The Problem Isn't Generic "Religious Extremism"

To JAY S and the rest of the world: You wrote, "You both seem to have a strange way of looking at logical conclusions. If the universe just seems too wonderful to you to be by natural processes, then it must be god. Yet you don't seem to bother to explore beyond that conclusion. What kind of god? Is it by necessity the Abrahamic god? Is it necessarily sentient, or omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent? Is it something that you can actually pray to? Could it be Einstein's metaphorical god, which is actually the organizing principles that govern how the universe operates?" I do not speak for The Moderate, but I will tell you and everyone else, I have met God, the Trinity, and I have met satan. God is a Being of Pure Love, I can see how that would be hard to believe considering some of the absolute hate-filled garbage being spewed out in His Name. satan is not nice but he can try to come across as mister nice guy and guess what not only is he intelligent but probably more intelligent then the entire human race. Before I met God, I believed in God but I did not know that He was real. Actually it is so simple, we have free will, we will all be judged by what we do and why we do it and by what we know. Repenting is being sorry for the things that we have done wrong, we all have a conscience whether we use it or not. Some people say that you do not have to believe in God to know right from wrong, of course that is true, actually God said "I will write it on their hearts". Believing in God is just that, believing in God, but do you try to live your life in a loving way or to be holier than thou? Some people like to look down on others by saying that they are christians, some by saying they are more intelligent, others by saying whatever, I was taught in second grade that we are all equal in the sight of God, that does not mean we are the same, quite the contrary we are all different but we are all made in the Image and Likeness of God, ALL. I remember a sign in a bar I used to go to a lot and it said, "It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice", it might sound cute, it might sound quaint but think about it. Christianity, in reality but not necessarily in practice, is part of God's Plan for All of His Children to be with Him in His Kingdom, the new heavens and the new earth. God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof in other words calling yourself a christian doesn't mean that you are one where it counts. To TIM and the rest of the world: You wrote, "Let's not forget how hopeless things looked during the cold war and yet how quickly the wall did fall as Regan blew the trumpet and we all prayed. We enjoyed a small period of peace and now we face another, what seems to be hopeless situation." I am an American and I was born in America and I find it really sad when so many people seem to think that America is the whole world. In a lot of ways, America is probably the most arrogant country that has ever existed. America was founded on the highest of ideals, it has never lived up to those ideals but it has tried. Something to think about. God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Dear Concerned the Christian Now Liberated:

This literal and physical interpretation of the resurrection seems to be very important to you. It is not major issue to me, one way or the other. Could the God who created the Universe recreate a person? The Universe is physical, and it was created, so creation of physical entities in not without precedent. So who am I to say no? Paraphrasing the Job Creation story: where where we when God created the Universe?

However, We know what the people who were there at the time thought. The backbone of the Canon was probably set by the mid sixties.

I think he did die on the cross. So that option is bogus.

Moderate,

Aaccording to Reimarus as referenced in R.B. Stewart in his introduction to the recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Crossan and Wright in Dialogue, http://www.amazon.com/.

"Reimarus (1774-1778) posits that Jesus became sidetracked by embracing a political position, sought to force God's hand and that he died alone deserted by his disciples. What began as a call for repentance ended up as a misguided attempt to usher in the earthly political kingdom of God. After Jesus' failure and death, his disciples stole his body and declared his resurrection in order to maintain their financial security and ensure themselves some standing."

And as noted by JPII and Aquinas, Heaven is a spirit state i.e. there can be no bones there or bodies to include the theological glorified body. So where are Jesus' bones? As per Professor Crossan's analyses in his many books, the body of Jesus very possibly would have ended up in the mass graves of the crucified, eaten by wild dogs, with lime in a shallow grave, or under a pile of stones.

Dear Concerned the Christian Now Liberated:

"Yes indeed the Romans were good at torture and executions to include crucifixions. And no one ever physically resurrected from said crucifixions i.e. Jesus was executed/crucified and his body then decomposed by some natural method just like any body of nature."

Finally a rational argument instead of an appeal to some really bad scholarship that presumes its conclusions and rationalizes until it “shows” the desired result. Eventually Funk and the Jesus Seminar have to reject about 95% of the texts by one subjective means or another to arrive at their goal. At that point, as Pope Benedict says, the Gospels are “unintelligible”. Well, close to non-existent, if you only keep Funk's travesty “Red Text”. You must admit that rejecting the introduction to Luke because it does not appear elsewhere is pretty goofy. And yes, I think that it is representative of the whole flawed methodology of the Jesus Seminar, not a very laughable exception.

Okay. You have never seen anyone resurrected from the dead. Moreover, we have no physical science that would explain a resurrection. So it seems very, very, likely that there was no such event. The options seem to be:

1.Jesus did not die on the cross. He was battered and in shock, but still alive, when taken down. So the “resurrection” was a resuscitation.

2.The community thought they saw the resurrected Jesus, now Christ, but they had hallucinations.

3.The Apostles and company simply made it up.

More on these later, case by case. Can you think of other cases?

Moderate,

Yes indeed the Romans were good at torture and executions to include crucifixions. And no one ever physically resurrected from said crucifixions i.e. Jesus was executed/crucified and his body then decomposed by some natural method just like any body of nature.

Dear jay s:

“I am fond of Occam's Razor, not because the most parsimonious explanation is always right, but because it cuts through the more elaborate explanations that many favor, without evidence.”
Yep. Concerning creation, we are faced with two hypotheses:
An infinity of universes, only one of which we can see, each in need of a creator (uncaused cause, if you will).
The one universe we see, in need of a creator (uncaused cause, if you will). Which takes more on faith?

“You both seem to have a strange way of looking at logical conclusions.”

No, I don’t. I have studied logic, both human and machine. I have built thinking machines, so called “inference engines”, and I know the rules of logic; several logics actually. Human reason can go places where no machine can follow. That in itself, is an interesting point.

“If the universe just seems too wonderful to” you to be by natural processes, then it must be god. Yet you don't seem to bother to explore beyond that conclusion. What kind of god? Is it by necessity the Abrahamic god?“
No. It is not of logical necessity the Abrahamic God. At no point have I suggested that this.
“Is it necessarily sentient,”
More than we are.
“or omnipotent,”
Compared to us, yes. Get an astronomy book on the size of the observed universe.
“omniscient,”
Not clear how closely the Creator watches each bit of creation.
“and benevolent?”
On a grand scale, yes. On a Sunday School scale, apparently not. The Universe was precisely tuned to support life. Benevolent enough for you?
“Is it something that you can actually pray to?”
I can. Up to you if you do.
“Could it be Einstein's metaphorical god, which is actually the organizing principles that govern how the universe operates?”
Just reread Chapter 8 “Science and Religion” in Einstein’s “Out of My Later Years”. You have him only partially. He did not believe in an anthropomorphic God, but he was profoundly religious. He believed that human affairs would never be complete with science only. Religion would be needed to make Mankind whole.

“Your neat conclusion just raises bigger questions than it supposedly answers,”
Yes, it would have to, wouldn’t it?
“and theists don't seem to want to do the thought work to explore it further.”
Which ones? I do.
“They just take the pre-packaged god concept handed to them by organized religion, with no evidence at all that this model has any more validity than any other.”
I don’t.
“Those of us with a naturalist view just don't see the need to fabricate a theistic explanation that does not help answer the big questions.“
1.The Universe was created. We can see almost all the way to the Big Bang now.
2.Science, as we know it, has no explanation for why the Universe is so perfectly tuned to support life, but it is.
3.The probability of 2 is absurdly small by accident.
If your null hypothesis is that the universe is an accident results in an absurdly small probability, 1/(10^10^128) by Penrose’ reckoning, You must come to terms with “the opposite of accident”. Face it like a man: that would be “intent”.

“Science works in the natural world, and it has worked very well, without falling back on supernaturalism. Any bets that it will continue to work successfully that way?”

Einstein agreed, but also said:

“It is true that convictions can best be supported with experience and clear thinking. On this point one must agree with the extreme rationalist. The weak point of his conception is, however, this, that those convictions which are necessary and determinant for our conduct and judgments, cannot be found solely along this solid scientific way.”

Another time he said: “Science without religion is blind. Religion without science is lame.”

We need Science. But it will never be enough.

Dear Concerned the Christian Now Liberated:

"There are a number of problems with the "miracles of Jesus" besides the lack of attestations. A major problem was the lack of medical knowledge/help in first century Palestine i.e. any skin ailment being considered leprosy wherein said skin ailment was caused by poor diet, too much exposure to the sun, allergic reactions, reactions to herbal medicines, poor hygiene, and/or too much alcohol. "Go son and take a bath" is hardly performing a miracle."

If you want to have a scientific discussion of the healing miracles, you are entitled to. However, your actual approach is to say that the ancients were primitives who did not know leprosy from athlete's foot. They saw a lot of it, so I suspect they knew it when they saw it. Could the "miracle" been spontaneous remission? Who knows? But these people were not stupid.

Also, Roman executioners were very good at getting people dead. They knew their job. They did it all the time. You may not believe in the resurrection, but please don't do the faculty lounge lizard thing pretending that the Romans were incompetent at torture and homicide because it lets you justify your assumed conclusion. That is called rationalization, not reasoning.

"We ought to pray for the conversion of the hearts and minds of our jihadist enemies. I've heard very few such prayers these past six years."

George, yes you are right. Prayer is important but also that we speak the truth, as you have. Our Muslim brothers need to know the truth. We should pray not just for the jihadist but for every Muslim seeker. God will answer our prayers in this regard. Let's not forget how hopeless things looked during the cold war and yet how quickly the wall did fall as Regan blew the trumpet and we all prayed. We enjoyed a small period of peace and now we face another, what seems to be hopeless situation. It is not. As all things are possible through prayer in His name. Speak the truth and pray in the name of Christ, this is what we do and what we have faith in.

Religion becomes hypnosis;which is why its so hard to cure.

Thomas wrote: "Is there a reason that we have reason? Is the utter simplicity of the complexity of not only everything on earth but everything in the universe kind of mind-boggling? Could maybe the DNA structures of living things have so much in common because they were created by One Who Just Is rather than by whatever?"

Moderate wrote: "The Universe presents with evidence of Creation, and evidence that Creation was carefully done. It is just too good to be accidental.
The only other option than God as the Uncaused Cause is to multiply uncaused creation by infinity. The Atheists are fond of Occam's Razor. Except when it comes to denying God. But when denying God, its okay to multiply uncaused causes by infinity in the absence of any evidence because of their faith tells them to. Very logical, that. ;-)"

I am fond of Occam's Razor, not because the most parsimonious explanation is always right, but because it cuts through the more elaborate explanations that many favor, without evidence.

You both seem to have a strange way of looking at logical conclusions. If the universe just seems too wonderful to you to be by natural processes, then it must be god. Yet you don't seem to bother to explore beyond that conclusion. What kind of god? Is it by necessity the Abrahamic god? Is it necessarily sentient, or omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent? Is it something that you can actually pray to? Could it be Einstein's metaphorical god, which is actually the organizing principles that govern how the universe operates?

Your neat conclusion just raises bigger questions than it supposedly answers, and theists don't seem to want to do the thought work to explore it further. They just take the pre-packaged god concept handed to them by organized religion, with no evidence at all that this model has any more validity than any other.

Those of us with a naturalist view just don't see the need to fabricate a theistic explanation that does not help answer the big questions. Science works in the natural world, and it has worked very well, without falling back on supernaturalism. Any bets that it will continue to work successfully that way?

Don't miss the articles on the front page her at the WPost;
under the heading "More non believers speaking out".

Very encouraging reading.Keep it up non believers.

Just keep on making sense.

Moderate,

There are a number of problems with the "miracles of Jesus" besides the lack of attestations. A major problem was the lack of medical knowledge/help in first century Palestine i.e. any skin ailment being considered leprosy wherein said skin ailment was caused by poor diet, too much exposure to the sun, allergic reactions, reactions to herbal medicines, poor hygiene, and/or too much alcohol. "Go son and take a bath" is hardly performing a miracle.

Dear Duckphup:

Welcome to the Dawkins Delusion...

If we could just get rid of those nasty religions we would have paradise right here on earth. Yeah, thats it, those nasty people who go around saying "Love thy neighbor as thy self." who are really the root of all the world's problem...

This conundrum CAN be resolved... quickly... easily... economically... once and for all.

My simple solution requres only that for one whole month, every newspaper in the free world devote its front page to cartoons ridiculing Allah (peace on him) and Mohammed (peace on him, too). By the end of that time, all of Islam will have self-destructed in a paroxysm of snits, hissy-fits and terminal apoplexy. WARNING: This will not be pretty... but the world will be a much better place for it.

My only regret in this is that I cannot think of a similarly uncomplicated, cost-effective and efficient stratagem to dismantle Christianity... but, oh well... one thing at a time. One only does what one can.

Dear Thomas:

The thing that undermined my youthful Atheist faith is exactly what you have said.

"Is there a reason that we have reason? Is the utter simplicity of the complexity of not only everything on earth but everything in the universe kind of mind-boggling? Could maybe the DNA structures of living things have so much in common because they were created by One Who Just Is rather than by whatever?"

The Universe presents with evidence of Creation, and evidence that Creation was carefully done. It is just too good to be accidental.

The only other option than God as the Uncaused Cause is to multiply uncaused creation by infinity. The Atheists are fond of Occam's Razor. Except when it comes to denying God. But when denying God, its okay to multiply uncaused causes by infinity in the absence of any evidence because of their faith tells them to. Very logical, that. ;-)

TO CONCERNED THE CHRISTIAN NOW LIBERATED and the rest of the world: You wrote, " Keep in mind that most of the Jesus Seminarians have PhD's in theology and/or religious history and are typically professors at major universities. And have published over 100 books on the subject". If you think about it, this statement that you wrote really does go hand in hand with what the bible speaks of, namely that the learned of Jesus's day also had trouble with opening their hearts and minds. Of course, there were some that were willing to listen. I have also noticed that on some of these postings people calling themselves atheist and people calling themselves christians, both read what I post and somehow change the words in them to what they think it says rather than what it actually says, it doesn't matter if they believe what I write or not, but at least see what words I write. A case in point: I said that I met God, two different postings asked what did He look like, I didn't say I saw God, I said that I met Him. Actually after meeting God, I wrote on a previous posting; that was when I understood why the commandment to not make graven images was given to us because God knew it would be impossible to make an image of Pure Love. Of course the crucifix is not a graven image because it is a representation of God-Incarnate and what God did for ALL OF HUMANITY. You also wrote, " And you believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus even though his heavenly destination is a spirit state?", the bible is more than one statement and I would like to make a comment about this question of yours. It also speaks of new heavens and a new earth, could this have something to do with it. Exactly what the new heavens and new earth will be I don't know, since I am just a messenger, but it will be permeated with LOVE, since God is Love. TO THOSE THAT BELIEVE IN GOD: Do you really think that God asked us to be better than Him, to be more forgiving than Him, to be more merciful than Him? Something to think about. TO THOSE THAT DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD: The "how of things" is interesting but have you ever really thought; is there a "why"? Is there a reason that we have reason? Is the utter simplicity of the complexity of not only everything on earth but everything in the universe kind of mind-boggling? Could maybe the DNA structures of living things have so much in common because they were created by One Who Just Is rather than by whatever? See you all in the Kingdom. Take care. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Dear Concerned the Christian Now Liberated:

You are getting incoherent now.

