"When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow." (A.Nin)

While out earlier today, I asked saw a common bumper sticker that could never fully be explained to me by anyone. The "Jesus fish" bumper sticker is one of the weirdest bumper stickers, and I find it to be somewhat bizarre symbol to represent a religion. So to shed some light to my confusion, I turned to the one and only Wikipedia. Apparently there are multiple theories as to why a fish was chosen to be the symbol, but I still have no bloody idea as to what it means. For anyone who is curious, here is the link to the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_fish

Upon returning home, I decided to finally take a look at today's news, and came across the following op-ed piece by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/opinion/09kristof.html?hp

This year's political season has been turned into a veritable fight for the Democrats to battle either racism or sexism. It seems that the media has sunken its teeth into these issues, while turning a blind eye to the real problems affecting this election: religion. I am thoroughly disgusted by the rumblings among the American public about Barack Obama's heritage and religion. Hillary Clinton suggested earlier this week that Obama was a Christian as far as she knew. Why is it so repulsive to Americans if he is a non-Christian? And why must fellow "liberals" continue to perpetuate such negative connotations to being a Muslim. Its absolutely disgusting that politicians promote hate and fear (I'm not going to comment on Hillary's much touted 3am phone call ad). I wonder how long this is going to go on in this country, and in most parts of the world. Kristof frames the issue of religion and bigotry well, and I just hope that it is examined more carefully in the following days,

I know that we are a prude nation founded on Puritanical values by racist and xenophobic Europeans, and the founding fathers didn't care about people's liberty. Yet it still does not explain why in this day and age we are still can not accept each other's differences in opinion and beliefs. If I remember correctly, America does not equal Christian, so why must religion matter in our presidential candidates and in our judicial proceedings? I never understood why one has to swear on a Bible when in court, or when one is sworn into office. And George Carlin does a great bit about "God" in America's political and social life in his current tour and on his HBO special.

I'd like to see the day when we finally elect a non-Christian to a high office. Actually, I wonder how many non-Christian judges we have sitting in courtrooms across this country now that I ponder the subject further...

Earlier in the week on the Daily Show during the toss to the Colbert report, the issue of Obama's religion came up again but this time it was a great poke at Hillary: