Obama The Unchurched: It Was Good Enough For Lincoln

IN REPLY (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
“PRELATES, MISCREANTS, AND POLITICIANS”

IRT:
“The media did not go poking around in Cardinal Richard Cushing's sermons, and if they had they surely would have found views on subjects ranging from birth control to religious intermarriage that would have offended huge numbers of Protestants and Jews (as well as liberal Catholics)."

ANS:
That sounds like a pseudepigraphous ascription to cast aspersions on the Cardinal’s character.

“Cushing was a member of the NAACP. He founded the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle in 1958 to "serve the needs of the poorest of the poor in South America.

He wrote the foreword for the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition of the Bible, and gave his imprimatur to the Oxford Annotated Bible.

The now-closed Cardinal Cushing College, a women's college in Brookline, Massachusetts, was named after him. St. Coletta's School in Hanover, where he is buried, was subsequently renamed in his honor.

In 1950, Cushing founded the Bon Secours (now Holy Family) Hospital in Methuen Massachusetts. Through his guidance and leadership, the hospital has become one of the best catholic hospitals in the state of Massachusetts”

IRT:
“But YouTube wasn't on the prowl for "gotcha" clerical moments at that time, and whatever a candidate did or did not believe was considered personal--as long as the candidate avowed his support for the separation of church and state.”

ANS:
You further your attenuation by implying that You Tube could have played “gotcha” with the Cardinal’s reputation. You appear to be insinuating Cushing is no different from Rev. Wright.

That is an implicit enervative caricature suggesting Cushing was a surreptitious morally weak miscreant. In politics, I call it an implicit “character assassination.”

What Protestants do not know what the Church teaches? Why do you think Protestants broke away from the Church?

Moreover, liberal Catholics offend the Church with their heretical beliefs, not vice-versa. That should have be obvious to anyone who saw the cacophony caused by the pseudo Catholic John Kerry, a publicly announced pro-abortion and pro partial-birth-abortion advocate, receiving the Eucharist.

It would be astonishing if Cushing’s facetiously dubbed clandestine sermons weren’t of the Protestants’ liking, as if Protestants didn’t know Catholic views on any of its religious beliefs or teachings. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is on the Web.

There is no separation of Church and State in the Constitution put there by the Founding Fathers. The Freedom of Religion clause was put there to prevent a State Religion, not to proscribe religion from the Public Square. The so-called “Wall of Separation” was a creativity made by out-of-control unelected Justices on the Court who thought they were God.

The Court’s creativity for rewriting the Constitution led to Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board, and lately, infringements against Freedom of Religion, Eminent Domain, Political Speech, and the inviolable Right to Life. The Apocalyptic Justices nearly cost us the right to Self-Defense. That's an obvious indication that not only politicians, but also the Court, should be seeking religious advice, Aquinas in particular.

In their arrogance, the Court redefined human nature, trampled on the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights when deciding Roe v. Wade, and violated the Constitutional Amendment Process by rewriting the Constitution. The whole case was a sham against Justice.

In the end, instead of less religious counsel politicians should seek more. If they had paid more attention to God and religion, politicians would not have made the screw-ups they should have avoided, viz. one being the legal murder of over 48 million unborn and slavery caused by a false understanding of human nature and sacred of human life.

Radical zealots are a dime a dozen. We’re fighting a war against a bunch of them in the Middle East.

Of course, there are radical religious zealots like Obama’s Rev Wright, whom Obama claims was like a father to him for 25 years. What is so hypocritical is to claim he wasn’t aware of Wright’s radicalism.

You don’t have a father figure for 25 years and not know that he’s a radical racist. Finally, only because of political expediency, Obama had to drop Wright.

However, radical religious zealots don’t proscribe the principles of the Natural Moral Law, nor do they nix the Ten Commandments from which Morality and Civil Law flows. Honesty is still around despite radical preachers and dissembling politicians. What is offensive is for the pretense of politicians to be religious for political gain.

IN REPLY (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
BELIEFS

IRT:
“When John F. Kennedy famously declared before the Houston ministers in 1960 that, "I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does not speak for me," that was enough.

ANS:
Nor did the Church speak for his two brothers, much to the detriment of the Kennedys mother Rose. Moreover, John Kennedy is a primary example of why the Church should have spoken for him and his wayward brothers.

What kind of a man is it who claims to be religious and doesn’t live by his religious beliefs, a John Kerry, a Ted Kennedy? They don’t believe their religions. And, what kind of man places the word of man over the word of God and profess to be a Christian? Either he is one, Catholic, or two, he is a heretic.

One can readily agree with John Kennedy, the Church did not speak for him; he spoke for himself, and to his detriment. The Church never spoke for him because he abandoned it. He ceased to be Catholic. Kennedy’s sexual innuendoes are documented in historian Robert Dalek's An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963.[46]

As Saint Paul wrote in 1Co 13:2 “And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and have all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

Mt 16:26
“For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?. Since we must leave the earth as we came into it, contentment and an immortal hope are better than earthly gains.

“Job said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart –Job 1: 20cf.

Though Kennedy had all the fruits of the whole world, it brought him nothing when he turned from God and embraced debauchery adultery and lechery.

IN REPLY (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
BELIEFS

IRT:
“Oh, please, in a time of serious trouble, let us have an end to this silly focus on which supernatural beliefs our candidates hold, and on the stupid things that come out of the mouths of certain self-appointed representatives of supernatural belief. “

Candidate never used to have "religious advisers." This would have been considered a violation of--yes, let's use the dread phrase again--separation of church and state.”

ANS:
"Candidates never used to have “religious advisors?” I think after Roosevelt was found to have been shacking up with his secretary, and after John Kennedy’s sexual escapades were discovered, in addition to the sexual antics of Lyndon Baines Johnson, and the buffoonery of Clinton’s debauchery, politicians are in need a little religious advice.

It should be common knowledge that Dems give homage to prevaricators all the time. They reelected the Clintons who were consummate liars and perjurers.

Hypocrisy is another vice perceived as a virtue by Dems. Pelosi claims to be Catholic and she’s pro-abortion, as are Senators Durbin, Kennedy, Kerry, and Leahy. Dianne Feinstein surreptitiously left the Arms Services Cmt. after shoveling billions of dollars to her husbands business. Pelosi did the same for her husband by using government funds to build up her husband’s property, while two of her campaign managers were found guilty of campaign funding fraud. Where was Rep. Waxman? He was investigating 9/11 and the legal firing of federal attorneys.

Barney Frank was shacked up with a male prostitute who was running a house of prostitution out of Frank’s house and his cohort Gerry Studs seduced a Page and was cheered by his Democrat constituents. Neither was expelled. Only Republicans can bring shame on the House.

Homosexuality, fornication ty, adultery, abortion, and every debauchery conceivable that have violated our national Judeo-Christian heritage are evils to social order. Embracing immoral reprobates who rebuke God's Natural Moral Laws is social suicide.

Our country was founded on our Judeo-Christian moral principles, though if you live in the alternate world where “good” is evil and “evil” is good, you tend to deny they are Judeo-Christian, and even more, one tends to deny anything that is real.

Hence, to the agnostics and atheists, who pretend to be morally religious, children become “a thing” and over 48 million unborn under the auspices of “thing” are dead because of it.

Hence, Stephens the leader of the Four Apocalyptic Justices with Kennedy riding on their backs said sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest. I add neither are the unborn to them.

In a television series “The Rifle Man,” Lucas McCain had witnessed a renegade murdering an innocent person, and Lucas was a witness at the murderer’s trial.

Now this miscreant had murdered many people and every time there was a trial, the murderer’s brother and associates would murder any witness before they could testify.

On the day Lucas was to testify, Lucas asked to leave his son at the General Store with the storeowner.

The storeowner scolded Lucas for testifying. warning his son might end up being fatherless. Lucas replied, “Mam, it’s a matter of principle.” “Principle?” she said. Will principle feed him? Will principle clothe him?” Lucas said, “Mam, without principle my son will never grow up?”

For it is written, “For: Thou shalt not commit adultery, or kill, or steal: Thou shalt not bear false witness, or covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in these words: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself and as God so loves you--Gal. 5:14.” All the law is fulfilled in this precept. With out these principles what good is a politician?

Moreover, What could be more efficacious than: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it—Eph 5:25.” Maybe had Clinton took that to heart, while attending Church on Sunday, he wouldn’t have had to worry about a Blue Dress.

In addition, Clinton seemed to have forgotten the Commandments, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, or covet thy neighbor’s wife.”

St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:1cf.
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity; I become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

If I should have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Like Lucas said, without principle, the greatest being love and charity, man is nothing. He is untrustworthy, and characterless; he is unreliable, and self-centered.

All principles come from God who made man to His image and likeness, so to put down God is to put down all in which principles exist. A politician who does not recognize God is without the source of principle and becomes a miscreant.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
“ATHEISTS AND SCIENCE”
JUST A GUESS:

IRT:
"We find that an inordinately high percentage of accomplished scientists today are atheistic, in that theology per se has no place in their world view. My guess is they give the issue of religion as little thought as possible - although it’s an in-your-face issue pretty much on a continuous basis in the USA. That said, while it's unlikely that Buddhism will die out in our lifetime, conservative Christianity is probably fading, and that can't be a bad thing."

ANS:
Buddhism is a contradiction of reality; Christianity is the testimony of all reality, which is God. So, don’t hold your breadth for Christianity to fade away. God promised His Church would be here until the end of time. It has been here for over 2,000 years against the persecutors of the Godless regimes and even its own members trying destroy it.

Stalin, Hitler, and Mao in the ideologies of the Nazis, the Fascist, and Communists, had all tried to bury the Church, and have all failed because the Church with God as its Vicar and guardian, is part of man's destiny and nature.

God promised that the Church would remain for all ages. “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.—Mt 28:20”

“And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The only way it will fade is when the world ends, and then it won’t matter will it.—Mt 16:18

These Godless regimes challenged Christianity in the USSR and Russia, Poland, Nazi and Communist Germany, Japan, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Belgrade and failed. They are failing in China, and Scandinavia, the Congo, and Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique. AIDS and STDs are ravaging Africa in its ignominy.

Maybe, these inordinate number of atheist scientists might explain why “existence” exists, why there is “being.” Empirical Science (ES) must take the existence of being as a given.

Nor can ES explain how the riddle of the mystery of a sunset in all its beauty enthralls man, or how a mixture of unthinking inert atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and various other inert matter can produce humans capable of having the subjective experience of beauty, and love.

Neither can they explain the laws that govern the Universe. They cannot change them; they cannot change Pythagoras’ Theorem, or the formula E=MCsq. or C = πrsq. Scientists can only observe them and predicate their ordering.

It is written, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these.—Luke 12: 27.” Let ES answer that riddle.

One thing is unequivocally true, something that has no capacity to love cannot cause love, nor can ES explain how the idea of love even exists in the beauty of God’s creation and in man. Nor can ES explain Charity and Compassion.

Neither can ES explain the ordering of the Universe without a Lawgiver. To assume chaos causes order, or that matter causes ideas, is profound absurdity and the perfumery of irrationality and contradiction.

IRT:
"The cosmologist and astrophysicist Neal de Grasse recently said that only in the USA does he get asked about 'his religious preferences'. BTW, he has none."

ANS:
That's unfortunate for de Grasse, and belies his ignorance of the real world that is a personification of God and his Omnipotence manifested in His Creation. Truth bears no legacy for the foolish. Einstein termed an atheist scientists as being brain dead.

The legacy of the atheists is reflected in the fruits of its tragic consequences. It denies one’s own immortality and the purpose of human life.

Moreover, atheistic materialism traduces the dignity of the individual, and society that are paying a high price for the consequences that are evidenced in the Culture of Death, generated by the Sexual Revolution and the emptiness of materialism.

Consequently, Atheism is an open invitation to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, famine, pestilence, war and death. Such are the fruits of the atheistic failures of China, North Korea, Sudan, and the Congo and the social unrest in the Middle and Far East.

These false ideologies can be contrasted against the true ideology and beliefs of Christianity. To the atheists’ detriment, the atheists are a tragic failure. Those who cannot see these failures are blind to reality.

The empirical sciences can tell you how to make a nuclear bomb, but it is the Church, in the wisdom of its Moral Laws, that tells man when and how it is to be used for the good of mankind.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
“ARISTOTLE FACTS AND CATHOLICISM”
JUST A GUESS:

IRT:
“Falling back on Aristotle to make your case is pretty flaccid - Thomas Aquinas tried the same thing to bolster his religious theories on the Trinity, etc. Using an atheist to support theism is more of the same hubris that one would expect to see from 'religious' dialecticians - the proof for the believer is 'a priori' in the belief rather than in the logic of that belief."

ANS:
Your first mistake is that Metaphysics is Natural Theology and a science.

Your second mistake is not knowing that Philosophy is the science of reason, not Divine Religion. So whether Aristotle was an atheist, an agnostic, or a pantheist is immaterial because reason leads to the Truth. If you cannot trust your reason, how can you understand anything that is of Divine Revelation?

Your third mistake is to conclude that Aquinas blindly relied on Aristotle. Just as the science of Physics relies on its prior discoveries and builds on them, or the Pythagorean Theorem, is relied on by Geometry, or General Arithmetic is the basis Calculus and on to Molecular Physics. Aquinas studied the ancients but he had Theology and Divine Revelation and he used the fundamental principles of Aristotle to help explain them.

"Though Divine Revelation has more certitude and is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37

"Consequently, METHODICAL RESEARCH in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.

The humble and persevering scientist or investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."

Hence, Truth cannot contradict truth, and therefore God who is Truth cannot contradict himself. Since the source of reason and Theology is Truth, they cannot contradict each other.

IRT:
“Religion is the most subjective of pursuits and is full of circular reasoning that strives only to prove what has already been established as a belief - but never as an empirical fact.”

It may be that your religion might be circular and subjective because you have little or no sense of the Philosophy of Aristotle, a less sense of logic, notwithstanding your lack of Divine Revelation.

Demeaning the Philosophy of Aristotle explains your betise lack of understanding. The hubris is your foolish folly of wallowing in your errors and fatuously boasting about them.

Namely, you intimate the Father of Logic, who did a treaty on “Circular Logic,” and invented the term, is so stupefied that he didn’t know his proof of God from Motion was circular.

SEE (Posterior Analytics Book I: Chapter III) “A refutation of the error into which some have fallen concerning Science and Demonstration.”

Now that’s pure and profound arrogance, viz. a neophyte calling a master in Logic an illogical imbecile in his proof of God.

IRT
"Had a broad thinker of Aristotle's caliber been alive today, there is little doubt he would be an accomplished scientist (as he in fact was) that would hardly have time to subscribe to metaphysical speculations about God and the eternal soul."

ANS:
They weren't speculations but rationalizations.
If you didn’t know it, Aristotle devised the Scientific Method from his treaties in Logic and Metaphysics, and first defined the First Principles of thought that all Science relies on. Moreover, Metaphysics is the science of Natural Theology as opposed to Divine Theology in which Aquinas was a master.

The lower sciences rely on the higher sciences and borrow their principles to exact their science. Hence, Physics borrows from Mathematics and relies on their principles. Divine Science is the highest science because all science flow from the Divine and it depends on God.

IRT:
“In his own time, Aristotle had little interest in the Pagan gods of the day, and was no doubt an early if undeclared atheist in the fashion of both Plato and Socrates.”

ANS:
Aristotle was the antithesis of Plato. Plato didn’t believe in reality and Aristotle’s philosophy was knowledge "a posteriori" is abstracted from reality. Knowledge was sourced from what existed, and he believed and a First Cause called God.

No one but Aristotle could adequately explained the enigma of how a thing remained the same and changed at the same time. Plato thought everything we knew is only a reflection of another world. The Buddhist picked up on that idea, as did Kant, and knowledge became “a priori”

You write, "As the great Buddhist dialectician Nagarjuna says, 'The nature of Reality is Emptiness and is co-dependent, mere appearance. It is neither real nor unreal, but there is not a single thing to be found anywhere that is truly independent or self-existing'.

You question the great masters of thought, Aristotle and Aquinas, and believe in the nonsense of Spinoza Buddhist and Monism? Their philosophy and religions didn't work, Aquinas and Aristotle's do.

Falling back on Aristotle to make your case is pretty flacid - Thomas Aquinas tried the same thing to bolster his religious theories on the Trinity, etc. Using an atheist to support theism is more of the same hubris that one would expect to see from 'religious' dialeticians - the proof for the believer is 'a priori' in the belief rather than in the logic of that belief.

Religion is the most subjective of pursuits and is full of circular reasoning that strives only to prove what has already been established as a belief - but never as an empirical fact.

Had a broad thinker of Aristotle's caliber been alive today, there is little doubt he would be an accomplished scientist (as he in fact was) that would hardly have time to subscribe to metaphysical speculations about God and the eternal soul. In his own time, Aristotle had little interest in the Pagan gods of the day, and was no doubt an early if undeclared atheist in the fashion of both Plato and Socrates.

We find that an inordinately high percentage of accomplished scientists today are atheistic, in that theology per se has no place in their world view. My guess is they give the issue of religion as little thought as possible - although its an in-your-face issue pretty much on a continuous basis in the USA. That said, while it's unlikely that Buddhism will die out in our lifetime, conservative Christianity is probably fading, and that can't be a bad thing.

The cosmologist and astrophysicist Neal de Grasse recently said that only in the USA does he get asked about 'his religious preferences'. BTW, he has none.

TTWSY is only mirroring the sentiments of Pope Benedict himself, when he made the comment that
'Buddhism was equivilant to mental masturbation' -this back in his less than illustious pre-Papal days. So this ancient thinking is apparently the basis and foundation of Benedict's ecumenical movement - whereby all religions are given voice in the history of human culture. There seems to be some irony here!

Again, we see the unquestioned and underlying conviction that orthodox Catholicism presents the way, the truth, and the light - and all other religious effort is futile and misguided. If this isn't pontifical and supersilious arrogance, I don't know what is.....there is a reason why others find the hauteur of religious orthodoxy contemptible.

TTWSY and Benedict seem to identify completely with the same brand of doctrinal orthodoxy - how this is different from the bible-thumping literalists (fundamentalists) to be found in Protestant denominations escapes me.

Making the case for Catholicism at the expense of Buddhism is a complete waste of time and words.
I don't subscribe to any religion - my only interest is in finding the basis for my own reality.

Religion per se fails to do this because it's based on unprovable axioms, metaphysical speculations, and blind faith - curiously, for all the dualistic materiality of Christianity, TTWSY is unable to show me a thought...where is that thought, what does it look like, where does it originate, and where does it go?

Surely conceptual thought is the foundation of human culture - thought seems to be of the same nature as dreams. They seem real enough at the time...how often do we doubt the reality of the dream, as the dreamer? Until we wake up, of course......but still, we have no unequivical explanation for what has taken place. We don't know the nature of a dream or a thought, but we take them for granted as a very real part of our lives.

This elusive entity is the foundation for all of metaphysics and all of science, and yet no one has ever seen a thought, much less the soul or the Holy Spirit. I'm not interested in faith-based speculations & Nagarjuna only points out the logical truth. The substance of Reality is neither real nor unreal, but is something else altogether - something beyond dualism. He merely points out that the substance of all creation is undifferentiated, despite appearances. Trying to get a feel for what he says does take a certain strenuous effort that bypasses ordinary thinking.

And all of this is certainly not much different than the scientific observation that atoms and particles are the basis for our material reality (although no one has ever seen an atom). Thus far, the atom is no more tangible than a thought, yet everyone believes in atoms quite religiously! Of course, this theoretical model holds up well in practical experimental applications - as a result, science is one while religions are many. Metaphysics can incorporate many models without difficulty. Saying that one is better than all others says nothing at all.....

Religion as interpreted by TTWSY is ultimately the basis for some kind of moral and ethical code that results from divine predicates to proper behavior - and yet he ignores the murderous history of the Catholic Church. Why so?

Claiming the supremecy of any religion is frought with irony and paradox - and hubris to a maximum degree. The case that TTWSY makes is no different, and suffers the same fate.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A THOUGHT
QUOTATION:
JUNE 24, 2008 1:30 AM |

IRT:
The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on ... - Google Books Result
by Charles George Herbermann - 1913 - Theology
“The consentient testimony of witnesses above the suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks are everywhere ...
books.google.com/books?id=pmgQAAAAIAAJ...
---------------------------
Notice any similarities?

Sincerely,
Just a Thought

ANS:
Note that Herbermann book is dated 1913 and the reference in Catholic Encyclopedia is 1908, five years earlier.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

“It [Buddhism] has shown itself utterly helpless to cope with the moral plagues of humanity. THE CONSENTIENT TESTIMONY OF WITNESSES ABOVE THE SUSPICION OF PREJUDICE ESTABLISHES THE FACT THAT AT THE PRESENT DAY Buddhist monks are everywhere strikingly deficient in that moral earnestness and exemplary conduct which distinguished the early followers of Buddha. In short, Buddhism is all but dead. In its huge organism, the faint pulsations of life are still discernible, but its power of activity is gone.

APA citation. Aiken, C.F. (1908). Buddhism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved June 24, 2008 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

MLA citation. Aiken, Charles Francis. "Buddhism." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 24 Jun. 2008 .

Anonymous (Just a Guess):

Re: TTWSY's posts

The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on ... - Google Books Result
by Charles George Herbermann - 1913 - Theology
The consentient testimony of witnesses above the suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks are everywhere ...
books.google.com/books?id=pmgQAAAAIAAJ...
---------------------------
Notice any similarities?

Sincerely,
Just a Thought

BTW., on another note, my guess is that Y C+2 & Co., PSC is an atheist.

INREPLY TO (IRT)
ANONOMOUS
BUDDHISM:
POSTED ON JUNE 23, 2008 10:07

IRT
“What do fundamentalist Catholics know about Buddhism? Absolutely nothing. Catholic mythology is for children - the great early Church father Origen (and by far their best thinker) was very sympathetic to the Gnostic view, and in fact has been often referred to as a 'hidden' Gnostic - and greatly admired by Augustine.”

ANS:
Try refuting history and not revising it. You need some new sources. Below is why Christianity and the Catholic Church are Truth even by reason alone, and not the ludicrous ridiculousness of which apparently those who support Buddhism know little about. If you adhere to Buddhism then you’re no different then the ground you stand on because all things are one.

So says this great Buddhist dialectician Nagarjuna, who has determined "you are neither real nor unreal," and has just denied the First Principle of thought the Principle of Contradiction.

"In the Old Testament, considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we find detailed the marvelous dealings of God with a particular nation to whom He repeatedly reveals Himself; we read of miracles wrought in their favor and as proofs of the truth of the revelation He makes.

We find the most sublime teaching and the repeated announcement of God's desire to save the world from sin and its consequences.

And, more than all, we find throughout the pages of this book a series of hints, now obscure, now clear, of some wondrous person who is to come as the world's savior.

We find it asserted at one time that He is man, at others that He is God Himself.

When we turn to the New Testament we find that it records the birth, life, and death of One Who, while clearly man, also claimed to be God, and Who proved the truth of His claim by His whole life—miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphant resurrection.

We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said, continue to the end of time, which should serve as the repository of His teaching, and should be the means of applying to all men the fruits of the redemption He had wrought.

When we come to the subsequent history of this Church, we find it speedily spreading everywhere, and this in spite of its humble origin, its unworldly teaching, and the cruel persecution, which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world.

And as the centuries pass, we find this Church battling against heresies schisms, and the sins of her own people-nay, of her own rulers.

Yet continuing, we see ever the same, promulgating ever the same doctrine, and putting before men the same mysteries of the life, death, and resurrection of the world's Savior.

Moreover, it was He Who had, so She taught, He had gone before to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him and fought the good fight.

But, if the history of the Church, since New-Testament times thus wonderfully confirms, the New Testament itself, and if the New Testament so marvelously completes the Old Testament, these books must really contain what they claim to contain. Viz. they contain Divine revelation.

And more than all, that Person’s life and death were so minutely foretold in the Old Testament, and Whose story, as told in the New Testament, so perfectly corresponds with its prophetic delineation in the Old Testament. Therefore, it must be what He claimed to be, viz. the Son of God.

His work, therefore, must be Divine. The Church that He founded must also be Divine. Therefore, since the Church is the repository and guardian of His teachings, it must be Devine.

Indeed, we can truly say that for every truth of Christianity, in which we believe Christ Himself is our testimony. We believe in Him because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony. [That testimony is] of His miracles,

His prophecies His personal character, the nature of His doctrine. [More so, we believe because of] the marvelous propagation of His teachings.

[Thus, it has came about, even] in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the united testimony of thousands of martyrs. [And there is] the stories of countless saints who for His sake have led heroic lives.

The history of the Church herself, since the Crucifixion, and, perhaps more remarkable than any, the history of the papacy from St. Peter to Pius XVI. show Her validity.

These [Her] testimonies are unanimous; they all point in one direction, they are of every age, they are clear and simple, and are within the grasp of the humblest intelligence.

And, as the Vatican Council has said, 'the Church herself, is, by her marvelous propagation, her wondrous sanctity, her inexhaustible fruitfulness in good works, her Catholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission' (Const. Dei Filius).

"The Apostles,” says St. Augustine, "saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the Body let us believe in the Head" [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P.L., V 1143]."

INREPLY TO (IRT)
ANONOMOUS
BUDDHISM:
POSTED ON JUNE 23, 2008 10:07

IRT: Catholics know nothing about Buddhism.

ANS:
"As the GREAT Buddhist dialectician Nagarjuna says, 'The nature of Reality is Emptiness and is co-dependent, mere appearance [a.k.a. Plato]. It is neither real nor unreal, but there is not a single thing to be found anywhere that is truly independent or self-existing.'"

I am sorry my friend, if you can ascribe to that lunacy and think Catholicism is a fairy tail; you are either paranoid, or a schizoid. Try telling an imbecile that he doesn’t exist sometime.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

“The Buddhist ideal on earth is a state of passive indifference to everything. How different is the teaching of Him who came that men might have life and have it more abundantly.

Again Buddhist pessimism is unjust to the family. Marriage is held in contempt and even abhorrence as leading to the procreation of life. In thus branding marriage as a state unworthy of man, Buddhism betrays its inferiority to Christianity, which recommends virginity but at the same time teaches that marriage is a sacred union and a source of sanctification.

Buddhist pessimism likewise does injustice to society. It has set the seal of approval on the Brahmin prejudice against manual labor. Since life is not worth living, to labor for the comforts and refinements of civilized life is a delusion.

The perfect man is to subsist not by the labor of his hands but on the alms of inferior men. In the religion of Christ, "the carpenter's son", a healthier view prevails. The dignity of labor is upheld, and every form of industry is encouraged that tends to promote man's welfare.

Buddhism has accomplished but little for the uplifting of humanity in comparison with Christianity. One of its most attractive features, which, unfortunately, has become wellnigh obsolete, was its practice of benevolence towards the sick and needy.

Between Buddhists and Brahmins there was a commendable rivalry in maintaining dispensaries of food and medicine. But this charity did not, like the Christian form, extend to the prolonged nursing of unfortunates stricken with contagious and incurable diseases, to the protection of foundlings, to the bringing up of orphans, to the rescue of fallen women, to the care of the aged and insane.

Asylums and hospitals in this sense are unknown to Buddhism. The consecration of religious men and women to the lifelong service of afflicted humanity is foreign to dreamy Buddhist monasticism. Again, the wonderful efficacy displayed by the religion of Christ in purifying the morals of pagan Europe has no parallel in Buddhist annals.

Wherever the religion of Buddha has prevailed, it has proved singularly inefficient to lift society to a high standard of morality.

It has not weaned the people of Tibet and Mongolia from the custom of abandoning the aged, nor the Chinese from the practice of infanticide. Outside the establishment of the order of nuns, it has done next to nothing to raise woman from her state of degradation in Oriental lands.

It has shown itself utterly helpless to cope with the moral plagues of humanity. The consentient testimony of witnesses above the suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks are everywhere strikingly deficient in that moral earnestness and exemplary conduct which distinguished the early followers of Buddha.

In short, Buddhism is all but dead. In its huge organism the faint pulsations of life are still discernible, but its power of activity is gone. The spread of European civilization over the East will inevitably bring about its extinction.”

INREPLY TO (IRT)
ANONOMOUS
BUDDHISM:
POSTED ON JUNE 23, 2008 10:07

IRT: Catholics know nothing about Buddhism.

ANS:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

“The Buddhist ideal on earth is a state of passive indifference to everything. How different is the teaching of Him who came that men might have life and have it more abundantly.

Again Buddhist pessimism is unjust to the family. Marriage is held in contempt and even abhorrence as leading to the procreation of life. In thus branding marriage as a state unworthy of man, Buddhism betrays its inferiority to Christianity, which recommends virginity but at the same time teaches that marriage is a sacred union and a source of sanctification.

Buddhist pessimism likewise does injustice to society. It has set the seal of approval on the Brahmin prejudice against manual labor. Since life is not worth living, to labor for the comforts and refinements of civilized life is a delusion.

The perfect man is to subsist not by the labor of his hands but on the alms of inferior men. In the religion of Christ, "the carpenter's son", a healthier view prevails. The dignity of labor is upheld, and every form of industry is encouraged that tends to promote man's welfare.

Buddhism has accomplished but little for the uplifting of humanity in comparison with Christianity. One of its most attractive features, which, unfortunately, has become wellnigh obsolete, was its practice of benevolence towards the sick and needy.

Between Buddhists and Brahmins there was a commendable rivalry in maintaining dispensaries of food and medicine. But this charity did not, like the Christian form, extend to the prolonged nursing of unfortunates stricken with contagious and incurable diseases, to the protection of foundlings, to the bringing up of orphans, to the rescue of fallen women, to the care of the aged and insane.

Asylums and hospitals in this sense are unknown to Buddhism. The consecration of religious men and women to the lifelong service of afflicted humanity is foreign to dreamy Buddhist monasticism. Again, the wonderful efficacy displayed by the religion of Christ in purifying the morals of pagan Europe has no parallel in Buddhist annals.

Wherever the religion of Buddha has prevailed, it has proved singularly inefficient to lift society to a high standard of morality.

It has not weaned the people of Tibet and Mongolia from the custom of abandoning the aged, nor the Chinese from the practice of infanticide. Outside the establishment of the order of nuns, it has done next to nothing to raise woman from her state of degradation in Oriental lands.

It has shown itself utterly helpless to cope with the moral plagues of humanity. The consentient testimony of witnesses above the suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks are everywhere strikingly deficient in that moral earnestness and exemplary conduct which distinguished the early followers of Buddha.

In short, Buddhism is all but dead. In its huge organism the faint pulsations of life are still discernible, but its power of activity is gone. The spread of European civilization over the East will inevitably bring about its extinction."

INREPLY TO (IRT)
ANONOMOUS
IRT
POSTED ON JUNE 23, 2008 10:07
“What do fundamentalist Catholics know about Buddhism? Absolutely nothing. Catholic mythology is for children.”

ANS:
I never heard of Fundamentalist Catholics; I have heard of Orthodox Catholics, but what ever. Anyone who believes in Buddhism is in the wrong world. You don’t have to know much about Buddhism except what its fruits are. You might check out the places where it’s practiced and contrast them with Christianity that our nation is founded on.

Christianity works, Buddhism doesn’t. It’s as simple as that. If you can’t see it, then you don’t want to, and you should be living in the Far East in China or India where Buddhism flourishes and Buddhism is more appreciated.

No society can progress except in proportion to its adherence to Christianity. All other beliefs are detrimental and disruptive to society because they are false and violate the Natural Law, and the nature of man.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

"Another basic defect in primitive Buddhism is its failure to recognize man's dependence on a Supreme God. By ignoring God and by making salvation rest solely on personal effort, Buddha substituted for the Brahmin religion a cold and colorless system of philosophy.

It is entirely lacking in those powerful motives to right conduct, particularly the motive of love, that spring from the consecration of religious men and women to the dependence on a personal all-loving God.

Hence, it is that Buddhist morality is in the last analysis a selfish utilitarianism. There is no sense of duty, as in the religion of Christ, prompted by reverence for a supreme Lawgiver, by love for a merciful Father, by personal allegiance to a Redeemer.

Karma, the basis of Buddhist morality, is like any other law of nature, the observance of which is prompted by prudential considerations. Not infrequently, one meets the assertion that Buddha surpassed Jesus in holding out to struggling humanity an end utterly unselfish.

This is a mistake. Not to speak of the popular Swarga, or heaven, with its positive, even sensual delights the fact that Nirvana is a negative ideal of bliss does not make it the less an object of interested desire.

Far from being an unselfish end, Nirvana is based wholly on the motive of self-love. It thus stands on a much lower level than the Christian ideal, which, being primarily and essentially a union of friendship with God in heaven, appeals to motives of disinterested as well as interested love.

Another fatal defect of Buddhism is its false pessimism. A strong and healthy mind revolts against the morbid view that life is not worth living, that every form of conscious existence is an evil.

Buddhism stands condemned by the voice of nature the dominant tone of which is hope and joy. It is a protest against nature for possessing the perfection of rational life. The highest ambition of Buddhism is to destroy that perfection by bringing all living beings to the unconscious repose of Nirvana.

Buddhism is thus guilty of a capital crime against nature, and in consequence does injustice to the individual.

All legitimate desires must be repressed. Innocent recreations are condemned. The cultivation of music is forbidden. Researches in natural science are discountenanced. The development of the mind is limited to the memorizing of Buddhist texts and the study of Buddhist metaphysics, only a minimum of which is of any value."

My reference was to early Church father Origen of Alexandria (2nd - 3rd century C.E.) following Clement of Alexandria - his theological positions on the primacy of God the Father and the hierarchical arrangement of the Trinity, the pre-existence of souls, and even the eventual redemption and salvation of Satan met with great opposition from more 'orthodox' Church forces (too much of an optomist, perhaps).

His thinking is more closely allied with Gnostic thinking of the day - although Gnostics did not subscribe to the divinity of Jesus....who was seen rather more as an exemplar sent to earth as a spiritual leader of men and a guide to 'divine' knowledge.....the one true way back to our prior and original state of unsullied grace.

He was eventually tried for heresy post-mortem some time around the 6th century C.E. He is still revered by followers of the Coptic Church of Egypt and followers of the Eastern Orthodox Rite elsewhere - and is considered the greater theologian and religious philosopher by contemporary religious historians when compared to the likes of other early Church figures i.e. Irenaeus and Athanasius.

What do fundamentalist Catholics know about Buddhism? Absolutely nothing. Catholic mythology is for children - the great early Church father Origon (and by far their best thinker) was very sympathetic to the Gnostic view, and in fact has been often referred to as a 'hidden' Gnostic - and greatly admired by Augustine.

Read anything by Harvard religion scholar Elaine Pagels on Gnosticism and a realistic view of the persecution of the Gnostics by the early Church fathers and their minions. The absurdity of the skewed view on Gnosticism as peddled by Church sympathizers and the Church itself is pitiful in the extreme.

For a more recent view of how the Church treated Gnostics, read up on Pope Innocent II and the slaughter of the (heretical) Cathars - known as the Albigensian Crusade in the early 13th century.
Staged in France, the extant pope of that time enlisted (later to be canonized) St. Dominic and his Dominican order to lead the purge of the recalcitrant and stubborn Cathars - a deeply religious and even mystically inspired group of believers that opted for a more Gnostic view of Christianity.

For example, they refused to believe that Christ actually died on the cross, because as a divinity this was a physical impossibility - the crucifixion was an illusion, according to the Cathars. Makes perfect sense in it's own context...but a heresy worthy of mass murder, according to the Church.

At one point, an entire town of men, women, and children were decimated - when queried about this fate, the Cardinal responsible for the order of their slaughter famously said, 'Kill them all, for God will know his own'. Sadists and psychopaths - the real leaders of the Church during the long-lived Crusades and Inquisition.

Slaughter of the opposition continued on through the 15th century and ended with Giordana Bruno, a failed apostate Catholic priest that was burned at the stake - he was an early scientist among other things, and subscribed to a heliocentric solar system after Copernicus (another Catholic priest) - an idea that almost got Gallileo fried as well, until he recanted....he was under house arrest for the remainder of his days. The slaughter of religious free-thinkers was quickly taken up by the newly minted Protestants.

And so it goes with the selling of Catholic doctrinal nonsense over the centuries - believe or burn. The Church has a deeply tainted and all-too-human history of persecuting non-believers from the start - going from the persecuted to the persecutors in one easy motion after the mass murderer and pagan convert Emperor Constantine made the early Catholic church the official Church of Rome in the 4th century C.E.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A THOUGHT:
CATHOLICISM AND GNOSTICISM:
“CHAP. XI.--THE OPINIONS OF VALENTINUS, WITH THOSE OF HIS DISCIPLES AND
OTHERS

Below is the link refutation of Gnosticism by a Catholic Father St. Iranieus.

CHAP. I.--ABSURD IDEAS OF THE DISCIPLES OF VALENTINUS AS TO THE ORIGIN,
NAME, ORDER, AND CONJUGAL PRODUCTIONS OF THEIR FANCIED AEONS, WITH THE
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE WHICH THEY ADAPT TO THEIR OPINIONS.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103400.htm

Detection and Refutation of False Knowledge,

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08130b.htm

" (see GNOSTICISM, sub-title Refutation of Gnosticism). Of this work we possess a very ancient Latin translation, the scrupulous fidelity of which is beyond doubt. It is the chief work of Irenaeus and truly of the highest importance.

It contains a profound exposition not only of Gnosticism under its different forms, but also of the principal heresies which had sprung up in the various Christian communities, and thus constitutes an invaluable source of information on the most ancient ecclesiastical literature from its beginnings to the end of the second century.

In refuting the heterodox systems Irenaeus often opposes to them the true doctrine of the Church, and in this way furnishes positive and very early evidence of high importance. Suffice it to mention the passages, so often and so fully commented upon by theologians and polemical writers, concerning the origin of the Gospel according to St. John (see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT), the Holy Eucharist, and the primacy of the Roman Church.

Of a second work, written after the "Adversus Haereses", an ancient literal translation in the Armenian language.

This is the "Proof of the Apostolic Preaching." The author's aim here is not to confute heretics, but to confirm the faithful by expounding the Christian doctrine to them, and notably by demonstrating the truth of the Gospel by means of the Old Testament prophecies.

Although it contains fundamentally, so to speak, nothing that has not already been expounded in the "Adversus Haereses", it is a document of the highest interest, and a magnificent testimony of the deep and lively faith of Irenaeus.

AGAINST BUDDHISM and PAGANISM:
"The fundamental tenets of Buddhism are marked by grave defects that not only betray its inadequacy to become a religion of enlightened humanity, but also bring into bold relief its inferiority to the religion of Jesus Christ. In the first place, the very foundation on which Buddhism rests—the doctrine of karma with its implied transmigrations—is gratuitous and false.

"This pretended law of nature, by Buddhists by which the myriads of gods, demons, men, and animals are but the transient forms of rational beings essentially the same, but forced to this diversity in consequence of varying degrees of merit and demerit in former lives, is a huge superstition. It is in flat contradiction to the recognized laws of nature, and hence ignored by men of science.

"Another basic defect in primitive Buddhism is its failure to recognize man's dependence on a supreme God. By ignoring God and by making salvation rest solely on personal effort, Buddha substituted for the Brahmin religion a cold and colorless system of philosophy.

"It is entirely lacking in those powerful motives to right conduct, particularly the motive of LOVE, that spring from the consecration of religious men and women to the dependence on a personal all-loving God.

"Hence, it is that Buddhist morality is in the last analysis a selfish utilitarianism. There is no sense of duty, as in the religion of Christ, prompted by reverence for a supreme Lawgiver, by love for a merciful Father, by personal allegiance to a Redeemer.

"Karma, the basis of Buddhist morality, is like any other law of nature, the observance of which is prompted by prudential considerations.

"Not infrequently, one meets the assertion that Buddha surpassed Jesus in holding out to struggling humanity an end utterly unselfish.

"This is a mistake. Not to speak of the popular Swarga, or heaven, with its positive, even sensual delights the fact that Nirvana is a negative ideal of bliss does not make it the less an object of interested desire.

"Far from being an unselfish end, Nirvana is based wholly on the motive of self-love. It thus stands on a much lower level than the Christian ideal, which, being primarily and essentially a union of friendship with God in heaven, appeals to motives of disinterested as well as interested love.

"Another fatal defect of Buddhism is its false pessimism. A strong and healthy mind revolts against the morbid view that life is not worth living, that every form of conscious existence is an evil.

"Buddhism stands condemned by the voice of nature the dominant tone of which is hope and joy. It is a protest against nature for possessing the perfection of rational life.

"The highest ambition of Buddhism is to destroy that perfection by bringing all living beings to the unconscious repose of Nirvana. Buddhism is thus guilty of a capital crime against nature, and in consequence does injustice to the individual.

"All legitimate desires must be repressed. Innocent recreations are condemned. The cultivation of music is forbidden. Researches in natural science are discountenanced. The development of the mind is limited to the memorizing of Buddhist texts and the study of Buddhist metaphysics, only a minimum of which is of any value.

"The Buddhist ideal on earth is a state of passive indifference to everything. How different is the teaching of Him who came that men might have life and have it more abundantly. Again, Buddhist pessimism is unjust to the family. Marriage is held in contempt and even abhorrence as leading to the procreation of life. In thus branding marriage as a state unworthy of man,

"Buddhism betrays its inferiority to Christianity, which recommends virginity but at the same time teaches that marriage is a sacred union and a source of sanctification.

"Buddhist pessimism likewise does injustice to society. It has set the seal of approval on the Brahmin prejudice against manual labor.

"Since life is not worth living, to labor for the comforts and refinements of civilized, life is a delusion.

"The perfect man is to subsist not by the labor of his hands but on the alms of inferior men. In the religion of Christ, "the carpenter's son,” a healthier view prevails. The dignity of labor is upheld, and every form of industry is encouraged that tends to promote man's welfare.

TTWS, etc.

Thank you very much for your reply.

“The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at knowing"), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought.
-----------
Have been looking at your preferred web site. Interesting since Judaism, in its self-understanding doesn't see itself in the least Gnostic. "Knowledge" in the Judaic sense isn't knowlege in the Caholic sense. "Salvation" in the Catholic sense does not exist in Judaism.
-----------

"The doctrine of Salavation by Knowledge."
-----------
Have seen the following kinds of remarks:

The Gospel of Judas is Gnostism. God needs man.

Be careful of putting the NT ahead of Christ. Gnosis.
-----------

As the New Advent web site indicates, as you say, as countless histories of Judaism have noted, there is no way of giving a precise definition of Gnosticism. What I'm trying to understand is its use by Catholics and Protestants in reference to contemporary religious beliefs and practices.

The above are examples. Could you edify?

Thanks again.

Just a Thought

Just a Thought:
TTWS, etc.
JUNE 20, 2008
IN REPLY TO (IRT)
IRT:
Can you edify? Have never really fully understood Gnosis. Just read an article that says there's Gnosis in the NT. Catholics say beware of "Gnosis." ANS:
The complete analysis of Gnosticism is given in the link below. The History of Gnosticism from its pre-Christian roots through its developed doctrines concerning cosmogony, the Sophia-myth, soteriology, and eschatology.
History of Gnosticism from its pre-Christian roots through its developed doctrines concerning cosmogony, the Sophia-myth, soteriology, and eschatolog

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm

“The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at knowing"), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought.

Whereas Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan systems, hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power. Namely by faith and works, it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul, merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge. And that it places this salvation in the mysteries of the universe and of a magic formulae indicative of that knowledge.

Gnostics were "people who knew," and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know.

A more complete and historical definition of Gnosticism would be:

GNOSTICISM:
Gnosticism is a collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century.

While borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, they held matter to be a deterioration of spirit.

In addition, they held that the whole universe to be a depravation of the Deity. They taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit. They held this return to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance return of some God-sent Savor.

However unsatisfactory this definition may be, the obscurity, multiplicity, and wild confusion of Gnostic systems will hardly allow of another. Many scholars, moreover, would hold that every attempt to give a generic description of Gnostic sects is labor lost."

TT, etc.:

Found this on your preferred web site:

Ebionites
By this name were designated one or more early Christian sects infected with Judaistic errors.
------------
Know Ebionites reference is specific, but was wondering if the error of Gnosis is in placing the Gospels above Christ or something like that.

JUst a Thought

PS. Don't worry. It's safe to reply to me. Though Jewish, I'm not infectious.

TTWS, etc.

Can you edify?

Have never really fully understood Gnosis. Just read an article that says there's Gnosis in the NT. Catholics say beware of "Gnosis."

What is "Gnosis"? Is there Gnosis in the NT? Is Gnosis a special risk for Catholics? If so, how and why?

Thanks in advance for your reply--

Just a Thought

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
JUNE 17, 2008 9:03 PM
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm

IRT:
“Now that you've debunked all the eastern religions and essentially all non-Christian (non-Catholic?) religions as false, you must explain about the creation of the soul from nothingness to somethingness, and why a divine soul should be created with a destiny that most often results in suffering the eternal fires of damnation when that soul fails to find the 'one true' religion.”

ANS:
A soul will never fail to find the One True Religion if he sincerely attempts to seek it. Whether one is an indigenous native of Tim Buck Two, or an indigenous native of some island that has never been discovered, God will look upon him and give him an opportunity to obtain eternal happiness.

The thief died on the cross with Jesus. He belonged to no religion, He was a notorious thief all his life; he cursed Jesus while on the cross. While Jesus was dying he said to His Father, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The catch was they had to ask God for forgiveness with a firm resolution not to sin again. They had to ask with sincerity. One asked, the other didn’t. One made it; the other didn’t make it. The good thief asked, “Master when you enter your kingdom will you take me with you.” Jesus answered, “This very day you will be in Paradise with me.” The catch is you must love God with all your soul, with all your heart and with all your strength. Then, as St Augustine says, then you may go out and do what ever you want.

God loves ever one He creates, and His mercy is boundless, but He is also Justice, and His Justice and His Mercy are one in His love for all man.

All the answers to these questions about Creation and the Soul are on this link and if you have a problem with them then I will try to answer your problem after you attempt to read the answers.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

ORIGIN: The question of origin or procession (27). The relations of origin relations of origin (28).
THE PERSONS IN GENERAL: The signification (29) of the word "person". The number (30) of the persons, and what is involved in the number of persons, or is opposed thereto; as diversity, and similitude, and the like (31). Our knowledge (32) of the persons.
FATHER: The person of the Father
(33).

SON: The person of the Son, to whom three names are attributed: Son (see 33), the idea of which is gathered from the idea of Father; Word (34) and Image
(35).
HOLY GHOST: The person of the Holy Ghost, Who is called three things: Holy Ghost (36), Love (37) and Gift

(38).
THE THREE COMPARED: The person in reference to the essence (

39), with the relations or properties

(40), or to the notional acts (41). The equality and likeness (

42) of the persons. Their mission (43).

Creation
PRODUCTION: The first cause
(44) of beings. Creation

(45), which is the mode of emanation of creatures from the first cause. The beginning of the duration

(46) of creatures.

DISTINCTION: The distinction of things in general

(47). The distinction of good and evil: evil

(48) and its cause

(49). The distinction of creatures -- spiritual (or angels), corporeal, and man (which is both) -- is outlined below.

The Angels

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm

Question 45. The mode of emanation of things from the first principle

What is creation?

Can God create anything?

Is creation anything in the very nature of things?

To what things does it belong to be created?

Does it belong to God alone to create?

Is creation common to the whole Trinity, or proper to any one Person?

Is any trace of the Trinity to be found in created things?

Is the work of creation mingled with the works of nature and of the will?

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
JUNE 17, 2008 9:03 PM
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm

IRT:
“Now that you've debunked all the eastern religions and essentially all non-Christian (non-Catholic?) religions as false, you must explain about the creation of the soul from nothingness to somethingness, and why a divine soul should be created with a destiny that most often results in suffering the eternal fires of damnation when that soul fails to find the 'one true' religion.”

ANS:
A soul will never fail to find the One True Religion if he sincerely attempts to seek it. Whether one is an indigenous native of Tim Buck Two, or an indigenous native of some island that has never been discovered, God will look upon him and give him an opportunity to obtain eternal happiness.

The thief died on the cross with Jesus. He belonged to no religion, He was a notorious thief all his life; he cursed Jesus while on the cross. While Jesus was dying he said to His Father, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The catch was they had to ask God for forgiveness with a firm resolution not to sin again. They had to ask with sincerity. One asked, the other didn’t. One made it; the other didn’t make it. The good thief asked, “Master when you enter your kingdom will you take me with you.” Jesus answered, “This very day you will be in Paradise with me.” The catch is you must love God with all your soul, with all your heart and with all your strength. Then, as St Augustine says, then you may go out and do what ever you want.

God loves ever one He creates, and His mercy is boundless, but He is also Justice, and His Justice and His Mercy are one in His love for all man.

All the answers to these questions about Creation and the Soul are on this link and if you have a problem with them then I will try to answer your problem after you attempt to read the answers.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

ORIGIN: The question of origin or procession (27). The relations of origin relations of origin (28).
THE PERSONS IN GENERAL: The signification (29) of the word "person". The number (30) of the persons, and what is involved in the number of persons, or is opposed thereto; as diversity, and similitude, and the like (31). Our knowledge (32) of the persons.
FATHER: The person of the Father
(33).

SON: The person of the Son, to whom three names are attributed: Son (see 33), the idea of which is gathered from the idea of Father; Word (34) and Image
(35).
HOLY GHOST: The person of the Holy Ghost, Who is called three things: Holy Ghost (36), Love (37) and Gift

(38).
THE THREE COMPARED: The person in reference to the essence (

39), with the relations or properties

(40), or to the notional acts (41). The equality and likeness (

42) of the persons. Their mission (43).

Creation
PRODUCTION: The first cause
(44) of beings. Creation

(45), which is the mode of emanation of creatures from the first cause. The beginning of the duration

(46) of creatures.

DISTINCTION: The distinction of things in general

(47). The distinction of good and evil: evil

(48) and its cause

(49). The distinction of creatures -- spiritual (or angels), corporeal, and man (which is both) -- is outlined below.

The Angels

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm

Question 45. The mode of emanation of things from the first principle

What is creation?

Can God create anything?

Is creation anything in the very nature of things?

To what things does it belong to be created?

Does it belong to God alone to create?

Is creation common to the whole Trinity, or proper to any one Person?

Is any trace of the Trinity to be found in created things?

Is the work of creation mingled with the works of nature and of the will?

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
"POPE BENEDICT AND THE SOUL OF POWER “

IRT:
"The Catholic Church, historically and in the present, wants power not only over the souls of its faithful but also over others who do not share that faith."

ANS:
First, all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights as the Founding Fathers (F/F) noted. The Catholic Church is the guardian of these moral values. They are not imposed on the individual by the Church but by God.

Your statement is an absurdity. The Church wants no power except the power of administration and defense of Her Church.

Her power is manifested in Her exposition of a consistent systematic interpretation or explanation of Truth.

Her perceived power is invested in Her positing of the eminent truths that all men seek from the longing of their natural innate propensity of the human soul.

It’s clergy are forbidden to participate in political office. Fr. Drinan, a US Congressman, was forced to leave Congress. She has condemned and shut down “Liberation Theology,” because politics is not part of Her mission. He mission is the salvation of all souls.

Her mission is the well-being and salvation of mankind teaching the Truth that is inherent in the Scriptures and protected by God.

Namely, She envision and implicates the Corporal Works of Mercy, and informs and succors to man’s spiritual necessities, to lead man to God, and to make known the incomprehensible rewards that await man in his final destiny.

IRT:
“That is why the American Catholic bishops have formed a strategic alliance with right-wing Protestant fundamentalists on so-called 'values issues'--by which they mean mainly matters of sexual behavior."

This is a tricky business for the church hierarchy, because on many social issues--from immigration to poverty--the church's positions are much closer to those of liberal secularists than they are to the policies of the far religious right.

ANS:
There is no trick about it. That is ridiculous preposterousness. Those so-called values are the defense of mankind especially the unborn against being legally murdered by abortion. Even Roe, in Roe v. Wade. now denounces this scurrilous decision and says it was a farce.

Only 48 million have been exterminated since the Court’s infamous asinine decision was concluded. That’s about the size of the population of seven times the population of New York City. We have seen the cacophony, distress, fear, and anger that 9/11 caused; can you imagine what it would be if seven cities the size of NY City were destroyed?

The Court violated the Amendment process and wrote a law of immorality into the Constitution, violating the Separation of Powers. There is no inviolable right to immorality. Now, there is, according to the ignominious Court.

The Court trespassed on the NML, violated the Constitution that every citizen be secured in their own person. The Court transgressed on man’s inviolable right, the "Right to Life."

To circumscribe the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution that “each citizen be secured in his own person,” the Court redefined “person,” and defiled the Natural Law by changing the nature of humanity.

Blackmund incomprehensibly redefine the conceived as a “Thing-Becoming-Human” and defined the conceived as one third human and two thirds thing in the First Trimester of his Trimester Theory, astounding the whole of the Medical society by creating a new being that had never existed in medical history.

In the Second Trimester, the conceived became 2/3rds human and 1/3rd thing. In the end of the Trimester Theory of Blackmund, a woman was never pregnant with a human being. There was no child until it completely escaped the birth canal of the mother. Hence, the Theory justified "partial birth abortion," the sucking out of the unborn's brains while it was being born.

That is the swill the Abortionists were willing to swallow, in order legally to have their unborn murder when their sexual propensities happened to get in the way and leave them pregnant.

TTWSY ----- and so forth:

A final word from me - There are as many brands of Buddhism, as there are numerous denominations of Christianity. While all subscribe to the fundamental ideas of compassion and (gradual) enlightenment, The Buddhism of the Single Vehicle (single Dharma or Truth) advocates sudden enlightenment and awakening to the true nature of Mind in an instant - needless to say, preparation for this moment may take a greater or lesser period of time.

Those that have arrived at this perceptual crossroads confirm what the Buddha said some 2500 years ago, e.g. 'I truly achieved nothing from complete and unexcelled Enlightenment'. As Huang Po said, this is no embellishment, but is the complete truth.

So as the deepest and yet most simple truth of Buddhism, what does this mean? There is no denial of anything as being real or unreal, other than the recognition that conceptual thought has masked the view of Reality as it is for eons of time - otherwise nothing is accomplished, acquired, achieved or realized, that has not been there from the start. One neither gains nor loses anything in that singular moment.....one merely ceases from 'looking through a glass darkly'.

And so this moment is the end of religion and all religious pursuit. One dwells in complete spontaneity - Nirvana is thus, and is not ultimately any different from the everyday material world of Samsara. The Sudden Enlightenment school of Buddhism does not distinguish between the two - they are in fact the same thing...but without any obscurity of immediate, intuitive perception.

As a corollary, take the insight from quantum physics that tells us that our material reality is mostly empty space - even if there are actually 'real' particles of matter, the distances between each particle are so vast that humans and every single material thing are essentially devoid of substance - what we see, is not in any way what is really there from a sub-quantum view. But that is mixing apples and oranges....physics is not Buddhism. Buddhism merely says there is nothing to accomplish other than achieving 'right' perception. Inconceivable Reality unfolds all by itself spontaneously and without any assistance - it always has and always will. It has no inside and no outside. We are told by others that we can intuitively perceive this fact.

Religion is infinitely complex by comparison, as you have plainly made clear with your posts....and you must admit, none of what you say has been proven either objectively or empirically. Rational thought processes do not confirm or prove an objective reality, although they may go a long way in bolstering and supporting one's belief in a subjective reality.

Religion is just too complicated for my taste.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
JUNE 18, 2008 8:59 AM
‘TRUTH WHEN MET FACE TO FACE IS AN OBSTACLE TO THE GNOSTIC.
IRT:
"So of course what you present is opinion and conjecture."

ANS:
In your own words of this post you write, "As the GREAT Buddhist dialectician Nagarjuna says, 'The nature of Reality is Emptiness and is co-dependent, mere appearance [a.k.a. Plato]. It is neither real nor unreal, but there is not a single thing to be found anywhere that is truly independent or self-existing.'"

Maybe you can figure that one out by the brilliant great Buddhist. "It's neither real or unreal." It's not greatness but lunacy.

You claim to be a Gnostic or a Monist. They both deny reality. You have not been given opinion or conjecture but the doctrines and words of people you support like Jung and Spinoza.

The grounds for Monism are epistemological. Psychological Monism runs counter to common sense and experience. Historically, it is a reaction against materialism.

“Monism and Pluralism is more apparent than real, and the latter is as far from the saneness of realistic Dualism as the former.

It is true that the Pluralist admits, in a sense, the existence of the external world; but so also does the Absolutist. The trouble is that neither admits it in a sense that would save the distinction between subject and object. For the Pluralist as well as the Monist is entangled in the web of subjective Idealism as soon as he favors the doctrine that perception is representative, not presentative.”

You have been given the beliefs of the Gnostics and the Monist from their start to modern times. They are a stark contrast to reality.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm

"Two forms of metaphysical Monism recur frequently in the history of philosophy; for instance, the idealistic-spiritual type in neo-Platonism and in Spinoza's metaphysics, and the purely idealistic type in the rational absolutism of Hegel.

Reality is problematic for Monists. The problem is for a Monist there is no reality. Thus, all these syncretisms of Monism are selective picks of things that are conducive to their proclivities and form these materialistic fictitious so-called religious fantasies.

"The weak point of all metaphysical Monism is its inability to explain, if there is but one reality, how everything else is only apparent, and how there can be any real changes in the world, or real relations among things." Even their polytheism is a contradiction.

"This difficulty is met by Christianity in a dualistic system of philosophy by the doctrine of matter and form, or potency and actuality, which are the ultimate realities in the metaphysical order." That is the philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas as opposed to variations of Plato and the baggage his philosophy entails personified by the Gnostics and Monists.

Though Monists claim to be adverse to matter, in their final conclusions their gods are material entities and their conclusions lead directly to materialism."

These are not just opinions and conjecture, but from the doctrines and mouths of the very people, you put your faith in. They are Jung's and Spinoza's own words, and the stated doctrines of Buddhism and Hinduism. Again, they all, in the end, deny reality.

Their ideologies reach a dead end. Why? Because they trespassed from the fields, they are experts in, (Empirical Science) to field they have no expertise in (Metaphysics), and fail badly.

Gnosticism is suicidal in its effacement and many Manicheans committed suicide because they thought all matter was evil. Even food became evil.

Monism denies reality. You can’t have an opinion if you think all things aren’t real, that is known as delusional thinking, and a contradiction.

Facts matter, maybe not in the alternate world where nothing is real for the Monist or the Gnostic, but in the real world where things do exist.

Gnosticism and Monism are pure fabrications of reality. They are a contradiction of one’s own existence.

Yes, you can believe in their folly, but you’d be living in a daydream, as do the agnostic Pantheist and the atheists.

History is an unequivocal witness to their failures manifested in the individual and in society. Their fruits are Communism, Fascism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Hinduism personified in the USSR, East Germany, China, North Korea and the Middle East.

They are in contrast to the true system of government, viz. West Germany to East Germany, Singapore and Taiwan to China and North Korea vs. South Korea.

Moreover, America is an unquestionable example of the truth of Christianity. Contrast America to all the other godless nations of the world and there is no comparison.

If you can’t see the contrast, then you are intellectually blind to reality, as the Monist and Gnostics are.

Just a Thought - yes, I can access all, except the elusive Odyssey article. I think you're correct that 30 pages is beyond thread capacity for cutting and pasting - and I have no workable ideas about an email attachment in this cyber-venue. The library idea is good, but maybe not practical for me in the short run. Let me know if you discover that it can be done via the blog here & in the mean time I'll keep up the search.

regards -

Just a Guess:

Were you able to access the sites I posted? Here's the thing with Dialectics.

The Odyssey essay, as you know, is apparently not on the web. It's about thirty pages in length.

It would, I think, be impractical for me to cut and paste it and I don't see how I can email it as an attachment. Do you know how I would do this?

If not, and you're interested, I was thinking of emailing David Waters to find out if and how this can be done.

As I mentioned, it is anthologized in Dialects of the Enlightenment. ONe of the sites I posted has an essay from that volume.

Can you get to a library?

Let me know....

Just a Thought

TTWSY ------ and so forth:

I think we have to re-state the obvious yet again:

You are a person who is fully committed to the supernatural metaphysics of Catholic doctrine in whole cloth fashion, whereas I quite believing that stuff in any literal sense at the age of 17 -and that is quite a long time ago now. In fact, I am not a follower of any religious faith, but have been interested in several over the years, including esoteric Christianity and Zen Buddhism, as two examples.

So of course what you present is opinion and conjecture, although supported here and there by the opinion and conjecture of other committed folks of the same pre-disposition to believe - some quite famous. You are a literalist, in other words. And while you believe Catholicism to be superior to other religions - here you mention Buddhism at some length, this is again your opinion as regards a religion that is 2500 years old and counting, whereas Vedanta based Hinduism (see also the Upanishads and Bagavhad Gita) is perhaps 4000 years old, and counting. Do we see evidence of their disappearing? Oddly, I don't see it.....

And yes, Catholicism has always been far more pro-active than Buddhism in their perpetual search for converts and even religious/political control - millions have died to this end over the centuries.....compared to the relative (self-centered?) passivity of Buddhism.

Based on a vision of complete inter-relatedness and mutual co-dependence, Buddhism does preach compassion (Bodhichitta) as a central part of the philosophy. The tradition of the Bodhisattva as a fully enlightened individual who intuitively grasps Reality, and who voluntarily forestalls their entrance into Nirvana until such time as all sentient life is saved, is the other essential element of the faith - these two goals of compassion and mutual salvation through real spiritual awareness are the pre-eminent, idealized and revered spiritual components of Buddhism.

Before I forget, here are two books I recommend for your perusal:

'The Nag Hammadi Library' by James Robinson, wherein you will find the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and other relatively obsure writings that were expunged from common usage by the early Church in their quest to 'make their case' - thus we have only the 4 (true) Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John out of many that were available at the time (and were these actual individual writers and chroniclers, we may ask, or merely pseudonyms for an entire collective of anonymous writers?).

Anyway, the second book is an excellent companion, 'The Gospel According to Jesus' by Stephen Mitchell (for believers and unbelievers alike). An interesting book, and one that compares Jesus to other famous 'mystical' figures from several of the religions that have been mentioned in this discussion - the author is well acquainted with and well versed in all these various religions, and is a stellar translator of several.

In fact, all religions as a universal historical & cultural phenomenon have much more in common thematically than not, if not theistically - and all evolved from earlier religious traditions, including Christianity of course. And all believers generally think their tradition is superior to all others!

Read also anything by Thomas Merton, late lamented Trappist monk (Gethsemane monastery) and author that explored the mysticism of both Christianity and Buddhism (Zen) in great detail.

If there is any objective evidence that religion is based on 'hidden' or more profound spiritual realities, this evidence will be found in various mystical traditions, as has been well substantiated by William James, 'Varieties of Religious Experience' and Aldous Huxley in 'The Perennial Philosophy'. Believers in any faith should be well versed in the mystical traditions that underpin that faith. These experiences tend to confirm the exoteric beliefs of the many - or not.

As the great Buddhist dialectician Nagarjuna says, 'The nature of Reality is Emptiness and is co-dependent, mere appearance. It is neither real nor unreal, but there is not a single thing to be found anywhere that is truly independent or self-existing'.

So in this sense, material reality arises as 'everything that is' from moment to moment and seems to be permanently 'entangled' and co-dependent, as our quantum physicists might say. This mutual interdependence has been true since the moment of the Big Bang, if there was such a singular moment...or perhaps we're only a small part of an infinite Metaverse, consisting of parallel realities and perpetually re-cycling universes (as in Vedanta).

I continue to believe that the nature and mind of God is quite obscure to the mortal mind - and if God is a person, then all persons are God.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“MONISM”
POSTED ON JUNE 17, 2008 09:06

IRT:
“All is of One Substance - dualism is based on a false dichotomy e.g. all the Abrahamic faiths - and so Spinoza's monistic apostasy apparently cost him his good standing in the Jewish community!

"I suppose I'm a kind of Gnostic and something of a pantheist...... “

ANS:
As to Spinoza and Jung, one can see the leanings toward materialism when their theories are pushed to their logical conclusion.

To be an atheists, an agnostic as is Pantheism, is to be impervious to the reality that exists around us, and to incapacitate human life to the vagrancies of frustration, confusion, and depression.

On the contrary, theism gives man hope, a destination, and a purpose in life. Because the Creator is the mad lover of all mankind, and man seeks the Creator’s madness intuitively and innately by his nature. Any thing different would be an obstacle to humanity’s final destination, eternal happiness.

Thus, St. Augustine writes, “Lord we have been created for you. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm

MONISM:
IN PSYCHOLOGY:

“The central problem of rational psychology is the question of the relation between soul and body. Scholastic dualism, following Aristotle, maintains, that man is one substance, composed of body and soul, which are respectively matter and form. The soul is the principle of life, energy, and perfection; the body is the principle of decay, potentiality, and imperfection.

These two are not complete substances: their union is not accidental, as Plato thought, but substantial. They are, of course, really distinct, and even separable; yet they act on each other and react.

The soul, even in its highest functions, needs the co-operation, at least extrinsic, of the body, and the body in all its vital functions is energized by the soul as the radical principle of those functions.

They are not so much two in one as two forming one compound. In popular imagination this dualism may be exaggerated; in the mind of the extreme ascetic it sometimes is exaggerated to the point of placing a too sharp contrast between "the flesh" and "the spirit", "the beast" and "the angel", in us.

Psychological Monism tends to obliterate all distinction between body and soul. This it does in one of three ways.

(A) Monism of the materialistic type reduces the soul to matter or material conditions, and thus, in effect, denies that there is any distinction between soul and body.

The Stoics described the soul as a part of the material world-substance; the Epicureans held that it is a compound of material atoms; modern

Materialism knows no substantial soul except the nervous system; Cabanis, for instance, proclaims his materialism in the well-known Crude formula:
"The brain digests impressions, and organically secretes thought."

Psychological materialism, as metaphysical materialism, closes its eyes to those phenomena of the soul that it cannot explain, or even denies that such phenomena exist.

(B) Monism of the idealistic type takes an entirely opposite course. It reduces the body to mind or mental conditions. Some of the neo-Platonists held that all matter is non-existent, that our body is, therefore, an error on the part of our minds, and that the soul alone is the personality.” What craziness is this?

“John Scotus Eriugena, influenced by the neo-Platonists, held the body to be a resultant from incorporeal qualities which the soul, by thinking them and synthesizing them, creates into a body for itself.

In modern times, Berkeley included the human body in his general denial of the reality of matter, and maintained that there are no substances except the soul and God.

The grounds for this belief are epistemological. Psychological Monism runs counter to common sense and experience. Historically, it is a reaction against materialism.

To refute materialism it is not necessary to deny that the body is a reality. The unreflecting dualism of common sense and the scientific dualism which the Scholastics built on the facts of experience steer a safe and consistent course between the hasty generalization of the Materialist, who sees nothing but body, and the bold paradox of the Idealist, who recognizes no reality except mind."

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“MONISM”
POSTED ON JUNE 17, 2008 09:06

IRT:
“All is of One Substance - dualism is based on a false dichotomy e.g. all the Abrahamic faiths - and so Spinoza's monistic apostasy apparently cost him his good standing in the Jewish community!

"I suppose I'm a kind of Gnostic and something of a pantheist...... “

ANS:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm

“The ancient Hindu philosophers stated as a fundamental truth that the world of our sense-experience is all illusion (maya), that change, plurality, and causation are not real, that there is but one reality, God. This is metaphysical Monism of the idealistic-spiritual type, tending towards mysticism.

Among the early Greek philosophers, the Eleatics, starting, like the Hindus, with the conviction that sense-knowledge is untrustworthy, and reason alone reliable, reached the conclusion that change, plurality, and origination do not really exist, that Being is one, immutable, and eternal. They did not explicitly identify the one reality with God, and were not, so far as we know, inclined to mysticism. Their Monism, therefore, may be said to be of the purely idealistic type."

If what we see isn't real, nothing is real, and that is preposterous.

"These two forms of metaphysical Monism recur frequently in the history of philosophy; for instance, the idealistic-spiritual type in neo-Platonism and in Spinoza's metaphysics, and the purely idealistic type in the rational absolutism of Hegel.

Besides idealistic Monism there is Monism of the materialistic type, which proclaims that there is but one reality, namely, matter, whether matter be an agglomerate of atoms, a primitive, world-forming substance (see IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY), or the so-called cosmic nebula out of which the world evolved.

There is another form of metaphysical Monism, represented in these days by Haeckel and his followers, which, though materialistic in its scope and tendency, professes to transcend the point of view of materialistic Monism and unite both matter and mind in a higher something.

The weak point of all metaphysical Monism is its inability to explain how, if there is but one reality, and everything else is only apparent there can be any real changes in the world, or real relations among things.

This difficulty is met in dualistic systems of philosophy by the doctrine of matter and form, or potency and actuality, which are the ultimate realities in the metaphysical order.

Pluralism rejects the solution offered by scholastic dualism and strives, with but little success, to oppose to Monism its own theory of synechism or panpsychism (see PRAGMATISM). The chief objection to materialistic Monism is that it stops short of the point where the real problem of metaphysics begins In theology

The term Monism is not much used in theology because of the confusion to which its use would lead.

Polytheism, the doctrine that there are many gods, has for its opposite Monotheism, the doctrine that there is but one God.

If the term Monism is employed in place of Monotheism, it may, of course, mean Theism, which is a monotheistic doctrine, or it may mean Pantheism, which is opposed to theism.

In this sense of the term, as a synonym for Pantheism, Monism maintains that there is no real distinction between God and the universe. Either God is indwelling in the universe as a part of it, not distinct from it (pantheistic Immanentism), or the universe does not exist at all as a reality (Acosmism), but only as a manifestation or phenomenon of God.”

Hence, in effect, Monism, though it claims it is opposed to matter, viz. God is indwelling in the Universe as a part of it, is materialism.

“These views are vigorously combated by Theism, not only on considerations of logic and philosophy, but also on considerations of human life and conduct. For the ethical implications of pantheism are as detrimental to it as its shortcomings from the point of view of consistency and reasonableness.

Theism does not deny that God is indwelling in the universe; but it does deny that He is comprised in the universe.

Theism does not deny that the universe is a manifestation of God; but it does deny that the universe has no reality of its own.” Namely that it isn’t self-sufficient or its own cause.

Theism is, therefore, dualistic: it holds that God is a reality distinct from the universe and independent of it, and that the universe is a reality distinct from God, though not independent of Him. From another point of view, theism is monistic; it maintains that there is but One Supreme Reality and that all other reality is derived from Him. Monism is not then an adequate equivalent of the term Theism."

Hence, to be anything but Catholic would be irrationally injudicious, imprudently presumptuous, and in effect, an unwarranted impertinent assault on reality.

Just a Guess:

Adorno archived below (paste in address bar), along with Horkheimer (spelling varies).

Read Enlightenment as Mass Deception. "Culture INdustry" around in Europe for decades. Arrived here about twenty years ago and has been worried to death.

Other H & A texts on this site, most find difficult. MM pastiche, after Niestche. Negative Dialectics, dense, but perhaps not for you.

BTW Do you read German? Translation still a big problem w/ND
---

Frankfurt School: The Theodor Adorno Internet Archive

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
June 17, 2008
“MYTHOLOGY and BUDDHISM
IRT:
“He and Joseph Campbell were close friends and mutual admirers. He understood Christianity rightly as pure mythology and was able to defeat religious literalism quite resoundingly. Jung also prefaced the several books by Evans-Wentz on eastern mysticism and Tibetan Buddhism, with clear support for the validity of this 'monistic' view. Maybe more on Jung later...

ANS:
“Buddhism has accomplished but little for the uplifting of humanity in comparison with Christianity.

One of its most attractive features, which, unfortunately, has become wellnigh obsolete, was its practice of benevolence towards the sick and needy.

Between Buddhists and Brahmins there was a commendable rivalry in maintaining dispensaries of food and medicine. But this charity did not, like the Christian form, extend to the prolonged nursing of unfortunates stricken with contagious and incurable diseases, to the protection of foundlings, to the bringing up of orphans, to the rescue of fallen women, to the care of the aged and insane. Asylums and hospitals in this sense are unknown to Buddhism.

The consecration of religious men and women to the lifelong service of afflicted humanity is foreign to dreamy Buddhist monasticism. Again, the wonderful efficacy displayed by the religion of Christ in purifying the morals of pagan Europe has no parallel in Buddhist annals.

Wherever the religion of Buddha has prevailed, it has proved singularly inefficient to lift society to a high standard of morality. It has not weaned the people of Tibet and Mongolia from the custom of abandoning the aged, nor the Chinese from the practice of infanticide.

Outside the establishment of the order of nuns, it has done next to nothing to raise woman from her state of degradation in Oriental lands. It has shown itself utterly helpless to cope with the moral plagues of humanity.

The consentient testimony of witnesses above the suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks are everywhere strikingly deficient in that moral earnestness and exemplary conduct which distinguished the early followers of Buddha.

In short, Buddhism is all but dead. In its huge organism the faint pulsations of life are still discernible, but its power of activity is gone. The spread of European civilization over the East will inevitably bring about its extinction.”

Not much about Jung and Buddhism can be said for them except they are dead ends.

Just a Guess:

Should have written Odysseus rather than Ulysses. Have not looked at this stuff in awhile. H & A were writing to dispel the myths one frequently finds posted by "science idolators" :). Can think of Odysseus as an essay on the mythology of reason. This is a dialectical perspective.

IMHO, Chomsky should have devoted himself to studying Horcheimer and Adorno rather than himself.

H & A saw the Shoah-all totalitarianism-as the result of reason, not the flight from it, no metaphor here--they mean it. (Neither were they "believers," needless to say). ONe can look at H & A as claiming that Reason & Superstition are false binaries. A couple of atheists on this thread, are, I think, either directly or indirectly familiar with H & A in their critique of Science and do not seem able to make themselves understood. Difficult, I think, since most bloggers here, though very, very smart, think either/or.

Humor: Though "ethnically" Jewish, I am neither scientifically nor technologically gifted. Must scan article into computer, save, and print. Will attempt, but must meditate first.
---------
Cannot paste below as links, but if you cut & paste, you will come to good sites on Odysseus essay.

First paper (Curtis Bowman) very good analysis of the "siren call of reason."

Other Voices 1.1 (March 1997), Odysseus and the Siren Call of Reason: The Frankfurt School Critique of Enlightenment by Dr. C. Bowman

Theodor W. Adorno (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

PS. Fear TT, etc., is confusing Spinoza w/German idealists, but shall remain silent on this and read.

IN REPLY TO
JUST A GUESS
BUDDHISM:
IRT
“Jung also prefaced the several books by Evans-Wentz on eastern mysticism and Tibetan Buddhism, with clear support for the validity of this 'monistic' view."

ANS:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03028b.htm

“Weber, Goblet d'Alviella, and others—think it very likely that the Gospel stories of Christ circulated by these early Christian communities in India were used by the Buddhists to enrich the Buddha legend, just as the Vishnuites built up the legend of Krishna on many striking incidents in the life of Christ.

The fundamental tenets of Buddhism are marked by grave defects that not only betray its inadequacy to become a religion of enlightened humanity, but also bring into bold relief its inferiority to the religion of Jesus Christ. In the first place, the very foundation on which Buddhism rests—the doctrine of karma with its implied transmigrations—is gratuitous and false.

This pretended law of nature, by Buddhists by which the myriads of gods, demons, men, and animals are but the transient forms of rational beings essentially the same, but forced to this diversity in consequence of varying degrees of merit and demerit in former lives, is a huge superstition. It is in flat contradiction to the recognized laws of nature, and hence ignored by men of science.

Another basic defect in primitive Buddhism is its failure to recognize man's dependence on a supreme God. By ignoring God and by making salvation rest solely on personal effort, Buddha substituted for the Brahmin religion a cold and colorless system of philosophy.

It is entirely lacking in those powerful motives to right conduct, particularly the motive of LOVE, that spring from the consecration of religious men and women to the dependence on a personal all-loving God.

Hence, it is that Buddhist morality is in the last analysis a selfish utilitarianism. There is no sense of duty, as in the religion of Christ, prompted by reverence for a supreme Lawgiver, by love for a merciful Father, by personal allegiance to a Redeemer.

Karma, the basis of Buddhist morality, is like any other law of nature, the observance of which is prompted by prudential considerations.

Not infrequently, one meets the assertion that Buddha surpassed Jesus in holding out to struggling humanity an end utterly unselfish.

This is a mistake. Not to speak of the popular Swarga, or heaven, with its positive, even sensual delights the fact that Nirvana is a negative ideal of bliss does not make it the less an object of interested desire.

Far from being an unselfish end, Nirvana is based wholly on the motive of self-love. It thus stands on a much lower level than the Christian ideal, which, being primarily and essentially a union of friendship with God in heaven, appeals to motives of disinterested as well as interested love.

Another fatal defect of Buddhism is its false pessimism. A strong and healthy mind revolts against the morbid view that life is not worth living, that every form of conscious existence is an evil.

Buddhism stands condemned by the voice of nature the dominant tone of which is hope and joy. It is a protest against nature for possessing the perfection of rational life.

The highest ambition of Buddhism is to destroy that perfection by bringing all living beings to the unconscious repose of Nirvana. Buddhism is thus guilty of a capital crime against nature, and in consequence does injustice to the individual.

All legitimate desires must be repressed. Innocent recreations are condemned. The cultivation of music is forbidden. Researches in natural science are discountenanced. The development of the mind is limited to the memorizing of Buddhist texts and the study of Buddhist metaphysics, only a minimum of which is of any value.

The Buddhist ideal on earth is a state of passive indifference to everything. How different is the teaching of Him who came that men might have life and have it more abundantly. Again, Buddhist pessimism is unjust to the family. Marriage is held in contempt and even abhorrence as leading to the procreation of life. In thus branding marriage as a state unworthy of man,

Buddhism betrays its inferiority to Christianity, which recommends virginity but at the same time teaches that marriage is a sacred union and a source of sanctification.

Buddhist pessimism likewise does injustice to society. It has set the seal of approval on the Brahmin prejudice against manual labor.

Since life is not worth living, to labor for the comforts and refinements of civilized, life is a delusion.

The perfect man is to subsist not by the labor of his hands but on the alms of inferior men. In the religion of Christ, "the carpenter's son", a healthier view prevails. The dignity of labor is upheld, and every form of industry is encouraged that tends to promote man's welfare.

IN REPLY TO (IRS)
JUST A GUESS:
“CONSCIENCE”
POSTED ON JUNE 17, 2008 08:03
IRS”
“Anyway, You still haven't explained Consciousness as the one and only First Principle, as least as far the human mind goes.”

ANS:
Who ever said conscience was a first principle? You still have no knowledge of what First Principles are. Conscience is a power inscribed by God in the intellect to distinguish good from evil.

“Conscience is the term that stands for the moral department and leaving "consciousness" for the universal field of objects about which we become aware.”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04268a.htm

“St. Thomas explains conscience as a theory that the unbaptized person at the dawn of reason goes through a first crisis in moral discrimination which turns simply on the acceptance or rejection of God, and entails mortal sin in case of failure. (I-II:89:6)

The natural conscience is no distinct faculty, but the one intellect of a man inasmuch as it considers right and wrong in conduct, aided meanwhile by a good will, by the use of the emotions, by the practical experience of living, and by all external helps that are to the purpose.

The natural conscience of the Christian is known by him to act not alone, but under the enlightenment and the impulse derived from revelation and grace in a strictly supernatural order.

St. Thomas (I-II:109:3) teaches that both for the knowledge of God and for the knowledge of moral duty, men such as we are would require some assistance from God to make their knowledge sufficiently extensive, clear, constant, effective, and relatively adequate.

Moreover and especially the conscience is the power of the intellect to put the knowledge of moral duty within reach of those who are much engrossed with the cares of material life.

It would be absurd to suppose that in the order of nature God could be debarred from any revelation of Himself, and would leave Himself to be searched for quite irresponsively.

Being a practical thing, conscience depends in large measure for its correctness upon the good use of it and on proper care taken to heed its deliverances, cultivate its powers, and frustrate its enemies.

Even where due diligence is employed conscience will err sometimes, but its inculpable mistakes will be admitted by God to be not blameworthy. These are so many principles needed to steady us as we tread some of the ways of ethical history, where pitfalls are many

You'll have to wade through that on before you go one to mathematics and religion - first things first. Is consciousness a primary, self-existing phenomenon, or is it a secondary epiphenomenon of organic brain function?

The conscience is a not a phenomenon of the organic brain; if that were true it would not be spiritual but a material entity and not a power of the intellect. The brain is the receptacle that informs the intellect and the will it is not part of either.

That seems to me to be a most pressing question. For what is the soul, if not awareness (self-awareness being a tangential issue).

Self-awareness-being is a superficial relevant issue? What is relevant is the awareness of a God and what He wants man to do in relation to man’s odyssey to eternal happiness.

Hence, it is written in the doctrine of Christ's saying, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" What then is meaning of the question, what is the worth of the whole creation displayed before us? The Zend-Avesta has the reply: "The man therein who is delivered from evil in thought, word, and deed: he is the most valuable object on earth.”

First principles or habits inherent in intellect and will were clearly traced by St. Thomas to an origin in experience and abstraction.

St. Thomas himself, in isolated passages, might seem to afford material for the priorist to utilize in favor of innate forms. But the Thomistic explanation of appetitus innatus, as contrasted with elicitus, saves the situation.

St. Bonaventure, when he is treating precisely of conscience, writes, “Some habits are acquired, some innate as regards knowledge of singulars and knowledge of universals.

“For as two things necessarily concur for cognition, namely, the presence of something cognoscible, and the light by which we judge concerning it,

Cognoscitive habits are in a certain sense innate, by reason of the light wherewith the mind is endowed; and they are also acquired, by reason of the species." ("Comment. in II Lib. Sent.", dist. xxxix, art. 1, Q. ii. Cf. St. Thomas, "De Veritate", Q. xi, art. 1:

“Principles are called innate when they are known at once by the light of the active intellect through the species abstracted from the senses and they are also acquired, by reason of the species. ”The innate principles are objective universals.

TTWSY ------ and so forth:

Now that you've debunked all the eastern religions and essentially all non-Christian (non-Catholic?) religions as false, you must explain about the creation of the soul from nothingness to somethingness, and why a divine soul should be created with a destiny that most often results in suffering the eternal fires of damnation when that soul fails to find the 'one true' religion.

Yes, Spinoza was a pure determinist and didn't subscribe to the idea of 'free will'. Among philosophers of both yesterday and today, he is not alone. As with the nature of consciousness, the reality or unreality of free will is still being debated. It's not always a simple black or white issue.

As an aside, while individual rights are protected under the Constitution, we see these rights abridged when the exercise of said individual rights effects the well-being of the majority, or when it suits the 'will' of the government - as in the suspension of habeas corpus rights for the accused in the case of Gitmo detainees. Fortunately, those individual rights have been re-instituted by SCOTUS by following the law of the land. The criminal Bush administration has finally been thwarted by their own people. Now that says something.......

And back to religion and soul destiny - this failure to find the right religion or live by the right beliefs has thus been the case with the majority of human(souls) that have ever lived, are living even now, or will live in the future. This is just a statistical fact. Who's going to buy those sour apples?

Surely this is the work of the most capricious Creator God imaginable. Not only were the Gnostics aware of this false God - but had a name for it - the Demiurge. This is the arrogant pretender to the true Godhead....and the God of the OT and Abraham.

By the way, early Christians were reincarnationists as well - the 'one birth and one death' idea was yet another committee decision.

To fall back on that old canard that only Christianity offers the divinely inspired truth, and is therefore the only true religion, is hubris of the highest order. How do you expect to sell your religion to educated folks?

I think that's a fair question.....

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
“MYTH IS LACKING IN HARMONY COMPATIBILITY AND APPROPRIATENESS WITH REALITY”
POSTED ON JUNE 17, 2008 08:03

IRT:
"Ironically, I'm not a materialist by any measure. While Jung had his down side, he was quite a brilliant and original thinker for all of his Aryan pretensions....His knowledge and insight regarding mythology and religious symbolism was quite astounding. He and Joseph Campbell were close friends and mutual admirers.

"There is much to admire re. Spinoza - his philosophy is much closer to mine that say, Descartes... and of course, they were 'dialectically' opposed as to their views of Man and God. I believe Spinoza was miss-understood per his observation that all was of One"

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14217a.htm

SPINOZA:
“As it is only in the State that justice and law, injustice, and transgression are conceivable, the individual, in order to be able to live according to reason, must surrender his rights to the community."

That’s Spinoza first mistake; the State exist for the common good and ultimately for the good of the individual. Man surrendering his given inalienable rights up to the State is a tenant of Marxism and materialism, a direction these idealist are drawn to in the end.

Spinoza:
“Then, too, he must obey the government in everything, even against his reason and conviction, unless a command contradicts universal feeling, as the murder of parents.”

And if the murdering of parents isn’t a universal feeling, as Nazis and Communists believed, then what? "That's too bad," says Spinoza, "you must obey the State."

SPINOZA:
"Freedom of thinking and speaking, however, cannot be forbidden by the State; if it has the power to do this, the right, indeed, cannot be denied it, but the prohibition would be disadvantageous to it, because its own existence would be endangered by such tyranny.”

It never has impugned China’s existence, or Cuba’s or Russia’s. It wasn’t Hitler’s citizens that overthrew him; it was his neighbors.

Ah, so it would threaten the State's existence, and why would it? Because the State violates the inalienable absolute rights endowed on man by his Creator, as the Declaration of Independence so states and so recognizes.

Hence, man is not given rights by man but by God. It is not one's self as your philosophers suggest, man must turn to but to a God of Love and Mercy who gives meaning to life.

Further, that if these rights are consistently violated, says the Declaration, it is the duty of all citizens to overthrow such a government and establish another one conducive to the nature of man in order to restore man’s natural rights which are stated and defended by our Judeo-Heritage.

Spinoza:
“No man can ever act according to his convictions, if a law of the State stands in the way.”

Thus, Spinoza denies the free will and give the State jurisdiction over all your rights contradicting our Constitution and Declaration.

“In addition, Spinoza upholds only a partial freedom of conscience. On the other hand the government has the right to supervise the external practice of religion.”

Spinoza obscures and perverts another inalienable right “the freedom of religion,” which is a subsequent result of his ascription of debilitating deviation of free will.

Everyone, who thinks they know more than does God end up with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on their left shoulders. The ideas of the Buddhist, Hindus, Spinoza, Jung, and Campbell represent a spiritualism of a dead god, a god who is pantheistic and worldly. But, their gods don’t work; they end in mass, destruction, confusion, and a contradiction to reality.

Christianity, anywhere you go, is the measure of proper social order progress, and successfulness.

All these mumbo jumbo attempts to reconstruct a human God in some ethereal construct has done nothing but be an obstacle to mankind.

Campbell, Jung, Buddhism, Hinduism, Fascism, Nazism, Marxism, Dualism, and Monism, though they boast of a Spiritual Entity, their gods are gods trapped in their materialistic world of emotions and feelings. In the end, they are all prescriptions for materialism and pessimism.

Karma, the concept that encapsulates Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism is a doctrine of the myth you speak of; it is a belief in reincarnation. It state that this life is a result of actions (both physical and mental) in past incarnations, and action in this life can determine one's destiny in future incarnations. What ridiculousness.

To mitigate these irrational debaucherous syncretisms of man-made worldly religions, since all are bereft of Charity and Love, their religions must, in some sense, imitate Christianity to give them some rational credibility for their existence. That’s what they do.

Thus, the acceptability of paganism is due to its consonance to Christianity, which is the only truth that exists as History testifies and is the only standard that a just government can abide by.

Just a Thought - I perused the Frankfurt School on Wikipedia earlier and just did it again, but it would take considerable in-depth reading for me to say anything intelligent about it!

It was clearly a politically oriented & leftist school of thought, and of course I recall Max Weber (and Marx) from my sociology days - the structural schematics of the ideas would take considerable study, but I wonder if these ideas are similar to Noam Chomsky's early concept of democratic socialism and workers unions, as I see it mentioned in the article.

It seems Chomsky has much in common with this school of thought, politically speaking...however, I don't know the connection off-hand.

Still didn't find the Ulysses article although I see the Odyssey referenced - so by all means paste it if you have it!

Just a Thought - thanks for that last post. No, academia passed me by, and I took a detour that delivered me to the field of medical administration, and in a rarified specialty area at that.

You're certainly right about never again seeing anything like the quality of a classical European education, although an extraordinary intellect usually excels anywhere. One wonders if the gravity of today's intellectual environment or even the academic subject matter is quite what it must have been in those days....more and more folks are preoccupied with 'formula' education, big money jobs, MBAs, and the greatest possible success at 'getting and spending'.

I work with a woman who is a graduate of the University of Heidelburg and very bright...but rather interestingly, a born-again Christian. Never mind discussing religion! Such are the dangers of immigrating to the USA...

My sociology education more or less came to a close around 1970 or so - I stayed away from school for over 10 years and worked in the skilled trades. In retrospect, academia would have been a satisfying life but it was not meant to be - I did maintain an active interest in the study of comparative religion and a smattering of philosophy over the years. These days my interest waxes and wanes. I find involvement on this blog to be a healthy mental exercise that is just hard to duplicate anywhere else in the real world.

I'll search a bit further for the article that you recommended, but will check back in case you find it. I usually cut or copy and paste in a word document and then re-paste here as needed.

It's really been most enjoyable chatting with you!

Until next time -

Just a Guess:

Re: Knowing and Consciousness were what the Frankfurt School (non)foundationally were about.

If you are not going to return to this thread, as a reader, could you let me know, since it will spare me the hell of trying to scan in the Ulysses essay.

Thank you, and thank you, too, TT, etc.

Justathought

I hate to leave the 'hard problem' of consciousness just dangling, since so much thinking and credible research are being invested in this most fundamental mystery.

So here are contributors from various scientific disciplines that are associated with consciousness research. Some are living, while others are no doubt trying hard to communicate with the living! :)

Some are monists and some are dualists. Not surprisingly, several believe consciousness to be a quantum phenomenon (see quantum entanglement).

Some also believe they have firm evidence of the continuation of individual consciousness after death, while others have no particular interest or concern for this issue one way or another. I suspect none are (or were) religious in any conventional sense. Most can be found either on the web or in Wikipedia:

John Wren-Lewis, Susan Blackmore, David Chalmers, Kenneth Ring, Henry Stapp, Amit Goswami, Fred Alan Wolf, Dean Radin, Peter Fenwick (a must see), Ann Faraday, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, Francisco Varela, Stanislav Grof, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Ian Stevenson, Charles Tart, William Roll, Rupert Sheldrake, Raymond Moody, Robert Monroe, Abraham Maslow, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Peter Russell, Edgar Mitchell, Sigmund Freud, Francis Crick, and Carl Jung, to name just a few of the many....

Final post -

Just a Guess:

Thank you very much for your replies. A hurried comment. I, too, was introduced to Adorno in an introductory sociology course via the authoritarian personality. Had I not gone on to study the Frankfurt School, I might have thought him an American-or-even-later-European-style academic, working from a tunnel vision perspective, which, God knows, he was not. The AP construct, though highly influential and important, was a small, uncharacteristic (partly, in that it was empirically based) part of his work.

As you undoubtedly know, Horcheimer and Adorno received the kind of formal education we shall probably never see again. Added to that was their unique positioning as "ethnics" and what I can only call personal genius. Neither man was a science rejectionist. What they understood was social positioning, ideology writ large. As a result Erich Fromm, originally a member of the Frankfurt Group could not remain among them. (The other members wouldn't, couldn't have it.)

Although I am not musically literate, I have had to learn a little about Shoenberg and understand somewhat (less rather than more), about his appeal to Adorno in his high modernist incarnation. Part of his interest, I strongly suspect, had to do with his passion for mathematics. Art, in general, was vitally important to the FRankfurt group, and they were all highly conversant on the arts, published on them in depth.

The essay I refer to is in the Dialects of the Enlightenment. If you are interested and can't get it, I will do my best to try to scan it into my computer, and paste it here. This will be no small feat, if accomplished.

Are you currently an academic? I ask because the Frankfurt School has dominated much of the humanities, belatedly, beginning in the 1970s. We have been in the midst of the "sociology" of everything--knowledge, music, art, literature, etc.

The sociologists have been interested in humanities "sociology" but tend to get understandably irritated at times.

Sincerely,
Just a Thought

PS. TTWSY, etc.

Please continue to post. I have been reading your comments to Just a Guess as dispassionately as I can, I'm trying to understand, and I've been learning.

Just a Thought - it was interesting to become better acquainted with Adorno et al all over again, and who I only vaguely remembered from my studies in sociology in the far distant past. In particular, Adorno's work on the authoritarian personality. I didn't know he was also a talented musician - on the other hand, I greatly dislike (the atonality and raw emotion) of his primary influence, Arnold Schoenberg, so maybe it's just as well!

His views on the anti-intellectualism of 1960's reminds me of my own rejection of academics back in the day - and in fact when I simply dropped out of college and graduate sociological studies altogether - only to return a good many years later in order to finish up graduate work in another area.

I think his views on the Enlightenment have some merit - science is by nature reductionist and hampered by a preoccupation with materialism and materialistic thinking, including his emminence, Dr. Einstein. The implications of quantum mechanics and it's maverick thinkers have not made much of a dent in that mindset.

As to the materialistic view, I see on another thread the postulate that consciousness is 'clearly' a brain function - although how this may be so is completely unproven, consciousness being a wily entity by any standard.

So far, unable to dig up the Ulysses article...

best, as always -

Just a Thought - I'll follow up on your reading suggesion and thanks again.

There is much to admire re. Spinoza - his philosophy is much closer to mine that say, Descartes .... and of course they were 'dialectically' opposed as to their views of Man and God. I believe Spinoza was mis-understood per his observation that all was of One Substance...this was not materialism by any stretch as per Kant, but instead, mirrors the spiritual monism of pure eastern mysticism.

Was he in fact influenced by Vedanta? So some have conjectured. And so by this light, when man was created 'in the image and likeness of God', this is the whole spiritual truth. All is of One Substance - dualism is based on a false dicotomy e.g. all the Abrahamic faiths - and so Spinoza's monistic apostasy apparently cost him his good standing in the Jewish community!

I suppose I'm a kind of Gnostic and something of a pantheist......

Huang Po, the great Tang dynasty Chan master, said 'All is of One Substance and is known as Bodhi - whether presenting as Buddhas, ordinary humans, mountains and streams, or the sands of the Ganges. Awaken to it and discover your own Buddha nature, which has ever been with you'.

While Spinoza was a determinist, Huang Po goes beyond determinism and says that at the deepest level, 'the chain of causation is motionless. There is only the One Mind, and that is all'.

I believe Wren-Lewis had the great good fortune to somehow mysteriously awaken to this fundamental intuitive perception.

regards -

Just a Guess:

Will bow out gracefully, read only, after this:

What I've said of Jung is redundant, I see. But the Ulysses essay you must read if you have not. Thrux? Myth already contained Enlightenment, Englightenment myth. (Enlightenment did not demythologize. Anti-Cartesian)

Re: Monism: Do you consider yourself a monist? As in Spinozan monism? Horgan and Potrc?

TTWSY ------ and so forth:

Ironically, I'm not a materialist by any measure. While Jung had his down side, he was quite a brilliant and original thinker for all of his Aryan pretentions - I don't have the complete library, but quite a few selected works. His knowledge and insight regarding mythology and religious symbolism was quite astounding. He and Joseph Campbell were close friends and mutual admirers. He understood Christianity rightly as pure mythology and was able to defeat religious literalism quite resoundingly. Jung also prefaced the several books by Evans-Wentz on eastern mysticism and Tibetan Buddhism, with clear support for the validity of this 'monistic' view. Maybe more on Jung later...

Anyway, You still haven't explained Consciousness as the one and only First Principle, as least as far the human mind goes. You'll have to wade through that on before you go one to mathematics and religion - first things first. Is consciousnees a primary, self-existing phenomenon, or is it a secondary epiphenomenon of organic brain function? That seems to me to be a most pressing question. For what is the soul, if not awareness (self-awareness being a tangential issue).

I find fault with Christianity on many fronts, but in particular it's committment to dualism - with Descartes being it's biggest defender, aside from his brilliant insight e.g. 'I think therefore I am'...... as Huang Po would say, that is the crux of the problem - conceptual thought. Descartes was of course a committed Christian. Thinking seems to be inevitable, but deep meditators know it is not.......

The Wren-Lewis experience is beyond the bounds of conceptual thought, and represents immediate perception without the mediation of cognitive construct or artifice. I say this transcends the duality of conventional religion, Christianity included - but is nevertheless very real. I also say his type of experience is not only the foundation of religion, but also the goal....humans save themselves through knowledge, rather than by the actions of a 'proxy' savior. That makes me something of a gnostic, and much like Jung himself!

Quantum physicist Amit Goswami says this type of unitive experience underpins what he calls Idealistic Monism in his book 'The Self-Aware Universe'.

This is a very rushed response and unfortunately I'm out of time for now.......

Just a Thought - thanks for your suggestion and glad to see you're still with us!

Just a Guess:

Have looked at Wren Lewis and was greatly impressed. Jung was, indeed, close to being a nazi in his views, benefited from nazism, etc., as TTWS, etc., states. The metaphysics of his views must give one pause. He used the word "race" in the sense it was used decades ago, as in the English race, the Irish race, etc.

Throw his psychology out with his nazism? No. Is there something amiss in some of his psychology. There are always dangers in myth. One must, I think, be careful. Speaking of which, have you read Adorno & Horcheimer, Dialectics of the Englightenment? You may be able to find the essay on Ulysses on the web. At any rate, see Douglas Kelner's site "Illuminations" for the Frankfurt School.

If you are already familiar with all this, sorry.

Just a Thought

Just a Thought

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
“THERE ARE NO FIRST PRINCIPLES”
IRT:
“The hard science of quantum physics disproves the idea of 'first principles' as having any discernable self-existing nature, but rather numerical relationships can exist only as part and parcel of the equally relational activities of the human mind and in particular, higher cognitive functions - Plato and Jung's archetypal worlds notwithstanding

ANS:
It appears to be more mumbo-jumbo. Quantum Physics has nothing to do with disproving First Principles; it relies on them. If Physics disproved First Principles, it would disprove itself.

Your in the wrong world and your mixing oranges with apples spiritual entities with material ones and predicating the same activity for both as if there of the same nature. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

Before you say anything, more ridiculous you should find out what the First Principles are. The last thing you should be doing is consulting Plato, he thought he was living in a fake world, a reflection of reality.

He believed what he knew wasn’t real. Hence, he was self-contradicting.

Jung was a Nazi who endorsed Mein Kampf as required reading for all psychoanalysts.

Jung: “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

Apparently, Jung treats man as a material entity. Transformed can mean in substance, or in accident. There may be an accidental transformation in behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental--that characterize a unique individual, but there is no substantial transformation.

That’s some luminaries you’ve chosen and they are indicative of why you’re having such problem with God. Apparently, Jung didn’t mind contradictions. Marx was another who didn’t mind contradictions. He claimed that contradictions lead to a synthesis of a new knowledge. Dialectical Materialism. We know where materialism leads. It is the denial of God and man’s nature.

Jung served as president of the Nazi-dominated International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, created by Matthias Göring.

Jung: “It is in applied psychology, if anywhere, that today we should be modest and grant validity to a number of apparently contradictory opinions; for we are still far from having anything like a thorough knowledge of the human psyche, that most challenging field of scientific enquiry. For the present we have merely more or less plausible opinions that defy reconciliation.”

You see what happens when you veer from the truth; bad things happen. Marx thought of man as thing, as apparently Jung did. Plato kind of veered from the truth as well. When that happens man becomes a commodity, a thing and his nature is redefined.

Hence, abortion treats the unborn as a thing. Blackmun describes the conceived as a thing. Things can be eliminated. In addition, the Court redefined human nature, and redefined “person.”

The Nazis eliminated human things that were a drag on society, like old people, invalids, the helpless, and the unborn.

Loma Linda Hospital eliminated encephalitic children after they cannibalized their organs. We have eliminated nearly fifty million unborn. How many future Einsteins, Beethovens, Copernicuss, Edison, and Max Planks, who will never be, have we murdered?

Have you ever heard of Joseph Fletcher, the father of situation ethics. Read him sometime, he used your rationale.

That’s why it is necessary to get things right and that’s why the cleric speaks out when ignominy become the face of social disorder.

TTWSY -------- and so forth:

Every statement you make is contingent on something else, and something else, and something else - this is co-dependence, ad infinitum.

Consequently, you haven't thus far spoken of any self-existing or independently existing 'absolute' truth at all - other than by way of your humanly constructed religious metaphysics.

The hard science of quantum physics disproves the idea of 'first principles' as having any discernable self-existing nature, but rather numerical relationships can exist only as part and parcel of the equally relational activities of the human mind and in particular, higher cognitive functions - Plato and Jung's architypal worlds notwithstanding.

Naturally this applies to all abstract mental constructs of reality and/or various aspects of reality, as well - anything conveyed by way of thought is relative to and dependent on the nature of the thought process. Nothing further can be attributed to it, logically speaking. There is no physicist alive that would maintain science has anything but a most relative and incomplete view of the totality of reality, your 'divine' reality notwithstanding.

However, I've offered an example in my previous post of ways of experiencing a Reality beyond the confines of conventional religious practice and belief. In the end, this is a non-rational experience, as are all mystical and transcendent types of experience - nothing could be more deeply personal, paradoxical, or inexplicable.

And as to all relativity based constructs, this of course includes mathematics of every conceivable kind. Again, nothing whatsoever can be proven to be self-existent in human experience beyond what can be found through the (self-existent?) medium of human awareness (including both the conscious and unconscious realms) - and no exceptions. Is human awareness of the same nature as the infinity of Cosmic Awareness? A worthy if paradoxical question....

For the most part, everyday consciousness is known to us with all it's limitations. Religion does not transcend consciousness, yet you continue on with religious hyperbole as though you've magically found a way to go beyond the limits of consciousness and are speaking to us from a 'timeless and supernal realm'. I see no evidence of that.

While you may choose to have the last word here, I think we've taken the discussion as far as it can be taken - at least from my end.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS.
“TRUTH”
POSTED ON JUNE 15, 2008 13:43
IRT:
“The too-frequent arrogance of religionists and their bottomless commitment to all things religious, is the truest example imaginable of a state of mind that is defined by the futility of not knowing, and a conspicuously absent lack of humility when confronted with this fact - at least in the view of the non-religious.”

ANS:
If religion is arrogant, it is arrogant on the accord of its members, however, most religions are not arrogant but in error in seeking the truth. Since God is Prescient, He is pre-eminently disposed to know the pecability and fragilities of human reason.

Therefore, Jesus, Who is God, established His Church to guide man in his weakness when seeking the Truth. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guard His Church against error giving it the gift of infallibility in matters of its faith and moral teachings so that man may have certitude in his beliefs and not live in error.

Moreover, it would be profound buffoonery to believe that Jesus, who is God, in view of His Prescience, would spend some 33 years on earth to establish His Church and upon His Ascension would leave the Church in the hands of man alone, subject to error. That would signify a lack of wisdom, but God does not lack wisdom; he is Divine Wisdom.

IRT:
“Imagine having to take conscious control of your infinitely complex and fully, death would quickly ensue. Instead, a near infinitude of biochemical and neurological processes run rather flawlessly right on down to the sub-cellular and even sub-atomic level. This gives us all the time in the world to 'figure' things out - thinking is what we do with all this spare time....but our destiny is of a glaringly finite length along the continuum of time, of course.”

ANS:
Having you been consulting with Cartoon Network , consciousness after death? Infinitely complex?, near infinitude? What kind of mumbo-jumbo is that?

Nothing is necessary after death; God takes care of everything. Immaterial beings, as the human soul, are incorruptible. There is nothing to decompose. The intellect operates in accordance to its spiritual nature.

Nothing in the Universe can operate in the same effective way, because only man can reason in the Universe, as we know it. Therefore, the soul of man is a spiritual entity, uncorruptible, incapable of being decomposed, and eternal. It will not exist in time after death.

IRT:
Take comfort in the fantasy that you have answers to all the big questions - I'm guessing if Augustine and Aquinas were here with us today, they'd more likely be found in the ranks of science rather than religion - perhaps as mathematicians and quantum physicists (well, Plato and Pythagoras had the jump on them there).

ANS:
You must quit guessing, you haven’t gotten anything right yet. In fact, you unwittingly have contradicted yourself in that you claim there are no universal absolute truths, because you know not what absolute truth is.

If there were no absolute truths, you couldn’t make any statements because even the self-evident First Principles would not exist. Further you reliance on Empirical Science as your source of truth relies on universal truths. Without them, you would not have any sciences.

IRT:
“If you have found your 'truth' then so be it - there are many forms of truth, and some better than yours...without an open mind, this is something you will never know - at least not in this lifetime.

ANS:
Many forms of truth, what are they? Yes, I can understand your confusion because under your rationale that there are no absolute universal truths you can’t determine what truth is. Hence, there are many forms of truth to you. That is your fantasy.

On the contrary, there are universal objective truths, and not to admit to them is to admit to irrationality and to entrap oneself in the alternate world of unreality, where up is down, and down is up, where evil is good and good is evil.

Morality becomes subjective without universal moral laws. Even the Natural Law the substance of all sciences is unreliable. Thus, truth becomes what you want it to be. The advocates of subjectivity, impervious to Truth have wrought Abortion and AIDS and the Culture of Death from the Sexual Revolution where the real death pursues, the death of the soul, Hell.

TTWSY ------ and so forth:

I'll provide a final addendum for you to contemplate - the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, Hui Neng said, "from the first, nothing is, ever has been, or will ever be".

A couple of generations later in the heart of the Tang dynasty, Huang Po said, 'absolutely nothing whatsoever has objective existence - there is only the One Mind, and that is all'. The One Mind is unable to describe the nature of Itself, of course, since there is no real audience and nothing to compare Itself to.

And so with this idea the nature of Reality in mind, I'm providing a brief article with interesting links for further reading. When you've duplicated the experiences recapitulated herein, you can speak with more authority - but what will you say?

_________________________

I thought it might be interesting to review a deep 'spiritual' and even transformative experience outside the bounds of organized religion. In this spirit, I'm pasting a brief excerpt from an article by John Wren-Lewis, former Australian physicist and now-current spokesman for the Consciousness movement.

Curiously, he was in the forefront of the 'God is Dead' movement back in the 1960's. Maybe he's taken with movements! His wife Ann Farraday is in a similar line of work. I think they go far beyond the typical New Age claptrap and speak of real and life-altering experiences in their writings and research.

Anyway, check out the links as well for an expanded view of how his 'perception' has changed based on an event that occurred some 25 years ago.

These things do occur, and for folks that have never had such an experience to malign others as delusional, even by implication, is just wrong-headed in my view. While it is true that similar experiences are most often 'interpreted' post facto in a religious context, the experience itself is more accurately described as 'transpersonal' (and is relatively rare). I would maintain that these experiences are initially outside the bounds of religion altogether - and perhaps a good preventative antidote to the dangers of a materialistic scientism! Wren-Lewis believes they are available to one and all......

____________________

John Wren-Lewis is one of the freshest voices in contemporary spirituality probably because, for many years, he viewed mysticism as escapism. Mystical beliefs were no better than religious or scientific beliefs -- to believe was not the same as to know. When, in 1983, Wren-Lewis had a profound mystical experience, he was free to describe it in his own words and not in the terms of any spiritual tradition.

John Wren-Lewis' description of his experience is so vivid and personal that you can feel the Truth that underlies it: . . . it is all still here, both the shining dark void and the experience of myself coming into being out of, yet somehow in response to, that radiant darkness. My whole consciousness of myself and everything else has changed. I feel as if the back of my head has been sawn off so that it is no longer the 60-year-old John who looks out at the world, but the shining dark infinite void that in some extraordinary way is also "I."

And what I perceive with my eyes and other senses is a whole world that seems to be coming fresh-minted into existence moment by moment, each instant evoking the utter delight of "Behold, it is very good." Here yet again I am constantly up against paradox when I try to describe the experience. Thus, in one sense, I feel as if I am infinitely far back in sensing the world, yet at the same time I feel the very opposite, as if my consciousness is no longer inside my head at all, but out there in the things I am experiencing ... .

The circumstances of Wren-Lewis' enlightenment are equally unique. While travelling in Thailand, he was poisoned by a would-be robber. Upon awakening in the hospital, he became conscious of the "dazzling darkness" from which he has lived ever since. Now, he devotes himself to discovering how to pass this experience on to others. With no vested interest in any traditions, he is free to honestly evaluate their efficacy.

He concludes that there is little or no evidence of any spiritual system offering a sure road to awakening. John Wren-Lewis calls upon all spiritual teachers to share their findings in the spirit of scientific inquiry to help uncover the factors that bring about awakening. To this task, he has dedicated the rest of his life.

I highly recommend you read the following articles:
http://www.nonduality.com/dazdark.htm
http://www.globalideasbank.org/befaft/B&A-5.HTML

Many more articles are available at the John Wren-Lewis Archive on the Capacitie website.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS.
TRUTH
POSTED ON JUNE 15, 2008 13:43
IRT:

IRT:
Religious rationalizations certainly have no place along side science - which happens to be a process, rather than a finished work, as in the case of religion.

ANS:
To the contrary, the opposite is true. Empirical Science (ES) is the handmaiden to Divine Science, Theology, because Divine Science’s subject matter is Divine Revelation from God, the Creator, who orders, through His Natural Laws, the Universe the subject matter of ES and on which ES depends.

"Reason on its own can lead us to see some ideas of the Divine order, but experience teaches us that few true philosophers exist, and even they have spent a good part of their lives encapsulating inherited opinions that had to be unlearned or were misdirected by unbalanced emotions.

Thus, the light of faith is necessary if we are to approach closer to the Divine order of reality. Faith not only assist us to not only know what is above our reason, but it helps us to more quickly arrive at the aspects of the Divine plan that can be known by reason.

Left to reason alone, the search for knowledge of God is the last pursuit they would be prone to undertake, so faith makes the knowledge of the Divinity more widespread.

Moreover, reason is deficient concerning, so faith is necessary so that man may have knowledge of God free of doubt and uncertainty, and for the sake of certitude. Therefore, it is necessary that Divine Wisdom and truth be delivered to man by faith, being told, so to speak, by God Himself, who cannot lie.

Therefore, not only does faith assist and corrects reason, it leads believers beyond reason to the Ultimate Reality, God. Faith leads man into a new world and to knowledge above reason into the mysteries of God.

In Aristotle’s “Posterior Analytics, he distinguishes two kind of sciences. A simple and pure science begins with its own self-evident principles, as geometry and mathematics.

Other sciences are subalternated or dependent sciences that take the principles of pure sciences and use them in another field. Thus, optics relies on geometric principles and music composers rely on mathematical principles. They borrow these principles on faith and use them for their science in optics, and to compose music.

Consequently, people of faith take their starting principles from God’s knowledge pass down to the faithful, of course not self-evident to reason but knowledge passed down from God’s knowledge which is self-evident and use these in their science of Christian Revelation.

One of the characteristics of Aristotle’s science is that it is deductive. He reasons from certain self-evident principles. In theology, the faithful deduct from their divinely guaranteed certainty, making explicit what was already implicit in Scriptures by following certain laws of logic.

Theological conclusions draw from revealed premises that follow as explications of basic theological principles or premises. Thus, Theology deepens by its deduction the understanding of the richer message of Scriptural revelations and the divine mysteries contained in them.

Theology, as distinct from Natural Theology, is the highest and noblest of sciences providing the Divine Order within which all other sciences have their place.

We cannot prove first principles; we must have some principles that are not conclusions from previous premises. Hence, the first principle “The same thing ‘cannot be’ and ‘be’ at the same time under the same aspects.

This is not argumentative; it is self-evident. If we were to deny it, we would see that our denial implies we admit it. The articles of the Christian faith are first principles

No philosopher had dreamed of the goal of human life as is presented in Scripture. Attaining beatitude required the knowledge of certain truths that are beyond the attainment of human reason left to itself.

The substance of Aristotle’s philosophy is dwarfed before all the portrayals of realities. Nevertheless, the organizations of the realities that Aristotle treats is superior.

Thus, Aquinas attempts to bring an order that exists among the realities of the natural order into a theological Divine Order, an order that exist among the realities that exists in the Christian faith. In its fullness, this order exists in Divine Wisdom.”

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS.
TRUTH
POSTED ON JUNE 15, 2008 13:43

IRT
“While there is every reason to believe that there is in fact no 'timeless truth' to be found, religion has been selling the same brand of 'absolute' truth for millennia.”

ANS:
If there is no “timeless truth” how do you explain the First Principles. You seem to be saying though 1+1=2, an absolute truth, we may wake up tomorrow and find it equals three.

Are we to think that a thing that exists cannot exists at the same time under the same circumstances? Are we to believe that things are caused, and not caused at the same time under the same conditions?

IRT:
“In actual truth, you have found no reasonable explanation for any of this - but merely believe you have. This entire metaphysical schematic is based on an act of faith, and that's all.

ANS:
It is written, “The very hiding of truths in figures is useful for the exercise of thoughtful minds and as a defense against the ridicule of unbelievers according to the words “Give not that which is Holy to dogs,”—Mathew7: 6.

If it is true there is no reasonable explanation, then Aristotle didn’t know he proved there is a God, he just thought he did. In fact, according to you, we can’t know anything; we just think we do.

Your rationale would also render your statement meaningless. Since there are no eternal truths, what ever anyone believes is not truth but what one thinks is truth because you have rendered a rationale that even the First Principles are not absolute. Hence, there is no reasonable explanation for anything. Now that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it.

IRT:
Religious rationalizations certainly have no place along side science - which happens to be a process, rather than a finished work, as in the case of religion.

ANS:
The process of religion is to live the eternal truths given to man by God towards an ultimate end. The Empirical Sciences are a process of not creating but knowing as are the science of Theology and the practice of religion. The practice of religious principles is a journey to man’s complete perfection, the arrival of his final destiny, the state of final perfection, eternal happiness.

If we can’t depend on reason, how can we think anything, and how can you make any such statements?

Metaphysics is a science and so is Theology. Metaphysics, the science of Natural Theology, is nobler and has more certitude than Mathematics or Empirical Sciences because the lower sciences borrow their principles from Metaphysics.

However, Empirical Sciences have the lowest threshold of certitude because they borrow their principles from the nobler and higher sciences, Mathematics and Metaphysics.

“It is befitting Holy Scripture to put forward Divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things. For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature.

Now, it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible things, because all our knowledge originates through sense.

Hence, in Holy Scripture spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things. It is also befitting of Holy Scripture, which is proposed to all without distinction of persons—(“To the wise and unwise I am a debtor,” Romans 1: 14)—that spiritual truths be expounded by means of figures taken from corporal things, in order that thereby even the simple, who are unable by themselves to grasp intellectual things, may be able to understand it."

The science of Divine Theology is above all other sciences including Metaphysics because its principles are revealed directly from God. Not only are they believed, they are known because they come from God who encompasses both belief and reason. Therefore, all science depends on the Divine Science.

“The souls hunger for fulfillment can ultimately be found only in the tranquility of that order where all things outside the soul are properly related to it, where all things within the soul listen to its highest aspirations, and where the soul itself, even in its most noble moment, is not the center of reality. The fundamental yearning of its being, and the being of every creature, is for its Creator.

And so St Augustine writes, “Thou has made us for thyself O’Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Thus, the meaning of life can only be found in the writings and inspired Word of the Scriptures.

"The tranquility that the soul of every man searches for is found in Divine Wisdom which is the eternal happiness that Aristotle says all men seek, and as Augustine speaks of, namely, man resting in eternal beatitude of Divine Wisdom."

TTWSY ------ and so forth:

Here's the deepest of deep truths for you.... there is nothing to explain, other than what you choose to explain, and there is no purpose, other than that which you choose most arbitrarily to attribute to purpose.

This is the conundrum that religionists don't seem to get - and is actually a most profound realization. Fortunately for humans, they have nothing but time on their hands, relative to other life forms and their perpetual need to 'survive and make a living' from moment to moment.

While there is every reason to believe that there is in fact no 'timeless truth' to be found, religion has been selling the same brand of 'absolute' truth for millenia.

In actual truth, you have found no reasonable explanation for any of this - but merely believe you have. This entire metaphysical schematic is based on an act of faith, and that's all. Religious rationalizations certainly have no place along side science - which happens to be a process, rather than a finished work, as in the case of religion.

The too-frequent arrogance of religionists and their bottomless committment to all things religious, is the truest example imaginable of a state of mind that is defined by the futility of not knowing, and a conspicuously absent lack of humility when confronted with this fact - at least in the view of the non-religious.

Imagine having to take conscious control of your infinitely complex and fully autonomic system for even a few seconds - chaos and death would quickly ensue. Instead, a near infinitude of biochemical and neurological processes run rather flawlessly right on down to the sub-cellular and even sub-atomic level. This gives us all the time in the world to 'figure' things out - thinking is what we do with all this spare time....but our destiny is of a glaringly finite length along the continuum of time, of course.

Take comfort in the fantasy that you have answers to all the big questions - I'm guessing if Augustine and Aquinas were here with us today, they'd more likely be found in the ranks of science rather than religion - perhaps as mathematicians and quantum physicists (well, Plato and Pythagorus had the jump on them there).

If you have found your 'truth' then so be it - there are many forms of truth, and some better than yours....without an open mind, this is something you will never know - at least not in this lifetime.

Good luck to you.......

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“THE ASSUMPTION AND METAPHYSICS"

ANS:
Assumption is a truth from the Traditions of the Church and has always been believed. When some theologians tried to challenge it, the Pope stepped in and officially declared it was an article of faith.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm

“The Assumption is derived from our knowledge of the mystery from Apostolic Tradition. Epiphanius (d. 403). [Note: By promulgating the Bull Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a dogma of the Catholic Faith.

"Likewise, the Second Vatican Council taught in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium that "the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things (

I don’t know what all that rhetoric has to do with the Assumption. It’s simple, Mary the Mother of God, irrespective of all your statements was assumed into Heaven body and soul. A fact declared by Pope Pius XII, not Pius XI.

IRT:
"There is a deep internal logic to the self-created metaphysics of Catholic doctrine after all."

ANS:
Sorry, there’s no such thing as a self-created metaphysics unless it is false. Metaphysics is a science of the fundamental principles of being. It’s no more created than is Physics or Chemistry. They all depend on reality, that which already exists. They are ordered investigative forms of the pursuit of knowledge of a chosen formal object.

IRT:
"Between various Councils and Papal decrees, the entire coda of the Catholic Church was hammered out over the millennia."

ANS:
"It is well to begin by stating the ecclesiological truths that are assumed to be established before the question of infallibility arises. It is assumed that Christ founded His Church as a visible and perfect society;

"That He intended it to be absolutely universal and imposed upon all men a solemn obligation actually to belong to it, unless inculpable ignorance should excuse them;

"That He wished this Church to be one, with a visible corporate unity of faith, government, and worship; and that in order to secure this threefold unity, He bestowed on the Apostles and their legitimate successors in the hierarchy.

"And on them, exclusively the plenitude of teaching, governing, and liturgical powers with which He wished this Church to be endowed."

Again, the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church are derived from Christ, directed, and protected by the Holy Spirit through the Magisterium of the Church. They are unchangeable, and nothing can be added to them from the time of Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven.

The councils discuss the meaning of Scripture and the Magisterium, in consonance with the Pontiff; decide what is meant when certain attacks on Christian beliefs occur.

These things aren’t hammered out in the sense of a debate, the truths are known they are given to man as a gift of Faith. The debate is how we arrive at them and how we use them to confront social error. The Church defends them and protects them, and the debate is how we expand on their meaning.

Moreover, the term is not “mythical” (Lacking factual basis or historical validity) in regards to the Assumption, it is “mystical (Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding). The Assumption is a fact and does not lack validity.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS
JUNE 14, 2008 9:56 AM
"THE VALIDITY OF CHRISTIANITY":

IRT:
"The motives of credibility may be briefly stated as follows:

In the Old Testament, considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we find detailed the marvelous dealings of God with a particular nation to whom He repeatedly reveals Himself; we read of miracles wrought in their favor and as proofs of the truth of the revelation He makes.

We find the most sublime teaching and the repeated announcement of God's desire to save the world from sin and its consequences.

And, more than all, we find throughout the pages of this book a series of hints, now obscure, now clear, of some wondrous person who is to come as the world's savior.

We find it asserted at one time that He is man, at others that He is God Himself.

When we turn to the New Testament we find that it records the birth, life, and death of One Who, while clearly man, also claimed to be God, and Who proved the truth of His claim by His whole life—miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphant resurrection.

We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said, continue to the end of time, which should serve as the repository of His teaching, and should be the means of applying to all men the fruits of the redemption He had wrought.

When we come to the subsequent history of this Church, we find it speedily spreading everywhere, and this in spite of its humble origin, its unworldly teaching, and the cruel persecution, which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world.

And as the centuries pass, we find this Church battling against heresies schisms, and the sins of her own people-nay, of her own rulers.

Yet continuing, we see ever the same, promulgating ever the same doctrine, and putting before men the same mysteries of the life, death, and resurrection of the world's Savior.

Moreover, it was He Who had, so She taught, gone before to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him and fought the good fight.

But, if the history of the Church, since New-Testament times thus wonderfully confirms, the New Testament itself, and if the New Testament so marvelously completes the Old Testament, these books must really contain what they claim to contain. Viz. they contain Divine revelation.

And more than all, that Person’s life and death were so minutely foretold in the Old Testament, and Whose story, as told in the New Testament, so perfectly corresponds with its prophetic delineation in the Old Testament. Therefore, it must be what He claimed to be, viz. the Son of God.

His work, therefore, must be Divine. The Church that He founded must also be Divine. Therefore, since the Church is the repository and guardian of His teachings, it must be Devine.

Indeed, we can truly say that for every truth of Christianity, in which we believe Christ Himself is our testimony. We believe in Him because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony. [That testimony is] of His miracles,

His prophecies His personal character, the nature of His doctrine. [More so, we believe because of] the marvelous propagation of His teachings.

[Thus, it has came about, even] in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the united testimony of thousands of martyrs. [And there is] the stories of countless saints who for His sake have led heroic lives.

The history of the Church herself, since the Crucifixion, and, perhaps more remarkable than any, the history of the papacy from St. Peter to Pius XVI. show Her validity.

These [Her] testimonies are unanimous; they all point in one direction, they are of every age, they are clear and simple, and are within the grasp of the humblest intelligence.

And, as the Vatican Council has said, "the Church herself, is, by her marvelous propagation, her wondrous sanctity, her inexhaustible fruitfulness in good works, her Catholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission" (Const. Dei Filius).

"The Apostles,” says St. Augustine, "saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the Body let us believe in the Head" [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P.L., V 1143].

"Every believer will echo the words of Richard of St. Victor, "Lord, if we are in error, by Thine own self we have been deceived- for these things have been confirmed by such signs and wonders in our midst as could only have been done by Thee!" (de Trinitate, 1, cap. ii).

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUNE 14, 2008 9:56 AM
JUST A GUESS:
IRT:
“Stuff and nonsense - anybody that lives by the following tale has to be taken with a grain of salt, to wit:”

ANS:
To the contrary, the witless are those who deny there is a God, and those who limit Him to the laws that He binds the Universe with, His own Natural Law.