Like many modern fundamentalists (I define that as immunity to reason that operates upon facts.) you are certain of you conclusions and your manufacture notions (distinct from valid arguments) to support them.

Like Funk, you have your conclusions and you manufacture assertions to shore up your feelings.

Funk: Jesus only cured psychosomatic ailments.

Student: What about the leprosy part?

Funk: Oh yea. That. That couldn't be.

Student: Why?

Funk: Because Jesus only cured psychosomatic ailments.

Student: What about the dead guy? It said that he had the stench of death about him.

Funk: Oh yea. That. That couldn't be.

Student: Why?

Funk: Because Jesus only cured psychosomatic ailments.

Student: Why?

Funk: Because I said so.

Student: We just don't believe it, right?

Funk: Right.

Student: So Dr. Funk, Dr. Goebbels was right?

Funk: Eh?

Student: Repeating something enough times makes it true.

Funk: Uh... No.

Student: Because it's you?

Funk: Uh... Yea, I'm right.

This is your style of "argument".

I recommend Plato's Republic to you. Peter Kreeft has a marvelous book called Socratic Logic about how to think.

Moderate,

As I noted originally, you apparently suffer from the three B's, i.e. you were Born, Bred and Brainwashed like a lot of us in orthodox Catholicism/Christianity. Actually you suffer from another B also, that B16 somehow communicates with three gods.

Nothing wrong with the four B's as these typically give one a good moral/ethical foundation.

Unfortunately, you needlessly believe then in

"pretty/ugly wingy talking flying, fictional thingies",

a Roman governor with no free will specifically created to kill your Caesar-competing god,

physical resurrections to a spirit heaven that by definition cannot have physical bodies,

Paul's second comings,(fortunately for us his first prophecy did not occur),

miracles,

atonement theology,

Adam and Eve,

their/our original sin/guilt trip,

a global flood,

fortune telling,

hallucinating fishermen/shepherds/"wise" men,

a heaven just for Catholics/Christians and their "glorified bodies",

a daily wine/blood-letting/bread conversion to edible body ritual,

filicide,

and four gospels historically inaccurate and full of discrepancies supporting all of the above.

I would suggest evaluating some other religions but they also are severely flawed as previously noted.

Again, added reading of some of the previously referenced or analogous books will hopefully start the healing process from apparently too many years of orthodox brainwashing.

And again as noted previously, said brainwashing has moral and ethical attributes and it is significantly better than the brainwashing our radical Muslim brothers and sisters are receiving.

Dear Mary,

I am listening to Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict on CD in my car on he way back and forth to work. It is a real eye opener. Thoughtful work. He says a couple of particularly telling things:

The all those who try and uncover the Historical Jesus seem to come forth with portraits that look like themselves. I had to laugh once again about Funk, Wilson, and Crossin at that one.

The Gospels become unintelligible when the premise is that the divine in them is divorced from the "historical truth" in them.

Great listen. I have the book too and will read the text in the due course.

Thanks for the note on A.N. Wilson there might even be hope for Bishop Spong at that rate.

Dear Bunkey:

The book that I read through with the color coded rejections of the "hisoricity" of most of the Gospels. Is "The Acts of Jesus" by Funk. I found it at the bottom of a pile.

An example in the chapter on Luke: Do you know why Luke's introduction to the Gospel according to Luke is rejected? (p267)

Because it is not duplicated in the other Gospels!

I just can't believe how fraking stupid that is! These guys are fraking morons!

Why in God's name would the introduction to LUKE be duplicated in Matthew, Mark, or John??? Or anywhere else??? It belongs nowhere else. It is where it belongs. It gives Luke's fundamental methodology of conducting interviews to set down an orderly account. "No parallels Source: Luke"

Would the Jesus Seminar Morons think that future scholars should reject the preface of "The Acts of Jesus" by Funk because it did not appear in other books? How fraking stupid could you get?

That is why I couldn't stop laughing. I still haven't laughing yet. I'm glad got me looking at this again. What a hoot!

So if this is where you hang your hat for theology I see why you have such problems.

Dude, start over again! Try C.S. Lewis, Aquinas, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Peter Kreeft, Eusebius, Iamblicus, even, if you want to understand the reform of Paganism...

Pagan Place:

Iamblicus might just be for you. :-)

And may I add to that, that among the many things we can't NOT KNOW is how our willingness to believe and accept everyone naively, in our desire to be open-minded, can be dangerous. An astute jihad of avid lies covering destructive intent is also part of the mentality we are now dealing with.

Please read this current article

http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070914/NATION04/109140086/1008

Moderate:

AN Wilson has definitely moved on. Here is his (this last May) review of Pope Benedict's "Jesus of Nazareth"
where he says:

"From the supposed “Rottweiler Pope” comes this gentle exposition of a simple idea: namely, that the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith are one and the same, and that faith in Jesus Christ is reasonable.."

And I actually believe the Wilson now "believes" that it *is* reasonable...which btw is all the Church has every maintained, not that reason can 'prove' Christ, which, without faith, IMO it can;t.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article1798127.ece

He finished:

"Yet there is a dogged impressiveness about the Pope’s exposition of scene after scene from the Gospel, a reading that finds it more logical to worship the Christ of Faith in the Gospels than to invent the vestiges of some Jewish prophet who had his words distorted by some later theological genius. Jesus was the genius. That is Ratzinger’s message, and the luminous intelligence of the exegesis will prompt many to respond with an Alleluia. Wordy as the old German can be, this reader at least felt that he had repeatedly identified what was haunting, indeed frightening about the Gospels. No amount of reasonable liberal “explanation” can evade the voice that comes through them – calling the reader not to a set of propositions, nor to a theory, but to a Person, who is at one with God."

We won't get a big hoohah about a conversion--Wilson is, after all, English--but I do think the old dis-believer is dancing closer, closer, ever closer....(like you, maybe?)

Moderate,

I presented the attestations to the crucifixion of Jesus as noted by Professor JD Crossan in his book and by his permission on the internet. How does that make me a "google" bomber???

There is nothing wrong with "googling" a subject as long as you reference said pages. In the case of Professor Crossan's conclusions, I noted that many NT exegetes have determined these (as in Professor Crossan's books). Did you find anything about your referenced wars in any of your books/course notes or was it all found via a google search? i.e. you are a history major???

And please do give us your thinking about the "Jesus project". Keep in mind that most of the Jesus Seminarians have PhD's in theology and/or religious history and are typically professors at major universities. And have published over 100 books on the subject.

And since you have not even finished any book written by any Jesus Seminarian, you are bit premature in making any conclusions about their reasoning and methods.

Books currently in my library and read cover to cover:

Professor Crossan's The Historical Jesus, Who is Jesus, The Excavation of Jesus, and In Search of Paul.

The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan And N.T. Wright in Dialogue (Paperback)
by Robert B. Stewart (Author), John Dominic Crossan (Author), N. T. Wright (Author

Father Raymond Brown's, An Introduction to the New Testament.

Professor Borg's, Reading the Bible For the First Time, and Jesus and Buddha

James Carrols's Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews -- A History

Professor Luke Johnson's
The Real Jesus : The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels

And public library books written by Professor Fredriksen and also Professor Pagels. And one book written by Karen Armstrong:

From Jesus to Christ by Paula Fredriksen


A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by Karen Armstrong

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels

Bunkey, what just happened?

1. You made a baseless accusation. To whit The Moderate is a "google bomber" with the implication that google bombers don't really know anything.

2. YOU were proven to be a "google bomber" by the stuff you scraped off of google to use in the argument.

3. You were given every opportunity to check my text to see if I really am a "google bomber" but you either: a. did not check, or b. checked but did not find anything.

4. You continue your accusation after your argument has been eviscerated.

5. Caught red handed.

6. Now that we have established that it is YOU who are the "google bomber" you now say that YOUR google bombing is ok.

I conclude:

1. You make baseless accusations.

2. You stick to them after they have been refuted.

That means:

1. You do not reason.
2. You are immune to facts and their effects on your "arguments"; accusations really.

We conclude that you are a fundamentalist.

Got to get back to work.

Later, if you are interested, I will explain the systematic error in the "logic" of Jesus Project.

It comes from the fundamentally flawed inferential paradigm that they use throughout. That is what makes it so hard to stop laughing when I read their stuff.

Moderate,

Crossan's inventory is on-line and exactly as noted in his book, The Historical Jesus, which you have just started to read. It was put on-line with Professor Crossan's permission (as noted if you read the introduction to the inventory and associated web sites). I could have just as easily scanned it from the book. When you finish, I recommend any of his other 24 books of excellent scholarship as shown by the number of books and their wide publication.

You failed to mention anything about the physical resurrection. Why is that?

And more than likely you summarized your googlization of the various wars you cited. Web pages used????

And what undergraduate/graduate school invited you to teach for ten years?

And apparently you do not have a copy of Father Raymond Brown's, An Introduction to the New Testament. Having and reading this book are minimum requirements for teaching/knowing anything relevant about first to third century Palestine's Christian movements.

Conclusion: Your born-again underwear is showing.

Dear Concerned the Christian Now Liberated:

Let me answer you in the spirit you offered your little diatribe.

"Moderate,

"Hmmm, let me guess, you were bred, born and brainwashed into orthodox Christianity??"

I went to a Catholic Cathedral elementary school, and and constantly did things like bringing up the theodicy question during Catechism. It went like
this:

Sister Mary Elephant: "OK kids. God created everything. Lets each in turn say something God created."
Barbara: "Flowers."
Billy: "Blue Sky."
Timmy: "Trees."
The Moderate: "Poison Gas."

I also challenged the Bishop Ussher time line with science magazine articles and books on paleontology. The nuns were not amused.

Well, after being thrown out after of elementary school, I read John Gault's radio speech on Original Sin I became a committed Atheist for twenty five years or so.

Then, I began to loose my faith in... well nothing. I began to read history and history of religion. I read Robert Graves, the Greek Myths from cover to cover among others, and then had an explore through Hellenic religions, an their contemporaries. I think I was a Pagan for a time during that study. There is a lot to Paganism.

Then I took a four-year seminar on Christianity from Genesis 1 up to, through, and past Liberation theology as part of my meditations on God and the Universe. Very interesting to read the Christian Canon after learning about the Pagan religions with which they were in dialog. It is like finally having both sides of the phone conversation. I was invited to teach after graduating the course and have done that for ten more years.

But it was really the advancing science that spoiled Atheism for me though. The COBE actually imaged the surface of the Big Bang shortly after the moment of creation when the Universe just went transparent. The Universe was no accident, my friend. Read Penrose. So we have:

1. There was a moment of creation.
2. The universe is no accident, if you believe in the modern scientific epistemology.
3. The Universe is very precisely tuned to support life.

Sounds like the People of the Book got it closer than The Dawkins Delusion, et al. It drives you all crazy, though, when it turns out to be YOU who are ignoring the Science. So you live in angry denial. Just like the other fundamentalists.

"You have not read any books written by any members of the Jesus Seminar?"

I have read them to analyze their methods. I am looking at Jesus by A.N. Wilson, and Crossan's The historical Jesus as I write. I must admit that they are so poor in method that I laughed as much as read.

There is another one where a bunch of stooges highlighted the words they voted for as the true words of Jesus. In some sections there were only phrases like "He said..." and what he said was not considered valid by the faculty lounge lizards. I have loaned that one out so others can laugh too, so I don't have it to hand. Probably Bob Funk, but I don't remember this early in the morning.

"You "googlized" your last commentary?? And you believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus even though his heavenly destination is a spirit state?"

Hmm... Let me guess, you "googlized" your citations, and that is why you think I did.

Google works both ways, Bunkey. Lets see...

"(1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) Gos. Pet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2."

???

Oh yes...

Google records that it is from Crossan's inventory.

Reference:

(wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/Crossan_Inventory)

So you Just blew your credibility, Bunkey. You are just another poseur, like the rest of the single-digit IQ crowd on the Atheist blogs here. I suspect your heads would burst if any real logic, reason, science, or history, seeped in. But give it a try anyway, after the pain subsides you may find yourself in a larger world.

BTW, give it a try, you won't find what I wrote to you in Google because I wrote it. It is based on wide and long reading and study on the topics in question. Right or wrong, at least it is original.

Moderate,

Hmmm, let me guess, you were bred, born and brainwashed into orthodox Christianity?? You have not read any books written by any members of the Jesus Seminar? You "googlized" your last commentary?? And you believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus even though his heavenly destination is a spirit state?

And I recommend reading Father Raymond Brown's, An Introduction to the New Testament, to get a great review of what is known and not known about the authors of the Gospels.

Attacks are made on the ancient carving of Buddha in north-west Pakistan.

The statue, thought to date from the second century BC, sustained only minimal damage in the attack near Manglore in remote Swat district.

The area has seen a rise in attacks on "un-Islamic" targets in recent months.

This is the first such attack in Pakistan and is reminiscent of the Taleban's 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas at Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6991058.stm

Dear Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:

Many contemporary NT exegetes are simply speculating. The deeper I get into the “reasoning” of, say the Jesus Project, the more I am convinced that these guys don't know whereof they speak.

My point about the Trojan war was that prior to Heinrich Schliemann, it was a commonplace, among scholars using your method that Troy, and thus the Trojan war, were mythical. Only one attestation that was held as an oral tradition (implication: we know every bard changes the story at will all the time) for centuries supported it. Schliemann found Troy using that one attestation as a map, and showed us differently. In fact there was a detailed map of the Mycenaean culture and sites that were recovered. The Great King of the Achaeans was later confirmed in the diplomatic correspondence of the Great King of the Hittites.

Details of Boar's tusk helmets, knives, golden chalices with doves at the handle tops, shield geometries, tactical descriptions of battles and individual combat that martial artists verify as well described. Social orders and military organizations that would survive in the Mediterranean for at least another millennium. All there, in that one "shaky" Oral Tradition.

