Thoughts on War: I saw one picture of graphic violence with respect to the latest insane Iraq mosque bombings. How can anyone steal the beauty of those mosques? They were simply gorgeous edifices constructed by the mind of man. The destruction of them is so sad and the annihilation of people even sadder. The carnage is unimaginable. It simply staggers me. I think with all the glory, all the parades and all the hoopla about war this is what war really is. It's not glory and it's not flag waiving. It is bodies ripped apart so one can barely identify that the corpse was once a human being. The man on a stretcher in an Iraqi "emergency room," the remnants of whose body I saw, was somebody's son, somebody's brother, husband or friend. The love of him has been drowned in a river of blood. His identity covered soon by the dust. Most of us who live here are lucky. We are not used to this kind of violence except if you were so unlucky to have been at Ground Zero on 9/11 or in the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Generally speaking, we do not know the carnage that exists in Iraq except for the few who were so unlucky to be sent to that God forsaken place and are among our dead or wounded.

Then, of course, I think of Hiroshima or Nagasaki as recently I had the misfortune of seeing the graphic pictures of that too. It is unimaginable. Every day I think of the Holocaust and the ovens, the torture and death. I search for meaning where there is none. How can we do this to one another? Why? It is such a waste of humanity. Somewhere among the dead of recent wars perhaps lies a scientist, an artist, a playwright, a mathematician or a biologist who cures disease. Why do we waste life with such ease? What religion tells human beings to do this to one another? It is beyond my understanding. I simply do not know. I have been told history is written by the victors and that I believe is so. Really, though, in the end we are ALL the losers. War today, I believe, has no winners. I shake my head in disbelief and wonder if I will ever live to see the senseless violence end.

Homosexuality -- a Biological Imperative and Biblical Fallacy: In my opinion, there is no question that homosexuality, generally speaking, is biologically determined in-utero probably due to a combination of hormonal and other genetic factors. It is impossible to think that most would choose a life which is fraught with difficulty if there were not an overwhelmingly compelling nature-driven dictate orchestrating man's sexual symphony.

As man's knowledge increases I hope there will be a time when the issue of gay marriage will be moot. I trust some day the Biblical edicts which some interpret to frown upon and exact brutal punishments for homosexuality will be understood in the same context as the Biblically fallacious ideas that once believed the earth was the center of the universe. Through science and observation we absolutely know the earth is just a small part of huge universe and that it lives because it revolves around the sun. We can, therefore reject much of which is undeniably scientifically and fundamentally untrue about the Bible. Likewise, I hope, someday science will verify the fact that biology itself determines sexuality. When this happens it would be nice if the murderous behavior of all those religious fanatics who base their cruelty against homosexuals on Biblical veracity would finally see the error of their ways.