Yesterday during his gun speech president Obama bloviated about how firearms prevent people from expressing their freedom to practice their religion.
All of us should be able to work together to find a balance that declares the rest of our rights are also important — Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well. And we have to be able to balance them. Because our right to worship freely and safely –- that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina. And that was denied Jews in Kansas City. And that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights, too.
Some found that paragraph shocking as it was one of the few times this president spoke of the non-Muslim faiths having rights also. If you ask organizations such as the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby, they would rightly claim that this president has placed more restrictions on First Amendment religious rights than any gun ever did, at least for observant Christians and Jews.
This morning I read about Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian university outside of Chicago taking steps to fire a tenured political science professor because she wrote in Facebook that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
These two incidents got me thinking, what if we all worship the same God? I am not saying we should all follow the same faith or worship the same way. But wouldn’t it solve many of our problems if we changed the word that every faith uses to refer to the Lord. If we all referred to God with the same word, perhaps the Democrats and even President Obama would seek to protect people of all faiths instead of just the ones who pray to Allah.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone called God the same thing and concentrated on what he was trying to teach us?
Over the last few years our politically correct society has adopted many universal names for things. At the very least these universal terms simplify our language. For example a terrorist that kills Jews is called a militant, anyone who criticizes President Obama are known as a racist, government over-spending is now called investment, and taxes are revenue enhancements. If we can unify language with regards to terrorists, criticizing the American President, and taxes isn’t it even more important to come up with a common name for the creator of the universe?
We couldn’t use Allah, it has much too much baggage for the non-Muslims. BesidesMuslims don’t like it when we infidels use the word. And I don’t think that Muslims would not want to use the term God, it’s English, it would almost be like converting and becoming part of the great Satan.
Therefore my suggestion is to come up up with a brand new non-denominational term for the Lord. My Suggestion is Bob.
Bob would be a perfect name for God. First of all you wouldn’t have to commit to major redesign of the Bible, both Bob and God have three letters so the new name would fit in perfectly. The online versions wouldn’t have to be reformatted either.
Sure the Koran would have to be changed, but we could sell it based on how the two fewer letters in the name would save paper and ink costs. Heck I bet the politically correct liberals could even be convinced that the switch to Bob will help reverse Climate Change (since it is really just the natural cycle of the Earth they will be easily fooled).
God’s new name would make our Maker seem so much more approachable and real. If we make the change I guarantee perhaps we wont see a Time Magazine cover that asks “is Bob Dead?” And think about the people who have the habit of using the word “Dammit” after the word God. Their favorite expression will no longer be blasphemous since God will have a new name.
And you know how the politically correct-types hate words that trigger bad feelings amongst minorities? Well think about the people who suffer from dyslexia. No longer will they have to be embarrassed by saying to their friends…”I swear to dog” because Bob is a palindrome, so spelled backwards it is still Bob.
Think of how the kids will feel so much more comfortable going to a house of worship praying to Bob. How much easier it will be to have a personal connection with their deity, Bob is so warm.
The only objection I can find is that Bob is also a name for people. Things could get a little confusing. For example, human Bobs might start to wonder why every time someone hears a sneeze they call out Bob Bless You and why the famous Marlon Brando movie is renamed .
But as far as I’m concerned, that’s a small price to pay, and when you think it through it really
shouldn’t be a problem. I have two Hispanic friends who are very Catholic, and are named Jesus and there is no confusion.
There it is–my case all laid out. In my humble opinion, changing the Lord’s name to Bob is a great idea, some might even call it a Bob-send. If we can all agree to call God the same thing–maybe–just maybe we can listen inside of all of us to hear his voice and follow the teaching of the God, Bob or Allah that is within us all. Perhaps then we will start respecting the beliefs of other people, and our government will start respecting the religious beliefs of everyone even if their faith disagrees with their politics on issues such as respecting life.
Maybe if everyone used the same word for God, our president would realize that Christians are being massacred overseas, or refer to “militants” who kill Jews as terrorists, or even that Antisemitism is a much bigger problem in the United States than Islamophobia. Since this president tends to protect people of the Muslim faith while ignoring the crises facing other faiths perhaps if we all referred to the deity the same way president Obama care about people of all faiths. I am not a prophet, so I would never profess to know what the Lord is thinking, but I’ll bet you Bob would prefer it that way.