The truth turned out to be that the carefully kept stories of the Ancient World contain a wealth of correct detail about all manner of things that have been verified. The letters of Paul for example contain details about the sailing conditions and the techniques necessary to the ships of his day that are spot on. Why would a description of tacking and wave conditions in the Eastern Med supported only by a single attestation be verified later?

The quantitative evidence from the oldest codices of the New Testament indicate that there was a first edition from which the others came. Luke traveled with Paul and (according to Clement) even ghost wrote Paul's Letter to the Hebrews (which Paul wrote in Hebrew) into Greek much better than Paul's. During this time, Luke interviewed the eye witnesses to “set down an orderly account”. Luke worked with Paul in Rome before Paul's death, and probably with the Matthew and Mark to edit the first edition of the New Testament. That would give you at least Paul's letters, the three Synoptic Gospels, and Acts all done by one group in Rome in the sixties. Why would they feel a need to repeat one another?

BTW, do you know of any disputes about what was in the Canon at the Great Councils? They certainly disputed the meaning of each and every word. Why not the Canon itself? Because it was compiled by a group that had authority, and early on. So it was simply accepted later.

My point is that faculty lounge lizards make conclusions based upon “gut feel” and teach them. The ones who used to teach that there was no Trojan War, for example, used your methods. Basically, a closed minded “Didn't happen 'cause I feel sure it didn't.” doesn't really mean anything. Twenty-first century scholarship, more quantitatively based, is telling a different story.

Hunter Finch,

Do you get paid by the word to post things here?

You couldn't pay me enough, even by the letter, to read all that stuff.

Might you consider trying to develop a sense of proportion?

Regards.

Quoting: "Six year after 9/11, we certainly should have learned that the threat that made itself lethally clear that day was not generic -- "religious extremism" -- but very specific: global jihadism."

Responding: Oh yes, I'm sure the many thousands of Bosnian Muslims massacred by Serbian Christians at Srebrenica in 1995 would agree. Not to mention the genocide of 3000 Muslims in India by Gujarat Hindu extremists just months after 9/11. Mr. Weigel demonstrates that the greatest, most insidious threat is historical and religious ignorance from psuedo-intellectuals posing as policy wonks in Washington think tanks--the very class of persons who gave us thousands of dead bodies in Iraq in just the past few years.

Moderate,

If indeed you are correct about a single attestation, the cited wars may not have happened or if they did they got significantly embellished over the years. Archeology also plays an important role in establishing historic accuracy. Is there archeological evidence of these wars?

And also as noted by many contemporary NT exegetes, the problem is that there are four gospels and associated documents about the life and sayings of Jesus. When only one of these fifty or so documents lists a very important event, one must question the authenticity of said event.

An event with multiple attestations for example is the crucifixion of Jesus +. Crucifixion of Jesus:(1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) Gos. Pet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2.

Dear Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:

"The "flight" to Egypt. It did not happen. Single attestation in Matthew (2:13-18)."

The Peloponnesian War did not happen. Single attestation in Thucydides.

The Trojan War did not used to happen either. Single attestation in Homer, and one other mythological story Quintus of Smyrna clearly inspired by Homer, or perhaps by the Q3 source?

Hunter,

No matter how you want to look at Islam, it like all religions, has some significant flaws, flaws if not corrected will lead to even more serious conflicts.

Christianity is slowly correcting its flaws as noted in the studies and books published by many contemporary NT exegetes like Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, three of the On Faith panelists.

In case you missed it and would care to comment, here is a short synopsis of said flaws:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth. Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.

3. Mohammed, an illiterate, hallucinating Arab, also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the Koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, Saudi Arabia AQ "suiciders", the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the nut cases that blew up the trains in England and Spain and the Filipino koranics.

And who funds these acts of terror with their blood money and theology? Islamic Iran, the Third Axis of Evil and also the "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centred and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’"
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations/embellishments and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life. Then, apply the Five F rule: "First Find the Flaws, then Fix the Foundations". And finally there will be religious peace in the world!!!!!

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus for an analysis of Jesus' life to include his illiteracy.

"The Problem" isn't that we can't now see, but that we refuse to admit, all absolute religious and secular belief systems have blind spots with inherent potentials for "non-generic" extreme interpretations. Nobody takes issue with global jihadism being the direct cause of the attacks on September 11, 2007; nor that when manipulated, that the Qur'an can be interpreted to specifically call for jihad against "infidels," nor with what should be obvious, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims don't entertain that perverted line of reasoning even though their theocratic institutions in recent generations of stifling open questioning and dissent have predisposed them to it. Yet if, as George seems to suggest, this problem is not with "generic religious extremism" but with Islam pure and simple, he is blind to this inherent problem in all religions and cults. This is no time to point fingers at others or to proselytize other leaps of faith. Each of us is born into social environments with legacy beliefs and belief systems. We inadvertently come to accept many beliefs we really haven't thought much about. As a responsibility to ourselves and to each other, we all have a moral responsibility to independently reconcile and integrate our beliefs with real world working abstracts of "the truth" as we individually see it, as opposed to accepting the edicts, mandates, mantras and pretense in behalf of "the truth" that others would impose on us if they could. In other words, everybody has a right to say and believe what they want, but nobody has a right not to think about what they believe. Yes, the Enlightenment which gave rise to values of democratic and open critical dissent among and between belief systems was and continues to be a rich deterrent to most religious extremism. It needs to be revisited not just by Muslims, but by all people, societies, governments and their religious as well as secular institutions, so that blind faith never gets the upper hand over critical reason as it did on 9/11/07.

Majan College Student Wins Grant to Study in USA

Times of Oman -- September 11, 2007

Muscat — "A student of Majan College (University College) has won a grant to study in the United States of America for a year awarded by the American Embassy, Muscat. Ibrahim Al Bandari of the BA English Language degree programme attributes his success to the foundation laid by his parents, who relentlessly strove to provide the best for him educationally and otherwise. At an early age Ibrahim was exposed to the English language, which enhanced his interest in developing his skills further ... Upon completion of his Thannawiya, Ibrahim enrolled for the BA (Hons) English Language degree programme offered at Majan College. Ibrahim acknowledges his skills and abilities to the excellent tuition, personal development, encouragement and support gained during his three years as a student in Majan College. He recalls his experiences as a student representative, the knowledge and confidence gained on the programme and the focus given to developing analytical and critical thinking skills ... Although at ease with the language, Ibrahim’s ability to critically analyse and argue different topics related to linguistics was an added advantage to his performance at the scholarship. “I thank Majan College for all their support and encouragement. I would also like to thank all my tutors particularly Dr Maha, Dr Wendy, Dr Rajat and Abdul Said and all my colleagues,” says Ibrahim. He takes with him their best wishes for the ensuing year." -- Read the Full Article

Students Get Slow Introduction to Laptops

Colorado Springs Gazette -- September 11, 2007
by Shari Chaney Griffin

"More than an hour after they sat down with a PC tablet in front of them, about 80 seventh- and eighth-graders in the 21st Century Curriculum Pilot Program got permission to open them up Monday ... Slowly ... Lifting the LCD screen too quickly is the easiest way to break the computer, teacher Will Colebank reminded the students ... They were excited to see inside, after spending time noting all plugs, ports and jacks on the outside ... Eventually, the tablets, which are laptop computers with a screen that can be laid flat and written on with a stylus like a Palm Pilot, will be one of several tools used to teach critical thinking and reasoning, information literacy and other topics covered in the Harrison School District 2 program ... A grant from The Daniels Fund paid for the laptops. " -- Read the Full Article

Teaching About Global Climate Change

NSTA Reports (National Science Teachers Association) -- September 10, 2997
by P John Whittsett, NSTA President

"Nearly everyone discusses the weather, and recently the concept of 'global warming' has entered the conversation. When it’s hot, some say global warming is the cause. When it’s cold, some may conclude that global warming is a myth. These statements are obviously based on short-term observations and have little to do with a long-term event like climate. Most students have difficulty distinguishing between weather and climate because they view their world from a very limited perspective ... To assess the extent to which our climate is changing, we must examine temperature and other weather-related information over a long period of time. Reliable data has shown a temperature increase of approximately 1 degree Celsius in the last century. Additionally, 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 15 years. It is clear that the Earth’s temperature is rising ... The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Project 2061 promoted a massive overhaul of the education system. Like Science Matters, Project 2061’s Science For All Americans identified the big ideas, but also demonstrated the connections among them. Energy and how it moves within and between systems is one of those big ideas. Within this topic, fossil fuels are shown to be part of a dynamic cycle of formation and conversion back to gas through combustion, but the time scales are certainly not aligned with our current use of fossil fuels ... The single most significant document used by curriculum developers is the National Science Education Standards. The Standards ask that students recognize that human activity can produce negative outcomes. Standard F asks students to use critical-thinking skills to examine global issues and develop a global awareness ... The AAAS Benchmarks state that in grades 6–8, students should understand that our climate has changed due to relatively small variations in the atmosphere. The Benchmarks recommend that high school students understand that life as we know it must adapt to our climate, that our climate results from the transfer of energy in and out of the atmosphere, and that technology can have unintended outcomes ... NSTA strongly supports environmental education as a way to instill environmental literacy in students. NSTA’s position statement on environmental education states that instruction should be based on the national standards, be interdisciplinary, and include all viewpoints." -- Read the Full Article

Public Perception Of Biotechnology

Medical News Today (MediLexicon International Ltd) -- September 10, 2007
by Barbara Janssens

"The term 'biotechnology' elicits a range of emotions, from wonder and awe to fear and hostility. Alan McHughen from the University of California in Riverside (CA, USA) now reviews public knowledge of biotech, popular misperceptions, scientific illiteracy and the role of the media. How is coexistence dealt with in the US and Europe? Who benefits from agricultural biotech -- only big companies or also the society at large? In the public interest, who is best suited to provide advice to weary consumers? ... Find these answers in the latest issue of Biotechnology Journal, devoted to 'Talking Biotech with the Public' which will be entirely FREE for download during the month of September 2007, at http://www.biotechnology-journal.com/. In this way the publisher Wiley-Blackwell wants to show its commitment to an open public dialogue. The BTJ issue features Forum and Scientific Articles on science communication, biosafety and public perception of biotechnology and GMOs. Moreover, a free Podcast will be broadcast on September 14, 2007, and features interviews with science communication experts and a humoristic Audio Play of a Journalist-Scientist interview provided by EMBO Science and Society. Download the free podcast: http://www.podcast.biotechnology-journal.com/ ... Alan McHughen claims that academics have to get more engaged in public education and social empowerment. The public might in part not be interested in being taught details of molecular biology, but may be willing to learn critical thinking skills to face all controversial issues in our increasingly complex modern world. 'Biotechnology is not new in this regard' said McHughen, 'everything from automobiles to barbeques warrants appropriate experts working in the public interest to assure safety'."-- Read the Full Article

STS-5 and the Impact of Apollo-era Decision-Making

The Space Review -- September 10, 2007
by Paul Torrance

"Some time between June 27 and November 11, 1982, the Apollo-era managers at NASA made a key decision: they ordered the removal the crew escape provisions from the Space Shuttle. Not that the shuttle crew escape provisions were any good—in fact, the crew escape system was never “crash dummy” tested as was done with the Apollo launch escape system (LES) and the modern automobile. Unlike the Apollo LES, two SR-71-style Blackbird ejection seats were basically just put into the Space Shuttle without “crash dummy” testing ... I think this early decision demonstrated a lack of both leadership and vision of the Apollo-era management (notice I did not call them “leaders”). This decision meant the Apollo-era management did not learn from Apollo 13 how to succeed or how to fail in the business of human space flight. This STS-5 decision would set the stage for the Challenger and Columbia disasters to come. There are also ethical implications of their decision that have caused a generation of NASA managers, astronauts, and engineers to follow the lower ethical standard path they chose ... Early decision-making, including critical thinking, is not easy. In the Battle of Dunkirk, the old commanders on top on both sides no doubt relied on the experiences of the First World War. When wars begin, often it becomes quickly evident when weapons are no longer effective. The Monitor-versus-Merrimac US Civil War battle instantly made the wooden ship extinct worldwide so far as battleships go ... Above my desk is a fairly recent “NASA Values” chart. The chart begins by stating, “We are dedicated to the values of safety.” In a day and age when we have infant car seats and laws regarding how to put infants into car seats and how to install infant car seats into cars; with seat belt laws, air bags, front impact, side impact, and rollover crash dummy tests of automobiles, I must confess I feel like an oxymoron when I drive to work in my car strapped in by my seat belt knowing there is an air bag in the steering wheel, when the space shuttle launches human beings on a rocket with no launch escape system by an agency that does not seem to know the reason for its own success and failures ... Thus, in the spirit of oxymoronism, I think it is pretty ugly that the same difference, or should I say indifference, has left my agency in the fine mess it is in today. But in the spirit of “pessimistic optimism”, I end this article with my own perhaps 'obscured vision' for American human space flight, and leave that vision open to debate." -- Read the Full Article

USAO's On a Mission to Draw New Students

The Oklahoman -- September 10, 2007
by Susan Simpson

Chickasha. OK — "On a recent day, a chorus of cicadas broadcast loudly from the trees lining sidewalks at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma ... Inside the buildings of this century-old campus, administrators are singing their own chorus of sorts, loudly voicing an aggressive plan that some say will either raise the campus to new crescendos or silence it forever ... USAO leaders are raising academic admission standards to rival that of the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, seeking substantially more money from lawmakers and boosters and wooing top students from across the state and nation in an effort to shed its image as a regional university ... The state's only public liberal arts university 'seems destined either to alter dramatically the terrain of Oklahoma higher education or to destroy itself,' said Sanders Huguenin, USAO's vice president for academic affairs.University leaders say the campus has long been overlooked for its unique quest, which is to provide a liberal arts education rivaling that of private colleges but with a public school price tag ... Many Oklahomans don't understand the university's curriculum, finding the liberal arts concept foreign, even though it dates back to the beginnings of American higher education ... Instead of training students for one of hundreds of specific professions, the liberal arts approach aims to provide a broad and comprehensive education that stresses general knowledge, interdisciplinary learning and critical thinking. Only bachelor's degrees are offered, and some courses are taught by teams of professors from different disciplines." -- Read the Full Article

