But alas all I hear are the same old polarised politics – Christians so convinced that Jesus would vote Republican that they don’t even stop to think about who to vote for.

Or they make it all about a few select moral issues – abortion, gay marriage etc. Now I’m as opposed to abortion anyone, but abortion didn’t disappear during the last 8 years of Bush’s presidency. Very little changed. And isn’t it a moral issue when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or when the poorest members of society struggle to afford basic health care?

Or the protests of “he’ll raise our taxes!”, as if that would be the worst thing in the world. Putting aside the fact that Obama has now pledged to cut taxes for 95% of working families, and that Americans generally pay much less tax than their European counterparts, maybe Jesus wants to see the rich pay more tax.

Once upon a time God gave a group of people a very detailed set of instructions for how their society should function. He instructed them to treat every 50th year as a special year – a year of Jubilee, and on that year all land had to be given back to its original owners. Does that sound like free-market capitalism? If a politician suggested that we’d call them a communist!

So my plea is as simple as this -take some time to think about who you are going to vote for.

I’m guessing he figured he would be better off back in jail, as he is probably on a few paramilitary hitlists. According to link, he and his girlfriend exchanged bullet proof vests as Christmas presents in 2001.

However, it makes me sad to hear that Claire McCaskill has taken Missouri and the proposition to allow embryonic stem cell research in that state will most likely be passed. If I try very hard to be optimistic, this could be a good thing. The embryonic stem cell debate has been a largely political one to date, with both parties using it for votes. I figure a lot of people feel compelled to support it, precisely because the Republicans have opposed it. Maybe in a few years, when billions of tax dollars have provided no cures, people will start to question the ethics and the hype.

Now Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) and Patricia Heaton (Everbody Loves Raymond) have joined forces with some other US celebrities I don’t recognise, to make a counter-advertisement to urge voters in Missouri to vote against the amendment.

Caviezel starts the advertisement with some Aramaic that sounds like “La bora nash bin a shak,” which is a little strange, and now I’m desperate to work out what it means…

UPDATE: This blog has done it’s homework on the Aramaic, and apparently it means “You betray me with a kiss,” referring to the “deceptive nature” of the amendment….ok

Now we can all agree that this is very unfair to vast majority of Muslims who are as peace loving as their non-Muslim neighbours, but just saying that won’t solve the problem. We need to talk about the issues. We need to build trust between different communities.

Northern Irish schools are a wonderful example of how not to handle problems with different communities. In this country most children either attend a state school or a Catholic school, and so grow up surrounded by only children from their own community. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that that reinforces the sense of division between Protestant and Catholic communities, and gives young people a feeling of “us and them.”

I am glad I live in a society where people are free to express themselves in pretty much what ever way they choose and follow the religion of their choice. But Muslims face another choice now: whether to engage with these issues, or blame them all on an intolerant society.

Why is it so offensive to question aspects of Islam when everyone will be happy to give their 2 cents on the Catholic Church’s stance on unbaptised babies?

People do like to simpify things and make them black and white. It seems that most people’s views on terrorism and Iraq etc. have been pushed into 2 camps. The first assumes that everyone including Islamic fundamentalists are rational people and there must be some rational explanation for why they want to kill us (e.g. Bush), and something we can change to satisfy them. The second views the whole situation as good vs. evil and thus assumes we can defeat them, because good (Bush?) always wins…in the movies.

The first camp forgets that Usama and his buddies were carrying out terrorist attacks before the US led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is little to negotiate with someone who believes religiously that the US is the great satan and that they will be rewarded with virgins in heaven for killing a US citizen. The second camp forgets that the US doesn’t have the moral high ground to be a world police force, and that acting unilaterally leaves other countries feeling humiliated.

I hate to sound like a defeatist but I can’t see how this situation is ever going to be solved, and I just trust God has a plan. Though we could try sending Chuck Norris to Afghanistan.