Of course, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told I’m going straight to hell.

The girls speak both English and Spanish fluently, and while mom and dad prefer to speak to them in their native tongues, they can pretty much go either way. Obviously, they were raised very differently, even in regards to their religion (Catholicism). Her family has been very gracious and welcoming to my brother and our family, and the maternal side of our family has to her and hers. It is unfortunate our dad was mean-spirited and highly prejudiced, but he’s been gone now for five years, so a least he isn’t around to make her cry anymore.

I think Jim and Pamela exemplify what an interracial marriage should be. They accept each other unconditionally and learn from each other, but mostly they’re just happy to be human beings > Americans > Californians > San Franciscans. Much to Pamela’s dismay however, Jimmy will still sneak out and grab some Taco Bell on occasion, even know her traditional cooking is insanely delicious. Sometimes, he just wants junk food! haha! Me, I see it as no different than a family going to the Olive Garden for pasta, so as long as they know the food there isn’t all that authentic. ;D

My husband takes it even further and really doesn’t care about his heritage at all and ONLY refers to himself as American. He could care less his mother is Irish or that his father was German, much less where their parents came from or whatever. He considers where he came from to be the neighborhood he grew up in, and that’s that.

As for myself, I acknowledge my heritage, but I don’t have a strong desire to do a genealogy search or learn the languages and customs. But, unlike Ron, I at least have /some/ curiosity, even on the paternal side. More than anything, I am just a curious person by nature. It has me wonder if perhaps *that* is what would bring more people together – to spark their curiosity, which would hopefully initiate at least a platform of tolerance.

The selfishness of the Dominator Culture knows no bounds. “Dominate at all costs or be dominated” seems to be the meta-message at the heart of their ‘holy books’ and organized spectator sports. The Christian Emperors of later Rome did not immediately shut down the Coliseum, nor did they stop feeding people to lions.

During the past Jan-Feb 09 attacks on Gaza by Israel, the kill ratio was something like 14 Israelies (including from the rockets) versus some 1,500 or more Palestinians. A measured response? Many of the IDF Chaplains (rabbis) were quoted as ordering the troops to eliminate all the Palestinians in the way their ancestors did the Canaanites.

If you remember the billionaire villain from the Tom Baker episode “Seeds of Death,” I really think his composting machine should get to meet glenn beck and his buddies first-hand.

First of all, Jewish believe in the Messiah was about the victory of Israel over the Nations (Gentiles), not about bodily or other) resurrection (that was Paul’s gig). Nor was messianism upiquitous, as has been observed by John J. Collins (The Scepter and the Star 1995).

YHWH is not merely the god of Israel, but the ONLY god. The others are idols. If the Israelites believed others should keep to their gods, the Hebrew Bible would not be full of genocide and ethnic cleansing carried out at YHWH’s command against other ethnicities, nor would the Hasmoneans engaged in such behavior – but they did.

The Amalekites are to be destroyed, the Canaanites (whom regardless of history the Israelites believed to be a different ethnicity), and the Babylonians are all to be destroyed. For and by a vengeful god. Their idols smashed and thrown down. The Hebrew Bible is full of this language.

In fact, Ambrose and Augustine looked back to Deuteronomy for their own justification for oppression and intolerance. As Gerd Lüdemann says,the First Commandment is the ultimate source of Judeo-Christian intolerance.

Ragnarok has nothing in common with the Judeo-Christian end-time scenario. At Ragnarok, there is no vengeful sky god wrecking destruction on nonbelievers. Instead, the forces of chaos are unleashed and the gods try to save the world. The gods themselves are destroyed and the destruction gives way to a new, purer world with a new generation of gods. You simply cannot compare them; for there to be similarity Ragnarok would have to clear the world of all but Heathens, but it does not. Belief, faith, true/false, none of these things have anything to do with Ragnarok. Nor are Heathens to blame for Christian influences in Snorri’s telling of the event.

Besides, the Norse claim the same thing about after Ragnarok…

I agree that many of these people claiming to be right are unhappy. Some of them want to be, like those who push the revival meetings, who claim you have to suffer for Christ, and if you’re not suffering you should be. If you’re already suffering, you should suffer more. I know when I became a Pagan I felt immediately freed of my chains. I was able to live in the world again and not apart from it. Yet secular humanism is a modern heresy, and certain elements in our population are determined to stamp it out.

Contentment and peace are laudable goals. And I don’t think outside Glenn Beck’s fevered imaginings any secular humanist ideals ever fueled a holy war. crusade, inquisition, or witch-burning.

Over the years, that question, it seems to me, could be applied to much more than marriage. Many of the ones claiming exceptionalism base it on the idea that they are “right.” But they almost never strike me as happy—the “oh so special” they claim for themselves does not bring contentment even to them.

I am pagan, but deeper than that, I am a secular humanist. I want humanity to get along and find contentment and peace. What we have in common in needs and desires, and what we risk as a species so much outweighs the differences, if only we would see it.