Hero Worship is Incompatible with Critical Thought

Cyprus Mail -- September 9, 2007

"At the end of last month, the Education Ministry sent out a circular to the heads of all state schools setting out the three main targets of the new school year which starts this week. The main target was the development of inter-cultural dialogue in schools, as a way of cultivating greater tolerance and acceptance of other cultures ... The European Parliament and European Council declared 2008 the European Year of Inter-Cultural Dialogue, pointed out the circular, adding that cultivating a multi-cultural conscience among children was an imperative, given the growing number of foreign students at state schools and the changing cultural composition of our society. A list of sensible suggestions as to how this could be achieved were included in the circular ,,, Another target for the new year was to make schools more inclusive by making each class cater for the individual needs, skills and interests of each child so that all students could feel a sense of achievement and nobody would feel excluded or marginalised. These are commendable objectives, in line with European values and current educational thinking, but whether schools are in a position to achieve them at such short notice, without any time to prepare, is another matter ... What is important, for now, is that the ministry has recognised the need for schools to adapt to the changes our society is undergoing. But the third and final aim makes a mockery of this superficial modernising drive, as it exposes the government’s real thinking on education. It will focus on “acquainting children with the life and work of Archbishop Makarios III”, as 30 years from his death were marked this year! ...The suggestions made by the ministry for acquainting children with Makarios defy belief. Here are some of them: “Every school to organise an exhibition of works inspired by the life and work of Makarios; research to be carried out about artistic works that were inspired by Makarios; projects to be written about the life and work of Makarios; artistic events to be staged, devoted to Makarios; magazines and newspapers published by schools to be devoted to the memory of Makarios' ...The Makarios-worshipping aim of the ministry is anti-educational and exposes the true intentions of the government regarding state schools, which is, quite blatantly, to discourage free and critical thinking. And we wonder how the ministry mandarins hope to achieve the other two aims of the school year – multi-cultural conscience and inclusiveness – which require open-mindedness, when dogmatic thinking remains an educational ideal." -- Read the Full Article

Commentary
It's human to socially gravitate towards authoritative leadership on ideas and issues seeking our own acceptance in the notoriety of others especially when what we have least in common is "critical thinking." Acculturation within and across societies, cultures and religions constantly pulls us into intellectual assumptions and positions of acceptance in our associations with others, which need continual reconciliation. In fact, when we build our own convictions around the thinking of our heroes, when our thinking becomes their thinking by proxie, we work at cross-purposes with the fundamental concepts and cadre of best practices of critical thinking. This article illustrates a classic example of where, as institutions, we precondition our intent to "think critically" like the leaders we admire thereby undercutting our very ability to begin the critical thinking process. When the collective thinking of our institutions on one hand embrace "critical thinking" but on the other impose whose critical thinking we must embrase, it becomes obvious they either don't understand the fundamental cadres and best practices of independent thought or that they intentionally are out to indoctrinate and brainwash us in their "thinking," ableit, beliefs. Voluntary acceptance of such beliefs, without the intellectual work of independent critical process, is not "thinking." All social institutions, religious as well as secular, are inclined towards telling us what to think; not how to think. Our individual ability to see and think independently and critically is our only defense against this tendency.

America's Double Trouble

Science & Spirit -- September 8, 2007
by Trey Popp

"The nation's science and religion literacy was put to the test in America's heartland this spring, not by a battery of school tests, but by the opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, a small town within driving distance of half the U.S. population ... Visitors to the Creation Museum encounter a state-of-the-art exhibition whose visual displays are the curatorial equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster. The museum is inventive in other ways, too. In an effort to reconcile a literal interpretation of the Bible with natural history, it portrays children frolicking under the placid gaze of a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rexes, explains how coal can be formed in a few weeks rather than millions of years, and posits that all animals were created as vegetarians ... Whatever one may say about the quality of 'science' and 'religion' the Creation Museum presents, visitors flock through its doors. Most of them lack enough knowledge in either sphere to participate in a critical debate ... only seven percent of American adults are scientifically literate and only one in five college graduates makes that mark, according to a 1998 report on "civic scientific literacy" by Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University Medical School. American fifteen-year-olds rank behind their peers in twenty-two other countries—including the Netherlands, Poland, and South Korea—in scientific knowledge, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And last year's report from the National Science Foundation indicates that the public's scientific knowledge hasn't improved since the 1990s—though it did in almost every European country surveyed ... The nation's religious IQ isn't much better: About one-third of American adults believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, according to a recent Gallup poll, but that doesn't mean they've read or remembered it. Only half of American adults can name one of the four Gospels, and still fewer know that Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament. A scant one-third know that the Sermon on the Mount was delivered by Jesus, not Billy Graham. One 1997 survey found that eighty percent of born-again Christians erroneously thought that "God helps them that help themselves" is in the Bible. Misinformation multiplies when the subject shifts to Islam or Hinduism, the second- and third-largest religions in the world with a combined following of 2.5 billion; few Americans know even basic tenets of either faith ... Improving both scientific and religious literacy may be the only hope of averting a future in which the American public is divided between adherents of science and adherents of faith, each group trying to out-shout the other in an effort to win over the undecided middle. That is why Collins, an evangelical Christian, regards the Creation Museum as an "utterly heartbreaking" sign of the times." -- Read the Full Article

Time to Ask Why the Education System is Failing Us

The Vancouver Sun -- September 8, 2007
by Michael Campbell

"'Whenever you think about the future, no matter where you start, if you think about it long enough, you'll always wind up thinking about education. . . . Brain power is the answer no matter what the question, and for brains to function well they have to be well stocked with information and ideas, and trained in coming up with fresh, new approaches' ... Richard Worzel, Canada's leading futurist ... Worzel is trying to say more than just 'look at my great enlightened goodness.' Worzel is issuing a warning that if we don't adapt our education system to meet the challenges of a world that changes with breathtaking speed, then we will be left behind individually and collectively ... Think about it. How much of our discussion on education ever gets beyond the latest contract issues? If a child's education is really the key to our future, then parents, teachers, school boards and the ministry of education better wake up to the fact that class size and salaries are not the key determinants of effective schooling ... Where is the focus on innovation in terms of delivery, critical thinking, and preparation for meeting the challenge brought on as our competition with countries like China and India intensifies? How are we going to deal with the increasing gap between the literacy rates between girls and boys? Unfortunately, as Worzel points out, 'The problem is that education and the means by which we deliver it is the single social structure most resistant to change at a time when change is happening faster than at any other time in human history.' "-- Read the Full Article

Don’t Let the Conformity Get to You

The Journal (Queens University) -- September 7, 2007
by Sayyida Jaffer

Kingston, ON —"University should teach students to think outside the box ... This week, thousands of new students flock to Queen’s to begin their university careers. Traditionally, campus environments have been hotbeds of social change—for examples, one need only look to the twentieth century’s civil rights or anti-apartheid movements ... But one of the first lessons Queen’s students learn is the importance of conformity ... Frosh Week is one of the first tangible experiences first-year students have at Queen’s and they deserve for it to be an enjoyable and purposeful one. However, when thousands of students are required to do the same thing at the same time, it sends a strong message that there is only one way to be accepted and successful at Queen’s and that is through conforming to the norms of the student culture here ... In Principal Hitchcock’s fall 2006 convocation address, she made several comments that I think get at the crux of what university is supposed to be about: 'Queen’s abounds in different perspectives, different theories and different cultures, and at this university you have been encouraged not to take refuge in your own opinion. We’ve urged you to see issues from competing perspectives, to question, to doubt, to resist the allure of certitude.' Frosh Week is comprised of several key principles: dress the same, say the same thing at the same time and do what your frosh leader tells you. There’s no opportunity for students to question because it suggests one is a sore sport or, worse, not committed to the group. Likewise, there’s no organized alternative, because Frosh Week organizers do not plan for such. Students go, or you are on your own ... Principal Hitchcock also stated that, “The world needs citizens and leaders who are determined advocates for what they believe in. … It’s been said that leaders are those who take us elsewhere. I believe that you will take us elsewhere.” If Queen’s develops leaders, then that commitment should start now. Let students’ first experience here be a celebration of independent thought—not an exercise in groupthink ... It’s vital for students to engage with another side of Queen’s culture—a side that values exploration and critical thinking. After all, isn’t that what university is supposed to be about?" -- Read the Full Article

Religion, Liberalism and Progressivism

The Mahablog -- September 7, 2007

"I’ve been struggling with an essay by Stanley Fish in the behind-the-firewall New York Times. Fish seems to be arguing that liberalism and religion are incompatible and that liberal society requires the diminution of religion ... Liberalism is in no way incompatible with my religion. However, I’m not going to dismiss Fish’s argument out of hand, even though I think he has several blind spots ... First, I want to repeat the point made by Mark Lilla in his recent New York Times essay, 'The Politics of God,' that I blogged about here: 'Separating political authority from religious revelation made modern liberal society possible' ... I cannot emphasize this enough: 'Separating political authority from religious revelation made modern liberal society possible.' Lilla provides a long and thoughtful analysis of western civilization going back to the Reformation, and he makes a solid argument that joining religious and political authority, even when done in a reasonably progressive and benevolent way, leads either to totalitarianism or ongoing violent conflict, or both ... I want to digress one more time, to a wonderful blog series written by John McGowan and posted on Michael Berube's blog in June 2005. It's called "the Republican Assault on Democracy," and it's in three parts ... It's interesting to me that Lilla and McGowan both call liberal democracy a 'miracle.' Particularly in a country as large and diverse as ours, we ought to be a roiling mass of warring factions. Ironically, I believe one off the reasons we've managed to keep the great experiment going this long is our almost 'religious' devotion to the Constitution ... McGowan wasn't writing about religion specifically, but I wanted to get his points about liberalism in front of you before wading into the Stanley Fish essay." -- Read the Full Article

The Norwegian, the Scotsman and the Japanese

Imomus (Blog) -- September 7, 2007

"A Norwegian, a Scotsman and four Japanese women walk into a Berlin restaurant. In between the sesame chicken and the panacotta two questions about Japan come up. The Norwegian, an artist, has been to Korea several times and Japan once. During the course of workshops with art students he's found it very hard to get them to do "critical thinking" -- for him, the beginning of creativity. What he finds puzzling, though, is how amazingly creative Asian countries are, despite this. They come out with the equipment we all use daily, with the most imaginative animation series, computer games, and so on. So how do they do it? The Norwegian also wants to know about the state of the Japanese art world. Is it healthy and thriving? ... The ball's in the Scotsman's court. I take a deep breath, a bite of chicken, a swig of white beer, and start with the art world question. Japan's art market is underdeveloped, I say. There are some "pop stars" like Murakami and Nara, who've mostly made their names outside Japan. Inside Japan (a bit like Berlin), there aren't really serious art collectors. Inside Japan, people like Murakami and Nara make their money by doing corporate identity (Vuitton, Roppongi Hills) or mass-producing souvenirs. It's a bit like Andy Warhol's statement that he'd be happy for people to have his pictures printed on the side of plastic shopping bags. In Japan, it's really like that. Art is collapsed into the mass market. Galleries are often in department stores, and often show what we'd think of as commercial work; record sleeves, airline advertising. But also there's the wider perspective that Japan doesn't really have a tradition of high art separated from design, crafts, practical things, commerce. That idea of "fine art" is a Western import. And there's no point in accusing Japanese artists of 'selling out'. When Nara makes a puppy-shaped alarm clock, he's distributing his work through the radically flat social structure of Japan much the way Warhol said he'd like to ... As for critical thinking, that too is a Western way of looking at things. We in the West (in places like Scotland and Norway) have a metaphysical tradition which encourages us to think we can step outside of social contexts and judge things from a place of security, objectively. What we don't see is that what we call 'critical thinking' isn't objective or critical at all -- it's all tied up with assumptions we inherit from Plato and protestantism, the idea that you can say 'No!' and that this radical 'No!' and the 'outside' it comes from is where everything good starts. Asian societies have a different underpinning, a Confucian one, which sees the maverick, the loner, the outsider as a loser. For those societies, there is no safe or objective 'outside'. Radical affirmation takes the place of radical dissent; the 'yes' wins over the 'no', the 'we' over the 'me'. You innovate not by trying to divorce yourself from others, but by joining a team. It is this team or family (Kaikai Kiki, Murakami's organization, would be an example) that makes everything possible, including expressions of originality ... The paradox you quickly reach here is that Western-style 'critical thinking' is actually so endorsed by such central institutions (corporations, the academy, the media), is paid such daily lip service by educators and facilitators and team leaders, that it's become the most conformist, obedient, hierarchical and unoriginal thing you could do. As I sang in my song 'Robocowboys', there's so many insiders on the outside / I think it's beginning to be the inside / there's so many mavericks off the beaten track / they're beating a track to my door / and i'm beating them back with a board. And so, all over the West, a kind of theatre of the absurd is played out in colleges and workplaces daily; the moment when some teacher, team-leader or other authority figure commands a bunch of cowed students or employees to 'think critically' on cue. Shouting at them to 'get out of the box', he actually crams them into one ... At that moment in the conversation a sort of miracle occurred. Naoko Ogawa, a Japanese woman who'd been very quiet up until that point, produced a plastic-bound portfolio from her case and handed round a series of clear-wrapped cards. On these were mounted her 'jewelry' -- but it wasn't like jewelry we'd ever seen before. Naoko makes small aluminium rectangles with rounded corners and traditional Japanese kimono patterns printed on them. As the text on each card explains, you crush these metal leaves to your clothing, 'either destroying or changing it'. There's only a limited number of times you can clasp the crushed metal to the crushed cloth beneath before the aluminium fatigues and begins to crack. At that point, Naoko says, you should throw the metal sheet away and buy a new one ... The pieces themselves -- each one is unique, and in a packet you get three or four, in assorted patterns and colours -- were very beautiful. I'm not normally interested in jewelry at all (just the other day I was telling Hisae I can't understand people who stand in front of jeweler's windows gawping at silver and gold rings and necklaces), but Naoko's pieces were just so original and so attractive that I really wished I could afford the €118 she was charging for each packet. It was also a very Japanese proposition; the way the card was laid out, with a strip of pictures along the top showing, on a neutrally-dressed woman's torso, how to attach the metal tabs (the photos were very frontal in a Mark Borthwick sort of way), the rather conceptual, quirky yet unpretentious instructions (a bit like early 1960s Yoko Ono text pieces), the trad kimono patterns of the tabs themselves ... Naoko was typically self-deprecating about her work (if being a maverick is the Western conformity, being self-deprecating is the Japanese boasting); 'I haven't presented them very well,' she said. She told us she'd come to Berlin because she wanted to work with Bless, the amazing fashion design team on Mulackstrasse who do conceptual jewelry (they'll sell you customized designer USB cables!). After she'd interned for them for a while, Bless told her she should set up on her own. I'd love to direct you to a website where you can see or buy her stuff, but she doesn't have one ...The Norwegian's questions were answered much better by the Japanese woman's work than by the Scotsman's waffle. Here was something that presented itself, without big claims, in an artisanal tradition, something you could buy in a shop rather than a gallery. And yet its originality could easily match and outstrip that of your average work of art. The instructions printed on the packet asked the user to rethink his or her relationship with clothes and jewelry. The odd beauty of the results would spark conversations wherever the aluminium was worn. 'That's pretty amazing,' people would say, and their way of thinking would be subtly freshened." -- Read the Full Article

Commentary
This slice of life narrative clearly brings to the fore a range of paradoxes and assumptions, premises and pretense that frequently appear in discussions about "critical thinking," where critical thought becomes its own self-serving end as opposed to a tool for rendering definition, structure, insight, objectivity and understanding to other contextual domains; and to the wide diversity of contributions made by different thinkers within those domains. As what poses for critical thinking is commoditized and "collapses into the mass market," it becomes too easy for us to pull the critical thinking label out of our back pockets and slap it onto our non-examined opinions in self-endorsement. (For example, "I used 'critical thinking' to reach this conclusion. Therefore, you must accept it.") As, the term's use becomes less specific, more ambiguous and vague, it also becomes less understood and valued. One needs always to ask first, "Just what do you mean by "critical thinking? "Tell me how this line of thinking is constructed?"

