that love and energy (whether Jesus was man or myth)they could make a wonderful difference in the world.

Wonder if they know Jesus wasn't Christian.

Indians did have a deep and natural spirituality, a connection with spirit in nature. The loss of all that (sponsored by Christians) is a part of why they have the loss of hope. We crushed their culture and made them into a lesser version of us.

And enough of crosses. For god's sake, if you are a Christian you ought to know he was on the cross for three hours, why is that what we want to remember so much? Isn't the message or the resurrection bigger then those three damn hours? Is suffering and pain the message or is the love and the hope and the over-coming?

Even to me the eagle rising does mean more then the cross...and I bet it would to Jesus too.

Agreed.

They (the Christians) don't care that he wasn't a Christian. And they don't really care that they stripped the Native Americans from their own beautiful earth based spirituality.

NO! Why? Morbid and creepy.