Still guessing I see. It is written, “Without God nothing is possible; with God all things are possible.” Ironically, the atheists and agnostics in a negative fashion unwittingly have agreed with the Scriptures. Hence, “Nothing is possible because to them there is no God.”

And, so the Godless can’t explain their existence or the existence of anything. They can’t explain their purpose; they can’t explain miracles, and they deny over 2,000 years of history.

They claim that Scripture is myth in the face of all the historians, philosophers, archeologist, paleontologist, and anthropologist who confirm the Scriptures validity.

And, their contradiction is a conundrum of perplexing proportion. They rely on Empirical Science to buffer their ignorance and when their sciences contradict their predispositions, they ignore them.

Hence, when the greatest scientist in Eugenics, the Father of Modern Eugenics (Dr. Lejeune), the former Chairman of Eugenics at Mayo Clinic (Hymie Gordon), Embryology, Microbiology and medical scientist and researchers, even the “Father of IVF find that the “conceived” is human. Yet, the irrationalist deny them all, and condone the murder of over 48 million unborn by abortion and an assault on the embryo by experimentation.

They accuse Pope Pius XII of the approbation of the Nazis in the face of such eminent Jewish leaders, who lived the horrors of Nazism and praised the Pope for his efforts.

They are Golda Meir, Israel's Foreign Minister, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Moshe Sharett, who would become Israel's First Foreign Minister and Second Prime Minister, Rabbi David G. Dalin, the most renowned Jewish historian in our time; they are not believed by the dissidents, clerics and religious interceding in the Public Square.

Nor do dissidents believe Dr. Leon Kubowitzky, the Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress, Dr. Raffael Cantoni, Head Of The Italian Jewish Community's Wartime Jewish Assistance Committee, who would subsequently become the President Of The Union Of Italian Jewish Communities.

Nor do the detractors believe the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and even Leonard Bernstein Director of the New York Symphony Orchestra who honored Pius XII, a cleric who interfered in the Public Square.

The legacy of the atheist and agnostics is manifest, viz. Communism, Fascism, Shintoism, Pantheism and Animalism. In America, we are witness to their ignominy, the Sexual Revolution and the Culture of Death.

The Atheist/Agnostic’s calling card is an invitation to the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, famine, pestilence, war, and death personified in such atheist luminaries as Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.

It’s the blind leading the blind wallowing in their distortions and trapped in a world of materialism. Materialists contradict their own human nature. They deny there is a God and therefore they deny Truth because God is All Truth.

And so it is, you mock the Immaculate Conception because you have no true God. If there is no God, then who created you? Did man create himself? Did nothing create something? Are you a descendant of the Big Bang, molten rock blasted into the Universe? Did the intellect come from a rock?

Absurdity begets absurdity. Did all the intelligent ordering of the Universe come from brainless matter? Did the Big Bang in its mass of chaos order itself? And, where did the mass itself come from? What priggery that is.

When you live in darkness, in the alternative world nothing makes sense because there is no God. And, so you have a problem with the Immaculate Conception. Why not, how could an atheist or an agnostic not have a problem with the Immaculate Conception when there is no God for them?

Nothing outside of the material world makes sense to the disconnects of reality. They can’t explain ideas because they are immaterial; to materialist all things are quantified and materialized.

Thus, to Kant, ideas are “a priori” viz. in the mind only, causing a denial of knowledge’s reality. Kant’s legacy is Materialism Communism, Pessimism, Negativism, and eventually despair.

It would be irrational to believe in a God, who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Prescient, who created man (and contrary to their denial of God, He did create man), could not cause the Immaculate Conception, not preserve His Mother in virginity, and assume her into Heaven body and soul?

Who but God can forgive sins and create the Eucharist by turning water and wine into His Body and Blood? With a God, all things are possible, without him the confounded are dumbfounded.

TTWSY ----- and so forth:

Stuff and nonsense - anybody that lives by the following tale has to be taken with a grain of salt, to wit:

(1) an immaculate conception by divine in-vitro fertilization through the angelic intercession of ... well, who really knows (but she was later taken up bodily into heaven in a state of perfect preservation) (2) the virgin birth of (3) a Divine Son who is the third person of a divine triad that is (altogether) God the Creator of Heaven and Earth and who (4) perpetrated a vast number of miracles including raising the dead, healing the sick, forgiving sinners their sins, turning water into wine, multiplying untold warehouses full of loaves and fishes to feed the masses and (5) turning a few thousand gallons of water into wine just after he (6) walked on water offshore in Gallilee and (7) predicted his own death and resurrection at a final meeting with his 12 apostles and his Divine alter-ego, the Holy Ghost before (8) being crucified by Roman legions and (9) rising from the dead after the third day by (10)rolling back the stone and (11) engaging several strangers in a 'new' supernatural bodily configuration while on the way to meeting with several of his apostles (12) one of whom doubted his identity until he (13) was enjoined to put his finger in in gaping (but obviously unreal) wound, at which time he was (14) convinced beyong all doubt that this was the risen Christ who (15) was not only God in a formerly human but now transfigured divine form but also (16) voluntarily died on the cross and returned as both a sign and a guarantee that all believers would (potentially) be redeemed and in fact saved from their own perfidious inclinations to sin without remorse.

Surely the most frequent and egregious sin being that of offenses against the Golden Rule - not loving thy neighbor as thyself while failing to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Well, I made that last part up, but it's a good ending I think.

And as an aside, this is my take on the single best and most reasonable rule that emerges from this entire Catholic doctrinal and metaphysical phantasmagoria of otherwise completely mythical and magical thinking - the end point of a elaboration worthy of a truly great mythical work filled with revelations concerning the nature of man and how he may come to understand himself. Allegory at it's most creative and compelling, but in no way different from countless mythologies through the ages that have mirrored and replicated these themes down to the last detail.

In some very mysterious way, Jesus the Christ was that part of the Trinity that is both God and human - and that could die through his own volition in order to somehow please His Father, who was also Himself in an equally mysterious way. Without this sacrifice, and more importantly, the belief that this divinely contrived sacrifice actually occurred as reported through impeachable biblical sources, one is destined to an afterlife of eternal damnation - not so much for sinning, but for failing to believe that you've been forgiven for those sins through the divine mechanics of redemption and salvation as reported above.

All of this is what you believe as a stalwart if encrypted Catholic of the most literal and doctrinally pure type.

PS. Speaking 'Ex-cathedra' is a self- confirming mechanism for 'doctrinal' declarations and is part and parcel of the entire mythological scheme - what the Pope says 'from the chair' means something only if you believe it means something - this is exactly why and how sympathetic or imitative magic works....because believers actually put stock in it. Self-confirmation is the entire underpinning of religion from start to finish.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“TRUTH MATTERS"

IRS:
“What we do know is that Pious XII feared Communism above and beyond all things, and was of two minds as regards the status of the Jews during WWII.”

ANS:
The Vatican and Communism During World War II: What Really Happened?
by Robert A. Graham

"The Ambassador to the Vatican was Ernst von Weiszacker. From mid-1943 until the near end of the war, Weiszacker sent at least nine dispatches to the German Foreign Ministry reporting that the Pope was so frightened by Communism that he was wishing for a Nazi victory in the East.

"Authors such as Friedlander accept these reports at face value. Graham convincingly shows that Weiszacker was playing to a propaganda campaign orchestrated by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the German Minister of

"Propaganda. To divide the Allies and win the support of neutral nations, Goebbels portrayed Nazi Germany as the savior of Europe from Joseph Stalin. Weiszacker was trying to induce Germany to use the Vatican as intermediary to negotiate a peace agreement with the Western Allies in an attempt to save his nation from defeat.

"The Nazis never took this seriously. They always considered the Vatican an enemy. Graham observes that in none of Weiszacker's dispatches were any direct words from the Pope expressing hope for a Nazi victory in the East.

"His reports show that he often got his information from second and third hand sources - hardly conclusive evidence of Vatican attitudes. Other chapters in The Vatican and Communism, including the Nazis' seizures over a papal speech on the Fatima prophecies, are also illuminating and add to the historical record."

IRT:
"Certainly there's an abundance of Catholic apologia pertaining to this issue on the net - but of course there's much more to the story if anyone cared to research all sides of this or any issue.

ANS
There certainly is an abundance of Catholic apologists, but there is not an abundance of the view that Pius XII was a Nazi collaborator. You might try taking your own advice, that is, not to mimic propaganda; you’ve been wrong on all counts. You should do your homework before you malign the Pope and the Catholic Church. Pius XII's reign during WWII is unapproachable, and sterling, and the Jews and their leaders have substantiated that.

IRT:
"And here we have one of two Popes that have historically used the 'ex cathedra' option to create Church dogma - to wit”:

ANS:
Again, you’re talking about something you have no sense of. “Ex cathedra” is not an option it is an inherent power of the Pope in his capacity as the Vicar of Christ the head spokesman for faith and moral teachings.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05677a.htm

Literally "from the chair", a theological term that signifies authoritative teaching and is more particularly applied to the definitions given by the Roman Pontiff.

"Originally, the name of the seat occupied by a professor or a bishop; cathedra was used later on to denote the Magisterium, or teaching authority."

The Pope does not create Church dogma or beliefs; he clarifies them. Church dogmas are the teachings of the Church given to the Church by Jesus Christ.

The present meaning of “Ex cathedra" was formally determined by the Vatican Council, Sess. IV, Const. de Ecclesiâ Christi, c. iv:

“We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed. That the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks “ex cathedra," that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals. It is to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him. in Blessed St. Peter.

It is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals. It is therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable."

TTWSY -------- and so forth -

Here's an example of the kind of stuff that's out there, disputing your point of view:

Documents menu

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 23:11:48 -0500 (CDT)
From: HJBreyer@aol.com
Subject: Pope Pious Pius XII & the Nazis
Article: 78814
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Message-ID:

How pious was Pius XII?
By Marilyn Henry, 5 October 1999
(October 5)—A look at the repercussions John Cornwell's new book, Hitler's Pope, may have on Jewish-Catholic relations and on Vatican plans to beatify Pius XII

Weeks before Succot in 1917, the chief rabbi of Munich, Dr. Werner, approached Eugenio Pacelli, the papal nuncio, in need of a favor. The Italian government was barring the export of the palm fronds that the Jewish community had bought from an Italian supplier. The rabbi thought the Church could help.

The Israelite community [is] seeking the intervention of the pope in hope that he will plead on behalf of thousands of German Jews, Pacelli wrote to his superior in a letter sent by a slow, overland route to Rome. Pacelli said he had warned the rabbi of wartime delays in communications and added that he did not think it appropriate for the Vatican to assist them in their exercise of their Jewish cult.

Although the community got no assistance, Werner thanked me warmly for all that I had done on his behalf, Pacelli later reported.

Two decades later, during another war, Pacelli, whose grandfather had been the legal adviser to Pope Pius IX, became Pius XII.

A new book, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, argues that this small Succot incident belies subsequent claims that Pacelli had a great love of the Jewish religion and was always motivated by its best interests.

The book by John Cornwell, a British journalist and research associate of Jesus College, Cambridge, is the latest salvo about Pius XII and the Vatican during World War II.

Pius XII is a lightning rod in Catholic-Jewish relations. Although these relations have dramatically advanced in the last 35 years, they have been bruised recently. Some 18 months ago, the Vatican issued We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. That papal document was assailed by many in the Jewish community for failing to address the Vatican's official silence during the Holocaust and was also criticized for its defense of Pius XII.

Pius XII, Cornwell wrote, is not a saintly exemplar for future generations, but a deeply flawed human being from whom Catholics, in our relations with religions, can best profit by expressing our sincere regret.

Cornwell's book, published by Viking Press, was excerpted last month in the American magazine Vanity Fair, giving it a wide and popular audience.

His thesis has been attacked by Pierre Blet, a Jesuit historian. Blet's book, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican, is being published this month by Paulist Press, a religious publishing house catering to a specialized market.

BLET IS the only surviving member of a team of Church historians that was commissioned to look into the Vatican's World War II archives to produce an 11-volume study. Blet has argued that Pius XII did not speak out more forcefully for fear of worsening the fate of Catholics and Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries.

Blet also contends, in the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, that the apparent silence hid a secret action carried out [by Pius] through nunciatures [Vatican embassies] and episcopates to avoid, or at least to limit, the deportations, the violence, the persecutions.

Public declarations by Pius only would have aggravated the fate of the victims and multiplied their numbers, Blet wrote.

That was echoed by Reverend Vincent A. Lapomarda, the coordinator of the Holocaust collection at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the summer issue of Commentary, Lapomarda wrote: It is not clear that Jewish leaders wanted words as much as actions from Pius XII. As Marcus Melchior, chief rabbi of Denmark, declared, ‘If the pope had spoken out, Hitler would have probably massacred more than six million Jews and perhaps 10 times 10 million Catholics.’

He was referring to the grandfather of cabinet minister Michael Melchior, who is revered for helping save the Jews of Denmark.

The papal document We Remember, a 14-page statement that took 11 years to produce, was called an act of repentance. It did not address the silence of the Vatican during the Holocaust, but referred to the rescuers and included Pius XII.

Those who did help to save Jewish lives as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing their own lives in danger, must not be forgotten, it said.

During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives. Many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity have been honored for this reason by the State of Israel.

Scholars such as Dina Porat of Tel Aviv University have challenged the Vatican's claim that hundreds of thousands of Jews were rescued.

But, even overlooking the troublesome number, inserting Pius XII in We Remember opened a Pandora's box, said Rabbi A. James Rudin, interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish Committee.

When you defend someone as controversial as the wartime pope using historical documents, you invite other historians to use historical documents to take a totally different position, which is exactly what these two books reveal.

The combustible imbroglio over Pius XII is expected to flare in a public debate over the two books, as the defenders and detractors within the Catholic world tussle over the beatification of Pius XII, with Jewish opinion hovering fitfully overhead.

There's very little problem in critiquing a pope of 300, 400 years ago, said Dr. John T. Pawlikowski, a professor of social ethics at the Catholic Theological Union at the University of Chicago.

But the problem is, for many people, it is almost a shattering experience to have this pope challenged in this way because it challenges the very basic faith assumptions, including the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Questions such as whether he should have been more public in criticizing the Nazis, whether he should have acted earlier, whether he should have spoken out simply to maintain the Church's moral integrity whatever the practical consequences—all these questions are valid and should be pursued in a non-polemical fashion, Pawlikowski wrote last year in the Catholic publication Commonweal.

However, Pawlikowski said in an interview that he feared that attacks on Pius XII certainly have the potential of creating the most serious problem in the Catholic-Jewish dialogue since the Auschwitz convent conflict crisis.

I think that people on the Catholic side, even those of us who certainly have defended the importance of doing an honest and thorough critique of Pius's papacy, feel that this is such an exaggerated attack, that these sorts of attacks are so exaggerated and don't have nuance and are fundamentally shallow from a scholarly point of view, said Pawlikowski, a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council since 1980.

IT WAS not only Jews about whom Pius XII was silent. He did not speak out in defense of Polish Catholics or against euthanasia, historian Michael Marrus has noted. The Vatican, wrote Marrus in The Holocaust in History, professed neutrality and was intent on safeguarding its institutional interests and the Church's jurisdiction.

The most vocal critics of Pius XII during the actual period of the Third Reich were Poles, for the same reasons as the Jews—namely that he did not speak out publicly but only through diplomatic channels on behalf of the non-Jewish Polish victims who were overwhelmingly Catholic, said Pawlikowski, a priest of the Servite Order. The Polish criticism became so intense that the Vatican commissioned the Jesuits to prepare a defense of the pope.

Cornwell had previously written a book, Thief in the Night, a best-seller about the death of Pope John Paul I that was sympathetic to the Vatican.

Cornwell, a Catholic, said in the Vanity Fair article that his original intent had been to prove that Pius XII was honorable. Instead, Cornwell wrote, he found that Pacelli, who was Pius XII from 1939 until 1958, associated Jews with Bolshevism. From the time that he was in his early 40s, Pacelli nourished a suspicion and contempt for the Jews for political reasons. This was, Cornwell said, a scorn and revulsion consistent with antisemitism.

He has now been accused of using Pius XII to pick a fight with the Church.

Cornwell has a real problem with the institution of the Church—he doesn't like the fact that it is a hierarchy and that is why he goes after Pius XII for being an autocrat, said Eugene Fisher, director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He was, but so was everyone else in his culture in the Holy See at the time. The system is not a democratic system, didn't pretend to be, Fisher said. To try to use the Holocaust because you don't like the way your church is organized is morally bankrupt.

Fisher is also intent on proving that Pius XII was not an antisemite.

The word cult, he said, referring to the 1917 letter about Werner's palm fronds, was not a pejorative term.

This was a period when Catholics would not go into Protestant churches, or you would get excommunicated for standing up at a Protestant wedding, Fisher said in Washington.

It has to do with theological closedness of the Catholic Church of the period. It has nothing to do with personal animosity toward Jews.

I am not here to defend Pius XII, but everybody needs to be treated with some objectivity, said Rabbi Jack Bemporad, the director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding, which is based in New Jersey.

I would also say that Pius XII under no circumstances can be called an antisemite. That is nonsense. That he did not speak out, that is clear, said Bemporad. But the question of why he did not speak out, that is open to a lot of interpretation, and until we understand what the full context is, it is easy, but it is not correct, to jump to judgment and condemn.

MUCH OF the debate about Pius XII, and the Cornwell and Blet conclusions, are an internal Catholic matter. But this is expected to influence the agitation over—and perhaps accelerate—beatification, which in turn affects Catholic-Jewish relations.

Within the Jewish and the liberal Catholic community, there is anxiety about both the efforts to make Pius XII into a saint, and where the line is drawn on the criticism of outsiders.

Sister Carol Rittner, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey, asked: Is this the time for the Roman Catholic Church to talk about canonizing someone who is a lightning rod? From all that I know about Pius XII, he was a very complex human being who lived in a complex, convoluted, conflicted time. Unfortunately, at least in the Roman Catholic Christian community, people are either for him or against him.

She also questioned whether people outside the Roman Catholic tradition have the right to tell us within the Roman Catholic tradition how to deal with internal issues.

Last year, the outsiders included the Knesset, whose Immigration and Absorption Committee called on the foreign minister to instruct his representatives to request the beatification process be suspended.

The train which could lead to the beatification of Pope Pius XII, who was pope at the time of the Holocaust and kept silent in the face of the horrors, must be stopped, then-committee chairwoman Naomi Blumenthal (Likud) said.

Too many trains left on a journey from which they did not return in those days. History will not forgive us if we keep silent now about this [beatification] procedure.

However, within Jewish and Catholic circles, there is fear that this borders on Jewish interference in internal church affairs.

The Catholic Church can make anyone it wants into a saint, said Rudin. That's their business; it is not our business. If the Vatican makes Pacelli into a saint, as a model for piety and spiritual truth, no one could object, he added.

But, if they then say in addition to his spiritual side and his prayer life and his piety, all of which is for the Catholic Church to determine, that he was also a hero of the Holocaust period, or that he saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives, then we have some problems, Rudin said. It is the beatification that then leads to canonization that is causing concerns.

However, said Pawlikowski: Attacks tend to only light the fire of the uncritical defenders of Pius, who then have the greater potential of actually pushing for his canonization. It kind of isolates those of us who have tried to argue for an open, critical examination of his record and who also tried to argue that this is certainly not the time to canonize him.

A MILLENNIUM fever seems to have ensnared World War II with assorted final reckonings.

Some 17 nations and numerous European enterprises have established historical commissions to examine their Holocaust-era histories. There are efforts to recover assets from Swiss, Austrian, French and German banks, European insurers and German industry—all part of what has become known as closing the final chapter of the Holocaust before the end of the century.

The Vatican is not immune to the public and political calls for accounting, but neither is it easily swayed by public pressure.

However, much of what is known today about Pius XII stems from an unlikely source. It was a 1963 play called The Deputy, by Rolf Hochhuth, a German Protestant writer. The play, which was translated into more than a dozen languages, portrayed Pius XII as too fearful to publicly challenge the Nazis.

Before the Hochhuth play, The New York Times had run editorials calling Pius XII heroic, and all the things written about Pius by Jews were universally positive, Bemporad said.

That play not only jarred non-Catholic thinking, it also compelled Pope Paul VI to convene a commission to examine the Vatican archives. Blet was among the Catholic scholars who spent some 15 years, from 1965 to 1981, compiling the volumes.

They released 5,100 pages in the 1960s and 1970s, in reaction to The Deputy, but then they stopped. That is not all there is, Rudin said. This is the time to bring together competent Jewish and Catholic scholars to go over the appropriate documents. That's the only way we are going to get any kind of closure on this issue.

There have been numerous calls for the Vatican to open its archives. That is a ticklish subject, in part because it fails to take into account that 18 months ago the Church made a limited offer to which Jewish groups have yet to respond.

Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the head of the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, met with a group of Jewish leaders right after the Church released its Shoah statement and proposed that a joint Catholic-Jewish team investigate the 11 volumes that had been compiled after The Deputy.

According to Bemporad, Cassidy said that if there were aspects that the scholars thought the volumes did not cover, they could look for them in the archives. There were no restrictions on which historians the Jewish community could ask to do this work.

So far, there haven't been any takers. That prompted Cassidy, last February in Baltimore, to report that our suggestion last year that Jewish and Catholic scholars study together the material from our archives already made available to the public has been completely ignored.

When Cardinal Cassidy hands you on a silver platter the opportunity to go into the archives in an organized systematic way, and we don't even respond to that, does that make any sense? Bemporad asked.

Bemporad said that he had read sections of these 11 volumes and come to the conclusion that this is not a whitewash; but there is enough material to raise significant questions.

However, he said, It is my conviction that if this group gets together and investigates the material and it comes up that there are real questions about the conduct of Pius XII, I do not believe that the Catholic Church would ignore them and proceed with this beatification process.

On the other hand, if it is loose, shooting from the hip, unthinking condemnation, all that it will do is speed the process of beatification because they are going to come to the defense of the pope, and all those elements in the Catholic Church who are for some kind of objective rational way of dealing with it will be treated as if they are disloyal to the pope, said Bemporad, who has been engaged in activities with the Vatican and in interfaith work for more than two decades.

The Church's partner, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, had become moribund, acknowledged the new chairman Seymour Reich. However, he said, the committee is in the process of organizing a team of scholars to undertake the research with the Vatican.

It's a first step, Reich said. If indeed the scholars find the 11 volumes wanting, then I would think the Vatican would have to take it a step further.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“TRUTH MATTERS"

IRS:
“After all, this man is being
processed for Sainthood (at the venerable stage at present).”

ANS:
To make a statement like that you have no sense of what the process of sainthood is. It’s a long and tedious system to find the truth, not to lie about the candidate.

IRT:
“What we do know is that Pious XII feared Communism above and beyond all things, and was of two minds as regards the status of the Jews during WWII.”

ANS:
No he was of one mind, the Catholic mind, viz. that all men are created equal in dignity and sacredness, and as the Church teaches, endowed with certain inalienable rights in order to pursue his destiny of eternal happiness.

The Pope, as the tenants of his faith, Catholicism, teaches, those who obstruct and make difficult the path of man’s destiny will be condemned to an eternal death.

Thus, Pope Pius XII with Wisdom, with judicial prudence, love, mercy, and justice did every thing he possibly and practically could do to undermine the lunacy of a madman that not only persecuted Jews but also Catholics alike.

IRS:
“He was probably torn by his humanitarian instincts, and his abiding (if false) belief that the Jews were responsible for the Crucifixion of Christ. To say he was slow to recognize or react to the Holocaust would be an understatement.”

ANS:
The Pope is not immature or a juvenile. The teachings of the Church are that all who sinned against God caused his death. The High Priest and his co-harts were responsible for the Crucifixion, not the Jewish race.

Jesus was a Jew: His Mother was a Jew. Did the Pope blame Mary, a Jew, and the Mother of God, for murdering her own Son? Only a lunatic would believe that.

“Slow to react to the Holocaust” is an understatement?” What unadulterated puffery, if you think saving some 800,000 Jews was simple in the face of a maniacal leader who suffered paranoidal tendency of misanthropic delusions of grandeur. Moreover, over 4,000 Catholic clergy and clerics died trying to save the Jews.

The only inhibition that kept Hitler from invading the Vatican was God. Try checking on how many Catholics were murdered by Hitler, and how many priests.

“Pope Pius XII was responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

Although the villainous "silence" of the Pope has been repeatedly alleged since the early 1960's, there is historical evidence to confirm that he was not silent, that before and after he became Pope he spoke out against Hitler and that he was almost universally recognized, especially by the Nazis themselves, as an unrelenting opponent of the Nazi regime.

"Pius XII publicly and privately warned of the dangers of Nazism. Throughout World War II, he spoke out on behalf of Europe's Jews. When Pius learned of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, he urged the bishops of Europe to do all they could to save the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution.

"On January 19, 1940, at the Pope's instruction, Vatican radio and L'Osservatore Romano revealed to the world "the dreadful cruelties of uncivilized tyranny" that the Nazis were inflicting on Jewish and Catholic Poles.

"The following week, the JEWISH ADVOCATE OF BOSTON reported the Vatican radio broadcast, praising its "outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi [occupied] Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind."

"In his 1940 Easter homily, Pius XII condemned the Nazi bombardment of defenseless citizens, aged and sick people, and innocent children.

"On May 11, 1940, he publicly condemned the Nazi invasions of Belgium, Holland, and Luxemburg and lamented, "a world poisoned by lies and disloyalty and wounded by excesses of violence."

"In June 1942, Pius spoke out against the mass deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied France, further instructing his Papal Nuncio in Paris to protest to Marshal Henri Petain, Vichy France's Chief of State, against "the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews from the French occupied zone to Silesia and parts of Russia."

These critics do not know (or have chosen to ignore the fact) that the Pope had been strongly advised by Jewish leaders and by Catholic bishops in Nazi-occupied countries not to protest publicly against the Nazi atrocities.

"When the bishop of Munster wanted to speak out against the persecution of the Jews in Germany, the Jewish leaders of his diocese begged him not to because it would result in even greater persecution for them.

"Pinchas Lapide quotes an Italian Jew who, with the Vatican's help, managed to escape the Nazi deportation of Rome's Jews in October 1943, as stating unequivocally twenty years later: "none of us wanted the Pope to speak out openly. We were all fugitives and we did not want to be pointed out as such.

"The Gestapo would have only increased and intensified its inquisition…it was much better the Pope kept silent. “We all felt the same, and today we still believe that." Bishop Jean Bernard of Luxembourg, an inmate of Dachau from February 1941 to August 1942, notified the Vatican that "whenever protests were made, treatment of prisoners worsened immediately."

Pius XII Was No Nazi
by Ralph McInerny

http://www.catholicleague.org/research/myth_hitlers_pope.htm

TTWSF ------ and so forth:

Well, given the weight of your testimony e.g the testimony of so many others, we will have to give Pious XII some credit, won't we? I mean, the man seems to be a veritable saint, if you know what I mean - or exactly what does that mean?

I maintain that Pious XII came late to the rescue to the Jews, and only when the brutal and genocidal motives of the Nazis could no longer be ignored. While you've done an admirable job of parsing out support statements, that still doesn't tell the whole story - but that's what 'taking a position' is all about.

And what about Pious XII and the 'miracles' part and all, that qualifies special people for sainthood? Or is sainthood more of a political reward? A gratuity rendered to those individuals that bring credit to the Church? Lately the Church is doling out sainthoods to South America, and just at a time when something has to be done to keep the flocks from bolting altogether. Well, that's another all-to-human story.....

For such a hard-headed rationalist as yourself (at least in your own mind) it's got to be difficult to square such clear-eyed logical thinking with deep-seated and childish beliefs in supernaturalism and superstition - the man and the boy together, so to speak. But of course humans are genius at 'compartmentalization' as the psychologists like to call it.

On the other matter of your decidedly right wingish political orientation coupled with such a strict adherence to doctrinal Catholicism, I'm wondering if we are graced with the presence of an actual member of the famed ultra-traditionalist Opus Dei oranization - you seem to have the mindset for that kind of died-in-the-wool fundmentalist rigidity of belief. How's the 'discipline' going?

And why you would speak ill of the Supreme Court is beyond me, since it's loaded with (5) Catholics - but SCOTUS surprises everyone from time to time, and actually gives the law a constitutional reading that outright surprises the most conservative among us e.g. the recent ruling in favor of Gitmo detainees rights - can you imagine reinstalling the right of Habeas Corpus for those not yet found guilty of a crime? You didn't like that one, did you? Bushco and his brain-dead lackeys in the Justice dept. really hated it.....

You speak as though all of these mythical and confabulated 'miraculous' events of biblical fame and Church doctrine were literally true, based on your first-hand observation, when in fact you haven't observed anything at all - so this is the faith of fundamentalism (both religious and political) spoken as the plain truth.

Folks that don't buy it are wishy washy left wing liberals! And poor old abused George W. Bush - the whipping boy of invidious left wingers everywhere. Absolutely delusional - this administration taken as a whole is guilty of the greatest Consititutional abuse seen in modern times. Yes, we have a great divide in the USA - you're on one side and I'm on the other, just for starters.

And poor Mel, a raging drunk that misspoke his thinly cloaked antisemitism under the influence? And that observation is bigoted how? Of course that comes on the heels of his famed 'Passion of Christ' film - now there's the bible writ large as objective truth .... not seen so clearly since Charleton Heston played Moses. I can still see Charlie crying out 'let my people go'!

The stuff of good movies to be sure, and Hollywood is Hollywood - but for the fact that folks actually believe what directors put in the mouths of their actors....and followed by 'Apocalypto' - has Mel gone off the deep end? But enough of that.....

What we have here is two opposing world views and two sets of opinions - nothing more nor less. We'll see how that goes in November.....

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“TRUTH MATTERS"
IRS:
“What else would the Catholic League do?”

ANS:

NY Times Wrong: Pius XII Saved Jews
P. Thierry
Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/1/27/101309.shtml

And so it is Rabbi David G. Dalin the most renowned Jewish historian in our time is not believed.

Numerous Jewish leaders, including ALBERT EINSTEIN, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTERS GOLDA MEIR AND MOSHE SHARETT, AND CHIEF RABBI ISAAC HERZOG, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a 'righteous gentleman,' who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

“Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan. He had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius.” He is not believed.

Not even the London Times is believed.

“'The London Times of October 1, 1942, explicitly praises the Pope for his condemnation of Nazism and his public support for the Jewish victims of Nazi terror.'

"Moshe Sharett, who would become Israel's first Foreign Minister and second Prime Minister, reinforced these feelings of gratitude when he met with Pius in the closing days of World War II. He’s not believed. Is he hallucinating too?

"In 1945, RABBI ISAAC HERZOG, THE CHIEF RABBI OF ISRAEL, sent a message to Msgr. Angelo “Roncalli (the future Pope John XXII), expressing his gratitude for the actions taken by Pope Pius XII on behalf of the Jewish people.” Is Herzog also delirious; has he been deceived, or is he lying?

And here is another cretin, “DR. LEON KUBOWITZKY, THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS, personally thanked the Pope in Rome for his interventions on behalf of Jews. Is the League lying about him?

And, do we have another dupe?
"DR. RAFFAEL CANTONI, HEAD OF THE ITALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY'S WARTIME JEWISH ASSISTANCE COMMITTEE, who would subsequently become the PRESIDENT OF THE UNION OF ITALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITIES, similarly expressed his gratitude to the Vatican.”

Here is another foolish bunch of Jewish imbeciles, the “Union of Italian Jewish Communities, meeting for the first time after the War, sent an official message of thanks to Pope Pius XII.”

Nor should we believe, “A few weeks later, on May 26, 1955, THE ISRAELI PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA flew to Rome to give a special performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, at the Vatican's Consistory Hall, to express the State of Israel's enduring gratitude for the help that the Pope and the Catholic Church had given to the Jewish people”

Of course who can believe “"On the day of Pius XII's death in 1958, GOLDA MEIR, ISRAEL'S FOREIGN MINISTER, cabled the following message of condolence to the Vatican: She doesn’t have much credibility either. Is she another victim of the hoax put on by the Catholic Church?

Of course we shouldn't believe Leonard Bernstein who gave homage before his audience to the Pope at the news of his death.

So who are your sources and proofs that all these people are either liars or dupes, or knew nothing of what they lived through?

The Catholic league never put those words into the mouths of these striking Jewish leaders. If the League did, they had not been very clever in doing so, because they never counted on you finding them out, much less the dissident anti-Catholic Jews.

The Catholic League is an organization that defends the Church against anti-Catholicism; they’re not liars or propagandist. They defend the Truth for the sake of truth. That is what Catholicism is all about, the one true Truth.

Here is a site you might enjoy, it is a site of the dissent Jews. It is the Tablet. It might delight you to read it.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/articles/6814/

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“TRUTH MATTERS"
IRS:
“What you one expect to see from the Catholic League?”

ANS
Just like all good left wing liberals, when the facts are too overpowering they attack the messenger.

You’ve been given the dates, times, and history of people who were there, who were being persecuted, and knew what was going on. They were outstanding Jewish leaders who defended the Pope, and who suffered under the Nazis. Some 800,000 Jewish lives were saved by the Pope who had no army, or no legions to defend him; they praised the Pope. Your response is, the Catholic League will lie to defend their lie.

Under Pope John II over hundreds of thousands of documents were open from the Vatican archives were opened for dissident's scrutiny, and the dissident Jews could find no variance than what their leaders knew in the first place. Now they claim, as all foolish people who don’t want to believe the truth do, that the Vatican is still holding back documents they claim they aren’t privileged to.

I don’t believe the Vatican has any obligation to bare everything in its voluminous archives that have nothing to do with WWII or the Pope's role in it. To allow a bunch of officious anti-Catholics, who revile the Catholic faith, and who are not seeking the truth, feast upon all the Church's documents would be an act of idiocy. Giving license to a subversive cacophony of rabble adversaries searching for a cause to vilify the Church would be pure lunacy.

Christ created so many miracles for the Jews that St. John said, if they were recorded, the world probably couldn’t hold the books it would take.

Jesus fed 5,000, 7,000 with a couple of loaves and a couple of fish. He calmed the seas, read the minds of the Pharisees. He controlled the seas and the heavens and all that inhabited them.

He walked on water, made the crippled walk, made the blind see, cured the leper, and the infirmed. He raised the dead. When the Jewish authorities came to arrest Him or stone him before his time, he walked through them as air passed you on the street.

When they came to arrest Jesus in the Garden, Peter cut off the ear of a Jewish priest’s relative, and Jesus put the ear back. He then shouted, “Enough,” and those who came to arrest him were thrown to the ground. You’d think that would tell them something. But, it didn’t.

While they were crucifying him, they mocked him. “You saved others,” they said. They admitted to his miracles and still didn’t believe. The Chief Priest and his hypocrites cried out to him, “Come down from that Cross, and we will believe you! Show us you are God!”

Not only did He come down from the Cross but He rose from the Dead. That still didn’t prove anything to them.

And, we have that immortal Scriptural passage, of The Rich Man and the Beggar.

Luke16:22 ff
“And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom: and the Rich Man said to Abraham, go to my brothers and tell them” about me being in Hell.

Abraham said to the Rich Man they have the prophets and the Scriptures. The Rich Man said, If they see you Abraham, they would believe you. Then Abraham said to him, not even if one rises from the dead would they believe, if they do not believe the Scriptures and the prophets.

Some people just can’t fathom the truth no matter what the evidence is before them. If Truth were a two by four and hit them between the eyes and floored them, as Jesus floored those who came to arrest Him, they would still deny truth.

As is written, even rising from the dead proved nothing to a predisposed dissident, an iconoclastic barbarian endued with an implacable obstacle to truth, their biased proclivities.

IN REPLY TO
JUST A GUESS:
“STOP GUESSING AND GET THE FACTS:
JUNE 12, 2008 8:58 AM
IRT:
“Why anyone believes they can speak with authority on other peoples of different ethnic and/or racial make-up is just based on the ungrounded assumption that since we can, and do so repeatedly there must some basis for what we say and what we may believe.”

ANS:
The Courts do it all the time. Representatives and Senators do it every day.

IRT:
“Humans constantly mimic one another without giving it another thought. This is perhaps force of habit at its unsavory worst."

ANS:
Did you include yourself in the mimickers because your surrealistic incriminating innuendos lack both substance and thought?

IRS:
“...no wonder folks take offense at these fictitious identities that are thrust on them, and as you say, with considerable prejudice attached."

ANS:
Although the liberal press and the facetious Dems have consistently demagogued and impugned the character and dignity of others, especially the President, I’ve never heard our President criticize anyone except bin Laden, and the terrorists.

However, the Dems without discretion and with malice have never ceased their asinine expressions of bigotry.

IRT:
“I'm aware of the Joe Kennedy history, the Pope Pious XII history, and more recently, that exemplar of far-right Catholic piety and bigotry, Mel Gibson -who would have thought the guy was such a maniac?”

ANS:
You seem to be playing a little game of bigotry, yourself. Mel Gibson becomes a maniac because he dislikes Jews? Aren’t you suffering from an overdose of hyperbole?

In citing Catholics and no other religions, you seem implicitly to condemn Catholicism as well of which you mimic the rants of the know-nothings.

Most of the dissident Catholics, in name only, are Dems. You might try Catholic dissemblers like Senators John Kerry, Richard Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Leahy, and that sterling example of hypocrisy posing as a Catholic, Nancy Pelosi, and the Speaker of the House.

You see being Catholic and calling yourself a Catholic is two different things.

IRT:
“Is the media primarily a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (GOP) enterprise? Judging from the content, how can there be any doubt. Bushco has gotten a pass for 8 years, and McCain is getting the same, thus far.

ANS:
Before you make such incredulous statements, you might think about what you’re saying, instead of mimicking, as you describe it, the talking points of the radical left and the Dems.

Anyone who claims Bush got a pass from the press must be floating around in outer space after inhaling a tank of helium and reading . Have you ever read the New York Times, the supposed leading newspaper in the world, or the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, or the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, The Arkansas Democrat Gazette? Have you not read the NY Times columnist Rich, Herbert, and Dowd?

Then there’s the left wing troglodyte blogs constant drumbeat.

http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=303#more-303

“Bush admits ‘wild behavior’; drug use implied”

Where were you when the Dem apparatchik Dan Rather and the whole CBS network tried a premeditated five-year attempt to undermine Bush’s second presidential campaign with forged documents?

Ever heard of Michael Kinsley or cartoonist Pat Oliphant? Then there is Al Gore, the Buddhist Temple of Doom political scandal and the “Inconvenient Truth,” a Pulitzer Prize winner for artistic efforts in prevarication and fraud?

From the multi-million publications maligning Bush, we have “The One Percent Solution,” by David Suskind, Michael Moore's award winner for the best Bush propaganda movie of the year, “Fahrenheit 9/11?” Even the forlorn unabashed liberal Christopher Hitchens couldn’t stomach the hypocrisy of Moor’s baseless movie.

The Hollywood left is consistently impugning the integrity of the President in its revisionist movies, series, and sit-coms, talk shows, and presentations of the News. CNN wasn’t called the Clinton News Network because it favored Bush.

And how about a few books written by the escapees from the Bush Administration’s menagerie that have accused Bush and Chaney of everything from alcoholism, deserters, cowboys, religious fanatics, bigots, oil company co-conspirators, hypocrites, traitors, imbeciles, war criminals, drug addicts, consummate liars, fools, and incompetents. You've named none of them.

Who but the liberal media and the Dems have consistently attempted with effrontery to undermine our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, our efforts to free some 50 million people from a vicious tyrant who murdered his people at will and whose sons raped wives, mothers, and all women at their pleasure.

Who triumphantly declared, "The Patriot Act is now Dead; we just killed it?" Try Sen. Majority Leader, Harry Reid.

Who leaked our financial tracking of terrorists, our covert operations against the terrorist in the Middle East? Who had the audaciousness to photograph the fallen American military Iraq heroes in their return to stateside? Who has consistently undermined our interrogations efforts of the terrorists? Try the perfidious left-wing Dems media embodied by the NY Times.

If you believe they all gave Bush a pass, maybe you might be interested in a truckload of NY Times 2002 Sunday papers at half price.

To our encoded poster TTYS ---------and so forth:

What you one expect to see from the Catholic League? After all, this man is being
processed for Sainthood (at the venerable stage at present). What we do know is that Pious XII feared Communism above and beyond all things, and was of two minds as regards the status of the Jews during WWII. He was probably torn by his humanitarian instincts, and his abiding (if false) belief that the Jews were responsible for the Crucifiction of Christ. To say he was slow to recognize or react to the Holocaust would be an understatement.

Certainly there's an abundance of Catholic apologia pertaining to this issue on the net - but of course there's much more to the story if anyone cared to research all sides of this or any issue. And here we have one of two Popes that has historically used the 'ex cathedra' option to create Church dogma - to wit: The Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven. If we look at the evolution of Church doctrine/dogma over the centuries, and has been very well developed in a rather sequential manner - one doctrine is bolstered and supported by successive doctrines that follow. It's all designed to fit together, hand in glove, and in a logical sequence.

Let's look at how this metaphysical jigsaw puzzle falls together - This last doctrinal declaration of the 'queen of heaven' and bodily assumption - only possible because of her perfection at birth and her solitary status as the only human born free of 'original sin' - given her singular mission as the repository vessel of divine impregnation and her future destiny as a virgin birth mother....here we've strung together several critical pieces of Church dogma that stretches back to the preeminence of Trinitarian dogma dating from the 5th century CE (over the more popular Arian, One Divine Person view) and of course the Divinity of Christ - only a much later dogmatic declaration in the first centuries of early Christianity (when the Gnostics were defeated for good).