Aga Khan: Keep on Asking Questions

The New Straits Times -- September 7, 2007

Kuala Lumpur — "A nation will not be able to develop unless its people are willing to accept critical thinking as a vital part of progress ... 'The process of change is indefinite and in order for the people to move forward, they will have to adopt critical thinking, without which they will remain stagnant ... The youth of today should always question and not stop questioning because otherwise the world will fall asleep,' said Aga Khan, the 49th Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims ... Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2007, he said the award had encouraged a congregation of intellectuals in many fields ... 'It has allowed for the harnessing of intelligence, experts from various fields and not just architecture. It has brought about many changes to the societies in the Islamic world,' he said." -- Read the Full Article

Former Teacher's Dream of a Math Learning Center is Set to Open

St Louis Post Dispatch -- September 6, 2007
by Tim O'Neil

Ferguson, MO — "Many teachers strive to make mathematics fun. Vicki Adams may have pulled it off ... Adams quit her classroom job with the Orchard Farm School District in June to create a hands-on learning center, a sort of Magic House for numbers ... She and her small band of volunteers are almost done arranging their color-splashed activities and have sent 1,500 letters to area teachers and school officials, hoping they'll bring their charges on math-friendly field trips. The grand opening is Saturday ... 'We've tried to build in a lot of critical thinking, heavy-duty thinking, only without the kids knowing that it's heavy duty,' said Adams." — Read the Full Article

Flacks for Alarmists

The Courier Mail -- September 6, 2007
by Bob Carter

Townsville, AU — "The question of press bias about global warming is in the news again ... Writing in the Japan Times, Christopher Lingle asks 'What's up with the journalists in the mainstream media?', adding that 'reporting on issues relating to global warming has become strikingly one-sided' ... Things have in fact come to such a pass that Newsweek recently equated global warming sceptics (itself a derogatory term for climate rationalist scientists who give priority to factual evidence over speculative computer models) with Holocaust deniers (yes, again), and accused them of being in the pay of Big Oil or Big Coal (yes, again). The unoriginality and ad hominem nature of such silly accusations, which are fuelled by trashy websites like Exxon's Secrets, DeSmogBlog and SourceWatch, have become tiresome ... As US sceptic Frank Miele has pungently, though accurately commented – those who are vocal in their support for global warming doomsterism are 'less interested in free expression of ideas than in total compliance with their ideas, less interested in critical thinking than in being critical, and less interested in the truth than in their truth'. These attributes will of course be on abundant display in this, the week of the Sydney APEC." -- Read the Full Article

What Works: Fresh Blood or Old Hands? Experience or Novicity?

Occam's Razor -- September 5, 2007
by Avinash Kaushik

"A reader of the blog had a interesting question that made me think about the value of experience, or the value of 'having been around for a while', vs the value of pure passion and excitement and moldability ... I get lots of wonderful email every day with delightful questions, this one made me think harder ... Here is the actual excerpted question ... with a quandary: Is it better to hire and train a really bright, freshly minted college grad, or does the extra value returned by someone who’s been a web business analyst for several year merit the extra expense?... A reader of the blog had a interesting question that made me think about the value of experience, or the value of 'having been around for a while', vs the value of pure passion and excitement and moldability ... I get lots of wonderful email every day with delightful questions, this one made me think harder ... The answer is of course: It depends ... In many industries experience trumps everything. 'You have operated a lathe / the Space Shuttle / a school bus for 15 years? Congratulations Ian you have the job - Jack could you show new graduate Avinash from Ohio State the door please, do let him know we appreciate his passion' ... The web in some ways is unique, at the moment ... It is young, it is vibrant, it is evolving at a rapid pace, everything new is old quickly (and yes sometimes it seem the old is 'new' again) ... This complex organism demands a stunning amount of flexibility from people whose job it is to analyze it. It requires a atypical ability to let go of the past experiences and learned behaviors quickly so as to understand the new in a new way rather than taking the old known square pegs and try fit them in new round holes ... On the web, specifically for analysis of this interesting medium, experience counts for something. But in the grand scheme not as much as it used to ... On the web here is what counts: ... 1) You actually “get” the web. I mean in your blood you are a web being, you marvel at its beauty, you use it, you love it, you 'get' it (very critical if you are ever to be able to 'get' your website visitors and make sense of all the clicks you have - no 'get' web, no 'get' insights) ... 2) You are a inherently flexible being and you are open to new things, in fact you have experience proving that at every new job you ditched the old junk and moved your employer to the latest optimal mindset, not technology but mindset (very critical for someone to see evolution of the web and understand newest measurement opportunities - clickstream or otherwise). Entrenched mindsets will not win the war when it comes to Web Analytics ... 3) Change will not kill you. If you think for a moment this is different from #2. This is critical because human beings love the known, most fear change, and a few can’t see future opportunity because they can’t or don’t want to change. Yet for the foreseeable future the only constant in the web measurement space is change - as you build out a team / skills you want to be ready for that ... 4) Critical thinking. From Wikipedia: “Critical thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, analyzing and evaluating. It includes all possible processes of reflecting upon a tangible or intangible item in order to form a solid judgment that reconciles scientific evidence with common sense' ... You want a Analyst right? Not a Report Writer? You can find critical thinking in a guy flipping burgers at McDonalds or doing advanced statistical analysis. Look for it." -- Read the Full Article

Mill Creek Students Get Crime Scene Experience

Jackson Herald (MainStreetNews.Com) -- September 5, 2007
by Brittany Whitley

"Jessica King’s ninth grade gifted students learned how to solve murders just like detectives on television’s CSI on Thursday at Mill Creek High School, but unlike the detectives on TV, it only took them about 50 minutes ... In the classroom, there was a crime scene set up. The evidence was marked A-G ...The CSI, or crime scene investigation, project, called “How did Stan Smith Die?” was designed to teach the students critical thinking skills, measurements, the characteristics of life, which include among other things DNA and cells, and scientific method skills." -- Read the Full Article

Dranesville Offers Deeper Curriculum

The Connection -- September 5, 2007
by Scott J Krischke

"Throughout this past summer there has been one thing on the mind of school administrators at north Herndon-area Dranesville Elementary School: expansion of education and learning opportunities for its students ... 'Research shows that early childhood is such an important time to develop literacy, critical thinking skills and really to just encourage good learning habits,' said Dranesville Elementary School principal Lucinda Romberg. 'We want to have a chance to expose them to as much as possible in the classroom not just to prepare them for continuing education, but to become lifelong learners' ... This year, Dranesville Elementary School will welcome nearly 100 young students to its new full-day Kindergarten program while at the same time introducing the school’s approximately 650 students to a regular "strategic thinking skills" program. Both of the initiatives are designed to foster the learning skills seen as integral in future education endeavors and the real world, according to Romberg." -- Read the Full Article

Middle East Tensions Flare Again in U.S. (Update)

Inside Higher Ed -- September 5, 2007
by Scott Jaschik

"The academic year in the United States is opening with flare-ups of tensions over the Middle East, and specifically over scholars who write critically of Israel ... On Tuesday, the Middle East Studies Association released two letters protesting what the group considers to be serious violations of academic freedom. One concerns Norman Finkelstein, the DePaul University political scientist who was denied tenure in June and who has since been placed on a paid leave, with his classes called off and his office shut down. The other concerns the decision by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to call off a lecture by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, two scholars who have written a book that is harshly critical of the influence of Israel and its supporters on U.S. foreign policy ... Today, Finkelstein is expected to stage a protest over his situation by teaching the class that the university canceled and then going to his old office, from which he has been barred. Finkelstein has vowed to enter the office, even if that gets him arrested, in which case he says he will go on a hunger strike. (Update: On Wednesday, Finkelstein and the university announced a settlement. Details will appear tomorrow on this site.) ... Meanwhile, at Barnard College, a tenure case that has been attracting attention since last fall is getting more intense (at least among those outside the college). Competing Web sites offer analyses of the work of Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist whose book that criticizes the use of archaeology by Israel has been praised by some and panned by others. A critic’s column this week that suggested that El-Haj’s status as a Palestinian was an important area of inquiry is being cited by Middle Eastern studies scholars as a sign of how ugly some of the debates have become ... The canceled lecture in Chicago was just the latest of disputes involving the ideas of Mearsheimer and Walt, who hold endowed chairs, respectively, at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. They have a new book out, 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy', which argues that the United States alliance with Israel has not advanced U.S. interests in the Middle East and criticizes the way supporters of Israel influence Congress and the executive branch. The book is an expanded version of an essay they wrote last year, which was hailed as courageous by some and criticized as irresponsible by others ... As tenured professors at top universities, the authors don’t have to worry about job security. But they do seek audiences for their ideas and they were scheduled to talk this month at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. They were uninvited. The council has said that the reason is not fear of their ideas, but the belief that their ideas would be best explored in a program that would include 'other perspectives.' According to the council, this was always the intent, and when people to oppose them could not be lined up, the event needed to be called off ... The letter from the Middle East Studies Association about the nixed talk calls the decision 'a serious violation of the principles of free expression and the free exchange of ideas.' It notes that both authors have spoken at the council previously, without having anyone to oppose their views, and questioned why only when talking about their new book are they 'subjected to the litmus test of ‘balance' ... A number of prominent professors, generally of the left (Howard Zinn, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado and others, some of them quite controversial themselves, such as Ward Churchill) have issued calls to back Finkelstein. One such call says his treatment amounts to 'a fundamental threat to the intellectual ferment and critical thinking so desperately needed — in academia and in society — at this time in history.'" -- Read the Full Article

UC Regents Must Demand a Shift in Paradigm

RecordNet.Com (News Worth Sharing Online) -- September 5, 2007

"There's an easy-to-understand gulf between intellectual genius and the operational function of any large organization ... Academic excellence and management skills don't naturally go hand in hand ... Nowhere is the gap wider than within the 10-campus University of California system. In a scathing assessment, Richard Blum, chairman of the UC Board of Regents, has called UC's administrative structure 'dysfunctional' ... On one hand, the system is clearly a global leader in research and development. It employs some of the brightest people on the planet ... On the other, its governing tradition has hardly kept pace with the sprawling network of campuses and independent leaders ... Blum told his fellow regents that UC administrators work so hard at democratic solutions - an elusive consensus - that forward motion is hamstrung on some issues and painfully slow on others ... A side problem, the San Francisco financier says, is that no one takes responsibility ... Blum, the husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., delivered the critical analysis just nine days after university President Robert Dynes announced his resignation ... The report must become more than words. An overhaul is required and the UC structure is daunting (516 full-time employees in the president's office alone) ... Every premise needs to be challenged, starting with the UC system's funding from the state and its accountability to the California Legislature ... Even the Board of Regents' structure deserves a new look. With 25 members, it is unwieldy ... Focus needs to be given to decision making, leadership dynamics, compensation traditions, and policies and procedures that have not been reviewed for 40 years ... Ethical assumptions are wrong ... Great ideas need the right environment. UC campuses foster visionary thinking and intellectual breakthrough as well as anyone in the world ... It's time for the system to get its organizational act together as well ... Richard Blum has issued the call. Will the University of California's leaders apply the principles of critical thinking to their own practices?" -- Read the Full Article

Liberalism and Secularism: One and the Same

Behind The Times (Think Again: a blog at the NY Times) -- September 4, 2007
by Stanley Fish

"Back in June, I wrote three columns (”The Three Atheists,” “Atheism and Evidence” and “Is Religion Man-Made?“) about the recent vogue of atheist books, books that accuse religion of being empty of genuine substance, full of malevolent and destructive passion, and without support in evidence, reason or common sense ... The authors of these tracts are characterized by professor Jacques Berlinerblau of Georgetown University as “the soccer hooligans of reasoned discourse.” He asks (rhetorically), “Can an atheist or agnostic commentator discuss any aspect of religion for more than thirty seconds without referring to religious peoples as imbeciles, extremists, mental deficients, fascists, enemies of the public good, crypto-Nazis, conjure men, irrationalists … authoritarian despots and so forth?” ... In a similar vein, Tom Krattenmaker, who studies religion in public life, wonders why, given their celebration of open-mindedness and critical thinking, secularists “so frequently leave their critical thinking at the door” when it “comes to matters of religion?” Why are they closed-minded on this one subject? ... An answer to these questions can be found, I think, in another publishing phenomenon: the growing number of books and articles dedicated to the rehabilitation of liberalism both as a political vision and as a self-identification of which one needn’t be ashamed ... A recent example is Paul Starr’s “Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism” (2007). Starr, a professor of sociology at Princeton, claims that what unites liberals are political principles rather than agreement 'on the ultimate grounds on which these principles rest.' This is the familiar (and suspect) claim that liberalism is not a substantive ideology but a political device that allows many ideologies to flourish and compete in the marketplace of ideas. Liberalism, says Starr, “is only a framework – that is, it provides a space for free development.' Where there are deep 'divisions over the meaning of the good life,' he continues, the 'neutrality' of the liberal state 'furthers mutual forbearance' ... But right there, in the invocation of 'free development' and 'mutual forbearance,' Starr gives the lie to liberal neutrality." -- Read the Full Article