There is a deep internal logic to the self-created metaphysics of Catholic doctrine after all. Between various Councils and Papal decrees the entire coda of the Catholic Church was hammered out over the millenia. And then came the Reformation - really throwing a wrench in the works with the apostate priest, Martin Luther, et al. Boy what a mess!

For an outsider, all this mumbo jumbo is very hard to follow - not so much for a former insider, however.

Curiously that 'bodily assumption' bit was the last so declared piece of Church doctrine in modern times, and quickly following the Papal Infallibility doctrine as declared by his predecessor Pious XI - an interesting juxtaposition of mythical declarations - although the entire tautology taken as the gospel truth by such iron-clad believers as yourself. How intelligent folks can take fiction as fact remains one of the mysteries of the human mind.

Taking mythology as the literal truth is a dangerous proposition - dogmatic, authoritarian,
true believing......sound familiar?

Leaping in spite of looking is your stock in trade - a regular suicide of the mind.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JUST A GUESS:
“WHY THE CLERGY ARE IMPORTANT IN THE AFFAIRS OF GOVERNMENT”
JUNE 12, 2008 8:58 AM
IRT:
“I'm aware of the Joe Kennedy history, the Pope Pious XII history, and more recently, that examplar of far-right Catholic piety and bigotry, Mel Gibson -who would have thought the guy was such a maniac?”

ANS:
Here is a cleric who save some 800,000 Jews.

Apparently, you seem to be doing what you claim others do. You’ve been parroting the dissident Jews rhetoric that Pius XII humored the Nazis. You might try doing some thinking on your own instead of listening to dissident parrots.

http://www.catholicleague.org/pius.php

A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews
By Rabbi David Dalin, Ph.D.

"The renowned Jewish historian, Rabbi David G. Dalin, a widely-published scholar of American Judaism and the history of Christian-Jewish Relations, is the author or co-author of five books, including Religion and State in the American Jewish Experience, published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 1997 and, most recently, The President of the United States and the Jews. His article, 'Pius XII and the Jews,' was published in the February 26, 2001

“Pope Pius enjoyed an enviable reputation amongst Christians and Jews alike. At the end of the war, Pius XII was hailed as 'the inspired moral prophet of victory,' and "enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews."

Numerous Jewish leaders, including ALBERT EINSTEIN, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTERS GOLDA MEIR AND MOSHE SHARETT, AND CHIEF RABBI ISAAC HERZOG, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a 'righteous gentile,' who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

“In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, “Three Popes and the Jews,” that sets the record straight. This Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan. He had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius.

“They provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII 'was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.' To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject.

“It can now be documented conclusively that Pope Pius XII was responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

"Although the villainous 'silence' of the Pope has been repeatedly alleged since the early 1960's, there is much historical evidence to confirm that he was not silent, that before and after he became Pope he spoke out against Hitler and that he was almost universally recognized, especially by the Nazis themselves, as an unrelenting opponent of the Nazi regime.'

“'The London Times of October 1, 1942, explicitly praises the Pope for his condemnation of Nazism and his public support for the Jewish victims of Nazi terror.'

" Moshe Sharett, who would become Israel's first Foreign Minister and second Prime Minister, reinforced these feelings of gratitude when he met with Pius in the closing days of World War II.

"'I told him [the Pope] that my first duty was to thank him, and through him the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews…We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church'

"In 1945, RABBI ISAAC HERZOG, THE CHIEF RABBI OF ISRAEL, sent a message to Msgr. Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII), expressing his gratitude for the actions taken by Pope Pius XII on behalf of the Jewish people.

"'The people of Israel,' wrote Rabbi Herzog, 'will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion, which form the foundation of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world'."

"In September 1945, DR. LEON KUBOWITZKY, THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS, personally thanked the Pope in Rome for his interventions on behalf of Jews, and the World Jewish Congress donated $20,000 to Vatican charities 'in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions.'"

"DR. RAFFAEL CANTONI, HEAD OF THE ITALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY'S WARTIME JEWISH ASSISTANCE COMMITTEE, who would subsequently become the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, similarly expressed his gratitude to the Vatican.

"He, stated that 'six million of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims had it not been for the efficacious intervention of Pius XII.' On April 5, 1946, his Union of Italian Jewish Communities, meeting for the first time after the War, sent an official message of thanks to Pope Pius XII:

“In 1955, when Italy celebrated the tenth anniversary of its liberation, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities proclaimed April 17 as a "Day of Gratitude" for the Pope's wartime assistance in defying the Nazis.”

"A few weeks later, on May 26, 1955, THE ISRAELI PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA flew to Rome to give a special performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, at the Vatican's Consistory Hall, to express the State of Israel's enduring gratitude for the help that the Pope and the Catholic Church had given to the Jewish people

"On the day of Pius XII's death in 1958, GOLDA MEIR, ISRAEL'S FOREIGN MINISTER, cabled the following message of condolence to the Vatican:

"'We share in the grief of humanity…When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims.

"'The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace.'"

Before beginning a concert of the NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR, LEONARD BERNSTEIN called for a minute of silence "for the passing of a very great man, Pope Pius XII."

In the future, you might try looking before you leap.

Just a Guess:

Haven't read much of the Unibomber Manifesto, but have read other posts of the blogger in question.

Do you know what his/her handle means?

"TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ"?

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“RELIGION AND POLITICS”
IRT:
"Candidates, announce that you do not seek the endorsement of any cleric because you believe that such endorsements endanger the separation of church and state. Disband your religious advisory committees too. Guess what? Candidate never used to have "religious advisers." This would have been considered a violation of--yes, let's use the dread phrase again--separation of church and state.

ANS:
What ridiculousness is this. Are we to have a cast system where religious people aren’t allow to vote or have a say in the direction of our country moral integrity?

Is that what separation of Church and State has morphed into? That would be facetious and asinine. Are the clergy not part of America? I believe religious people have a roll in our government as much as do the atheists, agnostics, the iconoclasts, and troglodytes.

IRT:
"I suppose it is too much to hope that Obama, if elected, might follow Abraham Lincoln's example and decline to join any church."

ANS:
Yes, we don’t need Church’s reminding us what is moral and immoral, that would be an abomination to the Separation of Church and State organizations and the ACLU.

Hitler never needed a Church, he attempted to destroy the Catholic Church. Nor did Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or Mayo. Stalin and the Communist thought religion was the opium of the masses. They were their own God.

Afghanistan and the Taliban were getting along quite well with their Godless rule of Government before we went and started interfering.

IRS:
“The ministers campaigned against him. And we know how that election turned out. I guess that God just wasn't listening to his messengers in Springfield.

“That ought to be equally comforting to atheists and religious believers too independent-minded to attribute any special authority to clerics.

ANS:
Yes, we don’t want those malevolent ministers interfering with this nation government; it was just founded on the principles that the Church has defended since its existence.

Thank God, the Court threw out the Ten Commandments, those malefic Commandments the Court said would corrupt the minds of little children.

Of course, the Court finds nothing wrong with teaching little children that homosexuality is a legitimate lifestyle, that traditional moral values have no legitimate state interest, and that man is a descendent of an ape.

We don’t want people in schools telling children ‘don’t steal,” “honor your father and mother,” ‘tell the truth,” “remember you were created by God,” and “don’t covet your neighbors wife or their goods, and don’t commit adultery or fornicate.” The worst would be to tell them don’t murder your unborn child by abortion.

If those Commandment abominations were in play, we may not have had the Clintons for the second time, and that would have been a tragic loss to our nation.

Now telling little children that they were created by God would be repulsive, when Evolution knows we came from rocks that formed from the big bang.

“State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices," wrote Scalia.

"Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding. (noting “an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex” (emphasis added)).

"The impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional “moral” offenses is precisely why Bowers rejected the rational-basis challenge.

"Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,” ante, at.

This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

“The law,” it said, “is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.” 478 U. S., at

So let’s dump the clergy and traditional moral values that, as Justice Stevens implicitly implied, serve no legitimate purpose to the State. Man can make up his own moral values as did Castro, Saddam, Hitler, and Mao did and Mugabe is doing now as are bin Laden, the Congo and Sudan, and don't forget our astute Supreme Court.

Are we reading excerpts from the Unibomber Manifesto just below? They say he was a very smart guy with bad chemistry .... I do hope he's still locked up.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“RELIGION AND POLITICS”
IRT:
"Oh, please, in a time of serious trouble, let us have an end to this silly focus on which supernatural beliefs our candidates hold, and on the stupid things that come out of the mouths of certain self-appointed representatives of supernatural belief. Clerics, just shut up about candidates. Withhold your endorsements. Remember, you could lose your IRS exemption if YouTube shows you eulogizing an unmistakable candidate (even if you don't use his name) from the pulpit."

ANS:
Clerics don’t shut up. If Wright hadn’t spoken what would we know about Obama. His Church is a cacophony of hate and blame and Obama said Wright was like a father to him. Obama claimed he never knew what Wright believed though he was with him for some 20 years. That means Obama is either lying or he is an imbecile. The Presidency needs neither, we've done that with the Clintons..

If we are afraid to know what are the beliefs of a candidate what does that tell one about themselves. That would be reckless and irresponsible.

I am sure people aren’t so stupefied to believe Wright or any nut case as you describe them. However, they have a right to know who Obama's friends are and what they believe.

Moreover, we have freedom of speech let them show themselves for what they are. No one said anything about Jesse Jackson calling Bush 1 Harod or a murder of children, and immoral. Nor did anyone say anything about Al Gore calling Bush I stupid and a traitor. No one said anything about the Blacks saying Bush 2 caused the death of a Blackman chained to a pick-up truck and dragged through the streets.

We are chastised for speaking of the shadowy characters Obama surrounds himself with. Underground terrorist, radical preachers, criminals in land deals, a wife who maligns whites and all Americans. That defines Obama’s character. What this country doesn’t need is another Clinton.

What one’s religious beliefs are is essential. We’ve legally murder over 48 million unborn because the Court didn’t believe in God, and we have Justice Stephens putting down the Natural Moral Law (NML) and claiming it serves no legitimate purpose to the State in Bower v. Georgia and Lawrence v. Texas. We have a Court interpreting foreign laws and writing new law and making them applicable to the Construction.

We’ve had the Clintons who didn’t believe in the NML either. And so we had a president who raped and molested women, exposed him self, committed adultery, perjured himself in a Federal Court, framed the Travel Office for embezzlement, and sold out the country for campaign funds to the Chinese. So what one believes is important.

We have a Court majority that is an oligarchy, redefining human nature and marriage, transgressing on the Amendment process to change the Constitution by rewriting law instead of interpreting it. We have a Court that has transgressed on the Separation of Powers, violating the fundamental inviolable rights recognized by the Founding Fathers.

We have a Court that trespassed on “eminent domain,” "political speech" and freedom of religion. Moreover, we have a Court that changed the meaning of the Geneva Convention that gives enemy terrorist court access and Constitutional protection, another infringement on the Separation of Powers, the Executive Branch.

Our inviolable rights are the foundation of our freedom; no Court has the authority to violate them or impugn them by changing them.

Another President like Clinton could be the end of nation. Nearly, 3,000 people died because we had a president more worried about his legacy and illicit sex than the country.

What does it mean when we say that traditional moral values have no legitimate value in law.

There are a lot of nut cases out there and they aren’t just the clergy, and Obama just may be one of them.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“RELIGION AND POLITICS”

IRT:
“On the other hand, we don't like being confronted with forms of faith that seem too raw, too harsh, too committed to a view of the world that might make people uncomfortable at the dinner table.

ANS:
Ga 4:16 -
“Am I then become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”

Thus, it is written, “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

“And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.

"And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it”—Matthew 10:16-42

Thus, sometimes truth is a harsh reality that some do not want to face, and therefore they feel uncomfortable. The solution is to accept the truth and be mollified by it because the Truth will set you free.

IRT:
“Religion, like all other human institutions…”

ANS:
All religions but the Catholic Church are human institutions. The Catholic Church is a Divine institution instituted by God. Jesus Christ established the Church and made Peter His Vicar on Earth.

The Catholic Church is protected from error in its teachings and beliefs by God. Therefore, it is infallible in its teachings and the Pope is infallible when he speaks as head of the Church, “ex cathedra,” Mt. 28:20; John 15:26-27; John 20:24ff.

No other religion or Church has such protection. The Church is the only Church in the history of mankind that has never changed its doctrines since the Ascension.

The Fathers of the Church say the Church is like the Moon reflecting the light of the Sun. She is the only Church that bears the marks that distinguish the true Church.

She is “One” in her unity.

The Church is also assured by visible bonds of communion in the profession of one faith received from the Apostles, in Her common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments, and in Her apostolic succession through the sacrament of Holy Orders, maintaining the fraternal concord of God's family.

The Church is “Holy” because She is founded by Jesus who is God. She is “Catholic” because she has been founded for all mankind. She is “Apostolic” because She has an unbroken string of authority from St. Peter her first Vicar to Benedict XVI the present Vicar of Christ on earth.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p1.htm (ff)

Only the one true Church has these four marks of authenticity. First, the Catholic Church is “One,” in its doctrines and beliefs and universally established for all mankind.

"The Church is, accordingly, a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ. It is also the flock of which God himself foretold that he would be the shepherd, and whose sheep, even though governed by human shepherds, are unfailingly nourished and led by Christ himself, the Good Shepherd and Prince of Shepherds, who gave his life for his sheep."

Therefore, the Church is a Holy and Divine Institution, and not human.

“The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head. The Church's structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ's members.

“The Church is both visible and spiritual, a hierarchical society and the Mystical Body of Christ. She is one, yet formed of two components, human and divine. That is her mystery, which only faith can accept.

“The People of God is marked by characteristics that clearly distinguish it from all other religious, ethnic, political, or cultural groups found in history.

"Baptism, which unites us to Christ's death and Resurrection, and the Eucharist, by which "really sharing in the body of the Lord, we are taken up into communion with him and with one another."221

"The Church is this Body of which Christ is the head: she lives from him, in him, and for him; he lives with her and in her.

"This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic." These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other.

“The Church is one because of her source, the highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of Persons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit."

"The Church is one because of her founder: for "the Word made flesh, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God by the cross."

Hence, the Church is a Divine institution, and not a human one, making Her free from error in Her universal teachings.

JUST A GUESS:

I am grateful to you for your post, more so than I can say. Quite honestly, you give me hope that somehow Jews can make themselve understood, can be heard.

As for the Yahoos, you can find thme anywhere, including, but not limited to Idaho. I don't know where you live, but try any large city. Try the five boroughs of New York City, beginning with Manhattan.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do [and say] nothing.

I wish there was some way for us to continue this dialogue.

Thank you!

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“RELIGION AND POLITICS”
IRT:
“But YouTube wasn't on the prowl for "gotcha" clerical moments at that time, and whatever a candidate did or did not believe was considered personal--as long as the candidate avowed his support for the separation of church and state.”

ANS:
There is no separation of Church and State; that was a figment of a flippant liberal Court’s imagination writing law instead of interpreting it. The Constitution read "freedom of religion and not "a separation or a wall between Church and State."

Injected into the meaning of religious freedom, by a legislative court, was a letter Jefferson wrote. It had nothing to do with the Constitution.

The only thing the Founding Fathers wanted was that there be no State religion and the free exercise thereof. The last thing in their mind was a wall of separation between Religion and State. Hence, Jefferson wrote, "To whom shall we seek our moral and ethical guidance if not the Church?"

We have ignored the wisdom of the Founding Fathers who based our moral laws of our Constitution on the presence of our Judeo-Christian Heritage.

Namely, that all men are created equal and every citizen has a right to be secured in his own person. Stevens' statement that said traditional moral values serve no legitimate value to the state is an invitation to moral depravity and the invitation to the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, famine, pestilence, death and war.

Again, a person’s faith isn’t shuttled off and practiced in some closet and his life in public be another life as the Clintons tried to sell us. Man has only one life and one purpose; he achieves that purpose through society and he is guided by his religion of which Civil Law is subservient to it.

Because man by nature is a social being destined for a spiritual abode in eternal happiness, he must be able to obtain his destiny through society, and the State's purpose is to assist man in his destiny.

Since man is a social being, he must achieve his purpose in life through society and society must be conducive to human nature disposing itself to accommodate man’s journey to eternal happiness in Heaven. So it is that St. Augustine wrote, “Lord You have created us for yourself. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Until we rest in God, we will never be satisfied with the wiles and vanities of the material world. There will always be that desire for the perfect good.

Thus, it is written, “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through, and steal

"But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal." Mt 6:19-20-

The State exist for the sole purpose of the individual to accomplish his journey in life, which is eternal happiness in the next life. To separate Church from State is an abomination that has resulted in the nefarious tragedies of Communism, Fascism, and all the worldly religions that imitate them.

That last post should have read - 'hate Catholics that don't believe in their own brand of fundamentalist Catholicism' - the one 'true' religion, of course. The murderers to be found among both Popes and saints are legion.......

Are they really all in heaven together? I hope so, I really hope so.

Just a Thought - the post just above my last one proves and confirms everything we said, in the clearest possible way. Some of these yahoos hate Catholics too - they have quite a laundry list of 'undesirable' people.

They're out there, and not only on some remote White Aryan compound deep in the mountains of Idaho.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“LINCOLN LIKE OBAMA?”

IRT:
“When John F. Kennedy famously declared before the Houston ministers in 1960 that, "I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does not speak for me," that was enough.”

ANS:
“Religion in its simplest form implies the notion of being bound to God. Broadly speaking, religion means the voluntary subjection of oneself to God.

"Religion exists in its highest perfection in heaven, where the angels and saints love, praise, and adore God, and live in absolute conformity to His holy will. It does not exist at all in hell, where the subordination of rational creatures to their Creator is one not of free will, but of physical necessity."

Thus, as Jacoby unwittingly notes, "the public should return to the better angels of our national traditions...." These traditions are all based on our Judeo-Christian heritage, and a Creator who endows man with inalienable rights conducive to man's destiny, eternal happiness, or God.

“On earth, true religion is practically coextensive with the human race, though, where it has not been elevated to the supernatural plane through Divine revelation, it labors under serious defects. What man aims at in religion is communion with the Deity, in which he hopes to attain his happiness and perfection. “

Since man is a social and spiritual being with a supernatural destiny, the State is to create a context where man is able freely to seek his natural destiny, by bringing his perfection to completion. This can only be done in a religious context because it is a journey directed by God through God's Church to accomplish the union with God for which all men were created.

“The perfection sought in religion becomes more intimately associated with moral goodness. In Christianity, the highest of religions, communion with God implies spiritual perfection of the highest possible kind, the participation in the supernatural life of grace as the children of God.

“The desire of happiness and perfection is not the only motive that prompts man to do homage to God. In the higher religions there is also the sense of duty arising from the recognition of God's sovereignty, and consequently of His strict right to the subjection and worship by man.

“To this must also be added the love of God for His own sake, inasmuch as He is the infinitely perfect Being, in whom truth, beauty, and goodness are realized in their highest possible degree.

Now in view of this, how can one isolate his religion from his participation in the public square?

“Religion answers to a deeply felt need in the heart of man of all people. Hence we find that religion in its outward worship is to a large extent a social function.”

If religion is an expression of moral goodness expressed in one’s character, integrity, demeanor, and belief, then not to express it in the public square is not only frivolity but also hypocrisy.

John F. Kennedy was a sexual pervert and his misogynist character personified his religious beliefs. Religion binds one to God. Kennedy apparently claimed his God did not bind him, and therefore that was an explanation of his nefarious debauched behavior.

IRT:
"The media did not go poking around in Cardinal Richard Cushing's sermons… [his views] would have offended huge numbers of Protestants and Jews (as well as liberal Catholics)."

ANS
The media didn’t have to poke around in Cardinal Cushing’s sermons they were public exhortations of the beliefs of the Catholic Church, and they are explicit in the Catechism of the Catholic Church for anyone to see.

Liberals Catholics pick out their beliefs. In doing so they separate themselves from the Church and dwell in the abode of the dead Catholics, Catholics without God's grace or the auspices of God's Church.

Why would the media have impulse to poke around in sermons anyway? Kennedy didn’t believe in Catholicity nor did his two brothers Ted and Bobby. They certainly didn’t practice Catholicism but used it as a facade. All three put the wiles and vanities of the world above their Creator, a harbinger for spiritual depravity.

Moreover, if one doesn’t know that the Church is adamantly against contraceptives and abortion they must be living in a cave on some remote island.

On the contrary, the Church does not offend Protestants or Jews by expounding the Truth; Jews and Protestants offend God and themselves if they intentionally transgress the teachings of God and His Church.

Salvation requires a sincere love of God striving to do His will. For it is written, “If you are not against me, you are with me.” However, no one can claim to something he knows he is not, viz. a Cafeteria Catholic calling himself a Catholic.

As to mix marriages, the Church allows mixed marriages but it attempts to discourage them for practical purposes.

Just a Thought - your observations from the inside looking out are truly something that outsiders looking in generally miss altogether (the looking in not being the same as seeing by any means). Why anyone believes they can speak with authority on other peoples of different ethnic and/or racial make-up is just based on the ungrounded assumption that since we can, and do so repeatedly - there must some basis for what we say and what we may believe. Humans constantly mimic one another without giving it another thought. This is perhaps force of habit at it's unsavory worst.

This recapitulation of overused generalizations regarding 'the Other' is not a well examined point of view, and it has unfortunate consequences - no wonder folks take offense at these fictitious identities that are thrust on them, and as you say, with considerable prejudice attached. I'm aware of the Joe Kennedy history, the Pope Pious XII history, and more recently, that examplar of far-right Catholic piety and bigotry, Mel Gibson -who would have thought the guy was such a maniac? I fear you are correct that his well concealed and only accidentally revealed anti-semitism is not so uncommon. Celebrities, sports figures, the rich and powerful in general get away with murder (as you say) until they are caught out.

Is the media primarily a white, anglo-saxon Protestant (GOP) enterprise? Judging from the content, how can there be any doubt. Bushco has gotten a pass for 8 years, and McCain is getting the same, thus far. Real thought-provoking, unbiased, plain-truth journalism is dead in the water.

Why a good many Catholics/Christians both here and throughout the West persist with this barely concealed anti-semitic mindset is not clear to me, except that people refuse to change their thinking in the face of overwhelming evidence that refutes that thinking. Those afflicted with the 'white Christian identity mystique' are as common as flies. We see it here in this tiny microcosm with great frequency.

I appreciate your insights and will take them to heart.

best regards to you -

JUST A GUESS:

Admittedly, Ted Kennedy is a problem for anyone of the liberal persuasion. Am I grateful for his consistently liberal stance, his ability to see through sham? You bet.

The fact remains that the Kopechne death was, at best, manslaughter, that the wandering around for twelve hours (?) doesn't cut it. That the presiding judge retired the day after issuing his judgment gives one pause. At the time the media claimed the country wanted to let the matter go, given the murders of John and Robert, murders that will haunt this Jew until the day of her death.

I was terribly ambivalent about the handling of the Kopechne death and am today. In the end, though, I have to say that Kennedy's having gone on to do important work cannot figure in the equation. How many others who were convicted of manslaughter, served out their sentences, might have gone on to make great contributions? This, we will never know, since it didn't and should not have weighed in on the decision to pursue justice.

Joe Kennedy, I should point out was involved in Nazi arms dealing, was a Nazi sympathizer. Not a secret. Blood money. A Catholic interest of mine.

Whether Christian or Catholic makes very little difference to us Jews as far as antisemitism is concerned. As far as positing "Jewish" intent is concerned. I'm very aware of Northern Ireland. I remember, as a child, when the British went in again. Jews such as I and we are many (no doubt you know that unlike the Christians/Catholics, we overwhelmingly vote Democrat) have always wondered why the Irish Catholics who should be our allies hate us so much. And they do, my friend. Of course, not all of them, but many do.

They have bought into the MYTH OF THE POWERFUL JEW. Easier than to buy into the truth about who their real oppressors are, since their real oppressors cannot be fought.

When the argument about Jewish interests came up, that ancient despicable canard, it is too bad you didn't mention the Catholic/Protestant interests you say concern you. It would have been heartwarming for us J folks to hear it.

It is true as everyone says, to the Christians/Catholics, et al, we are Jews wether we practice Judaism or not. That's how it is. And those who feel it's absolutely appropriate for them to say what they wish about us, without ramifications? Well, then, they must be Christians/Catholics too whether atheist or not, musn't they be? After all these are the terms of their arguments.

It's worth giving some thought to you know. My hatred for the persecution of the the Irish at the hands of people who had no business being there ever is quite strong. Many J people, including atheists like me, and observants, as it were, felt and feel the same way. But their feelings about us Js kept most of us silent.

And Israel? How thoroughly have you researched it? And AIPAC? PLeez. A legend in its own mind and that of the media. The Vatican has a PAC. The American Rifleman's Association, the OIL LOBBY (Christian, Catholic, Muslim), the Pharmaceuticals industries, big grain, big cotton, big farmers with big subsidies, all of them have PACs.

Now ask youself this, why would the media appear so biased against Israel? Could it possibly have anything to do with media ownership interests? Clearly, using Chris E's reasoning "The Jews" do not own the media, since "The Jews" are of one mysterious mind.

Think about media sites, telecommunications, markets in the Middle East. Think about who owns the media AND the products they advertise, stock portfolios, etc. Combine these two facts with two-thousand year old Jew hatred and voila! The media. So distrusted on so many matters, but, oddly, not on this.

Ah, my poor father, the brilliant man that he was, my father who drove somebody else's cab, started to teach my brother and me, when children, about a mysterious bad thing called IDEOLOGY.

Did you help make my point. Do you see my point? I hope so. Can you imagine what it's like to go day after day hearing this? Can you understand why some folks lose it when they hear it for 156,000th time in a seven-month period?

But what is encouraging to me is that some of the folks who lose it are not Jews. That is something for which I'm grateful, very grateful, even though it happens rarely.

Peace my friend, and may you be safe from the IDEOLOGY monster!

JUST A THOUGHT - agreed on every point, although I'm not sure that #1 has any real merit. Kennedy drove off a bridge drunk and his passenger and apparent paramour Mary Joe Kopeckny died in the ensuing plunge into the (Charles?) river - just from memory, but I could have Wikied I suppose.

Is there a prevailing counter-theory that he actually murdered her intentionally to cover up the affair? I don't equate Ted K. with OJ, for example.

I'm not a Catholic sympathizer by the way, although to be completely honest I was raised in that faith. That came to an end nearly 50 years ago, although I seem to be the only liberal among half a dozen Irish (Republican) cousins of similar age and background (education excepted - maybe I was luckier in that regard). Family reunions can be a real pain. Of course all of my parents generation are dead and gone.

Anyway, had this happened today I really think Kennedy would have been charged and convicted of involuntary manslaughter because of the DWI angle - not to mention a monumental financial settlement to the family - no doubt his influence spared him considerable legal pain in those days, although I imagine he suffered on a personal level. Still, influence peddling is an ugly thing in any setting and the more so because that seems to be the engine that drives our government.

However, if you're of a liberal bent (and I gather you are) he has been the most enduring liberal in the Senate, and few would argue with that. Do you think he and his family are suffering now, by the way?

We can only hope that someone of his dedication to liberal causes gets his job, imperfect though he may be. Just goes to show that one Irishman is one Irishman in a crowd of Irish, doesn't it? Did I help make your point? Irish interests indeed!

And they're just one kind of Catholic, or one kind of Irishman if you happen to live in Northern Ireland - and even worse, the vast majority of those with Irish ancestry in the Sunny South are Protestants.

Protestants seem far worse because there are so many more - and numbers always rule, don't they?
The composition of the Supreme Court should give anyone pause - I know it does me.

IN REPLY TO JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“LINCOLN LIKE OBAMA?”

IRT:
“If we were to hear a tape of every sermon delivered in churches attended by any of the candidates over the past 20 years [and every newspaper and every blog, magazine, politician, and every birdbrain out there in public.] “I venture to say that we would find a great many additional priests, ministers, and rabbis who have said something offensive to some segment of the American electorate.”

ANS:
And, I would venture to say the majority of offenses would be coming from the radical Democrats on the nefarious left.

This cacophony of religious obloquy isn’t a one-way street. Why isolate religion? Dissident vulgarity and self-righteousness is repulsive in all vocations of life.

Bush is ridiculed and vilified constantly because he lives his religious beliefs; he doesn't wear them on his sleeve. The ridicule is not by Christians but by the pseudo clergy in the context of so-called preachers like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Sharpton. Jackson called Bush 1 Harod, a murderer of children.

In addition, we have the atheist troglodytes, iconoclast, and the subculture sexual revolutionists and agnostic members of the Culture of Death blaming Christianity and other religions for what their own iniquity has wrought.

IRT:
“That is exactly why candidates should stop all of their sanctimonious talk about faith and why the public should return to the better angels of our national traditions, which treat faith as a private matter between an individual and God.”

ANS:
Our national traditions are based on our Judeo-Christian Heritage that man is endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights and that all men are created equal. That is a religious doctrine we don't want to ignore.

Sanctimoniousness in anyone is hypocritical and repugnant, but one living his faith and not being ashamed of it in public is a person of courage and integrity.

The Pope made Father Robert Drinan resign from Congress, and the Church also condemned the “Liberation Theology” movement in Latin American. Politics is not the format of the Church.

The Church’s purpose is to transform man into sainthood; it is the Christian, arrayed in the truths of his Faith, who is to lead and guide society in Justice, Compassion, and Truth. Therefore, for one not to live his faith in public would be hypocritical.

The Clintons justified their immorality by claiming they had split personalities, a public life, and a private life. Thus, all the political perverts justified Clinton debauchery as being part of his private life and no one’s business.

However, character and integrity is of the whole man. Clinton was a social psychopathic sex pervert, who was disgracefully performing his vices in the Oval Office, and lied in a federal court, while he was stalking all the women that crossed his path.

In the interim, Clinton made sure he was always seen carrying a Bible when going and leaving church on Sundays. For his debauchery, he was reelected and praised for his contumacy.

To the contrary, man doesn’t have two lives to live at the same time; he only has one. When the final judgment comes, there won’t be this subterfuge for escaping responsibility. Hence, a religious politician is also a public politician. A pretense that he is not is a diabolical subterfuge of the truth.

Virtuous and religious candidate who profess the values and virtues of truth, honesty, integrity, charity, justice tempered by compassion, and a sincere care for the lives of others along with their professional astuteness is what America should strive for when electing a candidate. Hence, it is vital that the voter know what motivates a candidate, what his character is, and what his beliefs are.

“Society ought to promote the exercise of virtue, not obstruct it. It should be animated by a just hierarchy of values. Where sin has perverted the social climate, it is necessary to call for the conversion of hearts and appeal to the grace of God. Charity urges just reforms. There is no solution to the social question apart from the Gospel (cf. CA 3, 5—Catechism of the Catholic Church).”

Just a Guess:

You asked, "Irish interests, anyone?"

Sure.

1. The Kennedy clan and how Ted Kennedy got away with murder.

2. How Irish American Catholics managed to ban abortion in Ireland and prevent the Irish from getting info. on abortion from England.

3. More Catholic interests: The sleazoid Supreme Court Catholics and Protestants, who are trying to limit the rights of women to choose, and who have taken reactionary positions on just about everything.

4. The Senate and House Republican Catholics who have driven this country into the ground.

5. The Vatican, which has its grubby hands in everything.

6. American Catholics who want to take women's rights to choose away.

7. Warhawk John McCain, anyone?

You'd have to live underground, get supplies through a pipeline, have no access to any news from the earth's surface not to have Irish Catholic or Irish Protestant interests, or just plain Christian Whatevers.

TTWSY etc etc etc - you're a relatively intelligent person, but God almightly you are as boring as stale bread. You're really going to finish out your life thinking like that?

Wouldn't want to be you ........ good luck.

IN REPLY TO JACOBY
JUNE 4, 2008 8:31 AM
“LINCOLN LIKE OBAMA?”
IRT:
"This entire episode, like John McCain's disavowal of an endorsement by a sleazy televangelist who considers Hitler a hunter sent by God to return the Jews to Zion, is a case study in the danger of mixing religion with politics.'

ANS:
On the contrary, the opprobrious behavior that our nation is witnessing today is not because of the mix of religion and politics, but just the opposite. Today, we have forsaking our Judeo-Christian heritage that this country was founded on. A majority of our present culture is even in denial that we had founded our nation on these principles in order for them to deny that they exist.

People should start reading the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Jefferson was a major author of both along with Madison. The Fifth Amendment insures man be secure in his person. It didn't say not the unborn. If the Founders were living today, they would be vilified.

Should a politician deny the Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods or wife? The Clintons did.

Should a candidate deny, "Love thy neighbor as thy self," or "Do unto others as you would do unto yourself?" Should they deny that all men are created equal? Stalin did, Saddam did, Hitler did. The Communist do. They weren't Christian.

America, in the Declaration, recognized that man was endowed with certain inalienable rights and that they were not given by the State but by God. What man gives, man can take away.

Madison was so adamant that these rights be honored that he insisted on a Ninth Amendment to ensure that those natural rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution and were enjoyed by Americans were not proscribed by man.

Are politicians supposed to forget that? The Court did, and 48 million unborn have been legally murdered. Kerry, the Clintons, Kennedy, Durbin, Leahy, and Pelosi, all Catholics did. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution doesn’t mean anything to them. They pay homage to a lesser god, political expedience for self-aggrandizement.

The authors of the Declaration were so passionate about the existence of these rights that they wrote it was the duty of the citizens to overthrow the government in power if they consistently violated these principles. These principles are inscribed in man’s nature by God. To deny God’s existence is to undermine the rationale for our inalienable rights.

What is repulsive about religion and politics in the public square is the denial of our religious heritage, and the denial of our historical religious foundations that our nation was been built on.

The Court denied the display of the Ten Commandments in the Public Square, and they claimed that the Commandments would contaminate little children’s minds. What a harlequinade, a pantomime of Justice.

How ironic when Moses is the center of world lawmakers holding the Ten Commandments on the east pediment of the Supreme Court and they are dramatized on the doors entering the Supreme Court. Moreover, they are the basic foundation for all Civil Law.

Justice Stephens in Bower v. Georgia, wrote, “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,” and in “Lawrence v. Texas” said that traditional moral values served no legitimate purpose to the State.”

“This effectively decrees the end of all moral legislation,” wrote Scalia. “If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review,” he continued.—Lawrence v. Texas.

So was it that immorality was written into the Constitution and it became a Constitutional Right. Thomas Jefferson said, "To whom should we turn to for our moral guidance if not the Church?"

Stalin didn’t seek the Church; he destroyed it, as did Hitler, Mao, Edi Amin, and Pol Pot, and the Four Horsemen, poverty, pestilence, war and death perused them.

"Religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those principles on which our government has been founded and its rights asserted." --Thomas Jefferson to p. H. Wendover, 1815. Me 14:283

Observer

You're waiting for my reply? Are we still allowed to post here?

I do not read all of the posts. If I miss a few days, then it is hard for me to go over each one, but I try to scan. I was not able to pickup on what the ruckus was all about. Sometimes, people get into fights here over a single sentence, that can easily be missed by all the rest of we observers.

I was raised in a Southern culture, in which there were no Jews, nor any Jewish influence. Now that I am an adult, I have had several Jewish friends, but I have never discussed relgion with them. I assume also, that I may have a number of aquaintances whose religion is unknown to me, who may be Jewish.

And yes, it is true, that I know people who become red-faced with hysteria, when the subject of the Jews and Israel comes up, sort of like they are followers of Adolph Hitler, or have some sort of anti-Jewish mania, which seems to go alot further than mere bigotry. With these people, I try to avoid them as much as possible, and steer the conversation to neutral topics. Of course, I regard such people with suspicion and anxiety, and do not regard them seriously.

While there are no doubt many gay men from Texas, Chris Everett has never been identified as one of them on this blog. This is a red herring and is easy enough to spot. He's being taken to task for his 'Jewish interest' comment and links to broader political considerations. Exactly how does this represent stereotyping people of Jewish ancestry?

Here's the thing - I have Jewish interests, including AIPAC, The Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish voting bloc and the Democratic Party, the wiliness of Joe Lieberman, Israel's role in the Near East, and much else found in the media on a regular basis....and I'm not Jewish.

If you are not affiliated with or have interest in any kind of political or religious organization, have no interest in the future of the Middle East, seldom leave the house, pay no attention to media of any kind, and are concentrating primarily on your own immediate survival, then you probably do not have Jewish interests and should not be identified or classified as such - regardless your ethnic makeup. Just my own point of view, of course.

Irish interests, anyone?

Anonymous,

Your "another take" is well-taken.

One of your previous comments made me bring back the mission of the hypothetical organization to the numbers problem.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

Well, anon., I don't want to sound pompous but I tend to hold Wiki and/or google both as inferior sources of information. I tend to read peer reviewed books by teaching historians.

My sources on the history of late antiquity are mostly 1)Michael Cook,2)Peter Brown (who has also written extensively on St Augustine) and lately Hugh Kennedy "The Great Arab Conquests". All these specialists attest that Islam simply does/did not have the proselytising instincts of Christianity. This is what I meant when I say that IMHO Islam as the base case for Islamist violence is too large to yield any insights.

Anyway, hope we can continue. I have to go now.

MaryCunningham,

When you take the hypothetical situation to the wider society, a base case is a valid reference point (as long as it isn't framed inaccurately as you said). Not the only reference point but yes, perfectly valid and significant.

There are others reference points that instead of or in addition to the society-base-case can be highly relevant to question the number of extremist in an organization within that society. Other reference points can be the incidence of extremists in other organizations with similar mission and similar size in the same society and in other societies.

The second part of your examples deal with what to do with the findings. One option that you explored for a member of the organization is to stay in the organization but leave the country because the numbers in the country are awful. The stopper you found is sad and unjust, but that can happen: the person may be seen as one of the extremists and not allowed to migrate to a suited country.

There may be other action paths, like try to better the country, if that is realistic.

What is very interesting with this "game" are not the numbers but the sensibility to analyze the organizations we belong to as members and try to better them, or better the environment where they operate, or both. If betterment is out of question and/or the status is totally unacceptable, pursue an exit alternative that is realistic and will not make the situation worst.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

P.S. My 90 to 72 was not to defend CCNL, I don't condone bigots.

MC, the not milk and honey part of OT is a historical account of the Jewish people. Abraham was promised Israel, he and his folks went and conquered the small area of land they believed was promised to them by God and settled there without seeking expansion of their territory. Their God wanted paganism, idol worship rooted out as well, plentiful in their time, and to be worshiped as one Creator God without any image and idol.

The Jews were asked not to intermarry. They were not asked to go out and conquer the world or convert anyone but to keep themselves apart as a people of God imitating the holiness of God. The Ten Commandments is nearly four thousand years old and Thou Shalt NOT KILL is one of them.

How many wars have the Jews fought with other nations or peoples in the name of their religion that is five thousand years old? How much terrorism did they indulge in when they were discriminated against as minority groups in almost all the countries in which they lived?

The history of Islam is somewhat different. The mandate to convert is universal as in Christianity but the methods used for conversion even in Mohammad's time was different to the spread of Christian faith by persecution of Christians for the first three centuries. Mohammad was both a political and religious leader. That makes Islam unique. Google should provide you with more information. There may be some truth to terrorism as the irrational response to the way US policies is perceived in ME. But Islam as it is practiced in the land of its birth, Saudi Arabia or Iran is not a response to any Western foreign policy.

The problem Anon is that I am only conversant in the New Testament but from what I know of the Hebrew Bible (outside of the Psalms) it is not exactly full of milk and honey. And isn't the New built upon the Old--"I come not to destroy the law but to fulfill it?"

And I know next to nothing about the Koran--not even how to spell it in Arabic. So how can I compare? I know something about the history of late antiquity--is that enough? For me, no.

And that ignorance is the problem. Oh, CCNL will quote all sorts of verses, some of them extremely warlike, but, to put it delicately, he does have a wee agenda. And Islam was never a proselytising faith, like Judaism, but unlike Christianity. Yes, in AD680 the Arabs burst out of the Arabian peninsula, inspired by their prophet, but it was straightforward conquest and empire building. Initially, at least, they did not seek to impose their religion.

My instinct is that contemporary Islamist extremism is a political responce to a political problem, but that is where we came in. Anyway, must run.

Best,
MC

Mary Cunningham, the only "religious" organization that keeps its policies secret is Scientology. But it is only about fifty years old and not centuries old. It has unique goals quite unlike any religion that we know.

If it is other religions we are talking about, the Scripture of all of them is available. So we can't make believe we don't know what their "policies" are.

If it is politics we are discussing, this is an on faith forum and hence we can't be discussing the politics of every country on earth.

This is not a business forum, so no point discussing real corporations either.

Finally, it is not about whose God is greater or smaller. It is simply about what the respective Scriptures actually teach about any topic one chooses to make a comparison about.

Anon (1,2,3, CCNL,Merry,Curious, who?),

Another way of saying "My God is better/stronger/more pacifist than your God"?

JAC deliberately framed the original problem so that we were in the dark about the 'policies' of said org., only the level or murderers and/or extremists.