A Nation is Defined by the Breadth of Its Cultures

NorthJersey.Com -- September 4, 2007
by Maryann Woods-Murphy

"In 'Multiculturalism means anti-American" (Other Views, Aug. 23), Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute paints a distorted and inflammatory view of multicultural education -- one that plays to fears and stereotypes ... She claims that a multiculturalist 'agenda' 'calculatedly' seeks to 'prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture' ... But some people agree with Journo and say multiculturalism goes too far, overcompensating for the way non-Western culture had been ignored in our curricula by now ignoring the roots of our Western civilization. Students, such critics argue, graduate deeply ignorant of their own Western tradition ... Instead of pride and joy in the accomplishments of Plato, Galileo and George Washington, these students supposedly feel embarrassed to be the product of what is often called the "dominant culture." They fail to understand the tremendous strides that have brought us democratic institutions. They ignore the advantages they have enjoyed in a developed and democratic society ... To see if this could be so, I investigated history standards as presented on the state Department of Education Web site. Standard 6.3 requires teachers to "explain to students that the concepts of democracy and citizenship originated in Ancient Greece." It recommends such books as "Citizenship in the Western Tradition" and "Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece" as background reading ... I learned that students indeed learn about classical Western cultural traditions as well as about the interesting offerings of non-Western cultures. In addition, there is a constant emphasis on teaching critical thinking, developing opposing viewpoints and diverse perspectives ... Students are exposed not only to their own history, but also to that of others. More important, they are armed in today's classroom with the tools of critical thinking, analysis and open inquiry. It sounded to me that, unlike the picture Journo had presented where students learn to scoff at the West in favor of an appreciation of "Navajo patterns," they are learning the workplace readiness skills needed in a global society ... The Greek philosopher Socrates exhorted his followers to 'Know thyself.' The further back we investigate our DNA, the more we understand just how connected we all are. As we trace human migration across ice caps and plains, we find the specks of our genetic past across the seas and continents. We learn that when we "know ourselves" we are also forced to learn about the customs and traditions of our neighbors in lands far away ... When we truly know ourselves, we realize that our diversity enhances who we are; it does not limit us. When we incorporate what is best from a broad range of cultures, we become stronger and more powerful as a nation." -- Read the Full Article

Critics Wanted

PopPhoto.Com -- September 4, 2007
by Miki Johnson

"When David Levi Strauss talks about the possibility of a "post-critical future," he might as well be talking about a post-apocalyptic one ... A vogue term for several of today's crises of information, Strauss describes 'post-critical' in his own succinctly forceful way as 'a future where public matters are decided by fiat and force rather than deliberation and debate.' But however you define it, it is something that Strauss is dedicated to diverting -- and one of his main motivations for accepting a new position as the chairman of the School of Visual Arts' fledgling Art Criticism and Writing program ... 'We live in a conflicted time when the need for criticism is great, but the practice of it is embattled,' says Strauss, who is a well-respected author, educator, and art critic with a special place in his heart for photography ... Perhaps in anticipation of that need, the Art Criticism and Writing program was created in 2005 largely under the auspices of Tom McEvilley, who directed it until this year. Touted as a program that prepares students 'to apply critical thinking to the image in all its manifestations to better understand how we are subject to them,' it is one of only a few masters programs dedicated exclusively to the formal criticism of art. Its students -- five the first year, 12 the second, and more to come -- arrive from backgrounds including philosophy, art history, and creative writing. Once they are trained to think critically and write eloquently about 'the image,' Strauss hopes to see them move on to doctoral programs and teaching positions." -- Read the Full Article

ED Patient Satisfacion Scores - Out of Balance

ER Murse ( Trials and Tales of ER and Informatics Mursing) -- September 4, 2007

"A few months ago I ran a post titled Top Ten ways to improve your patient satisfaction scores where I listed some of the disturbing methods being undertaken to improve patient satisfaction scores. Is anyone else bothered by the constant drum beat from administration that seems to have a single minded focus on satisfaction scores to the exclusion of almost everything else? I have seen managers in tears when the monthly report cards come out and their scores for their departments have not risen or perhaps even dipped a point or two. Many managers who until recently were at the top of their careers suddenly are pushed out over the issue. Why is this so important now? Easy, it’s being tied to reimbursement, CEO bonuses, and it’s now listed on the web and gets featured in many community newspapers. In the typical 2-4 hospital town it can become a major competitive advantage or disadvantage. That would be fine if the scores reflected the critical mission of an Emergency Department. I do not believe they do ... Now before everyone gets their panties in a bunch I am not advocating against a satisfied patient. That would be like being against mom and apple pie. What I am advocating for is balance ... I have a suggestion. The survey should be weighted based on the patients acuity. Critical patients surveys would be weighted heavily and patients with clinic conditions should receive much less weight. So if I get high rating from one acute MI that should mean as much as 5 clinic patients. If that were to happen you would see administration put much more emphasis into expanded training and education with a focus on critical thinking and skills rather than over serving a patient population who want boutique treatment with no waiting." -- Read the Full Article

Are Our Graduates College-Writing Ready?

Education Week -- September 4, 2007
by Steven Horwitz

"Teachers of the students who graduated from American high schools in the spring may think that their charges are well prepared for the colleges they are entering this fall, but the professors who will greet them on campus disagree, according to a recent national survey ... The differences in perception among 6,568 teachers and professors who responded to the survey, conducted by the educational testing organization ACT Inc., were apparent in virtually every college-preparatory subject ... Perhaps most significantly, the high school teachers surveyed had more confidence that their students were prepared to handle the fundamentals of writing—basic grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation—than the college professors did ... As someone who deals each fall with the orientation of college freshmen, I believe that their writing problem goes deeper. High school students need more preparation in the critical-thinking skills essential to writing college-level research papers. The Internet and other technologies divert attention from the basic skills of evaluating sources critically and gracefully integrating them into an argument of the student’s own making, which will and should be expected of students in college and university classes ... New college students who have grown up in the world of the Internet are often very good at the brute mechanics of finding sources, but they are largely unaware of the differences between peer-reviewed, scholarly sources and popular sources like Time magazine. They need to be engaged in high school projects that ask them to assess sources with a critical eye, no matter how they are found or in what form ... A high school student assigned to do a research paper on “inequality in the United States” might turn in a paper that is a series of summaries of the sources he found. In college, he would be expected to articulate a thesis, assess competing arguments, and make his own conclusions ... In high school, finding that long quote that made the point you wanted was the holy grail of the research paper, as it demonstrated that you had found good source material. But in college, students will have to show that source material supports the argument they are making. So the long quote is not very impressive, especially if it substitutes for the student’s own analysis. Quotes do not substitute for an argument, they support it ... In the last decade or two, more and more colleges have created first-year seminar programs designed to address students’ uneven high school preparation by teaching the research process and its associated skills, often at a very fine level of detail. Those of us who teach in such programs would love to see more students arrive with better preparation for college-level research ... High schools can help by doing the following ... Begin to teach the research process itself, but in short, focused assignments that help students become comfortable recognizing and evaluating the different types of sources and the differences between the Web and library databases ... Use short assignments that ask students to try to identify the various positions that sources take on a controversial topic and the core of their disagreements, even if that does not involve taking a position of their own ... Work with students on the ethical and accurate use of sources before they begin to do actual research, so that they understand that this is not just an “Internet problem” but an obligation central to all the writing they do, whether the source is a course reading or textbook, or the research materials they find using an old-fashioned paper index or a library database ... One thing teachers should not assign is longer papers. College writing instruction and the deeper level of content can help students master longer writing assignments, and assigning longer papers before the basic research skills are developed will retard students’ development and put unnecessary pressure on them to plagiarize to make the page length ... Students who come to college practiced in these skills and habits will find college-level work much easier, and college professors can begin to focus on cultivating the truly independent learners and critical thinkers that an information-rich society needs." -- Read the Full Article

New Philosophers Find Out Answers Aren't Always Easy

The Oklahoman -- September 4, 2007
by Carrie Coppernoll

Midwest City — "The two girls sat politely, tugging chunks off their croissants and sipping hot chocolate out of their plastic mixing spoons. The grade-schoolers listened, talked and finally decided: Most questions don't have just one right answer ... The fourth- and fifth-graders recently were the first to debate the meaning of life and such in the Philosopher's Cafe series at the Midwest City Library. The monthly series is designed to get kids thinking for themselves and looking at problems from all sides, said Kristin Williamson, the Midwest City children's librarian ... 'Children that learn philosophy, even at a very, very basic sense, it helps them with critical thinking,' Williamson said." -- Read the Full Article

Four-Billion-Rupee Package for Teachers in Punjab

The International News -- September 4, 2007

Punjab — "While there is room for a larger investment in the education sector, the four-billion-rupee package for teachers in Punjab announced over the weekend is an initiative that deserves to be commended. Compared to the efforts of other provinces, in particular Sindh and Balochistan, the educational sector in the Pakistan's largest province in terms of population seems to be getting the attention it deserves. However, it must be stressed that this effort is only a start, and much more needs to be done to prop up a hitherto ignored sector that is not only intrinsically linked to the prosperity of the nation but is a fundamental duty of the government. Moreover, it is not enough that money is being invested thanks to orders from the higher ups; it must be taken into account where the money is going and, more importantly, how it will be spent on the ground. In any case, it needs to be realised that this sector is in need of a lot more than just monetary assistance .... It is no secret that public education in Pakistan is in shambles and, though it plays a large part, financial strains are not the sole contributing factor. As it stands, teachers in government schools are, to put it mildly, well below par. The inability of government school teachers, especially in the rural areas, and the 'education' they, in turn, impart to their impressionable students, is well-documented. Teacher training needs to be rigorously monitored for success to ensure that they are delivering an improvement in quality of instruction. Along with this, the curriculum needs to be modernised and examination and assessment of students need to be restructured in a way that a premium is placed on developing critical thinking and analytical skills."-- Read the Full Article

The Noble Art of Critical Investigation

PressGazette.co.uk -- September 3, 2007
by Brendan O'Neill

"I have spent the past week overseeing a summer journalism school and wrestling with the question: how do you train a new generation of journalists in critical thinking? ... When editors are asked “What does every journalist need?”, we tend to rattle off a list of practical, can-do skills. A journalist needs a notepad and pen, a nose for a good story, a little black book packed with contacts, a passion for fact checking, and an ability to write crisp copy under pressure ... But a good journalist also needs a little bit extra: gumption, attitude, and an ability to think critically. Today – when much of journalism trots out the Government line (behold the outbreak of Gordon Brown-nosing in the media) or only criticises the authorities in a cynical, “they’re all lying bastards” fashion – how does one teach budding writers about the noble art of critical investigation?" -- Read the Full Article

Breaking Convention at St. Helena Schools

The Napa Valley Register -- September 2, 2007
by Jesse Duarte

"The St. Helena Unified School District still hasn’t formally adopted a program meant to emphasize academic achievement throughout the public school system, but students who started school this month are already being exposed to the International Baccalaureate program’s strategies, which emphasize critical thinking ... Most of the district’s teachers have attended at least one IB training seminar. Robin MacRae, retired primary school principal, is training the rest of the staff to use IB teaching techniques at both the primary and elementary schools ... MacRae said the IB program shouldn’t be construed as a move away from the state standards ... 'We’re still teaching the state standards,' she said. 'IB is about how you organize and present that curriculum.'"-- Read the Full Article

Iowa Should Lead in Learning, Not Follow the 'Standard' Path

The Des Moines Register -- September 2, 2007
by Vicky Goldsmith, Dave O'Connor, and Alan Young

"At a time when other states are reeling from educational standardization, powerful forces in Iowa, offering little credible research to support their case, are pushing for it ... Operating from flawed premises about the very purpose of public education and what constitutes quality teaching and learning, they promote misguided policies that won't help students learn. State-mandated content standards, justified as necessary to make our children 'more competitive in the global marketplace,' are their reform de jour ... Almost everywhere standards have been implemented, high-stakes testing has quickly followed as an enforcement mechanism for the standards. Education writer Alfie Kohn has referred to the two as 'inextricably connected.' We believe Iowans deserve better than a 'standard' education ... Equating learning with what is easily measured on these cheap-to-grade tests that have changed little since the 1950s is a flawed and counterproductive framework. Tests don't measure imagination, curiosity, compassion, creativity, ethical choices, problem-solving ability or the wholeness of our lives, yet test scores have somehow become equated with student achievement despite the warnings of the test makers themselves and assessment experts such as Linda McNeil of Rice University, who said that 'measurable outcomes may be the least significant results of learning' ... When we focus on standards and testing to achieve the goal of a more competitive work force, we are pursuing not only the wrong means but also the wrong end. This approach inevitably narrows the curriculum only to what is tested while discouraging critical and creative thought - replacing it with a lesser corporate purpose that sees our children as mere cogs in the job machinery of the global economy." -- Read the Full Article

Critical Thought in Painfully Short Supply

HeraldNet -- September 2, 2007
by James McCusker

Everett, WA — "The rock band AC/DC has never felt the need to disclose the origin of its name or why it was selected. But 'AC/DC' was once routinely attached to the many radios and household appliances that were wired to operate on either direct or indirect current. The term was used so much in advertising that it became part of our language ... The need to accommodate two kinds of electric power in households and businesses came about largely because of a dispute between two creative giants: Thomas Edison and Nicholas Tesla. Edison believed that direct current, DC, made more sense because it was less complicated. Tesla believed that alternating current, AC, was better because it allowed efficient, lower cost, electrical power transmission ... Edison eventually realized that Tesla was right, of course, but not before his company had installed huge amounts of generating and transmission equipment especially in the New York City area. And since electrical equipment doesn't wear out quickly, direct current was still in operation in the Big Apple long after the city and the rest of the country had standardized on alternating current. Consolidated Edison didn't cut off its last commercial DC customers more than 1,500 of them until the end of 2005 ... Because New York City was the earliest mass market for consumer durables, production economics dictated that it was cost effective to manufacture radios and appliances to operate on either AC or DC rather than to make separate ones for each power source. The 'AC/DC' label was here to stay, at least long enough to fuel some memorable rock concerts ... The dispute between Edison and Tesla was prolonged by their differences in what we now call critical thinking. They were both clearly geniuses, but Edison was more the practical inventor, largely self-schooled and not well prepared to evaluate the mathematical complexity involved in the theory behind alternating current. Because of his education in math and physics, Tesla was ... Critical thinking is becoming a significant workplace issue. A recent survey of human resource executives undertaken by the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas asked the question: 'What skills do entry level job-seekers lack the most?' As we might guess, 45 percent of those interviewed cited written communications. But over a quarter of the executives 27 percent said 'critical thinking skills are where entry-level workers need the most preparation' ... Critical thinking plays a role in what happened when Rob Oxoby published his wonderful parody of economics research. Oxoby is a professor of economics at the University of Calgary, and in May of this year, as a joke, he wrote a discussion paper entitled, 'On the Efficiency of AC/DC: Bon Scott vs. Brian Johnson' ... The paper was in the usual format of such papers, including the weighty language that indicated that it took itself far too seriously. But its premise, that the efficiency of the lead singers of the rock band, the late Bon Scott and his successor, Brian Johnson, could be measured by economics techniques using a classroom experiment, was so preposterous as to be funny ... It was ironic, and funny, that one of those caught up in the hoax was 'Freakonomics' economist Steven Levitt, who has been very successful at alloying economics with pop culture and other everyday applications. But while Levitt did take the paper seriously, he is no dummy he recognized its ideas as bogus even if he didn't get the joke ... Exactly why critical thinking skills are in such decline isn't known, but we do know that they are important. Certainly we owe much of our current difficulties in Wall Street and the housing market to the near-absence of critical thinking by investors, lenders, and home buyers alike. As our economy becomes more complex and interdependent, critical thinking skills become, well, critical to our prosperity. It's time to stop fooling ourselves about this educational failure and fix it." -- Read the Full Article

Commentary
Here's an electrifying account into the history of AC/DC as first encountered by Thomas Edison and Nicholas Tesla that laments today's short supply of critical thinking in the workforce and which also provides some comic relief grounded in today's culture of "head bangers." Rob Oxoby's parody of using economics research to demonstrate comparable efficiencies between rock musicians is not without precedent in the classroom. As a tactic to determine if students are critically engaged in their work, teachers have on occasion been known to formulate problems on tests for which there are no determinable answers and to concoct wild theories for which there are no foundations.

Park Staff Will Visit Creation Museum

Louisville Courier-Journal -- September 1, 2007
by Tom Loftus

Frankfort, KY — "Naturalists from Kentucky state parks are planning a trip to the Creation Museum in Boone County to see firsthand what they are up against ... Since the museum opened about three months ago, the naturalists who teach visitors about the ancient natural history of the parks have been challenged more frequently by people who have visited the Creation Museum, said Carey Tichenor, chief naturalist in the Department of Parks ... 'Visitors are asking, 'Well, it said this at the Creation Museum, but you all are saying something different,' Tichenor said ... The Creation Museum, which presents the Bible's creation story as fact supported by science, was opened in late May in Petersburg by the Answers in Genesis Christian ministry ... And there might be millions of years of difference between what a tourist is told one day at the museum and the next day at a state park ...Tichenor emphasized that the park naturalists do not want to try to dissuade park visitors from their religious beliefs ...'We will tell the person if they want to believe what they saw at the Creation Museum that's fine and good,' he said. 'And then we explain to them why we are saying what we say at the park -- which is interpreting the scientific evidence produced for the site' ... However, the Creation Museum has no qualms about trying to change the scientific beliefs of the park naturalists ...'I hope they can carve out some time to meet with some of our Ph.D. scientists,' said Mark Looy, spokesman for the museum ... 'I'm encouraged that our museum guests are looking at things from a different point of view and using their critical thinking skills,' he said ... Daniel Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, said the trip by the state naturalists is a good idea. 'You have to experience it firsthand to see how impressively bad the science is' " -- Read the Full Article

Bay County Juniors, Seniors Ace SAT

NewsHerald -- September 1, 2007
by Donna Vavala

Panama City, FL — " Students at Bay County schools surpassed state and national averages on SAT scores for 2007. In fact, it is the third year in a row they have accomplished the feat ... Superintendent James McCalister said he received the results from the college entrance examination this week and was delighted ...'I want to brag on the juniors and seniors in our district who took the SAT,' McCalister said. 'The scores reflect the great job the students are doing, as well as the quality of our teachers and staff' ... The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test that takes three hours, 40 minutes to complete. There are three major sections to the SAT — math, critical thinking and writing — and each is scored on a scale of 200 to 800. The scores are used by colleges to make admission decisions ... Bay students excelled in the verbal area, which translates to critical reading, and in math. The district’s average score led the state by 29 points, 526 to 497, and the nation by 24 points, 526 to 502, in the first area ... In math, Bay County students scored 532, a 36-point higher average over the state and 17 points over the U.S. In writing, district students scored 506, 27 points higher than the state and 12 points above the national figure ...'These statistics show that our students are focusing academically and they take their responsibilities seriously. I could not be more pleased by their accomplishments,' McCalister said ... Florida’s average scores on the SAT this year were up somewhat in reading and down slightly in math compared to the previous year. The national scores dropped in both areas and Florida continued to rank near the bottom when compared to other states." -- Read the Full Article

Young Bloggers Obsess Over Local Coverage

The Boston Globe -- September 1, 2007
by Johnny Diaz

"Every night, Rob Mignogna records every 6 p.m. newscast in Boston and studies how each station covers the day's stories. Then he writes about them on his blog ...'I am more into news than I am into sports. I am hopelessly addicted to anything related to the Boston news scene,' says Mignogna, 28, who moderates spirited debates about Boston TV on his online forum, Boston TV News (groups.msn.com/BostonTVNews). His site has 600 registered members who dissect every detail about the local stations, from ratings figures to on-screen graphics ...Mignogna may seem like an extreme viewer, but he represents a growing subculture of people who take their obsession with local news to a new level by relentlessly blogging about it. They're mostly young men - teenagers and twentysomethings whose devotion to local news counters widely held industry beliefs that young people get most of their news from the Internet. A Harvard University study released last month found that people between ages 12 and 30 prefer to get their news online. But the same study found that these young people were twice as likely to get their daily news from television. They may say they want their news from the Web, but they actually get it from TV ... Lou Ureneck, chairman of the Boston University journalism department, sees a similarity between these local media blogs and men's interest in sports radio. 'We know that men tend to be more engaged into the Internet than women, and that may account for this on some level,' he says. 'It sounds a little like sports talk radio. This is a very positive development. It shows engagement with the news, critical thinking, and a sophisticated level of media savviness.'" -- Read The Full Article

Moderate,

The "flight" to Egypt. It did not happen. Single attestation in Matthew (2:13-18).

Debating the "elite" of Israel? Debatable. See
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/xpharisee.html

Dear Concerned...

"Basically all contemporary NT exegetes have concluded he was illiterate."

Yeah, he sounded really illiterate. Another theory has it that when Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt they went to Alexandria and Jesus met the Greek philosophical community there, in addition to the very sophisticated and literate Jewish community of the Septuagint. Seems there was a construction boom at the time there and a carpenter could make a good living.

Given the sophisticated arguments he later made against the best legalistic minds of Israel that makes more sense than his being an illiterate bumpkin from the Galilee.

Then again most "contemporary NT exegetes" are illiterate too, so how would thy know?

Thomas "The Medicated One" Who Sees/Visits God/Holy Ghost and Thinks He is Moses of the NT,

Tell any Jew, Christian or Muslim that Abraham was not the Father of their religion. Google it and see for added proof.

Jesus' "reading" is only noted once in all the New Testament (Luke 4:16-30) and associated documents. Basically all contemporary NT exegetes have concluded he was illiterate.

The rest of your observations appear to result from the normal three B's we all have gone through, i.e. Bred, Born and Brainwashed in your religion. "Time to Think Outside The Bun"!!!!

Dear Thomas Baum:

I enjoy your posts for their careful thought. Just a stylistic comment, though. Could you consider paragraph boundaries? It would be easier to read for my tired old eyes that way.

All the best,

The Moderate

Dear PaganPlace:

"This is something that both the Christianists and Islamists have in common:

They'll call it 'holy' to blow things up, but they got no plan to *hold* anything. They're just trying to prove something for their personal soul."

Methinks your brush paints in strokes to broad.

Remember that Molek wanted children to be sacrificed by burning alive. Do you?

Thomas Paul said:

"I do not hold it against Mohammed that he was deceived"

I don't either. Muhammad (Qur'an 81:19-29) tried to tell his wife Khadija that he thought he had been visited by an evil Jinn. Initially, Muhammad strongly doubted that he was being called by Allah to be a prophet. His wife counseled him by saying that Allah would only be truthful to him and would not allow him to be deceived. Eventually Muhammad gave in to his wife's urging and became convinced to see things her way. If anything he was weak and unable hold to his first impression and stand up to his wife Khadija..

TO CONCERNED THE CHRISTIAN NOW LIBERATED and the rest of the world: You wrote, " Abraham founder/father of three major religions", is patently a false statement, for he founded no religion at all. He was the grandfather of Jacob whose twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob's name was changed to Israel. The old testament or the Hebrew bible, whether you believe it or not is a story of God choosing and forming a people over time to make this world safe enough to become one of us and survive thru the obedience of people watching over and protecting Jesus, God-Incarnate. Abraham was the father of Issac and Ismail and when Sarah, basically, booted Hagar and Ismail out, God told Hagar and Ismail that He would watch over them and their decendants, whether you believe it is true or not at least get it right when you use the bible to ridicule the bible. You also wrote, "Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter", it plainly says in the bible that Jesus got up in the Temple and read from the scrolls, doesn't illiterate mean that you cannot read? Whether you believe the bible is true or not, what you wrote is not what the bible says. Christianity, not to be confused with people that call themselves christian, is following what Jesus taught and proclaiming the Gospel, which means "Good News", the word gospel is in the dictionary. And like it says, "This is Good News for ALL PEOPLE". The Koran calls Christians and Jews people of the book, I take this to mean the bible, but isn't it kind of strange that some countries that are islamic the bible is illegal big time. God is a Trinity, I have met the whole Trinity in the way that God wanted me to, God is Pure Love, we have free will, God is not going to fit in the box that so many people try to put Him but amazingly He can fit into your Heart at least that is where Dad came into me, the Holy Spirit came into my body. Jesus is God-Incarnate, He is not a second-rate prophet, I do not hold it against Mohammed that he was deceived. God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof, a lot of people will be trying to hide behind their religion, we all get judged and what we know is very pertinent to our judgement. God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. Islam is a religion of world domination. Take care. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Mary C,

I never said I don't believe in God. What I said and will say again is that I do not believe in all the "trappings" Christians, Jews and Muslims have added to said Singularity.

Once again read about the flaws in the foundations of the various contemporary religions, then follow the five F rule.

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth. Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.

3. Mohammed, an illiterate, hallucinating Arab, also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the Koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics. And who funds these acts of terror? Islamic Iran, the Third Axis of Evil and also the "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centred and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’"
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations/embellishments and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life.

Then, apply the Five F rule: "First Find the Flaws, then Fix the Foundations". And finally there will be religious peace in the world!!!!!

And to point out a realistic outcome:

The militaristic Japanese had to be taught a lesson the hard way. Islam may have to learn the same lesson the hard way!!!!!

Mr Weigel writes:

"We can't not know that the jihadists read the history of the past 1,350 years through the prism of their theological convictions, not through the lens of Westrern progressivist concepts of how-things-will-turn-out."

No doubt - as a Roman Catholic "neo-conservative" like Richard Neuhaus - itself a syncretistic anomaly - he also reads the past "through the prism of [the Vatican's] theological convictions, not through the lens of Western progressivist concepts of how-things-will-turn-out."

I mean, not to put a damper on all this manifest holiness and stuff... but just maybe the people orchestrating all this nast just happen to be from families who expect to be 'well-positioned' for the 'end times' they all believe in, and would both expect to not live through the consequences of their actions *and* see their own enriched families profit by certain strife moneyed interests just happen to manufacture?

What if... as should be obvious, it's not about what *brand* of religious extremism is being pushed, but in fact...

Anything but us knowing each other as humans that 'they' want?

Qui bono?

Hrm. The whole 'Nuke Mecca' idea is interesting, though.

Go ahead and create a whole new mythology about it.

Mind you, if I were in charge, I might well say, "*tsk.* You know, touch Lady Liberty or try that airplane thing again, and, ...We'll give you three months' warning, but... I wouldn't do that."

Sorta like Mutual Assured Destruction, only with theological sites people wanna blow up anyway.

I mean, the sick thing about all this is, how many people and special things folks seem willing to kill.

Saudi kids might well have wanted this quagmire, not caring for the unnecessary 'virtuous suffering.'

But.

Who's ready to *live together?*

I think one thing America learned about all these ways to kill Islamic terrorists are geeking out about is...

You don't want to.

No one wants to.

You can make a mess no one has time for, and hand your kids' behindss to whoever controls the resources left while you're busy finding the world ain't theologically-perfect-by-your-standards...

But who wins?

The guys with the real big bombs and real big money.

Fools!

Even what they got can't stand like this.

JBE, Funny how it always comes back to this statement: "Its Israels fault!" Would you like come cheese with that whine?

Mary, I said IF they were to strap bombs to themselves, Which I KNOW the Catholics wouldn't do. But as far as the Catholic doctrine of being the ONLY true church that shows me they ARE as silly extreme as any jihadist willing to blow themselves up for their cause. THAT is what I'd like to nuke. THAT unscriptural doctrine. I think once IT was destroyed YOU would find a wonderful freedom of the Holy Spirit. THAT is something the radical islamists will never find or be able to produce.

Mary Cunningham:

Please don't lump all of us unbelievers in with the moronic "Concerned Christian." I reject his cowardly fanaticism as thoroughly as I reject that of the Islamic radicals.

We need reason and proportionality here, not blanket condemnations on all sides.

Regards

A Hermit

"D:

"The next time a 19 Catholics hijacks a an airplane and flys it into an American building nuke the Vatican! Mecca"

Why would Catholics want to do that when one Bishop can deny Kerry communion and get everyone to vote pro-death-penalty?

Concerned the C.:

You don't believe in God but do believe in neocon ideology. Not in Christ...but in WMDs, eh?.

Chesterton was right. The problem with people who don't believe in God is not that they believe nothing, it's that they'll believe anything!

(In fairness, Weigel was a big fan of WMDs)

Jim in SF:

In order to prevail you need to know your enemy. It is not religion. Religion is too universal, impossible to eradicate. (And anyway, we are coming to the end of the Enlightenment Experiment with its visceral anti-clericism.)

No, your enemy is nihilism. Militant Islamism is a death cult.

Somalitrade,

As with The Jihadist, you are another "liberal" Muslim who has to feed on other peoples' flaws. That way you don't have to consider your own flawed religion and the states of militaristic Islam like the Third Axis of Evil aka Iran based on the "holey not holy hallucinator", "pwtfft"s and plagiarized messages.

The militaristic Japanese had to be transformed the hard way so maybe a 20 kt nuke on Mecca and Medina is the only way to transform Islam.

As Norrie and others suggested, praying for the salvation of religious lunatics is just more lunacy. Also it's simply a waste of time.

Theists like the author need to realize that there are people in this world that are fixated on imagined things that allegedly lie outside of this world, and are willing to kill and die for that belief. Their twisted thought processes are actually not that alien from those who think that we can pray our way out of this problem.

We don't need more religious thinking to tackle this, we need less.