He later enhanced the description of the org."for centuries been working for excellence." Hence the mission statement is good, the results are the variable.

My problem is that we've all assumed the base case is Islam and, IMHO, that is a base case that is too wide to be of much use. Unfortunately this blog is almost finished. Maybe we can continue the discussion--for it is a good one--another time.

Anon, Anon, Anon Wherever You Are,

From the latest commentary of the "obfusing" one aka the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist,

"I don't even hate you (i.e CCNL). So, how could I hate Shiites. " i.e. if she doesn't hate the CCNL, it is assumed she likes him, har, har.

And she still refuses to discuss the "fems" of Islam. Again see her previous commentary as she references the works of Ali and Rusdie instead of dealing with the facts on the table.

Strange, strange this Jihadist.

And then previously she says she is not superstitious but believes in pretty flying thingies and the Jinn. And in another previous commentary she notes that all religions are of human construct and have the failings of said humans but still believes Mo and Gay(?) Gabe really talked in that hot "pwft" cave so many years ago.

The Jihadist therefore appears to be a mixed up Muslim based on these kinds of comments or lack thereof as she refuses to defend the foundations of "fem"ed Islam.

JAC

Another take

It is not the number of extremists in an organization that matters but whether the policies of the organization has the potential to produce them.

Even if there were a million Christian terrorists, there is not a single verse in the New Testament or anything in the life of Jesus Christ to justify terrorism and violence in the name of Christianity.

JAC,

My_a priori_assumption is that we should not overlook the base case.

If the country/wider society (or base case in this example) has a--we'll use frequencies--level of 10 extremists per 100 and my organisation a level of 5 extremists per 100, then I will continue being a member. If my org. has a higher frequency than the base case then, obviously, I will look twice. If the base case--my country--is unacceptably high, say, 40 extremists per 100, then my 15 extremists per 100 looks good, but the base case is awful and I will probably attempt to emigrate although nobody will have me as I am trying to leave a failed state with a lot of the very terrorists/extremists that I am trying to flee--but my country of destination will probably say I am one.

The base case is important and what we choose as the base case as important. That was the point of the Dershowitz example. He framed the base case--deliberately, I'm sure--inaccurately and a cold blooded murderer walked free.

But I like your problem. I also liked your comment that the gang against CCNL had posted,say, 90 lines to CCNL's 72. How did you do that? You must have a good word & line counting facility. Maybe we could try it with words as well.

Best,
Mary C.

Jihadist likes to tease CCNL. Clearly he enjoys it and sometimes takes the bait all the while pretending he remains untouched. :)

DTLD,

It's late, and I must go to bed, where you may already be. Hopefully, you'll reply to me, and I'll read your post tomorrow.

Observer12

Posted on June 9, 2008 23:50

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:

Hmmm, the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist likes me??? Give us a break!!! That is just another distraction so she can avoid discussing the "fems" of Islam.

??????? She likes you? Flattering yourself?

DITLD,

Doesn't it trouble you, as a Christian, that so many Christians/Catholics, former Christians, now atheists, are so preoccupied with Jews, and, not, I might add, in a way that is reassuring? In a way, rather, that is stereotyping?

What's up with that?

Observer12

DITLD,

Actually, as you see, I wasn't writing to you, but to Chris E, and, frankly, I'm less concerned about his identity than I am about my "Jewish interests," which, if you read his posts, you'll find him commenting on.

The points about reasoning go to them. What is up here with all these Jewish problems?

Regards,
Observer12

Hmmm, the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist likes me??? Give us a break!!! That is just another distraction so she can avoid discussing the "fems" of Islam.

For the newbies to include Mr. Obama:

The flaws, errors, muck and stench aka the "fems" of Islam:

Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who 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 assassination of Bhutto, 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 Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

The muck and stench of Islam you ask?

The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering , womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.

Observer12:

You said to Chris Everett,

"Well, Chris, at math, I'm so-so, but I would think that someone like your physics major self would know that it is impossible to hold two contradictory positions at once."

But you're wrong; it is not impossible; it is in fact possible.

Furthermore, none of us know each other at all. We all tell each other little things about ourselves, but none of us have any way of knowing if the things we tell each other are true or not. So what possible difference does it make, to duel with someone about what you think may be true or false about their identity?

At least Chris Everett is giving a name which seems to be his real name. But you do not give your name, so what credibility do you have? And I have read Chris Everett's posts for awhile, and I do not believe he has ever claimed to be gay and from Texas.

Some time ago, he replied to one of my posts, and started telling me about something called "ethical culture" and suggested that I might be interested in it. And when I replied with some interest, and asked for some additional information, I believe it came to light then that he lived in NYC.

And then, when E Favorite told us that we were all mistaken about her gender, and that she was really a woman, then I began challenging everyone, in jest about their gender. And I challenged Chris Everett, and wondered whether Chris Everett might be a woman. So, then it came to light that Chris Everett is a married man, a bout 45 years old, I think.

So many people post so many different things here that I think that you are getting things you think Chris Everett said with things someone else has said.

But as I said at the beginning, why get so perturbed about people's true identities and characteristics on a blog like this? All you can do is observe what each person says, and take each person at their word.

Chris E,

Just thought I'd check back to see if you had anything to say about my interests, as a Jew. I'm confused at where we left off.

First you say that Jews are "a demographic," with "statistically-significant interests." Then when Curious asks, hideously, for evidence, your wounded self replies you have none, but you do have experience which gives you "Jewcred." When I tell you I'm Jewish, you fall back on the "demographic," "statistically significant" argument by way of explaining why you can't reveal to me my interests, asserting that math is not my strong point.

Well, Chris, at math, I'm so-so, but I would think that someone like your physics major self would know that it is impossible to hold two contradictory positions at once. Not only does that lose you "Jewcred," it loses you all cred.

And then, we have this odd business about your being gay and living in Texas, which Curious says, you had previously mentioned often. But now you are married to a Jewish woman living on the upper west side of Manhattan!

So. You are bi-spatial. And, Chris, unless you were married in the 1950s, finding a rabbi to marry you would not be difficult.

(In case, you want to post as a Catholic in the future, I can tell you that finding a priest to do that job would be difficult. No offense intended to Catholics, needless to say.)

YOU: "Jews" ARE a demographic in this country, i.e. there is a group of people who self identify as "Jews". As a demographic, they have statistically-significant interests, and in my experience, broad support of Israel is foremost among them.

CURIOUS: "As a demographic, they have statistically-significant interests, and in my experience, broad support of Israel is foremost among them"

Statistics and documentation on the "statistically-significant interests," and kindly define same.

Also, you say, "in your experience broad support is foremost among them." What would that be, i.e., "your experience"? There are a millions of Jews in this country. How far-ranging is your experience?

YOU: I equivocated about interests precisely because I DON'T have hard statistics - my analysis is largely anectdotal from life experience. I grew up in a ~50% Jewish town. Most of my friends are Jewish. My wife is Jewish. I was married by a Rabbi (it was tough to find one willing to put the love between my wife and I ahead of tribal apostasy). My brother-in-law is a Rabbi. I went to Brandeis for a couple of years before transferring to Tufts when I switched from pre-med to physics. (BTW, I founded "Goy Anonymous" while at Brandeis) I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I've got Jew cred.

CURIOUS: Chris E.
Am I missing something identity-wise? Have you not said more than once that you are gay? [Curious later mentions that you have also been stating that you live in Texas]

ME: I am Jewish. Can you tell me what my "interests" are?

This could be better than Tarot and astrology!

PS. Got plenty of ChristoCred, so I can and will return the favor!

YOU: Observer12,

1) Please refer to my use of the terms "statistically-significant", "correlation" and "demographic".

2) I'll venture to guess that math ISN'T one of your interests.

3) Anything's better than Tarot and astrology.

4) Alas, we all have too much "ChristoCred". I'm even NAMED after it!

5) Goodbye.

Goodbye, indeed, but you can come back, and clarify....

Jihadist,

An afterthought on alcoholic beverages. Regarding the Prophet's words on this subject, did he not specifically forbid the inbibing of drink fermented from grapes and grain? Well, if you hold to this literally, then you can drink mead, which is wine fermented from honey. Hell, you could drink Scotch, that fabulous product of the great country of my ancestors - it is distilled from barley.

Arminius

Jihadist,

Oh, dear, you are in terrible need of an education!

First, of COURSE beer causes beer bellies. I have been working on mine for almost half a century, and am not there yet.

Second, to quote one of our greatest Founding Fathers, Ben Franklin: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Third, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER mistake Bud for any true beer brewed in these great United States! At best, it is a decent breakfast beverage. We have many brews here that can stand with the best brewed anywhere. My personal favorite is 'Arrogant Bastard Ale'. Yes, that is the name. The motto is "You're Not Worthy". Great stuff! A brew worthy of legend. It will knock your socks off!

Finally, don't ever get me started on 'light beer'. You will learn profanity that you did not believe existed.

Luv ya,

Arminius

Oh, hello pussycat,

Concy : "We try to help in anyway we can but the Islamic brainwashing is just too deep."

* What to do. Faith is deep and true. Crossanization is shallow cut and paste.

Concy : "Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques "febrezed" and the Sunnis and Shiites are pacified, no one is safe!!!!

* Our slogan is this:

- Islam is perfect.
- Islam is the way.

You can find them on T-shirts and bumper stickers all over the Muslim world. Can you slogan stand a chance in hell over those slogans?

Concy : And again Jihadist, how deep goes your hate for Shiites?

* I don't even hate you. So, how could I hate Shiites.

Concy : You never seem to address that very important issue. That along with the other "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam.

* We have you, Ibrahim Mahfouz, A Kafir, Arif, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, Daniel Pipes, the Danish cartoonists, the Dutch fillmakers, Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter et al doing that already. So......

**************************************************

Hello Arminius :)

Beer has been identified as a cause of beer belly. Just a proposal to make every man in western civilisation look as good as George Clooney.

Hey, we have Tiger beer here. And the Thais have Singha beer, the Indonesians have Bintang beer, the Filipinos have San Miguel beer, and the Japanese Sapporo and Kirin beer. Better than Bud? As in "This Bud's for you?" Who says Bud's better than Tiger or Bintang or Singha etc beers?

Want to get all nationalistic over beer? These are fighting words over national beers!

I got to go and stay sober. The markets' opening.

Cheers and bottoms up!

"J"

Merry Anonymous:

Thanks for your comments.

You asked: Where, on your scale, would my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances fit? They are simply religiously observant.

My response: based on what you said, they are good citizens, some of them may be role models in this regard.

You also asked: Is that a crime?

My response: On the contrary, they must be examples of good conduct as you observed.

In relation to the numbers problem scale, the idea is not for a third party (me) to judge how proud or not a person should feel in his/her organization, whatever type of organization it may be. IMHO it’s more intriguing the reaction and mental process of a person in front of the hypothetical problem than to discuss if that person posture is right or not in absolute terms.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

Jihadist,

Oh, dear, you are in serious trouble! You said a terrible thing, a blow against the core of western civilization. You said: BAN BEER.

As we say here in the Old South, "Them's fightin' words!"

My claymore is in my right hand, my glass of beer is in my left! Watch out!

(meanwhile, ROTFLMAO)

Best regards, friend, you are something else indeed,

Arminius

There the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist goes again. We try to help in anyway we can but the Islamic brainwashing is just too deep.

But the slogan of the century will bring Reality to All:

"Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques "febrezed" and the Sunnis and Shiites are pacified, no one is safe!!!!

And again Jihadist, how deep goes your hate for Shiites? You never seem to address that very important issue. That along with the other "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam.

Whatdoweknow writes:

"You hear the horror stories of denied treatment and so forth, and based on legal and administrative ($$) decisions, rather than medical necessity. Really an egregious ethical position, if ever there was one. Legal actions and rulings have often found against this denial of treatment and in violation of existing statutes."

A man in New York State, I believe it was, was awarded a five-million dollar judgment against his HMO for refusal of payment for necessary treatment. I could be wrong, but I think the right to sue HMOs varies from state to state.

At all events, I wonder how suing HMOs will figure in the equation regarding socialized, or nationalized, healthcare.

Hello JAC,

I really do enjoy your posts including this one on maths. Different from others in looking at religions as an "economic" activity - marketing, branding and such.

It would seem that not many here is interested in maths. Don't worry too much about "limited space and time" in this blog. Did you see JJ's posts before?

You math game here gave me some new ideas for coming up with new math games to tease my kids' minds on numbers and their applications.

A pleasure, thanks and best regards

"J"

**************************************************

Oh, Concy Pussycat!

How could I miss your post.

You : "....we again published without charge the Five Steps for Deprogramming Islam as any caring Crossanized Christian would do since you were starting to lose your way again."

* And who funds the publication of the Five Step Deprogramming Islam Programme? Bill Gates and to replace it with MS Crossanized Christianity 1.0?

Tut, tut, tut. Microsoft greed and lust for global domination married with Crossanization greed and lust for global programming monopoly and domination of Crossanized Christianity?

Oh, want to start IA (Islam Anonymous) while at it for "recovery"?

Concy quoted on meanings of "pacify":

- "To ease the anger or agitation of."

* ANGER!? WHAT ANGER!? WHAT AGITATION!?

- "To end war, fighting, or violence in; establish peace in."

* Get out of Iraq! Get out of Iraq! Get out of Iraq!

Concy : If you think buying a "pacifier" for all the Muslims of the world would do the job, I am sure Mr. Obama's State Department would be more than willing to help monetarily. Embossing said "pacifiers" with said slogan would be a nice touch.

* Good to hear that. But will American taxpayers agree when they are really upset on US health care system?

* As for your proposed list on healthcare in the US, just sell off all those aircraft carriers and Stealth bombers. Good health and charity begins at home, no?

My additional proposal to improve health and reduce risk of sickness:

* Ban junk food
* Ban beer

Cheers

"J" - The Unchurched and the Unrealist

Some clarification is in order. As regards Blue Cross coverage, everyone negotiates different plans with Blue Cross, including both Federal and state governments as well as private individuals. Benefits and costs vary, all depending your plan and your state.

It is quite true that any number of elective procedures are not covered, cosmetic surgeries being one prime example - keeping in mind that reconstructive surgery is an altogether different issue, and definitely covered. I'm willing to believe that even in nations with socialized healthcare, elective surgeries and treatments are similarly not covered, but I'd be guessing.

The Fed plan is uniform throughout the system, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every Fed employee gets the Blue Cross option. This unfortunately is dependent on state laws - curious indeed.

I recall having an HMO in Oregon and Pennsylvania, because that was the sole medical insurance option in those states by law. I had no problems but no major medical expenses or treatments either. An HMO is definitely not in my future.

You hear the horror stories of denied treatment and so forth, and based on legal and administrative ($$) decisions, rather than medical necessity. Really an egregious ethical position, if ever there was one. Legal actions and rulings have often found against this denial of treatment and in violation of existing statutes.

As a finale, coding (read billing for services) is everything in the medical world. Without the appropriate diagnosic and encounter codes as submitted by the medical provider, payment by the insurer will be denied. I recently had to have a bill for a standard office visit and lab work run through three times before they got the coding right.

JAC,

May I ask a question? I returned from Islamabad last Monday. There I had the opportunity to visit observant Muslim friends, all of them high-powered professionals, and make some new ones.

Among them are people who are speaking out in the press continually fighting for democracy in their impoverished country, an impoverishment for which they hold Pakistan responsible, but to which we contributed in ways too numerous to recount here.

Now, I would like to ask you. Where, on your scale, would my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances fit? They are simply religiously observant. Is that a crime?

Jihadist,

Jihadist,

My statement: Those posters that want to join to this topic, feel free to state your qualifiers or even assumptions, but a direct and specific answer is important as communication tool.

Your comment: * So, now there is a conditionality for joining in this topic that you submit? I take it you want the answer you want to hear. Mary Cunningham is right then.....

You are right, my statement can be interpreted like there is conditionality for joining, which was not my intention.

I also wrote: I believe that the process to solve the questions and the reactions of the poster expressed in their comments has been very interesting so far. But obviously direct and precise answers are important but unfortunately nobody has ventured in this terrain.

Again, not in line enough in relation with my thinking.

What I believe, and should have said, is that the reaction and processing of the answers some time are telling, if not more telling, that the short and direct answer. But because the limited space and time in a blog a direct and precise answer can help.

I already gave may answers, I'm interested in other's answers, whatever they may be.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

What do we know, Curious:

I seem to remember that quite awhile ago, Blue Cross/Blue Shield started bringing in a team of screeners, Value Options, I believe it was called.
BC/BS had a number of explanations, including its inability to pay for services billed for but not provided, unnecessary tests performed by doctors to pay for expensive equipment. At about the same time, I think, I started hearing about HMOs.

Only stronger oversight can prevent these sorts of abuses. Why not nationalized healthcare? I wonder, if, in the end, it might not be cost effective? Doctors still bill for services not performed, perform unnecessary tests to pay for equipement, etc. Then there is the plight of thousands and thousands of college students I mentioned earlier, the cost to HMO's in lawsuits, and they are being sued, that gets passed on to us, etc.

Mr. Mark:

"Here's my proposal: allow John Q Public to buy into the same system that currently covers our Congress Critters. Why should their insurance be any better than what the rest of us can afford? Make the rates affordable. Allow the government to negotiate prices.

If not that, then put all of our Congress Critters into the WORST HMO out there. I can assure you that the reformers would step up and we'd have a great national health plan passed within 6 months."
-------
Yes. Haven't various politicos been arguing that we should all be entitled to the same healthcare coverage as those in Congress?

Since I doubt that we'll ever see the day when we get this without a serious struggle, I wonder if we could call for a national referendum, one that includes your proposal that the "Congress critters" enroll in the worst HMO should we not receive a decent nationalized healthcare program.

One possible problem: How can we know which the worst HMO is? They're all so bloody awful. I just read an article about a woman who was denied payment for chemotherapy while in the midst of treatment! Then the HMO cancelled her policy.

A couple of thoughts - the Federal government can very easily negotiate reasonable healthcare plans and does so for it's employees. Blue Cross Federal is quite an excellent plan for example, has reasonable co-pays, and even has realistic dental and eye care plans attached at an additional but rather low cost.

The US Postal Service plan is very similar, but actually not quite as good going into retirement.
The monthly cost becomes much higher for the departing retiree with USPS. You also have the option to change medical plans once a year as a federal employee.

In fact, the plan is so good that since you carry it going into retirement, some employees verging on retirement opt out of Medicare Plan B altogether at age 65, as an unnecessary additional monthly expense (now somewhere around $90.00 and rising). However, should you take Med Plan B, then Blue Cross becomes your supplemental carrier.

The oldsters that are outside the government system all know that you must have a supplemental policy of some kind going into retirement. Part B pays 80% of most medical expenses and you pay the other 20% without a supplemental plan. That 20% can add up to thousands for one inpatient hospitalization alone.

And additionally, the VA system is a national healthcare model par excellence as has been said time and again by others....despite pejorative and highly parsed comments frequently found in the media. I can again attest to the fact that these days it's an altogether excellent system, but with certain notable flaws that may one day in the future be 'de-flawed'.

Typically, limitations are monitarily based as would be expected. It all depends on the annual budget, and the VA speciality care services in particular may well exceed anything available in the public sector. There has been talk in the past that the VA may one day open it's doors to the general public, but I feel this is a long way off.

In fact, Iraq both now and in terms of it's long-range cost effects in the future has probably put the screws to that plan for good - future costs will predictably be in the mega-billions beyond where they are today.

Everybody hates the 'over-sized' and 'bloated' government until it comes time to get a good job with good benefits. And this comes at a time when the corporate world is downsizing both retirement and medical benefits apace - or eliminating the same altogether in many cases.

Is this one of the iviolable rights of the rulers of a free market economy, or something else that has more to do with the prerogatives and protections afforded the citadel of hyper-capitalism? We will be hearing from the Libertarians here momentarily, I have a feeling.

BTW, ordinary folks working for the Fed don't identify with Congress anymore than the man on the street - Congressional perks are far beyond the pale of any mainstream government employee by magnitudes.

Just some stuff that may be of interest, depending on who gets elected - these issues will not be on McCain's agenda I can guarantee.

Merry Anonymous asks:

Mr. Mark:

The real solution to America's health care debacle is single payer.

Like Medicare, but for all?"

Why not? The program is run pretty well and has broad support from the populace.

Here's my proposal: allow John Q Public to buy into the same system that currently covers our Congress Critters. Why should their insurance be any better than what the rest of us can afford? Make the rates affordable. Allow the government to negotiate prices.

If not that, then put all of our Congress Critters into the WORST HMO out there. I can assure you that the reformers would step up and we'd have a great national health plan passed within 6 months.

Hello Just a Comment,

What? Already providing answers to your questions? :)

Your ANSWERS:

- 1 extremist = yes, I still feel proud.
- 5 extremists = Not quite proud
- 10 extremists = I don't feel proud
- 15 extremists = No way I can feel proud

* Did you actually conduct a survey to know the answers?

JAC : A person says: I'm a proud member of the XYQWZZ123 organization!

* There is a differences between someone saying, "I'm proud of the scumbag members of my organisation" and "I'm proud of my organisation".

JAC : We have 100 members and have been working for centuries to reach excellence in life.

* There is a difference between past members and current members who may change their way in striving excellence in life.

JAC : I contribute with money each month to the organization.

* So "contribution" is restricted to material contributions and not thought.

JAC : Most of the members are moderate, actually only "n" of them are really bad. The bad ones (we call them extremists) are bigots, hate all non-members, and even some of them are murderers, but they also contribute each month to our funds. I'm not a bigot nor a murderer and our organization is not a criminal enterprise. I'm really proud to be a member of XYQWZZ123.

* How can you be certain that bigots/extremists don't also hate their own members who don't agree with them?

JAC "PROBLEM" question: Would you be proud to be part of this organization when: n = 1, 5, 10, and 15.

* Organisations can disassociate themselves from bigots/extremist members. Some excomunicate them. Some distanced away from them. Some arrest them for incitement to hatred speech. Some exiled them. Some put them in jail for what they did that breach the law.

JAC Qualifiiers to JAC's Answers:

1 extremist : I'm worried that a single stupid extremist may damage the brand and prestige of the organization.

* The whole is greater than the sum of its part. The defective parts can be repaired or removed.

* There is market and product niching. A particular brand is only affected. Like GM, some car brands are good, some are not so good.

* Products and brands goes in and out of fashion and dependent on market forces in "buying/consuming" the specific product/brand.

JAC : We need to work immediately to cancel the affiliation of this person to the organization and repair any damage done to third parties. Other actions may be needed (post-mortem analysis, how to avoid this to happen again, etc.)

* Just arrest them if they commit crimes, chastise them if they spout hatred.

JAC : 5 extremists: we have a difficult task in front of us. I don't understand how after working for centuries to reach excellence in life we have so many members going counter our mission. Drastic and immediate actions are required.

* There are always extremists in any "organisation" - in history, now and in future. Drastic action as in "Kill em all"? Surely not?

JAC : 10 extremists: being our mission to strive for excellence in life is totally and unequivocally unacceptable to have so many extremists.

* You never ask or stated why extremists are extremists. And are they regarding us as extremists too?

JAC : My faith in the future of the organization is no longer firm at it has always been.

* All organisations are not perfect as it comprise of imperfect humans. Perfectionists are unrealistic utopianists.

JAC : 15 extremists: I’m in the process of considering to leave the organization (if this is a valid alternative).

* Leavind an organisation never stops one from forming a new one of like-minded people, and leaving the old one due to some does not make it cease to exist.

JAC : Those posters that want to join to this topic, feel free to state your qualifiers or even assumptions, but a direct and specific answer is important as communication tool.

* So, now there is a conditionality for joining in this topic that you submit? I take it you want the answer you want to hear. Mary Cunningham is right then.....

Ahh...what to do. I am an errant, erratic and non-comprehending student in your math and logic class.

But I got an apple here for you, teacher. Nahh...I am not apple polishing. Only to say, you are the apple of my eyes for being so very patient with moi on maths and logic.

Cheers

"J"

Jihadist,

Thanks again for your interesting comments at 6:08 PM.

You asked: “So, would you be proud to be a contributing member (taxpayer) of an organization (US) that has 100 members (300 million citizens) if you know for sure that the organization (US) has 5 bigots (Bush and neocons) and murderers (all that illegal invasion and occupation of foreign countries) that are members (US administration) and pay contributions (Bush and neocons pay taxes too, but they use taxpayers money in ways that make no sense) like you do?

My answer: no, not proud at all about that.

Clarification: those who you listed as bigots are top bigots and possible murderers. But in the organization you asked about there are thousands and thousands of other bigots (racists, religious extremists, nor-religious extremists, etc.). I’m extremely worry about that.

Then you said: “If not clear enough ...”

My comment: It’s already clear enough for me, I believe we are in agreement on the answer to your question.

Your other comments about numbers and statistics: You have some points there and some misstatements, but if we keep discussing about them we obscure the clarity of the communication about the central topic.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

Does anyone know when the current healthcare crisis became visible to the public? It must have been before Clinton's first term.

There are also "hidden" taxpayer costs attaching to the current healthcare crisis. One is the huge number of college students who are working forty hours a week and attending college full time, only to qualify for reduced health insurance rates.

The failure rate is enormous. Those who make it through under these dreadful conditions do not acquire the quality of education they might receive if they were to attend part time. They, as should be obvious, are our future. Factor in the cost of failed courses, diminished education, etc., when considering our current health care mess, and the current cost to us all increases.

Hi Jihadist and others interested in math,

Don't forget the Math part of Murphy's Laws:

2+2=3 for small values of 2
2+2=5 for large values of 2

Mr. Mark:

The real solution to America's health care debacle is single payer.

Like Medicare, but for all?

The real solution to America's health care debacle is single payer.

The mess we have now is an insult to civilized people. At present, most Americans work jobs where their employer constantly changes health care providers. You start off in January, meet your deductible in June, and in July, you switch to a new carrier who doesn't recognize your having met your deductible. You then meet your deductible in November...and the whole thing resets for January.

Worse is going on a COBRA. If you've never been on a COBRA, there's an easy way to figure out what it would cost you: simply take your current monthly premium and TRIPLE it. That will give you an idea of what your health care will cost you should you lose your job. And, it's only good for 18 months at which point the carrier will offer you a new policy at an even higher rate than the COBRA.

At least if the government ran the system we'd have the option of staying with one carrier for the duration, rather than getting jacked around as we are now.

What do we know:

"I certainly support national healthcare, and wholeheartedly so - how to get there from here constitutes quite a political minefield, as Hillary discovered the first time out back in the early 90's - and remains an even more pressing issue today for our current candidates."

It certainly is a minefield, and one I doubt we'll get through successfully within the next eight years.

The problems go beyond doctors and drug companies, as was painfully brought home to me last year, as I watched a hospital literally cause the death, through a series of incomprehensible interventions, of a close friend. Again and again his children, his friends intervened, things got better, and then the hospital, would screw up again. From administration to nurses to doctors, this man's treatment had to be seen to be believed.

I returned from Islamabad a week ago, and I can tell you I've seen much better care there. Once, a few years ago, I was brought to the hospital as an emergency, and my care there far outweighed that which my friend received.

Surely, we don't have to continue on with this. I can't even understand how we allowed this to happen, how we allowed our schools to deteriorate. What happened to our notions of social/public welfare?

"Anyone who can't cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman that can feed and clothe himself and not make messes around the house."
- Lazarus Long

Good quote Arminius. :)

1 + 1 = 5

Hubby + moi = nuclear family of five (us and our three kids)

That much is enough for me to be a tolerable subhuman in using maths to know how much to spend on food, shelter, clothing, utilities, household items, vehicles, schooling, vacations etc. And still there are messes around the house....

Regards

"J"

THE PROBLEM ABOUT NUMBERS
First a recap for those that have not follow the topic. Then you will find my answers to the problem.

Interesting comments were wrote by Jihadist, Anonymous, MaryCunningham and Arminius (hope I did not left somebody out). I believe that the process to solve the questions and the reactions of the poster expressed in their comments has been very interesting so far. But obviously direct and precise answers are important but unfortunately nobody has ventured in this terrain.

MY ANSWERS:
1 extremist = yes, I still feel proud.
5 extremists = Not quite proud
10 extremists = I don't feel proud
15 extremists = No way I can feel proud

THE SITUATION AS STATED:
A person says: I'm a proud member of the XYQWZZ123 organization! We have 100 members and have been working for centuries to reach excellence in life. I contribute with money each month to the organization. Most of the members are moderate, actually only "n" of them are really bad. The bad ones (we call them extremists) are bigots, hate all non-members, and even some of them are murderers, but they also contribute each month to our funds. I'm not a bigot nor a murderer and our organization is not a criminal enterprise. I'm really proud to be a member of XYQWZZ123.

PROBLEM QUESTION:
Would you be proud to be part of this organization when:
n = 1, 5, 10, and 15.

To clarify I rephrased de question like this: Would you be proud to be a contributing member of an organization that has 100 members if you know for sure that the organization has 5 bigots and murderers that are members and pay contributions like you do? Reiterate the question with 1, 10 and 20 bigots and murderers.

In this rephrased version I left two factors out: time and mission (have been working for centuries to reach excellence in life). I'm reintroducing them now.

QUALIFIERS TO MY ANSWERS:
1 extremist : I'm worried that a single stupid extremist may damage the brand and prestige of the organization. We need to work immediately to cancel the affiliation of this person to the organization and repair any damage done to third parties. Other actions may be needed (post-mortem analysis, how to avoid this to happen again, etc.)

5 extremists: we have a difficult task in front of us. I don't understand how after working for centuries to reach excellence in life we have so many members going counter our mission. Drastic and immediate actions are required.

10 extremists: being our mission to strive for excellence in life is totally and unequivocally unacceptable to have so many extremists. A complete revision of the state of our organization is in order even to reconsider the mission against the environmental reality we live today after centuries without change. A massive dismissal of those not in compliance or in a borderline situation must be considered inevitable. My faith in the future of the organization is no longer firm at it has always been.

15 extremists: I’m in the process of considering to leave the organization (if this is a valid alternative).

Those posters that want to join to this topic, feel free to state your qualifiers or even assumptions, but a direct and specific answer is important as communication tool.

Peace and best wishes to all,

JAC

Hello Just A Comment :)

Ah, that neo-modern mathematics (neo mod math) you're into. Oh no. Don't know much, nor care for maths much. Too logical. I just love analogy as a believer is wont to.

Er, maths are numbers? We explain maths using linguistics? We make sense of what those number means, using words/lingustics, no?

And what? So there is pure math and probability, but no contingent probabilities? No decision theory? No information theory? No Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to make it more interesting and inter-disciplinary beyond the narrow confine of your maths to make sense of numbers and application in theory and practical use?

a = b = c, therefore a = c

Very logical.

I like chicken, chicken like chicken feed, therefore I like chicken feed.

Logical, but not sound.

**************************************************

My math:

1 = 1,000,000,000
1,000,000,000 = 1

Can't figure that mathemetical analogy?
One for all, all for one?

God = a billion believers
A billion believers = God

**************************************************

JAC : "Would you be proud to be a contributing member of an organization that has 100 members if you know for sure that the organization has 5 bigots and murderers that are members and pay contributions like you do?"

* So, would you be proud to be a contributing member (taxpayer) of an organization (US) that has 100 members (300 million citizens) if you know for sure that the organization (US) has 5 bigots (Bush and neocons) and murderers (all that illegal invasion and occupation of foreign countries) that are members (US administration) and pay contributions (Bush and neocons pay taxes too, but they use taxpayers money in ways that make no sense) like you do?

If not clear enough -

* Just because Bush whack some countries in the name of America, does not mean you hate America and want to leave America ("America! Love it or Leave It!" kind of nonsensical ultimatum for membership).

* Americans who have to put up with Bush does not mean they have to hate America and not be proud of the American "organisation".

Are you fine being an American whose "organisation" has done more damage to the world since World War II?

Are you fine being part of a belief system of American exceptionalism, of the American century, of American unilateralism?

1, 10 and 20 bigots and murderers taint a whole 300 million?

**************************************************

JAC : "Your also made comments based on averages and statistics, but the question is not about averages nor statistics: it has a concrete number of members and extremists, not averages, apples, oranges or dubious statistics."

Numbers are part of statistics, no? It gives the actual number (if surveys and collations are reliable), the percentage etc

Okay, so on "concrete" numbers, look at stats and one sees even steel is divided into types of steel. You can look it up. So,

* Terrorists are durians
* Non-terrorists are mangoes

There is a differences. Both are fruits but different kinds of fruits. There are also different varieties of durians and mangoes too - in colour, in flavour, in texture, in smell.

Cheers
"J"

Curious writes:

"I can't see nationalized health care coming any time soon. The best we can hope for is that Obama will be elected and make health care a priority. Any improvements would be salutary."

If Obama is elected and if we have a Democratic Congress, I think improvements are possible. The retired population is growing and they are a vocal bunch. Hopefully, they will inspire the rest of us to push for some kind of legislation that will result in reduced medical costs.

Until there is nationalized health care, the cost of medical school is unlikely to go down. However, pressure can be exerted on drug companies, and the failure to exert it can be questioned.

As Arminius says, "it's all about money." The drug companies hire powerful lobbyists, and the drug companies are in bed with the doctors. Again, this are practices that can be investigated and curtailed.

It seems to me that the US coming in just behind Costa Rica in health care delivery should raise questions.

With nationalized health care, runaway profits by both the pharmaceuticals industries and doctors would be curtailed. At the same time, more oversight would mean lower malpractice insurance rates. If doctors make the "medical error" of removing the wrong leg, causing death, as matters stand, the worst that can happen to them, in most cases, is that they will be subject to malpractice suits. In some cases, no doubt criminal charges would be preferable, but are simply not options. Many then go on to commit the same medical errors two, three, four times again.

Nationalized health care would enable us to weed out the incompetents, decrease the motives for performing unnecessary surgery, etc.

Nationalized health care would also mean different doctor-to-patient ratios, different nurse-to-patient ratios, greater oversight of hospitals, more consistent care at hospitals, lower drug costs.

Anyone regardless of his/her class is at considerable risk of receiving poor health care that could have serious consequences. When push comes to shove we're all in the same boat.

I can't see nationalized health care coming any time soon. The best we can hope for is that Obama will be elected and make health care a priority. Any improvements would be salutary.

What do we know, you said,

"- Insurance companies and pharmaceutical concerns have a vast stake in medical care and reap mega-billions accordingly by virtue of much lobbyings and sympathetic legislation crafted in Washington, D.C."

The Shrub's pharmaceutical bill was written by the drug lobby. Worse, their defense against buying cheaper drugs in Canada was that the US drugs are inspected more completely. Well... I read somewhere, and wish I could find it again (haven't looked) that 50% of the ingredients in US drugs come from uninspected overseas sources. It's all about money.

CCNL - you've made some good suggestions, but with a few provisos that come immediately to mind:

- Insurance companies and pharmaceutical concerns have a vast stake in medical care and reap mega-billions accordingly by virtue of much lobbyings and sympathetic legislation crafted in Washington, D.C.

- young physicians usually have hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational costs to pay off before they start making a real profit - which can indeed be very significant. I believe it's still the highest paid profession across the board.

- quality and competence among healthcare professionals is the first order of business. The better the medical school, the higher the costs, the harder the entrance requirements, and potentially, the best prepared doctors will emerge from these top institutions. Young doctors often gravitate to specialty areas, and this leaves the field of general medicine relatively short of doctors on a chronic basis.

Malpractice insurance alone steers physicians away from certain fields. Obstetrics being one such specialty area.

I certainly support national healthcare, and wholeheartedly so - how to get there from here constitutes quite a political minefield, as Hillary discovered the first time out back in the early 90's - and remains an even more pressing issue today for our current candidates.

Dear Chris,

In her haste to pillory Perspective Curious anon. forgot to look up what "statistically significant" meant". I'm not going to enlighten her because she'll just call me a homophobe. Bless her socks! Could you maybe?

Best,
MC

PS D'you think that Goy Anonymous is related to Merry? If I posted under GA would they call me anti-Semitic?

Chris E.,

1. What are Observer12's interests?

2. How did you go from being a Texas gay man to being a married man, and to a Jewish wife, on the upper west side of Manhattan?

A question for Mr. Obama and Mr. McClain. Why Does Health Care Cost So Much??

First a breakdown: (as per Price/Waterhouse/Cooper, 2006 ahipbelieves.com/media/The%20Factors%20Fueling%20Rising%20Healthcare%20Costs.pdf

1. Physician services (24%)

2. Outpatient costs (22%) This includes free-standing facilities and outpatient
departments of hospitals.

3. Inpatient hospital costs (18%)

4. Prescription drugs (16%)

5. Other medical services (6%). This includes durable medical equipment, nondurable
medical equipment, home health, other health professionals, and other personal care.

6. Consumer services, provider support and marketing (5%). In addition to marketing
and sales, this component includes communications with consumers regarding
their existing and new benefits, disease management programs, care coordination,
health promotion, wellness and prevention programs, and investments in health
information technologies that benefit consumers.

7. Government payments, compliance, claims processing and other administration
(6%) Taxes on premiums, costs of complying with government laws and regulations
such as filing and reporting requirements and the recent Health Insurance.

So starting at the top in Part 1 of this analysis:

How do we lower the cost of physician services????

Answer: Have more physicians!!! The AMA et al via their control of medical school admissions continue to limit the supply of doctors. Fewer doctors, no competition, higher prices.

The AMA also restricts doctors from advertising and competing in the market place.

Action required: Remove the AMA and associated group control of the admissions to medical schools at all medical schools that get federal and state tax support.

Make it unlawful for such groups to control/eliminate competition.

It is time to end the ordinary citizens' support of the cushy and country club living of our medical professionals!!!!!!!

Chris E.,

1. What are Observer12's interests?

2. How did you go from being a Texas gay man to being a married man, and to a Jewish wife, on the upper west side of Manhattan?

Observer12,

1) Please refer to my use of the terms "statistically-significant", "correlation" and "demographic".

2) I'll venture to guess that math ISN'T one of your interests.

3) Anything's better than Tarot and astrology.

4) Alas, we all have too much "ChristoCred". I'm even NAMED after it!

5) Goodbye.

Chris E.,

I am Jewish. Can you tell me what my "interests" are?

This could be better than Tarot and astrology!

Observer12

PS. Got plenty of ChristoCred, so I can and will return the favor!

Chris E.

Am I missing something identity-wise? Have you not said more than once that you are gay?

Curious(er),

I see you shiver in antici..............pation at the prospect of teasing out my antisemitism!

I equivocated about interests precisely because I DON'T have hard statistics - my analysis is largely anectdotal from life experience. I grew up in a ~50% Jewish town. Most of my friends are Jewish. My wife is Jewish. I was married by a Rabbi (it was tough to find one willing to put the love between my wife and I ahead of tribal apostasy). My brother-in-law is a Rabbi. I went to Brandeis for a couple of years before transferring to Tufts when I switched from pre-med to physics. (BTW, I founded "Goy Anonymous" while at Brandeis) I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I've got Jew cred.

But beyond that, just read the papers and observe the politicians. Are they all mistaken?

Chris E,

RE: Health care

Canada and England both have nationalized health care. The difference between Obama's and Clinton's proposals is significant. Clinton supports mandatory health care. This would translate into affordable health care for all.

Not so, Obama, although he certainly would like to see health care coverage extended. I think those of us who support him should let him know that it's important to us.

I agree with you about the media. Their coverage of this whole campaign has been abysmal. Health care coverage is no exception. Still, I think it important that we let Sen. Obama know we think universal health care is important. It's a non-issue for McCain.

Curious:

Re: Health care, AARP

I wonder that AARP has been so successful. I've always thought it a pity that its membership is limited to those fifty and over. Too bad.

Maybe that is what we need, an organization of the same sort, one that will concern itself with matters of basic human needs. Sounds far fetched, I guess. One needs a narrower constituency.

I'm no health care expert, but I think we need to nationalize at least some minimum level of universal health care. What I find peculiar is that the media discusses the minute funding differences between, say, Obama's and Clinton's plans, but doesn't present much analysis (that I'm aware of anyway) of other countries' programs. Surely there are well-documented track records for all these programs that provide a solid foundation for our woefully belated entrance into a world where physical well being isn't a commodity.

Chris E.

"As a demographic, they have statistically-significant interests, and in my experience, broad support of Israel is foremost among them"

Statistics and documentation on the "statistically-significant interests," and kindly define same.

Also, you say, "in your experience broad support is foremost among them." What would that be, i.e., "your experience"? There are a millions of Jews in this country. How far-ranging is your experience?

And why would Jews, but not Christians, blacks, gays, Muslims, etc., not have equivalent interests?

Curious(er)

Curious - you're dead wrong and Chris E is dead right. Chris, I appreciate your support and your accurate rendering of the various exchanges.

It's really that simple Curious - re-read and re-evaluate at your leisure. Absolutely nothing in my posts are anti-semitic in the letter or the spirit of the posts on this thread, or any other for that matter. The fact that I got cantankerous with Lee was also very simple - first of all, I had serious reservations that Lee was in fact who they said they were.

Secondly, this individual staged a blind side attack that was unexpected to say the least, and on the heels of a similar attack from M. Anon.

My 'bowels of Harlam' remark was unfortunate I admit - heat of the moment, but also based on the fact that M. Anon is from NYC and suddenly friend Lee is coming in from Harlam, of all places - I guess if I'd said, 'the bowels of Kalamazoo' it would have been much better. Again, the entire faux attack from two sides struck me as staged a charade and entirely fictitious, but my remark was in no way intended as racist in spirit.

I firmly believe that M. Anon and Lee are absolutely the same person, and I believe there is a very strong possibility that you are also that same individual - maybe not, but you were all on the same page, and that's a fact.

The entire exchange seemed very contrived to me and Lee's mysterious appearance just at that moment in time was synchronistic, to say the least - and I distinctly recall M. Anon and Lee staging the same kind of blitz attack, right down to similar verbage, on another poster a couple of months back - who likes to be called a PIG?

If you knew anything at all about the details of my life, which you do not, you would realize your considerable error in calling me anti-semitic and a racist - but that's neither here nor there. Taken at face value, you will not find what you're looking for in my posts.

I really think enough has been said on this issue. Any post is open to scrutiny, and some things are better left unsaid. I should have departed earlier - but did not. The devil is all there in the details just below.

Observer12 writes:

The Roosevelt era reforms started to give way in the seventies, and since then, things have gotten worse, not better.

Yes, you have a point. The worst, I think, took place with globalization, NAFTA, the dot com and real estate boom in the nineties. A culture of "consumerism," which made good old American materialism look good began its insidious work, along with an unabashed parochialism that remains scarily in tact.

(How many politicians, for example, changed their minds about stem cell research when a son, daughter, or nephew could suddenly benefit from it?)

If you are correct, and you well may be, there may be hope as our economy continues on its downward spiral. Note that you don't hear so much about consumerism anymore. Homeowners who bought at inflated prices can't sell or are selling at a loss. Millions are without work.

My sister works for the Department of Labor trying to find jobs for the unemployed, a significant number of whom are without health care or paying for it themselves and will continue to until the money gives out. Many of her clients are literally desperate to find jobs, but there are none. As the problem grows, and I fear it will, maybe our national concern with the less fortunate will grow, as well.

Curious,

My last post on this topic.

"Jews" ARE a demographic in this country, i.e. there is a group of people who self identify as "Jews". As a demographic, they have statistically-significant interests, and in my experience, broad support of Israel is foremost among them. As for black or Christian interests, I'm not sure what the correlation would be. Certainly between Christian Fundamentalists and anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. As for black interests, I can't really say whether there's a set of demographically sacrosanct issues around which political clout is rallied.

Personally, I long for the day when politicians pander to "Atheist iterests".

Curious

Second, there are indeed many nontrad poor people who are without health care coverage, and thirdly, since when do we not care about the poor?

This is an interesting question. It seems, more and more that we care less and less. The Roosevelt era reforms started to give way in the seventies, and since then, things have gotten worse, not better.

I think the only solution to the health care crisis is nationalized health care, the possiblities for which are very slim. Don't look to us getting out from under the HMOs any time soon. If anything, perhaps some HMO coverage may be extended to more people at lower rates. Some states may allow more people free coverage or coverage at lower rates.

As for the outrageous cost of medicine, I expect little will change. AARP, as the article states, is the only effective group I know of currently lobbying agains the drug companies. Those who can get to Canada to buy medicine will do so.

The whole thing is an emabarassment and a disaster. I've written to my senators and congressman ad nauseum. Next, I'm going to write to Sen. Obama. Whatever he can accomplish in this arena will be better than what we have.

Chris E,

That last Anon was mine. I forgot to type in my handle.

Chris E,

You ask for antisemitic remarks from Perspective. I assume this means you saw clearly the anti-black ones.
--------------------------------------------
Here is one, but there are many others. You are just as free to scroll down, as I am.

"If anyone can construe anti-semitism from my posts please do enlighten me - as regards Obama, he's a politician and is not immune to the power of Jewish interests in American politics - is anybody?"

What are "Jewish interests"? What power do they have? Are there then black interests? Christian interests? (e.g., invading Iraq--to make such an absurd claim would be the same as equating "Jewish interests," if there is such a thing, with Israeli interests)
----------------------------------
Look, Chris, all this is readily readable in the discussions with Perspective. Others made the points. I don't want to rehash this. Antisemites, gay bashers, Muslim haters, anti-Catholics, etc., will come, whether we welcome them or not.

Persons who don't give a damn about the welfare of others will come, as well.

Hence, we still don't have universal health care. Maybe that is something we can change.

One other thing about health care: At present, we rank no. 37 in the world.

The WaPo article on universal health care coverage basically asserts that the majority of Americans are not unduly concerned since they, themselves, have coverage. Moreover, the article argues, the average person without coverage is not your basic middle class family, further making universal health care coverage a less than compelling issue.

First, coverage by HMOs can be a sorry thing, resulting in denial tests, necessary treatments of all sorts, including radiation chemotherapy, etc. I wonder if anyone's seen Sicko?

Second, there are indeed many nontrad poor people who are without health care coverage, and thirdly, since when do we not care about the poor?

How, I wonder, do we get universal health care coverage to be considered a priority in this country? Whether one is a believer or an atheist, surely this is a matter of concern.

Speaking of curious, I've been somewhat curious as to how M. Anon aka Anon aka
Curious, aka ....and on and on, see their various selves as rather expert opinionators, if not outright authorities on bigots, bigotry, anti-semitism, racism, the anti-religious, the pro-religious ----- and that's only the short list of categories that have garnered (good word Merry!) nasty ad homininum attributions leveled at other posters. I tried - couldn't work the word bloviator in there, but it's a good one.

After all, Mr. Merry, et al is a self-admitted 'formerly captive brainwashed Christian' cum atheist. All good so far......but where does this rather praeternatural ability to see bigotry in others come from? And this business of being right side up while others are upside down on Jewish issues? How so? Does living in NYC confer that kind of authority on it's residents?

I don't get it.... as my old dad the master boat builder used to say, 'measure twice and cut once'. A good rule of thumb to follow when scrutinizing others for bigotry and the like as well - my old dad....where have all the flowers gone?

Speaking of anti-Catholics, what happened to Spiderman and Harold?

Curious,

I invite you to search this thread chronologically on "Perspective." I did, and I don't see any "diatribe against Jews." If you see one please repost it and explain what's so bad about it. I'd really like to know.

As for racist remarks against blacks, my reading is that Perspective was getting pretty fed up with being scapegoated, and when Lee started literally calling him a PIG, he gave her what she was looking for in the first place - Al Jolson, black face and Harlem. I'd have probably have done the same.

Arminius,

Going through the posts made your attempts at fostering dialogue clear - you set a good example. Personally, I've tended to reserve my invective for Spiderman2, but maybe that's not the most ethical thing to do either. However, he is personally offensive, with is endless insults and threats of eternal torture.

For Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain only:

As you know, slogans are repeated again and again until the electorate is converted to Reality and Truth.

Hopefully, yow will adopt the following for your presidential and religious campaigns:

"Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques are "febrezed" and the Sunnis and Shiites including their imams, clerics and ayatollahs are pacified, no one is safe!!!!"

Please note that this slogan has been submitted for copyright protection so don't use it without our permission :))

Chris E,

As for Mary Cunningham, calling JJ's insanity anti-Catholicism from a Jewish persepecitve rather speaks for itself.

But, bigots be welcome. They will come anyway--the antisemites, the gay bashers, the white racists, the anti-Catholics, etc.

Can we bring this matter to a close?

-----------------------
Health care, FARC, anyone?

Chris E,

Perspective was called on his comments and a diatribe against Jews, scurrilous remarks against blacks followed.

So, it would seem that Merry Anon's point was well-taken. However, I think we should let MA, Lee, and whoever else was involved speak for themselves. My only contribution, as I recall, was to take exception to Perspective's "bowels of Harlem" comment.

If the thread is to be open to antisemites, gay bashers, white racists, anti-Catholics, etc., then so be it.

One can only hope that there will remain good men and women who recognize that evil does triumph when morality is silent. That is my hope anyway.
-----------------------------------

I wonder if you havae read the WaPo articles on universal health care and FARC. The first I found somewhat troubling.

Curious

Jihadist and other math posters:

"Anyone who can't cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman that can feed and clothe himself and not make messes around the house."
- Lazarus Long

Chris,

Thanks for a thought-provoking post, and poem too. It actually did make me think about how I have been too quick to use the word 'bigot'. My reference once to M Cunningham as one is a case in point; she may have come close once or twice, but that case might well be made against me. I admit to being over the line on that one, at least, and will watch closely what I write here. Anyway, starting a flame war is no way to deal with prejudice, unless the prejudice is extreme. CCNL crossed that line once that I remember, was slammed, and has since been better behaved. Also, I am on record here as saying that CCNL should not be thrown off. JJ is another matter, he is in a class by himself, and should be stopped.

Apologies for the multiple typos

Curious,

FYI, my inclusion of 'Conc was poetic license more than anything else - I hadn't read all the posts and didn't see his new attribution of gayness(?) to wingie thingies, etc. My recollection is that on a previous thread he said that homosexuality had an "ick" factor for him, in response to which he was accused of being anti-gay. Personally, "ick" factors are a matter of taste and have nothing to do with bigotry. So maybe CCNL is just pricking back - I don't know and don't really care.

But the treatment of Perspective struck me as wholly unjustified. He was posting a bunch of political analysis and he wrote, "Rather sadly, Obama has already allied himself with Israeli interests in anticipation of this strategy. And just when Israel declares that confrontation with Iran is 'inevitable' in the news today," which opened a floodgate of accusations of bigotry from Merry Anonymous and others, accusing him of being anti-semitic. Frankly, I don't see this as anti-semitic, it's just a political analysis. Isreal does indeed have interests just like any other countries. There is indeed a politically powerful domographic of Isreal loyalists among the US electorate, and there is indeed a perception that this demographic must be pandered to in order to maintain political viability. Why? Because accusations of antisemitism are very often wielded as a political weapon, which, on a trivial scale, is what has routinely begun happening on this blog. In fact I expect it in response to this very post (not necessarily from you).

Perspective seemed genuinely taken aback by the biased (bigoted?) reading of his post, and attempted several times to engage in a discussion of the issue, but to no avail. He was branded a bigot and the frenzy ensued.

I may not be able to viscerally understand the immeasurable grief and rage one must feel as part of a group upon whom inhumanity has been so horrifically visited. But I can see when the weight of that burden is strengthing, and when it is disfiguring.

And posting under the many anonymouses/anonymiii/ usw. denotes a certain lack of--shall we say?--imagination. And to mix up Dickinson with Yeats, especially the divine Emily's most famous poem, well, I would say you're jet lagged from your long, intensely tedious (unable to post, judge and call folks bigots, imagine!)trip homewards to the good USofA, and most specifically NewYork..

I was in Paris for the weekend and I tell you curious, merry, anon & anon anon--not forgetting for how can one--and the worshipful association of acolytes that cluster round you and drink in the benefit of your great wisdom: I felt the same way when the train pulled into St Pancras, although I was able to read during the trip.

This is tedious. Some would prefer that antisemites, gay bashers, Muslim haters, white racists, anti-Catholics, et al, find a home elsewhere.

Some think they should be welcome here, including said bigots. Enough said.
_______________________________________

On the front page of WaPo was an interesting article both on universal health care and on FARC in Columbia.

Both affect us a great deal. Universal health coverage is an afterthought for McCain. FARC isn't. Health care is an issue for Obama. I imagine he's well aware of FARC.

Any thoughts? Surely these are matters more important to ethical persons than Obama's church.

But I will go, carping curious, I'm having too good a time & you, well, you're jet lagged, eh? Don't want to take advantage; although I would like to hear JAC's responce. And I've promised Chris E. some rhyme, but that'll have to wait. You can go on being well, trivial, and calling your enemies du jour bigoted..

Love and Kisses

MC/thehereandnow, etc.

Quite right. Unfortunately, you're not nobody, too. You're name is legion.

But blog on.

Why can't CCNL, JJ, Mary Cunningham get a blog of their own?

Then those who wish to contribute bigotry and accusations would know where to go. They wouldn't have to waste time reading anything less edifying.

In the meantime, we are wasting a lot of space with MC and the like. If she wants to accuse and spout garbage, let her spout.

CCNL seems to be at least communicative. We'll see how things go with JJ.

Oh Ho! Curious

That was Dickinson, you (super)sillyus shoat!

MaryCunningham/Anon/Speed/thehereandow/peer review, etc.

You should apologize to Yeats and the morally literate.

Again, I await your long goodbye. Your every post confirms you as the bigot that you are.

No need to post a long goodbye, you know, not if you'd prefer not to. Just go.

Now curious
Who are you?
Are you anonymous too?
Then there's a pair of us
Don't tell...
They'll bigot us, you know.

How awful to be M. Anon.
How stupid like a frog.
To spend one's life the whole day long
Midst his admiring bog.

Mary Cunningham
(with apologies to you-know-who)

Is MAnon/ Loria? is Farnaz is curious is many, many happy, hapless frogs.

Maniacal Mary/Speed/thehereandnow/peer review/, etc.:

Projection and paranoia are part and parcel of your kind of hatred. If you're going to accuse, which seems to be your favorite pastime, at least try to get sex/gender straight. M. Anonymous is a man.

If I'm correct, you bid us all a long, long goodbye. I'd happily endure another if you would simply go.

If not, again, Bigots welcome. Why not. They've never done us harm.

Chris E.

Always easy to defend bigots when you either participate in bigotry, don't recognize it when you see it, or have never been subject to it.

The door is open. Let the white racists in. Let the gay bashers in. Why not. it's a free country.

Bigots have never done us any harm. Racisists have never done us any harm. Never done the world harm.

Let us befriend the Lord of the Flies and all his minions.

Hey! I'M the real anonymous! That other guy is an impostor! How dare he hide behind a false lack of identity! How dare he try to sully my non-existent reputation!

Breaking News!

JJ has started campaigning for McCain and C Rice now. It won't be long before he turns up on this blog with his artwork.

Gird yourself folks.

I agree ChrisE...Quick to judge and slow to do the maths.

There's a rhyme in that somewhere. Maybe include some alliteration: manic merry (so many monikers) and her association of admiring acolytes.

I'll check back later.

OMG, what confusion! Who are all the Anonymiii??? Who am I?

If it's bigotry we all despise
Then it's time that we open our eyes
The flow of invective
'Gainst 'Conc and Perspective
Reminds me of Lord of the Flies

An anonymous admirer

I bow down to the master of linguistics and bright beacon of ethical rectitude in our dark nite of moral torpor.

Ethical rectitude ain't so bad. Neither is moral rectitude. Moral torpor is understating the case.

It was a mathematical question, mad merry--sometimes mean too--and admiring acolytes.

JAC wanted to focus on the n, obviously the larger the n the less likely to join.

But I would like to ask JAC a question (as much a trick as the original):

In the OJ Simpson trial Alan Dershowitz (who went on to garner ever more glory as a torture advocate) gave the jury the following statistics: “As many as 4 million women are battered annually by husbands and boyfriends [in the United States]…Yet in 1992, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, a total of 913 women were killed by their husbands, and 519 were killed by their boyfriends. In other words while there were 2 ½ to 4 million incidents of abuse, there were only 1,432 homicides. Some of these homicides may have occurred after a history of abuse, but obviously most abuse, presumably even most serious abuse, does not end in murder.”

Thus Dershowitz calculated that there was less that 1 homicide per 2,500 incidents of abuse. The jury--impressed--cited it when they voted to acquit. How good was the stat and how does it--if it does--tie in to your problem?

An Anonymous Admirer:

M. Anon ...

I bow down to the master of linguistics and bright beacon of ethical rectitude in our dark nite of moral torpor. Chomsky would be right proud! My only desire is to sit at the feet of a great bodhisattva such as yourself.....you got it goin' on!

Humbly and in Awe,

Anon. A

--------------------------------------
Pseudo, is that you?

If so, have you returned to us for at least a few moments? Can you tell us about Bandler and NLP?

In hopeful anticipation,

M. Anonymous

M. Anon ...

I bow down to the master of linguistics and bright beacon of ethical rectitude in our dark nite of moral torpor. Chomsky would be right proud! My only desire is to sit at the feet of a great bodhisattva such as yourself.....you got it goin' on!

Humbly and in Awe,

Anon. A

JAC, my membership to any organization would depend on whether I share the values of the mission statement of the organization.

Unfortunately Muslims do not have the freedom to leave, apostacy being punishable with death. The question of what a Muslim would do in case they didn't agree with all the tenets of Islam/verses in the Quran, or the presence of a few members who choose violence and intolerance, is redundant.

Peace loving Muslims have the choice to follow their own conscience and their own concept of a universally loving Creator God Allah, following the most important Islamic tenet to have faith in God and do good works, ignoring any verse in the Quran or any sermon preached by their imam inciting intolerance or lesser Jihad.

MERRY ANONYMOUS GARNERS HIMSELF AN IMPOSTER!

Now CCNL, don't let this other blog troll aka Anonymous get you down, and don't let him tell you to 'get out' and so forth. I personally love bigots as you know. Without bigots and bigotry, where would I be, after all? So have at it my good man. Your obsessions bring joy to my heart and tears to my eyes.

M. Anon
-----------------------------------------------

TO YOU MERRY ANONYMOUS WANNA BE, I OFFER THE FOLLOWING BY A FAR WOTHIER PEN MAN:

A Coat

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it, 5
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked. 10

-W.B. Yeats

35 of 40 of the bigots, not 45...

Sorry JAC. But you can see by my typose it's not cut and pasted.

Well, JAC if you frame the question I guess you’ll get the answer you want!

So I’ll reframe the question. You are a citizen of a country, you are a member of a family, you are a member of a particular religion, you are a graduate of a public school (good high school education). Let’s continue with the frequencies.

The country of which you are a citizen (and a contributing member) ‘boasts’ a high level of crime: some 30 murders per 1000 population committed per annum. We will assume as well the citizens of said country are also ‘bigots’ (whatever that means, in this blog generally a poster who Merry Anon. in her many permutations or Arminius defines as ‘bigoted’ yours truly—alas—included), say, some 40 bigots per 1000. . Let’s say of the 40 per 1000 bigots in the general population 45 are religious. However, those professing your religion commit some 15 murders per 1000, half of what the general population commits, so that is good, less murders and less criminals, although they think bad thoughts. The bad news is that your public school unfortunately has an Islamist cell, that, worse! oh worse! produced 3 young men out of a class of 200 that went on to bomb civilians in the neighbouring country. Of the, say, 50 Jihadists—not our very own, of course, but the kind that bomb tube stations--apprehended for such crimes 3 went to your public school. Ouch! Offsetting that is that your (large) extended family has only produced creditable Muslims: 0 murderers, 0 bigots (well, I’ll let _you_ define bigot, fair’s fair) out of 200 or so members. Estimable, JAC, very worthy.

What do you do? Do you persuade your eminently respectable family to emigrate? That’s no good. If you do so, the odds are much higher that your otherwise worthy progeny often become terrorists in decadent states like the UK, so you are increasing the odds here.

Burn down your public school? Well, I’d have a look at the syllabus at least.

Convert to atheism because there are too many Islamic bigots? Well, atheist organisations like Communism don’t have particularly pacifist backgrounds, how many did Uncle Joe cheerfully dispatch? Or even Fidel? And we’ll leave out the environmental catastrophe caused by the communist countries.

I think you can see what I’m getting at here. We are many members of many organisations and defined by no one particular factor. It’s even called multifactor analysis, if you want to be mathematical..

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go now that CCNL has been cured of his OCD/PTSL&SD.

Take care CCNL! Try to be good to other bloggers and don't drive them up the wall with your lists. There are several who would communicate gladly with you, Jihadist is one of them.

Folks, CCNL is learning and learning fast. Now is precisely the wrong time to ask him to leave. As long as he doesn't recycle his list endlessly, he is welcome...

CCNL - you 'bout to git on my last nerve. Now you git on to the libary and git you some schoolin' on that double indentity thing my nephew, well, niece really .. tol Arminius all about.

Git squared away and stop botherin' folks.

Jihadist,

Thanks for your response, even if as you said you don't know math much. Good effort anyway.

Unfortunately the four questions remained unanswered: Would you be proud to be part of this organization when n=1, 5, 10 and 15.

You said something about the "Non-Muslims feel unfine", but the question was about being a member, not about non-members.

Your also made comments based on averages and statistics, but the question is not about averages nor statistics: it has a concrete number of members and extremists, not averages, apples, oranges or dubious statistics.

The four questions remain open for any taker.

Let me try to formulate the questions in a more simple format: Would you be proud to be a contributing member of an organization that has 100 members if you know for sure that the organization has 5 bigots and murderers that are members and pay contributions like you do?

Then reiterate the question with 1, 10 and 20 bigots and murderers.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

M Anonymous, I'm a petite, fish-eyed, golden skinned beautiful she, not even fifty. Now does that make me a troll, or would you let me also be whatever I want to be?

Only joking!

Now CCNL, don't let this other blog troll aka Anonymous get you down, and don't let him tell you to 'get out' and so forth. I personally love bigots as you know. Without bigots and bigotry, where would I be, after all? So have at it my good man. Your obsessions bring joy to my heart and tears to my eyes.

M. Anon

BTW CCNL I forgot this in my last post

:) :) :))))))))))))))))))))))

CCNL, I'm sure you haven't read the George Mike's book in which he explains the effect of dogged marketing for some product. The constant advertisements of the company which disturbed his TV time had an effect that the advertisers had never counted on for their money - he swore he would *never* buy the product! If that is the kind of goal you have in mind, to get people to swear not to read your slogans and support Islam with all their heart, then you are well on your way to success.

Anon, Anon, Anon Wherever You Are,

Slogans are repeated again and again until the electorate is converted to Reality and Truth.

Hopefully, Mr. Obama will adopt the following for his presidential and religious campaign:

"Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques are "febrezed" and the Sunnis and Shiites including their imams, clerics and ayatollahs are pacified, no one is safe!!!!"

Please note that this slogan has been submitted for copyright protection so don't use it without our permission :))

CCNL, it is *heartening* to read your comments that are not of the cut-an'- paste variety. The healing from OCD/PTSL&SD was miraculously quick! Maybe there is a pretty wingy thingy out there looking out for you after all. :) On the other hand, the reality seems more like you were being completely lazy, making do with a comment you prepared nineteen months ago, hoping nobody would notice or cry "get out!"

Au Contraire there Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist, we again published without charge the Five Steps for Deprogramming Islam as any caring Crossanized Christian would do since you were starting to lose your way again.

Again a starting point for your recovery: "Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques "febrezed" and the 800 million Sunnis and 200 million Shiites pacified, no one is safe!!!!"

Note: To pacify =

To ease the anger or agitation of.

To end war, fighting, or violence in; establish peace in.

If you think buying a "pacifier" for all the Muslims of the world would do the job, I am sure Mr. Obama's State Department would be more than willing to help monetarily. Embossing said "pacifiers" with said slogan would be a nice touch.

The point to note is who is quoting verifiable verses from their Holy Book while engaging in acts of violence; whether any act of aggression is done in the name of a religion (Al-Qaeda vs US and the West) or a secular government with economic goals (US vs Iraq oil) or retaliation for terrorist attack (US vs Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan).

Anonymous : "By JAC's logic if the non-average depth of a few Muslim extremists is greater than ten feet there is drowning trouble for all non-Muslims. The fact that moderate Muslims have a depth of three feet doesn't help.

Non-Muslims feel unfine on an average precisely because the minority Muslim extremists have their heads in the hot oven of hatred and violence even if the majority moderates have their feet in icy water.

--------------------------------------------------

By that logic, say there are 10 Muslims and 1 Muslim whack 1 American, and 9 Muslims to pay before Americans feel fine.

.....and that is what is happening,no?

Did you hear about one American death is equal to 1,000 Muslim deaths in retaliation?

So, non-Muslims feel "unfine"? I can't imagine what the Afhans and Iraqis are feeling.

Cheers

**************************************************

Concy Pussyat!

Jihhy : Hah! Got you popping a vein with my post to get you in you reposting mode again!

Concy : Did not!

Jihhy : Did too!

Concy : Did not!

Jihhy : Did too!

Concy : Did not! Did not! Did not!

Jihhy : Did too! Did too! Did too!

Jihhy and Concy together : Na! Na! Na! Na! Na! Bluuhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Said Jihadist in response to JAC ---

*Did you hear about the statistician who could not swim and was drowned because the average depth of the river was three feet?

* Did you hear about the statistician who put his head in a hot oven and his feet in a bucket of icy water and said, "On the average, I feel fine"?

By JAC's logic if the non-average depth of a few Muslim extremists is greater than ten feet there is drowning trouble for all non-Muslims. The fact that moderate Muslims have a depth of three feet doesn't help.

Non-Muslims feel unfine on an average precisely because the minority Muslim extremists have their heads in the hot oven of hatred and violence even if the majority moderates have their feet in icy water.

Just A Comment (JAG) :)

* n = 1
* n = 5
* n = 10
* n = 15

Good math. Mathematics much clearer than words. Can't go wrong with mathematics for the simplicity, clarity and logic. I don't know math much. Can't add. Let me try anyway.....

a = b = c
Therefore a = c

1 + 1 = 2
6 + 4 = 10
5 + 5 = 10
1 + 9 = 10

....and so forth. Very neat on paper.

- One plus one of what equals two?
- One orange plus one apple equals to two fruits?
- Can we mix apples and oranges in real life?
- Do we seperate apples from oranges?
- Are apples and oranges seperate things?
- What about the phrase, "It's like comparing apples to oranges"?

* Did you hear that mathematics is the only "truth" according to Wittgenstein?

* Did you hear about the philosopher with a lisp who drowned being sucked in by a river current because he was screaming "I'm thinking! I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" ?

* Did you hear about the statistician who could not swim and was drowned because the average depth of the river was three feet?

* Did you hear about the statistician who put his head in a hot oven and his feet in a bucket of icy water and said, "On the average, I feel fine"?

* Did you hear that there are three kinds of lies - lies, damn lies and statistics?

* Did you hear about:

1 = 1,000,000,000
and
1,000,000,000 = 1

How does this number add up, become like that in the real world?

Cheers
"J"

I'm a bit amused at all the "Obama shoulda quit/never joined that church" posts on this thread.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that most of the people taking Obama to task on this issue are Republicans. So let me ask all my Republican friends out there:

now that you KNOW that bush knowingly lied us into war, why haven't you resigned from the Republican Party?

I await your replies. ;)

Added background information/recommendations for Mr. Obama in case he becomes President of the USA.

Hmmm, it does appear the Reality Challenged and Jihadist and her fellow Muslims are in need of another round of deprogramming of there years of Islamic brainwashing.

So once again the Five Points To Deflaw/Deprogram Islam for any Muslim :

Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"1. Belief in Allah"

"aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added to your cleansing neurons.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels/"pwtfft"s to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy".

Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.

For those who like mathematics,

A person says: I'm a proud member of the XYQWZZ123 organization! We have100 members and have been working for centuries to reach excellence in life. I contribute with money each month to the organization. Most of the members are moderate, actually only "n" of them are really bad. The bad ones (we call them extremists) are bigots, hate all non-members, and even some of them are murderers, but they also contribute each month to our funds. I'm not a bigot nor a murderer and our organization is not a criminal enterprise. I'm really proud to be a member of XYQWZZ123.

Would you be proud to be part of this organization when:
* n = 1
* n = 5
* n = 10
* n = 15

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

Hello Arminius,

Thanks for your post. On the bombing of Iran, some short stuff here...

* It's been talked up for years by the British, the US and the Isreali leaders. That already put the minds of everyone that it is not whether anymore, but when. Someone is brilliant in doing this psychological stuff of inevitability by constant repeating of intent.

* Iran has been successfully potrayed as the bogeyman of the Middle East by the succesive US Adminstrations fromt the time Iranian revolutionaries occupy the US embassy in Tehran, and especially the Bush Administration. Even the King of Jordan talks of his "fears" of a Shiite crescent from Iran to Iraq to Lebanon and such scenarios before. Perhaps Arab states need to learn to have elections as Iran? Never mind the form of the elected, but Iran did have elections and elected representatives.

* There was a so-called Iranian spring prior to 9/11 when the "moderates" made headway in Iranian elections and Iranians relaxed and started reaching out to Americans apart from loosening up internally. But 9/11 happened, Iran is designated as a member of the Axis of Evil and Iranians dug in and voted hardliners in as their goverment. President Ahmedinejad's posturings and remarks on everything from denying the Holocaust to pushing the Zionist regime into the sea is Godsend for those seeking to bomb Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil.

* Arabs are historically wary of "foreigners" ruling over them. Did not take too kindly to Turkish Ottoman Empire, even thought are Sunnis, controlling over large swaths of the Arabian peninsular, including Jerusalem as well as Mecca and Medina. Turks may be Muslims, but they are not Arabs. Much the same way Spanish and French are Catholics but not of the same culture or language nor would stand for long if one or the other reign over them.

* Most Arab governments would not care if Iran is bombed, but the Gulf states are savvier on the repercussions of such action politically, economically and socially, not only for the Middle East, but the world. As for Muslims' reactions, regardless of Arabs, non-Arabs, Sunnis or Shiites, that would depend on how personally outraged they are by the action to bomb Iran.

* The West is counting on and hoping that Muslims would consider Iran as a threat to world peace. Well, the only country Iran is having really serious problems with is the US and no one else. In the last century and now, Iran was not the aggressor in conflicts with neighbours. Saddam Hussein's Iraq attack Iran first in the 1980s.

I don't think bombing Iran would be "destructive" to the US if it managed to get control of the Iranian oil-fields that it craved for. Okay being facetious there. But that is the general perception out here in the Muslim world. But Iranians are not to be under-estimated. I have great respect for Iranian culture, civilisation, resolve and pride in their country. We'll see on this drama still being played out regarding Iran's nuclear programme re its purposes, and the desire to bomb Iran to stop it from being "the" greatest threat to world peace now........

Got to go.

Best regards

"J"

Hi, Jihadist,

A more destructive scenario to my country and the World than attacking Iran is hard to imagine. I think the backlash here would be as violent as the late 1960's. Not to mention the entire meltdown of the Middle East...

Anyway, here is a link to a bitterly funny take on bombing Iran:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3851426890212250833

Arminius

Hello Arminius,

Thanks for your post.

Just as you, I do expect the worst and hope for the best. In my line of work, back-up plans are necessary or it will cost me to lose millions and billions.

We have a black saying going on for years in the Muslim world since 9/11. When Bush's popularity is slipping, Al Qaeda will step in to "assist" by their words and/or actions.

There are still things "uncompleted" in "securing the realm" in the Middle East. There's still Iran to be bombed for one. It's being talked up for years now.....

Best regards

"J"

**************************************************

Hello Concy pussycat.

You : "Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques "febrezed" and the 800 million Sunnis and 200 million Shiites pacified, no one is safe!!!!"

Indonesia and Malaysia also produce pacifiers apart from condoms. Want to order pacifiers to put in the mouoths of the over one billion Muslims as humanitarian assistance? Suck it.

CCNL,

I have an efficient mouse, and use it to pass your spam. Meanwhile, re your usual 'deflawing' crap... yawn... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

And after 349 commentaries, Mr. Obama needs to remember only one quote if he becomes president:

"Until the koran is deflawed, the mosques "febrezed" and the 800 million Sunnis and 200 million Shiites pacified, no one is safe!!!!"

As to reviving the love of Americans for the French : President Sarkosy has already speeded up the process with his US visit. Wait till he gets to the US with his Hollywood star-like beautiful wife. Even the "no-sex-in-the-UK-please" royalty and a prim and propah PM Gordon Brown fell for her big time. The Hollywood star obsessed US of A cannot be expected to be less blown over by the Italian beauty - First Lady of France.

And soooooooo... no need to export CCNL to France. He may be a Dane who lives in the US or an American who lives in Denmark. The French may not appreciate the export for that reason. The Danish Cartoon Muslim reaction probably left CCNL with a Post Traumatic Stress Listing and Spamming Disorder.

Have mercy on CCNL and get a really good mouse to scroll past his lists efficiently. CCNL has kindly provided the name of a good brand of "mice."

Anonymous,

Your analysis of that despicable parasite, JJ, is accurate, but you forgot one detail. Anyone who opposes him is immediately branded as a homosexual. His bigotry is the most blatant here, and far eclipses any efforts by CCNL and others.

Last but not the least, JJ uses the symbols menu over-generously to create pictures that is meant to have readers clawing the walls as they try to climb it while tearing their hair.

Jihadist,

While I can't speak for Mr Mark, I expect the worst and hope for the best. The Mark of the Curmudgeon? Perhaps. Anyway, November is, as you well note, far off. We can first expect swiftboating by McCain's underlings, denied by him. Then we may have an 'October Surprise', orchestrated by the knuckle-dragger in the oval office, to try to appeal to the fear factor... it is not pretty, it is not nice. This could split America in the worst way, a scene we have not had to suffer since 1968. I remember that year very well.

Arminius

Ways to indentify JJ post who posts under different user names

Mixed upper and lower case in almost all words

Spaceship-Eclati "theology"

Destruction to all earthlings who do not accept Spaceship-Eclati "theology"

Campaigned hard and long for Senator Clinton with the most "creative" posts ever seen on the forum

Is now raving mad after Senator Clinton lost the Democratic nomination

Posted earlier as part of nanci's comment with the hallmark of JJ

We are Going to destroy Georgetown university & berkley center in America!:

we are Working with Rusiia to destroy the Roman vatican Catholic Church in America once 7 for goodness All!

June 6, 2008 6:58 PM

Mr. Mark and Arminius,

I glaced casually at all the threads and saw your hopes and optimism on Obama's chance as US president.

Not factoring in external factors? From now to November is still a long time in politics.

Terrorists fond of provocating the US and oppresive governments given to human rights abuses of their peoples love a Republican president. In gist, Republicans perceived to be pro-US business interests, to be pro-free traders at the expense of US jobs, to act in military ways to "solve" problems, to somewhat minimise human rights abuses of other countries over "larger" business and security interests of Americans etc.

Jihadist,

Great posts, as always. Note that, despite my 'verse' directed at CCNL, I do support his right to be here. See my last post on the subject, especially my comment re the Newt. I just wish Confused could converse and not spam. The dude ain't stupid.

Oh, yeah, don't diss Baseball in my presence! (nota bene, I still remember with great fondness your hysterically funny discourse on my favorite sport.)

Arminius

For the esteemed attention of Jihadist

Posted by Nanci on Pamela K Taylor blog

nanci:

Pamela do you think media ought to take a look and monitor what is being said and done in mosques and churches.

The British show Dispatches sent a hidden camera into a group of mosques and produced the revealing documentary-

Undercover Mosque (1 of 6)-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=peFQWuk4nuo

The Muslim community complained it had been edited and comments were taken out of context.

West Midlands Police issued a statement which said: "On 8 August 2007 we published, jointly with the Crown Prosecution Service, a press release relating to the Channel Four Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque.

"This press release alleged that footage of the speakers shown had been so 'heavily edited' and taken out of context that it had 'completely distorted' their meaning.

"Reference was made to the CPS having been asked to consider instituting proceedings against those involved in making the programme for inciting racial hatred.

"Following an independent investigation by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom, we now accept that we were wrong to make these allegations.

"We now accept that there was no evidence that the broadcaster or programme makers had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity."

The statement added that a review of the evidence gathered by Ofcom had demonstrated that the programme had accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context.

It said: "We accept, without reservation, the conclusions of Ofcom and apologise to the programme makers for the damage and distress caused by our original press release."

The contents of their 6 part documentary are exactly as they seem.

Pamela- please watch the documentary at the link I provided and give your comments on the remarks of your co-religionists:

Allah has created the woman deficient.

If she doesn't wear hijab- we hit her.

Take that homosexual man and throw him off a mountain.

We Muslims have been ordered to do brainwashing.

You have to live like a state within a state until you take over.

The pinnacle, the crest, the summit of Islam is Jihad..

June 6, 2008 8:44 PM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on June 6, 2008 20:44
We are Going to destroy Georgetown university & berkley center in America!:

we are Working with Rusiia to destroy the Roman vatican Catholic Church in America once 7 for goodness All!

June 6, 2008 6:58 PM

Still going on re Concerned the Christian Now Liberated? Some waxing poetical. Some analysing the pussycat. Asperger Syndrome? Did I get the spelling and syndrome right?

It was Canyon Shearer before. Then JJ. Then Arun Gandhi. Then Mary Cunningham. Then Spiderman2. Now CCNL to be "driven" out by a blogmob? We may try to drive people out from here, and in real life....?

Well, if we think the pussycat is having fun, just have fun back with the pussycat.

If we think Concy is spamming, we can always ignore and/or skip over Concy's posts.

Concy is the only poster here who thought man live on trees.

Who said s/he is into "rationale" instead of "rationality" and "rationalism".

That while all Americans, regardless of believers or atheists, got excited or passionate over American football or baseball teams, the pussycat don't, and not even over Thanksgiving.

Concy is the only one who used, "personkind" instead of mankind.

Concy, as much as one don't agree, has every right as JJ, Spiderman2, Canyon Shearer, yours truly, Arun Gandhi to say what he or she wanted. Until and unless the On Faith blog managers decide otherwise.

I love that post when Concy happily reported, some weeks back, to others that I have converted to Christianity. Presumably to the Crossan Church of Reality. Quite a singular minded missionary personkind this Concerned the Christian Now Liberated as a Crossanized Christianity of Reality wo believes in the Singularity.

**************************************************

Hello Concy pussycat.

So, asking moi the same list of questions here and there in other threads? Really dying to ask moi questions to figure moi out?

And you can't even answer a simple question from moi on why there are so few women as members of the Jesus Seminarians when thou quoted extensively from Jesus Seminarians, coming back instead with multiple posts of the same cut and paste.

Take it easy pussycat. The world will not end if I don't become a Crossanized Christian or an atheist.

"Islam is perfect!"

Cheers

"J" - hardcore Islamist, warped jihadist, delusioned believer, unrealistic Muslim and then some

Hello Anonymous,

You : "So Jihadist, are the non-Muslims to fear the educated, multi-lingual and wealthy Muslim elite and not the Imams as we mistakenly assumed?"

Why "fear" a local or neighbourhood mosque imam sans organisation membership? In this marketplace of ideas, as in the marketplace of products and services, what do monopolists intent on global market domination want to eliminate? Competition of course.

And as is often stated and reiterated by bloggers in On Faith threads, what has anyone to fear from "truth"? But whose "truth" and which "truth" do they want to prevail? If one's "truth" is persuasive, it will be "bought" voluntarily. Are the "truths" one have already formed notions in our heads and reinforced by people telling us what we want to hear and reinforced our notions?

From Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" to the Danish cartoons to the Pope's speech to the Dutchman's "Fitna" to the teddy bear named Muhammad, the tone of reactions in the Muslim world is "set" by the Muslim educated - helming Muslim organisations, in the media etc. not imams, on how far and how much they want to ante it up or to cool it off by their writings and organised street actions. And in this age of the Internet...

Going too, by examples of Muslims who resorted to terrorism, Osama and his top men in Al Qaeda are no poor uneducated illiterate fellows. So are the two Malaysian masterminds of the Bali bombings who were educated in Britain and Australia.

The row on the desecration of the Qur'an in Gitmo was picked up by Imran Khan (former husband of Jemima Khan, nee Goldsmith and famed Pakistani cricket player) from an American newsweekly and his speech on it in Pakistan to a crowd was picked up by the Muslim world.

There are well educated and multilingual Muslims living in the west that the US has even banned from entering the US - people like Tarik Ramadan and even the late Sir Zaki Badawi. And these are fellows who don't urge Muslims to undertake the lesser Jihad at all.

Want to call it a sort of opposing neo-colonialism as in days of colonised times when it was the educated and bilingual/multilingual Muslims who wrote and fought for their respective countries' independence? Or fighting against the notion that one culture to prevail over others regardless of what the natives thinks and wants?

What does this tell you about who is fearing educated and bilingual/multilingual Muslims? Not paying attention to the notion of "winning hearts and minds"? Why do you think the US set up satellite TV in the Middle East to compete with Al Jazeera among others?

The pen is more lethal than the gun (an enabler of human intent to kill efficiently). People use guns to kill those who pen something they don't like. And what is written in this ICT age is hard to eliminate from the face of the earth. So, it is a futile exercise to force "freedom" and "democracy" by guns when people do fight for self-determination using guns.

"Fear" imams? They don't read the New York Times or The New Republic. Or to watch "Fitna" or read the Pope's speech and to make a fuss on everything from neocons to the hypocrisy of the Danish editor who decided to solicit and publish the cartoons on the Prophet PBUH.

It is naive for anyone to assume that anyone who made any comments or take any actions on the other that the other don't agree with, and expect the other to take it lying down, and then whine the other can't accept "criticism" or has no "sense of humour" or sense of "proportion" or is "over-reacting".

Cheers
"J"

M Anon,

I'm all for verse, but have no clue as to the subject. I almost suggested offerings on non-believers, but suspect that would have adverse results. Mr Mark must have respect for his poetry, but he has offended me before with it, and I have no desire to repeat that experience. (I'm well over it, by the way.) I have stuff I have written, but it deals with no subject that we are discussing here, at least directly.

Arminius

M Anon is quite bold to propose
That we take up poetry, not prose
Perhaps he is right
We'll all see the light
Perhaps we'll see gems - who knows?

Arminius,

Do you think we could return to poetry for awhile? Perhaps a new theme? Or any theme?

M. Anonymous

M Anon, you said:

"You misunderstand me. Perspective is, at least in my view, a bigot. Thought Police is Perspective. In defending CCNL, he makes the same accusations he make as Perspective."