George Weigel,

"Finally, we can't not know that we ought to pray for the conversion of the hearts and minds of our jihadist enemies. I've heard very few such prayers these past six years. Their necessity is another thing we can't not know, six years after 9/11."

I hate to tell you, but such prayers will be just as effective as were all the prayers that have ever been said for no more tsunamis, earthquakes, and plagues, and for one, just one, winning lottery ticket.

You say-

"...inter-religious dialogue cannot be an exchange of banal pleasantries but must focus on helping Islam assimilate the positive achievements of the Enlightenment, including the separation of religious and political authority and the idea of religious freedom as an inalienable human right."

What your really saying in a nutshell it the same old... "my religion is better than your religion" - and it's just not going to work, never has, never will. Differing sets of irrational "faiths" can never be reconciled rationally. Period.

Religion is the problem, not the answer.

Like it's not 'religious extremism' to invade Iraq with no plan to hold it cause 'God speaks to me' as Bush said.

This is something that both the Christianists and Islamists have in common:

They'll call it 'holy' to blow things up, but they got no plan to *hold* anything. They're just trying to prove something for their personal soul.

One thing for sure you people didn't change since 9/11 (even way before that). That thing is the hate you have and the extreme views against anything islamic! Here we have a pastor, a colonel in the army (retired and one who seems intent on making his message heard over and over again!), and then we have those who call for killing muslims and (to add insult to the injury) bomb Mecca!

I see you coming together on a common goal: "hate muslims because we have nothing better to do"! As Britishers would say, "Misery loves company!" I am very sure you are hurting your country more than you can ever imagine. It is about time that you start "thinking on your own" and exercise the "two-way" vains in your brains. This "mental masturbation" routine of invoking hate-filled messages by the lunatics (evanglists and ultrCons) and recycling them in your brain will lead you nowhere. You still haven't avenged yourself by invading two countries, one rightly and one not? Don't you think that the killing of over half a million in both countires enough? Don't you think it is about time to say enough is enough?

As Jesus said to his desciples and would still say it to you all "Are you still yet without understanding!?"...

Actually it is the religious extremist/zealot Evangelical christians and Hasidic Jews who are keeping the Palestinians in bondage intentionally that are THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM.

Free the Palestinian people with their own nation, and make their capital East Jerusalem as dictated in the UN resolution that made Israel a State.

THEN you can tell me the Jihadist is the problem... of course 90% of the children they breainwash will go back to work and school once this is done and the hardcores will have no following.

Or you can kill every muslim on earth and their family members in old testament style.

Which will you choose?

Re: prayers for conversion of Islamic enemies.

I don't doubt these will happen, nor will I pray for it as such...

But, as an aside, in 1550 (?) or so Ignatius Loyola founded the Jesuits with the goal of converting Muslims. It didn't happen, of course. Instead, the Jesuits were instrumental in the conversion of the indigenous people of the Spanish Empire in the New World and the French Empire in Canada.

Re: nuking the Vatican

Y'know JD when I read some Susan Jacoby in full flow, and when I read some of the visceral anti-clerics here I think they might like to do that, terrorist plot or not!

Militant Islamism is a death cult, more akin to the anarchism and nihilism of the 19th century than organized religion. Nihilism unpunished probably contributed to the takeover of the Russian state by the Bolsheviks...After seizing power illegitimately the Bolsheviks held on by terror, a legitimate sibling of nihilism. Dostoevski had the measure of it better than most.

I don't believe in religious basis of the current pack of nihilists. I faced them. The Sunday after Pope Benedict commented that Islam was violent--in response Islamists murdered a nun in Somalia--I went to Mass in Westminster Cathedral. The hapless, inert London police force neglected to keep Muslim protestors away from the Cathedral so when we emerged Catholics had to run a gauntlet. The Islamists were booing and yelling obscenities. I saw them shaking their fists. They were nothing but a mob of lawless young men (a few women in niqabs--burka type ugly things).

They were anarchists. If the police had let them, they would have run in and wrecked Westminster Cathedral. There was nothing religious about them, they were intent on threats and destruction solely.

They were a mob.

The next time a 19 Catholics hijacks a an airplane and flys it into an American building nuke the Vatican! Mecca should have been reduced to ashes considering Saudi Arabia is the formenter of islamic extremeism of the kind that created 9/11.

This is a thought provoking piece. However, it has to be read as a POLITICAL response by the author not a RELIGIOUS response and then evaluted for its wisdom or non-wisdom content. I say that as a religious person, a devout Catholic.

"You state that the fact that most Muslims do not believe in "global jihadism" is "true and irrelevant". I will keep that in mind the next time a sexual abuse case by a Catholic priest hits the news, and I have to choose whether I allow such hypocritical monsters, and their lack of punishment from the Vatican, to define my views on what Catholicism is."

Amen.

What an astoundingly hypocritical piece, given the recent history of the Catholic church.

An excellent article, although I think far more Muslims tacitly support global jihad than you give them "credit" for. The drumbeat of cultural warfare coming out of Europe alone is deafening, with imams in Britain openly agitating for nuclear strikes against Israel and counseling Muslims to lay low until there are enough in a given country to force sharia on everyone. Heck, the mayor of Brussels refuses to permit a march on 9/11 advocating against radical Islam and putting democracy over theocracy out of fear that he would "offend" his Muslim constituency. This is not a problem we can hold off on combating until it enters our individual neighborhoods.

The problem I see with many "multiculturalists" is that they only view Islam through the prism of their own direct experiences in the last few decades (if that). Attributing militant Islam to recent foreign policy moves is wildly mistaken - as radicals in Britain have admitted! Things like the invasion of Iraq are used as rationalizations and excuses, not root causes. Islam has been on the warpath since its very creation under the literal hand of its "prophet" and the only times it has slowed has been when other cultures stand up to it. There is NO INSTANCE in recorded history of Islam just stopping peacefully on its own. It ALWAYS requires a strong response before its believers will suddenly rediscover their "peaceful" ways.

This is not a liberal or conservative issue, but a human rights one. If you cherish things like human rights, democracy, freedom of religion, women's rights, gay rights, and all the other trappings of the modern secular state, you are obligated to stand up to militant Islam. They are the ones with the tolerance problem, not us. The alternative, to retreat into a magical world filled with 9/11 conspiracy theories and Jewish white rabbits checking waistcoat watches is to abrogate your duty to civilization like this absurd observation:

"Just as Momma's Little Cocaine Cowboy has his 'Axis of Evil' the threat of 'global jihad' is matched closely and fed by radical zionism and American Empirialism.

Radical Islam would have been relagated to nut bags and freakshows if the Father of Modern Terrorism, Israel weren't controled by its Zionist Miliary faction that has never agreed with containing itself to the UN boundaries, but will not stop until it has control of what was the tribe's 2600 yrs ago."

Haha, yes...there's a reason it's called "Ender's Game".

By the way, this comment: ""Another 9/11 and we will nuke Mecca" is just rank stupidity. It's equivalent to saying that the British should have nuked the Vatican in response to the IRA.

There's more than one kind of fanatic in this world...

I think the problem is indeed generic extremism,
generic extremism starts with everyone that has the "absolute truth"; that doesn't understand what means to live and let live; that you can't force the hand of the lord, as you can't speed the seasons by plucking the leaves of trees or leving your fridge open( there goes dispentialism); the end doesn't justify the means (there goes jihadism).
Before were the germans, the japanese, the commies, now islam, tomorrow the chinese, the russians, the EU; how to deal with them? my humble opinion is through multilaterism.

Religious peace will occur when people give up thousand year old myths.

It's religious fundamentalism.

It's hysterical listening to a Catholic describe how much evil is in another religion.

And George you really need to review the foundations of contemporary religions and then move to correct their flaws. To get you started, see below:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth. Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.

3. Mohammed, the "holey not holy hallucinator, also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" aka "pwtfft"s and flying chariots to the Koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics. And who funds these acts of terror? Islamic Iran, the Third Axis of Evil and also the "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centred and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’"
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations/embellishments and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life. Then, apply the Five F rule: "First Find the Flaws, then Fix the Foundations". And finally there will be religious peace in the world!!!!!

"Know your enemy" is certainly an important principle. It' just as important to not inflate that enemy into something bigger than he really his.

Those who launch into fearmongering tirades about "global jihad" and suggest that there is some existential threat to our way of life here are actually giving power to the terrorists by making them look bigger than they really are.

The terrorist seeks to force change by causing governments to over-react; to take a course of action which is out of proportion to the actual threat. Bin laden and Al Qaeda cannot deprive us of our liberties. Only we can do that, if we surrender to fear and give up our liberties in exchange for a false "security" regime.

I'll say it again; I refuse to live in fear.

Regards

A Hermit

George,

Excellent review until the last paragraph but expected from an orthodox Catholic.

Think about the "power of prayer". Who is listening? As per Father Edward Schillebeeckx, God is not since this Singularity if it exists has no power over human conduct i.e. free will and future are innate human characteristics/
gifts.

From Schillebeeckx's book, Church: The Human Story of God,
Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

"Christians must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history" .

"Nothing is determined in advance: in
nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

The message as suggested by a few American politicians is the appropriate response:

"Another 9/11 and we will nuke Mecca"

Excellent essay.

We can't not know that the last two super-power invasions, Vietnam by the U.S. and Afghanistan by the U.S.S.R. devastated those countries and their neighbors, Cambodia and Pakistan, yet 80% of Americans supported the invasion of Iraq.

We can't not know that we have gone and destroyed Iraq for decades. The educated middle-class are refugees in neighboring countries, the most extreme religious types and the most regressive sheiks have been armed to the teeth, infra-structure has been leveled, a bloody civil-war started, and orders of magnitude more civilians killed than killed by all jihadist attacks, yet Americans will never accept blame for the U.S.

We can't not know that we have provided financing and arms to kill Palestinians by the thousands and steal their land for the last 50 years.

We can't not know that these facts can not be hidden under "the lens of Westrern progressivist concepts of how-things-will-turn-out" or "the positive achievements of the Enlightenment".

We can't not know that writing about "jihadists" who number less than 10,000 in the whole world is a convenient way to hide racist feelings towards Muslims.

I never understood how a universal God can have a parochial representative!! The Bible says, salvation lies in one's sole acceptance of Jesus Christ as the saviour. Islam advocates that Mohammed is the only true (and last) messenger of Allah while Judism proclaims that only the Jews are the chosen people of God.

It seems an aweful lot of people are condemned to purgatory in this world of parochial Gods and their representatives. No wonder we have had so much religious strife throughout history.

I agree with your general sentiment, that we need to know our enemy, but let me help you out with that a little:

www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

Bin Laden's Al Qaeda was never a truly international terrorist organization. It was always, at its core, a Saudi Arabian terrorist organization.

Now we learn that a majority of the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi Arabian. Many have criticized Pres. Bush for trying to link the Al Qaeda which attacked us on 9/11 with the foreign jihadists in Iraq, and in fact there has been little evidence of an organizational link between the two. But if both these groups are predominantly Saudis, and there is no real continuity of leadership or organization, then doesn't this imply that Al Qaeda is just one small part of a much bigger problem - namely, Saudi Arabia.

Well written.

We need men in positions where their voices can be heard to speak the TRUTH plainly and loudly.

Thank you, George. Your contribution to this forum is a breath of fresh air.

We heard you the first six times Colonel, Sir.

Just as Momma's Little Cocaine Cowboy has his 'Axis of Evil' the threat of 'global jihad' is matched closely and fed by radical zionism and American Empirialism.

Radical Islam would have been relagated to nut bags and freakshows if the Father of Modern Terrorism, Israel weren't controled by its Zionist Miliary faction that has never agreed with containing itself to the UN boundaries, but will not stop until it has control of what was the tribe's 2600 yrs ago.

Meanwhile Shrub uses Fundamentalist Christians that want the same thing for Israel, the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple, to engage us in a war that has grown the number of jihadist terrorist exponetially...from hundreds of thousands to millions.

The Cult of Abraham.... Muslim, Jewish and Christian, should be outlawed before it destoys the planet for greed and power in the guise of a religion.

Great article, more should write so cleary about the threat we face, without sugar-coating the message with the false hope of offending another religion. George tells it like it is and I for one applaud his view and hope more in the media will open their eyes.

William G. Hospodar
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Great article, more should write so cleary about the threat we face, without sugar-coating the message with the false hope of offending another religion. George tells it like it is and I for one applaud his view and hope more in the media will open their eyes.

William G. Hospodar
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Great article, more should write so cleary about the threat we face, without sugar-coating the message with the false hope of offending another religion. George tells it like it is and I for one applaud his view and hope more in the media will open their eyes.

William G. Hospodar
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Great article, more should write so cleary about the threat we face, without sugar-coating the message with the false hope of offending another religion. George tells it like it is and I for one applaud his view and hope more in the media will open their eyes.

William G. Hospodar
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Great article, more should write so cleary about the threat we face, without sugar-coating the message with the false hope of offending another religion. George tells it like it is and I for one applaud his view and hope more in the media will open their eyes.

William G. Hospodar
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Great article, more should write so cleary about the threat we face, without sugar-coating the message with the false hope of offending another religion. George tells it like it is and I for one applaud his view and hope more in the media will open their eyes.

William G. Hospodar
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Are you sure that's specific terminology- "global jihadism"? Hmmm. I've studied the Middle East for five years now, and would say that this phrase is one among all of the dozens of new phrases American amateur historians of the Middle East have invented for their own benefit. That's a bad habit, by the way.
It seems to me "global jihadism" is not specific at all, but a blanket phrase for enemies whose specific actions, history, and wherabouts you know nothing about. If you find my point irrelevant, I wonder how you would feel if I reduced the history of Christianity, in all its various forms and sects throughout the millenia (Roman Catholicism being merely one of them), to a similarly dehumanizing and meaningless generalization. Or, if I pointed to the Christians who, out of their hatred of abortion, harassed, shot, and killed doctors who peformed abortions, and said, "Now THOSE are Christians." I am a Christan, by the way, so don't take that as an attack by some global jihadisting Muslim. But do take it as a challenge from someone who places understanding specifics before all else, especially in times of war.
Generalizations do nothing but damage the pursuit of knowledge and understanding in a time when we need specifics and accurate information to effectively defend ourselves. More than our "political and cultural morale", I think making sure we have well-trained, well-paid security guards at all ports of entry into the country would do a lot more than hoping for the "conversion of the hearts and minds of the enemy".
You state that the fact that most Muslims do not believe in "global jihadism" is "true and irrelevant". I will keep that in mind the next time a sexual abuse case by a Catholic priest hits the news, and I have to choose whether I allow such hypocritical monsters, and their lack of punishment from the Vatican, to define my views on what Catholicism is.
Nothing that is true, is irrelevant.