Since we know about Perspective, then you may be correct. Forewarned is forearmed, I will watch carefully.

Arminius

One could argue that in the nonsensical posts of JJ and the repetitive, unrelated "essays" that CCNL posts in these threads, that they are inhibiting the mission of religious discussion that is On Faith's goal.

Blog Hog, Possibly OCD, CCNL:

Reiterations are for the "newbies" like Mr. and Mrs. Obama (who according to someone in the know monitor this blog quite closely) so you "blog hogs" buy a fast mouse scroller and move on as you have previously been "educated".

If they monitor this blog, and if you think that for some reason, contacting them directly would not result in their immediate conversion to your point of view, ask the one "in the know" for advice. Perhaps, the one "in the know" can bring multiple copies of your lists to the candidate and his wife.

May I also point out that Sen. Obama and his wife are not idiots? Though post away, my dear Blog Hog, to them.

Arminius,

You misunderstand me. Perspective is, at least in my view, a bigot. Thought Police is Perspective. In defending CCNL, he makes the same accusations he make as Perspective.

CCNL is not his concern. His own ability, that is, Perspective's to say what he wishes withoug repercussions is his concern.

As for CCNL and JJ, I will grant you this. Neither one has been so benighted as to demand that others forgo their rights to criticize their posts, as Perspective/Thought Police has.

Does this help?

Again bottom line: Mr. Mark et al have seen another side of religion and its mumbo jumbo in the often repeated "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of religion synopsis. Reiterations are for the "newbies" like Mr. and Mrs. Obama (who according to someone in the know monitor this blog quite closely) so you "blog hogs" buy a fast mouse scroller and move on as you have previously been "educated". The Obamas are still looking for that all-purpose religious mentor so be on your best behaviour.

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M Anon,

I still cannot agree that Mr T Police is a bigot. CCNL is a bigot, we all agree. Sure, Police has a slant, but so do I. I just don't see bigotry with Police. He supports free speech, and so do I. A slant does not make bigotry.

Hi Arminius,

Did you read my full post? Lengthy, I admit. The Thought Police is all to reminiscent of Perspective. Note the accusations of Multiple Intelligences, etc. That "policing" is coming from the non-religious side, although except for me, I don't know who else, maybe Chris E, Mr. Mark, is an atheist.

Reread Perspective's accusations and my post. If you still don't see what I mean, let me know, and I'll explain.

CCNL, CCNL, CCNL, CCNL,

1. If you wish to contact Sen. Obama and Michelle Obama, the best way would be to do so directly. Surprised it hasn't occurred to you that they may not visit this blog.

2. It is easy enough for you to set up your own blog. You could have more readers, and stop being the Blog Hog that you are.

3. Advice regarding your new blog: Posting endless lists convinces no one. Yours, especially, since they display a limited, partisan view on all matters. Whether atheist or believer, no one can benefit from such a limited presentation.

As well, some of your evidence is simply silly. Still waiting the Q Gospel in the air.

Finally, your grandiosity is a turn off. Are you European? English, perhaps? If so, have you been back recently? Heavy-handing it doesn't work there either.

As well, lists are not arguments. They are lists. Like the twenty-one reasons you should shop at Duane Reade. But you offer none for why anyone should read your waste of cyberspace.

M Anon,

I don't see Thought Police as bigoted at all. A gadfly, to be sure, but such are welcome here. Either enlighten me with detail, or rethink.

Arminius

The Thought Police:

Beware oldtimers - invidious posers are threatening to take over the blog with their self-righteous thumping. CCNL is better than the lot of these sanctimonious fools and simpletons - "or is it only one with multiple identities?" You'll miss him when he's gone.

Sorry, but you give yourself away as our most recent bigot when you make the multiple indentities claim. Why not just announce yourself, Mr. P?

Point is and it's quite simple, freedom of speech and bigotry are not the same thing, nor is harassment, which CCNLs endless lists constitute. What the difference is between his posts and JJ's is not entirely clear. JJ's are somewhat more sensational and, I daresay, more creative, but that's about it.

ORwell wrote about indoctrination and that is what CCNL is attempting. However, it can't work since he is a big brother of one.

As for you, O, defender of oppressed bigots, and projector of multiple identities onto others, free speech and hate speech are not the same. In fact, free speech has been re-defined to exclude hate speech. What you are engaged in is Doublethink, Doublespeak, projection, and empty accusation, hypocrisy, and posing. Won't work. Why not just resume your old handle?

Hiding under another name won't change anything, my dear Mr. P. Be a bigot, and get called as a bigot, although as I've said before I never understand why bigots don't simply announce themselves as such.

Your new handle is a telling indicator that you simply wish to be able to say whatever bigoted things comes to mind without criticism. I doubt that can happen, but no one is stopping you from trying. In the US, we call it freedom of speech.
In like manner anyone is free to speak out against hate. In the US, we call that freedom of speech.

-----------------
Wiglaf,

Well done! I hope the US and France can resume their once close friendship.
----------------
CCNL,

It may be worth your while to visit the OCD Foundation site (see Wiglaf's post). Many have suggested, on this thread and others, that you may be suffering from that malady. I'm quite sincere in this. Why not look into it?

Mr. Mark and Arminius - agreed and agreed.

Yes, I'm familiar with Mr. Orwell. But I reckoned that since we have seem to have thought police among us already in both spirit and deed, the least I could do was claim the title and 'beat them to the punch', so to speak. A term from the great Jack Dempsey's day - and still possibly the greatest puncher pound for pound that the boxing world has ever seen (1923 or thereabouts). Not that I'm a boxer of course.

Anyway, it's kind of an offensive and overtly obnoxious handle, so maybe I'll lose it for something more 'cerebral' .... you saw it first right here.

Bottom line: Mr. Mark et al have seen another side of religion and its mumbo jumbo in the often repeated "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of religion synopsis. Reiterations are for the "newbies" like Mr. and Mrs. Obama so you "blog hogs" buy a fast mouse scroller and move on as you have previously been "educated". I will monitor your progress.

xpcgear.com/mx620cm.html

"Logitech MX620 Cordless Laser Mouse w/ Hyper-fast scroll wheel.

Features:

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Laser precision: Experience pixel-perfect precision and smoother cursor control on virtually all surfaces.* "

I have a close loved whom I care about who is schizophrenic. From my real-life and first-hand experiences, I recognize this guy, JJ, to be schizophrenic. Of course, it is hard to be 100 percent sure, on a blog, but that is how he seems to me.

So, I do not think he really knows or understands what he is posting, and no matter what awful things he might say, I don't blame him or hold him accountable. I wish there could be some way to filter out his posts, but when they get through, I only feel sorry for his suffering, and that of his family also.

I do not understand CCNL as well. Someone posted something about obssesive compulsive disorder. I am not as familiar with that, so I am not so sure, but maybe that is what he has. I normally don't read his posts, and I am not sure what he believes. I cannot tell what his relgious background is, or if he believes in God, and I cannot tell what his political ideas are, either. All I know is that he dislike Moslems in general, and Jihadist in paticular.

I think that Jihadist would have a true and legitimate case to complain to David Waters aboutr CCNL and seek to have his posts against her blocked. But, otherwise, he is just part of the background noise of the world, that I guess we have to accept and get used to.

Dear Thought Police -

While it's true that freedom of speech allows anybody on this blog to say what they will, the truth is that not all speakers are equal.

CTCNL reposts the same cut-n-paste jobs over and over again. Most of us stopped reading these things a year ago. Unfortunately for CCNL, many of us now don't even bother with his posts that may be more original in their content because seeing his name at the top of a post is shorthand for, "been there, seen that, skip it."

From a netiquette point of view, CCNL's posts are the equal of spam. Sure, he has every right to post them over and over and over again, but what's the effect of his so doing? He also has the right to enter a crowded room and let loose with a loud and smelly fart. And while CCNL would be correct to say, "what? It's natural. We all do it," after such a faux pas, the rest of us would be within our rights to feel that he was being more than a bit gauche and uncivilized.

Personally, I used to read CCNL's posts before he got stuck in this rut from which he can't seem to extricate himself. I'd read him again if he had anything new to offer, or even if he could find a new way to say the same old thing.

But as long as he continues to spam the site, there's no need to bother paying any attention to him.

Thought Police,

Not sure I like that handle... ever read 1984?

Anyway, re CCNL. Of course you are right, freedom of speech does give him the right to be here. We just wish he would discuss instead of endlessly posting the same long lists. He has, in the past, made some pretty brutal attacks. Some of us, including me, slammed him on this, and he as been somewhat better behaved of late.

If CCNL left, of course he would be missed - the same way Newt Gingrich was missed by the Dems after he resigned as Speaker of the House. In the Dems' own words, they were gonna miss the Newt because he was so 'eminently beatupable'.

Sometimes one wonders what cloud the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist is floating on as she continually forgets the insidious chaos from the Muslim Sunni-Shiite blood feud in full swing throughout the Muslim world that on a 24/7 basis continues to keep the world in turmoil.

See below for examples of said turmoil.

CCNL seems to be posting as if a compulsion beyond his ability to control is driving him. Maybe he is merely to be pitied.

Anon - free expression is free expression. Nobody's rights have been violated - thus far.

If CCNL wants to take a beating from other posters, that's a personal choice. Hey, maybe he likes it & that's part of his problem....but who knows?

In fact, who knows anything for sure on this blog? It's all based on opinion, whether or not supported by 'experts', and it's all a matter of who you manage to convince, or not - if that's your goal of course.

Some are less discriminating than others, perhaps more gullible than their fellow brethren to be found here On Faith, and some will buy anything being sold as 'the truth'.

All one can say as fair warning is 'buyer beware' - otherwise, freedom of speech trumps all.

The Thought Police

CCNL happens to be the only blogger who has been posting *exactly the same list* for nineteen months.

All bloggers find it irritating and they have the freedom to express the irritation. Or does that count as violation of CCNL's right?

Trying to inforce a personal view of 'political correctness' in blogs or anywhere else is not only a slippery slope generally speaking, but in my view a violation of free speech - said correctness being such a relative and changeable thing anyway.

While JJ was assaultive at a personal level, CCNL is not - so he doesn't like Islam, so what? It does have it's own share of ideological and theological problems, as do all religions. We see plenty of lengthy posts from many others - and a lot of them are exceedingly boring.

While the blog is supposed to be primarily about religion, it has quickly become a breeding ground for all things political as well and that's a deadly mix. A fair number of the non-religious have quickly gravitated to the political end of the spectrum, and are working hard to make sure everyone is engaging in correct thought processes regarding a multiplicity of issues, including race and ethnicity.

This of course leads to great hypocrisy - I recently say a poster decimate Obama as a presidential candidate in more than one post, and then go after another poster for being a racist.

I say stick to religion, and let CCNL have his fun - it's clearly the only thing he's got.

The Thought Police

We will all miss a tooth-ache.

CCNL can use his free will and choose
to stop posting his "brainwashing" list.

He could use his brains to respond to the essays at hand without posting *at* the bloggers.

Isn't posting the *same* list for nineteen months
not sufficient to convey what he wants to say?

Why does he not have compassion for the agony of those who must scroll past the same old long list time after time after time?

Beware oldtimers - invidious posers are threatening to take over the blog with their self-righteous thumping. CCNL is better than the lot of these sanctimonious fools and simpletons - or is it only one with multiple identities? You'll miss him when he's gone.

But hold it, hold it right there
CCNL to France? that is not fair
What punishment is to France due
That they should take CCNL too
Don't eat French fries,
Just call it American dyes
That will do, but CCNL nobody will buy.

CCNL gives himself as a Dane
When he is not so deep in his listing game
Who knows what is true
Only Jihadist is blue
When CCNL threatens to go
To Mongolia or to Tumbuktu.

Wiglaf,

Thoughtful and deeply moving poem. So much damage has been done to French-American relations, we forget the debts we owe one another until a crisis like this one arises.

Link for OCD Foundation:

www.ocfoundation.org

CCNL,

You can contact them directly.

How CCNL Enabled America to Help the French and Bring to Great Nations Together

Shall I compare CCNL to the day?
He is not fair and uglier.
Often I wish he would go away,
Take his lists to France or Mongolia.

The French, artists, ancient Gauls
Gave to the world storied lists.
No paper remains for their hallowed stalls.
Many good people are getting cysts.

America remembers her desperate friend,
The screaming taxpayers on Susan's thread.
Sends CCNL so that French pain will end.
France sings to the bloggers on Susan's thread.

-Wiglaf

Wiglaf, in order to make sure that you are not violating copyright regulations, better include the link from which you copied all the information about OCD.

FOR THE CONCERNED CHRISTIAN OBSESSIVELY POSTING
(CCOP)

FROM THE OCD FOUNDATION

About OCD
What is OCD?
If you or someone you care about has been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), you may feel you are the only person facing the difficulties of this illness. But you are not alone. In the United States, 1 in 50 adults have OCD, and twice that many have had it at some point in their lives. Today very effective treatments for OCD are now available to help you regain a more satisfying life. Here are answers to the most commonly asked questions about OCD.

What Is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
Worries, doubts, superstitious beliefs are common in everyday life. However, when they become so excessive such as hours of hand washing or driving around and around the block to check that an accident didn't occur then a diagnosis of OCD is made. In OCD, the brain gets stuck on a particular thought or urge and just can't let go. People with OCD often say the symptoms feel like a case of mental hiccups that won't go away. OCD is a medical brain disorder that causes problems in information processing. It is not your fault or the result of a "weak" or unstable personality.

Before the arrival of modern medications and cognitive behavior therapy, OCD was generally thought to be untreatable. Most people with OCD continued to suffer, despite years of ineffective psychotherapy. Today, luckily, treatment can help most people with OCD. Although OCD is usually completely curable only in some individuals, most people achieve meaningful and long-term symptom relief with comprehensive treatment.

What are the symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
OCD involves having both obsessions and compulsions. A person with OCD may sometimes have one or the other.

Common obsessions are: contamination fears of germs, dirt, etc. imagining having harmed self or others, imagining losing control or aggressive urges, intrusive sexual thoughts or urges, excessive religious or moral doubt, forbidden thoughts A need to have things "just so" A need to tell, ask, confess common compulsions: washing repeating checking touching counting

OCD symptoms can occur in people of all ages. Not all Obsessive-Compulsive behaviors represent an illness. Some rituals (e.g., bedtime songs, religious practices) are a welcome part of daily life. Normal worries, such as contamination fears, may increase during times of stress, such as when someone in the family is sick or dying. Only when symptoms persist, make no sense, cause much distress, or interfere with functioning do they need clinical attention.

Obsessions
Obsessions are thoughts, images, or impulses that occur over and over again and feel out of your control. The person does not want to have these ideas. He finds them disturbing and intrusive, and usually recognizes that they don't really make sense. People with OCD worry excessively about dirt and germs and become obsessed with the idea that they are contaminated or contaminate others. They may have obsessive fears of having inadvertently harmed someone else even though they usually know this is not realistic. Obsessions are accompanied by uncomfortable feelings, such as fear, disgust, doubt, or a sensation that things have to be done in a way that is "just so."
Compulsions
People with OCD try to make their obsessions go away by performing compulsions. Compulsions are acts the person performs over and over again, often according to certain "rules." People with an obsession about contamination may wash constantly to the point that their hands become raw and inflamed. A person may repeatedly check that she has turned off the stove or iron because of an obsessive fear of burning the house down. She may have to count certain objects over and over because of an obsession about losing them. Unlike compulsive drinking or gambling, OCD compulsions do not give the person pleasure. Rather, the rituals are performed to obtain relief from the discomfort caused by the obsessions.
Other features of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
OCD symptoms cause distress, take up time (more than an hour a day), or significantly interfere with the person's work, social life, or relationships. Most individuals with OCD recognize that their obsessions are coming from their own minds and are not just excessive worries about real problems. They realize that the compulsions they perform are excessive or unreasonable. When someone with OCD does not recognize that their beliefs and actions are unreasonable, this is called OCD with poor insight. OCD symptoms tend to wax and wane over time. Some may be little more than background noise; others may produce extremely severe distress.
When does Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder begin?
OCD starts at any time from preschool age to adulthood (usually by age 40). One third to one half of adults with OCD report that it started during childhood.

Unfortunately, OCD often goes unrecognized. On average, people with OCD see three to four doctors and spend 9 years seeking treatment before they receive a correct diagnosis. Studies find that it takes an average of 17 years from the time OCD begins for people to obtain appropriate treatment.

OCD tends to be underdiagnosed and undertreated for a number of reasons. People with OCD are secretive about their symptoms or lack insight about their illness. Many healthcare providers are not familiar with the symptoms or are not trained in providing the appropriate treatments. Some people don't have access to treatment resources. This is unfortunate because earlier diagnosis and proper treatment, including finding the right medications, can help people avoid the suffering associated with OCD. This lessens the risk of developing other problems, such as depression, marital and work problems.

Is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Inherited?
No specific genes for OCD have been identified. Research suggests that genes do play a role in the development of the disorder. Childhood-onset OCD runs in families (sometimes in association with tic disorders). When a parent has OCD, there is a slightly increased risk that a child will develop OCD, although the risk is still low. When OCD runs in families, it is the general nature of OCD is inherited, not specific symptoms. Thus a child may have checking rituals, while his mother washes compulsively.

What causes Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
There is no proven cause of OCD. Research suggests that OCD involves problems in communication between the front part of the brain (the orbital cortex) and deeper structures (the basal ganglia). These brain structures use the chemical messenger serotonin. It is believed that insufficient levels of serotonin are involved in OCD. Drugs that increase the brain concentration of serotonin often help improve OCD symptoms.

Pictures of the brain at work also show that the brain circuits involved in OCD return toward normal in those who improve after taking a serotonin medication or receiving cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. Although it seems clear that reduced levels of serotonin play a role in OCD, there are no laboratory tests for OCD. The diagnosis is made based on an assessment of the person's symptoms. When OCD starts suddenly in childhood in association with strep throat, an autoimmune mechanism may be involved, and treatment with an antibiotic may prove helpful.

What other problems are sometimes confused with OCD?
Some disorders that closely resemble OCD and may respond to some of the same treatments. They are trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling), body dysmorphic disorder (imagined ugliness), and habit disorders, such as nail biting or skin picking. While they share superficial similarities, impulse control problems, such as substance abuse, pathological gambling, or compulsive sexual activity, are probably not related to OCD in any substantial way.

The most common conditions that resemble OCD are the tic disorders (Tourette's disorder and other motor and vocal tic disorders). Tics are involuntary motor behaviors (such as facial grimacing) or vocal behaviors (such as snorting) that often occur in response to a feeling of discomfort. More complex tics, like touching or tapping tics, resemble compulsions. Tics and OCD occur together much more often when the OCD or tics begin during childhood.

Depression and OCD often occur in adults, and, less commonly, in children and adolescents. However, unless depression is present, people with OCD are not sad or lacking in pleasure. People who are depressed but do not have OCD rarely have the kinds of intrusive thoughts that are characteristic of OCD. Stress can make OCD worse. Although most people with OCD report that the symptoms can come and go on their own.

OCD is easy to distinguish from a condition called posttraumatic stress disorder, because OCD is not caused by a terrible event. Schizophrenia, delusional disorders, and other psychotic conditions are usually easy to distinguish from OCD. Unlike psychotic individuals, people with OCD have a clear idea of what is real and what is not. OCD may worsen or cause disruptive behaviors in children and adolescents, exaggerate a pre-existing learning disorder, cause problems with attention and concentration, or interfere with learning at school. In many children with OCD, these disruptive behaviors are related to the OCD and will go away when the OCD is successfully treated.

Individuals with OCD often have substance-abuse problems, as a result of attempts to self-medicate. Specific treatment for the substance abuse is usually needed. Children and adults with pervasive developmental disorders (autism, Asperger's Disorder) are extremely rigid and compulsive. They have stereotyped behaviors that often resembles very severe OCD. Those with pervasive developmental disorders have extremely severe problems relating to and communicating with other people, which do not occur in OCD.

Only a small number of those with OCD have the collection of personality traits called Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). Despite its similar name, OCPD does not involve obsessions and compulsions, but rather is a personality pattern that involves a preoccupation with rules, schedules, and lists; perfectionism; an excessive devotion to work; rigidity; and inflexibility. However, when people have both OCPD and OCD, the successful treatment of the OCD often causes a favorable change in the person's personality.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes one wonders what cloud the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist is floating on as she continually forgets the insidious chaos from the Muslim Sunni-Shiite blood feud in full swing throughout the Muslim world that on a 24/7 basis continues to keep the world in turmoil.

To wit:

1. As a Sunni, she and her Sunni imams/clerics consider Shiites to be a lower class race of hominids who should not be allowed to exist. 800 million Sunnis have this view about 200 million Shiites. A very, very serious problem for world peace!!!

2. From CNN:

"Al-Sistani was apparently referring to Abdullah bin Jabrain, a key member of Saudi Arabia's clerical establishment, who last month joined a chorus of other senior figures from the hardline Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam that regards Shiites as infidels.

Bin Jabrain described Shiites as "the most vicious enemy of Muslims."

3. Iraq's civil war- Sunni minority, Shiite majority, 24/7 blood letting, 4000 American soldiers dead, 90,000 Iraqi civilians dead, millions displaced. Christians murdered for being Christian.

4. Iran, Shiite theocracy, 24/7 support of global terror and threats of nuclear war.

5. OBL, Sunni/"Wannabee"/Saudi madman and madmen, 24/7 support of global terror to include 9/11

6. Saudi/Sunni "charities" bankrolling 9/11.

6. Hamas, Shiites supported by Iran.

7. PLO, Sunnis supported by Saudi "Wannabees".

8. Assassination of Bhutto probably by a Shiite and probably instigated by an imam in a mosque.

"No one is safe until the koran is deflawed, mosques are "febrezed" and Sunnis and Shiites are pacified."

Said Jihadist:

It is not imams anyone feared, in history, now and in future. It is the Muslim political and economic "elite", the educated Muslims with funds to spare, with networking, who know languages besides their mother tongue and have access to or own slices of ICT, who funds organisations, blogs, political parties. Who alerted, who roused, who riled Muslims in our respective countries of what our governments do, what foreign governments do, what the Pope say, what Bush say, what the neocons say and do, who bring out the Muslims masses out in the streets. It is not the imams.

All in a very long way to say while the imams mostly want us to focus in improving the Muslim community, we sometimes get distracted and return swipes from non-Muslims. It is not imams who caused most of this Islam-West spit for spat.

Read carefully on all these spit for spats, and you’ll see little bits of news on muftis and imams trying to calm Muslims whose anger are roused by the “educated”, the bilingual, the multilingual ones, the lay Muslims, by saying, “Islam is a religion of peace”."

So Jihadist, are the non-Muslims to fear the educated, multi-lingual and wealthy Muslim elite and not the Imams as we mistakenly assumed?

It's apparent to me that we are not going to be able to free ourselves of religion in my lifetime. But I look at the two candidates we have now, it strikes me that neither of these men were chosen by the religious. Neither is the preferred candidate of that group.

I'm waiting for the anti-homesexual noise, the anti-freethought noise, the anti-sciense noise, the pro-creationist noise, the pro-torture noise ... I haven't heard much from the relgious wackso this time out. Why is that do you think?

So we can't free ourselves of religion, it looks like this time we can at least free ourselves from the religious.

I rest my case. Tedious, tiresome, boring. CCNLs lists need to be blocked before entry to cyberspace, or at least diverted away from here.

As a farewell gift, I recommend a psychiatric consultation. Googled OCD. A lot can be done with medication.

Just A Comment,

I am not wont to share on the reality in the Muslim world here as I am enjoying too much the perspectives, perceptions, beliefs and understanding of non-Muslims on Islam and Muslims

Quite a number of posters talk on Islam and Muslims as if they are the same as Christians in the west when even Christians in developing countries are more similar in socio-economic state with Muslims who are mostly in developing countries.

When someone gave a Santa or the Tooth Fairy analogy, I am sure most Muslims are nonplus. It would be equally difficult for a westerner to explain the Trinity to a Muslim.

But anyway, on:
*. Fight non Muslims.
*. Sharia the law of the land.
* Afterlife to attract and scare followers.

You asked : Is this the common vision that guides the actions of the Imams and their followers?

I thought I had given you a short response and a bit more in another thread? Never mind. Oh, so said the said poster in Pamela Taylor’s thread, who claimed to have heard sermons all round the world in the native languages.

* Fight non-Muslims? We are busy arguing with one another, and literally by arms sometimes as individuals and organisations. There are good imams and bad imams just as there are bad and good priests and monks. Always the good ones getting drowned in their actions and words by the notorious ones.

* Sharia the law of the land? Muslim states, except for Turkey, already have aspects of Shariah implemented or are fully implemented (as in Saudi Arabia, Iran. If aspects, it is mostly pertaining Islamic Family Law – births, marriages, divorces, alimony, inheritance, adoption etc. Better them for governments rather than Muslim organisations who are viable challenges of their leadership and governance.

* Afterlife to attract and scare followers? I see this a lot reflected in posts by atheists. They seem more obsessed than believers are with heaven and hell. All believers thinks they will all go to heaven. Muslims do switch off when an imam goes on about going to hell for indulging in vices in their sermons.

In the Muslim world, imams are the most powerless group in the political and social structure of Muslim countries, even by Muslim clerical/ulema establishment. The muftis and kadis have more say and sway on Shariah as they are appointed by the state.

Muslim organisations also have more bite and heft as NGOs and political parties, even over muftis on matters of faith in the public square. Muftis and imams can be controlled by the state as are appointed by the state, but Muslim organisations are not. They are well-networked, and funded groups with millions of members such Islamic Brotherhood, Muhammadiyah etc.

Imams, who mostly are limited in their activities related to their community’s functional affairs are not. They are independent of one another and have no formal links with one another unlike Muslim organisations with reaches in both urban and rural communities by their networks, and even internationally.

There are also increasingly popular personalities on TV speaking on Islam have wider appeal than any neighbourhood imam would ever dream of. Quite a suave lot some are, and most popular with the younger generation.

Imams are not under any “pressure” to proselytise for new adherents to collect funds for community’s activities as well as for “church” headquarters. They only have to focus on their specific communities needs. So, there is no “church” directed lines on anything to be complied and by all “church” members. In this way too, they are freer and have more freedom, and likewise the community.

It is not imams anyone feared, in history, now and in future. It is the Muslim political and economic "elite", the educated Muslims with funds to spare, with networking, who know languages besides their mother tongue and have access to or own slices of ICT, who funds organisations, blogs, political parties. Who alerted, who roused, who riled Muslims in our respective countries of what our governments do, what foreign governments do, what the Pope say, what Bush say, what the neocons say and do, who bring out the Muslims masses out in the streets. It is not the imams.

All in a very long way to say while the imams mostly want us to focus in improving the Muslim community, we sometimes get distracted and return swipes from non-Muslims. It is not imams who caused most of this Islam-West spit for spat.

Read carefully on all these spit for spats, and you’ll see little bits of news on muftis and imams trying to calm Muslims whose anger are roused by the “educated”, the bilingual, the multilingual ones, the lay Muslims, by saying, “Islam is a religion of peace”.

Imams are too, too easy to blame. But anyone can continue to believe imams are the root of all evil and cause of all warped minds and hatreds if they must for convenience.

Cheers
“J”

The Historical Jesus 101 for Mr.and Mrs. Obama:

Scripture, books and articles to be read before the first class,

1. Historical Jesus Theories, earlychristianwritings.com/theories.htm -- the names of many of the contemporary historical Jesus scholars and the titles of their over 100 books on the subject.

2. Early Christian Writings, earlychristianwritings.com/
-- a list of early Christian documents to include the year of publication
30-60 CE Passion Narrative
40-80 Lost Sayings Gospel Q
50-60 1 Thessalonians
50-60 Philippians
50-60 Galatians
50-60 1 Corinthians
50-60 2 Corinthians
50-60 Romans
50-60 Philemon
50-80 Colossians
50-90 Signs Gospel
50-95 Book of Hebrews
50-120 Didache
50-140 Gospel of Thomas
50-140 Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel
50-200 Sophia of Jesus Christ
65-80 Gospel of Mark
70-100 Epistle of James
70-120 Egerton Gospel
70-160 Gospel of Peter
70-160 Secret Mark
70-200 Fayyum Fragment
70-200 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
73-200 Mara Bar Serapion
80-100 2 Thessalonians
80-100 Ephesians
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-110 1 Peter
80-120 Epistle of Barnabas
80-130 Gospel of Luke
80-130 Acts of the Apostles
80-140 1 Clement
80-150 Gospel of the Egyptians
80-150 Gospel of the Hebrews
80-250 Christian Sibyllines
90-95 Apocalypse of John
90-120 Gospel of John
90-120 1 John
90-120 2 John
90-120 3 John
90-120 Epistle of Jude
93 Flavius Josephus
100-150 1 Timothy
100-150 2 Timothy
100-150 Titus
100-150 Apocalypse of Peter
100-150 Secret Book of James
100-150 Preaching of Peter
100-160 Gospel of the Ebionites
100-160 Gospel of the Nazoreans
100-160 Shepherd of Hermas
100-160 2 Peter

3. Historical Jesus Studies, faithfutures.org/HJstudies.html,
-- "an extensive and constantly expanding literature on historical research into the person and cultural context of Jesus of Nazareth"

4. Jesus Database, faithfutures.org/JDB/intro.html--"The JESUS DATABASE is an online annotated inventory of the traditions concerning the life and teachings of Jesus that have survived from the first three centuries of the Common Era. It includes both canonical and extra-canonical materials, and is not limited to the traditions found within the Christian New Testament."

5. Josephus on Jesus mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

6. The Jesus Seminar, mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria

7. Writing the New Testament- mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/testament.html

8. Health and Healing in the Land of Israel By Joe Zias
joezias.com/HealthHealingLandIsrael.htm

9. Economics in First Century Palestine, K.C. Hanson and D. E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1998.

10. 7. The Gnostic Jesus
(Part One in a Two-Part Series on Ancient and Modern Gnosticism)
by Douglas Groothuis: equip.org/free/DG040-1.htm

11. The interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Pontifical Biblical Commission
Presented on March 18, 1994
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM#2

12. The Jesus Database- newer site:
wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php?title=Jesus_Database

13. Jesus Database with the example of Supper and Eucharist:
faithfutures.org/JDB/jdb016.html

14. Josephus on Jesus by Paul Maier:
mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

15. The Journal of Higher Criticism with links to articles on the Historical Jesus:
mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

16. The Greek New Testament: laparola.net/greco/

17. Diseases in the Bible:
etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-08022006-125807/unrestricted/02dissertation.pdf
18. Religion on Line (6000 articles on the history of religion, churches, theologies,
theologians, ethics, etc.
religion-online.org/

19. The Jesus Seminarians and their search for NT authenticity:
mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria

20. The New Testament Gateway - Internet NT ntgateway.com/

21. Writing the New Testament- existing copies, oral tradition etc.
ntgateway.com/

22. The Search for the Historic Jesus by the Jesus Seminarians:
members.aol.com/DrSwiney/seminar.html

23. Jesus Decoded by Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco (Da Vinci Code review)jesusdecoded.com/introduction.php

24. JD Crossan's scriptural references for his book the Historical Jesus separted into time periods: faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan1.rtf

25. JD Crossan's conclusions about the authencity of most of the NT based on the above plus the conclusions of other NT exegetes in the last 200 years:
faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan2.rtf

26. Common Sayings from Thomas's Gospel and the Q Gospel: faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan3.rtf

27. Early Jewish Writings- Josephus and his books by title with the complete translated work in English :earlyjewishwritings.com/josephus.html

28. Luke and Josephus- was there a connection?
infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html

29. NT and beyond time line:
pbs.org/empires/peterandpaul/history/timeline/

30. St. Paul's Time line with discussion of important events:
harvardhouse.com/prophetictech/new/pauls_life.htm

31. See www.amazon.com for a list of JD Crossan's books and those of the other Jesus Seminarians: Reviews of said books are included and selected pages can now be viewed on Amazon. Some books can be found on-line at Google Books.

32. Father Edward Schillebeeckx's words of wisdom as found in his books.

33. The books of the following other On Faith panelists: Professors Marcus Borg, Paula Fredriksen, Karen Armstrong and Bishop NT Wright.

34. Father Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, NY, 1977, 878 pages, with Nihil obstat and Imprimatur.

35. Luke Timothy Johnson's, The Real Jesus,

The Historical Mohammed 101- class starts in two weeks.

M. Anon,

I agree. I think of myself as a tolerant person, and I would have no objection whatsoever if he engaged other bloggers without being offensive.

The lists have been abusive for a long time. Ignoring him completely is the only alternative I can think of, but I believe we have tried that. Other bloggers on other threads here say the same.

Curious

Wiccan, Arminius, Curious,

Endless numbers have tried to explain to CCNL that his "history" is partial and partisan. They have given him instances with facts, dates, figures. Farnaz, wherever she is, I think, called it when she said he was one terrified man.

I agree. OCD, as Anon speculated is also possible. If I'm not mistaken, it's in the nature of OCD to repeat behaviors that get one nowhere. That is what CCNL does. There is no logic here. Imagine, for instance, if he convinced all of us of whatever it is he wishes to convince us. Where would it get him? And we cannot cure him of whatever ails.

I don't undertand why we have to keep putting up with these endless ravings. They take up space and they are offensive.
----------------------------------
Congratulations on your verse, Arminius. I trust the volume is coming along well.

M. Anonymous

Curious gets credit for a peculiar misreading of his own.

Anon,

I wasn't referring to either one. A curious, seemingly impossible misreading of my post.

And you are?

"Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:
History is not bigotry!!!!"

Nor is it destiny. People change. We do it all the time.

How very disingenuous of CURIOUS! CCNL and JJ both happen to be believers or atheists of a unique variety. It is the nature of their mountains of repetitive posts over the past nineteen months that is being criticized. They are being made scapegoats for ...what?

Bigots select scapegoats. It's what they do. Funny how it's the same scapegoats over and over again. Funny how so many who select them profess a faith.

It makes me uncomfortable.

Concerned says he posts only history
But that claim to us is a mystery
He picks what he thinks best
And ignores all the rest
And thus turns history into bigotry.

Chris,

Yes, Perspective has been outed.

"Deja vu all over again" is pure baseball, from Yogi Berra (as I'm sure you know), and is very appropriate.

Looks like Perspective is the new scapegoat for the virulent bigotry that lurks just beneath the surface of this blog.

Deja vu all over again. (I hope that's not anti-French!)

'The Road Not Taken'

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Bird's Eye View,
Marvelous insights, well spoken--thank you. I have deep admiration for Whitman (a lover of Lincoln, which is apropos to be noted here), Thoreau and Emerson. I wish secularism could have a core philosophy and "required reading" that would include each of those writers. (The world's religionists could do well to include those also.) Transcendentalism/Brahmism seems to have inspired some truly great literature and thinking.

Thank you sincerely for your insights.

History is not bigotry!!!!

Thanks for your comment Doug. Sometimes I wonder if the love for humanity that various Christians express (agape) is more akin to the central idea of compassion in Buddhism, rather than the first-hand, personalized love we feel for family and friends.

I suspect it is and if so, then this realization of a deep affinity with mankind is not by any means an automatic result of having religious faith and needs long cultivation - it's often found as a spontaneous quality in non-religious free-thinkers of all kinds - in order to see this manifest love of mankind up close and personal in a great American poet and mystic, read Walt Whitman and 'Leaves of Grass'...

His biographer and spiritual kindred Dr. Richard M. Bucke believed he was among the most perfectly enlightened and compassionate humans of all time.....and not religious in any conventional sense.

He was of course from the same era as our home grown Transcendentalists and fellow iconoclasts, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson – rather considerable fellows in their own right and by no means conventional in their religious orientation. For me, the road less traveled is the one with the most appeal – but to each his or her own. It’s really the only way………

Bird's Eye View,
Thanks for your diplomatic observation and its tone. I referred to "potential problem" and while you could infer I was making a generalization, I disagree. When secularism is accompanied by respectful dialogue, I have no problem at all with it.

As to your inference that I have no grounds through evidence of any kind, I disagree. I have read in this particular blog for several months, and could hypothesize as well as test the hypothesis by statistical analysis that more secularists or atheists who have written in this blog have demonstrated less respectful dialogue (which I infer to be because they don't wish to fake something they don't feel, that being deeply felt love for humankind) on a percentage basis than people who have either a current or a former religious "view" of humanity. I'm not saying "across the board"--nor do I infer that all religionists posting here show respect and love--some don't. I wish they did. It could also be implied that this blog is fairly a "random sample".

By the way, CCNL has stated himself that he is a secularist/atheist.

Sincere best wishes, all. I have no ill will towards any of you.

Wiccan writes:

What does Crossan say about humility?

Indeed!

The OCD hypothesis is also interesting, but we are not physicians and CCNL is not our patient.

Personally, I know longer wish to be harrassed by endless bigoted harangues. Free speech is one thing, verbal abuse another. There are several things that distinguish CCNL from JJ, among them that the latter is less arrogant.

Bigots surface on this blog all the time. Yesterday's was just a case in point. I had my own run-in with Ahmed from Bahrain the other day regarding Jews, a topic I did not raise. He did. CCNL on Muslims is the equivalent, and it is an everyday affair.

CCNL-

It is this Pagan's wish that Gabriel would polish his horn, come up behind you, and give you such a blast that it would blow you out of your perserverating.

You seem not to know that you suffer from the same fundamentalism that infects Spiderman 2 and Moody; that your way is the only way, and the rest of us are damned idiots for not believing exactly as you do. What does Crossan say about humility?

I doubt very much that CCNL is an atheist. I'm certain he's not, and whether or not he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, he's certainly obsessed with Jesus. Endless list posting is as annoying from him as it is from JJ, and it is bigotry.

When groups become too white, too Christian, particularly in what is supposed to be public forums, when Jews are slandered, when minority grouop persons are harrassed and verbally abused because they are black, when the dominant group uses violent speech agains minorities, the term "group identities" becomes a self-serving, apologetic euphemism. A more accurate term is racism. There are plenty of other places white racists can congregate. And they do.

The theatre, as MA said, is crowded. That is sociology enough.

Doug - I have to disagree with your sentiment that secularists have any kind of corner on bashing either their real or virtual neighbors, or that religionists are more typically filled with love of their fellow man and the milk of human kindness.

Surely there is no group, religious or otherwise, that can lay claim to being exceptionally civil. While you may be emotionally committed to religion as the road to the life well lived, there is clearly no real evidence that religious believers are any more civil, loving, humane, charitable, empathetic or fair in their dealings with others. In fact, secularists of the non-religious type may well argue the other side of the coin.

And needless to say, there are plenty of religionists that adhere to the principles of secularism in state and federal government and the administration of public policies of all kinds. There are also plenty who do not or would not, if they could help it!

You've made a statement of belief based on not one smidgen of hard evidence - 'secular' folks do it all the time, so you're not alone.

Jihadist,

Thanks for your response to my post of at 10:14 PM referring to the sermons of the Imams. While your comments are informative, you did not quite answered directly about the sermons.

A poster stated in another thread that the messages in many sermons of the Imams were:

1. Fight non Muslims.
2. Sharia the law of the land.
3. Afterlife to attract and scare followers.

Then my question was: Is this the common vision that guides the actions of the Imams and their followers?

Your response started with “I would think American atheists and non-Christians, and even some Christians, would be more afraid of Christians calling them ‘unbelievers’ and shoving faith in the public square.”

This answer switches the attention out from the imams to pastors and priests. But your comment let unanswered weather or not the three points listed above are a frequent theme of Imam’s sermons and consequently are the driving force for their actions.

Later in your comments you wrote “I take it you are fearful Muslims would all slay some 5.7 billion "unbelievers" who are not Muslims in the world. Quite a spectacular assumption. We can't even force out or question our repressive and corrupt governments without risk of life sometimes.”

Again, your focus is on my fears, on the 5.7 billion non-Muslims and on the government, but nothing specific about the sermons as drivers for action of the Imams and their followers.

Then you move to say that moderate or educated Muslims fail to challenge the incompetent and corrupt governments and Imams about poverty, basic health, education, and development programs. Nothing specific on the three recurrent points in sermons: fight, Sharia and afterlife horrors/earthly paradise.

At the end you touch on charities, material progress, mistakes and learning process.

The question I made was simple. I never have attended Muslim sermons. Would like that somebody that has tell me if it’s true or not that “fight, Sharia and hell for all non-Muslims” are frequent topics in the Imams’ sermons. If true that implies that these topics are strong drivers for their actions, irrespective of other good words of peace, compassion, etc. that come in their sermons.

My question is for any poster that has proof or reputable references to attest or negate this fact.

Thanks again Jihadist.

Peace and best wishes for all,

JAC

CCNL is a very good illustration of one of the potential problems of atheistic secularism: without any anchor to feeling connected to humanity (after all, everything and everyone are mere chance occurrences), a disregard for civility or, one can wish and especially one hopes through the anchor of a religious sentiment, the primacy of love.

Without any notion of the primacy of love, a person can resort to bashing the whole world in abusive terms and not feel the least apologetic. Bash on, secularists. Bash on, CCNL. Maybe life will teach you someday about the primacy of love. I hope it may be so, for therein originates joy, and the world can become a friendly place not your enemy.

Now CCNL, it’s time to reiterate your own closely held beliefs, which you describe and rather cryptically encapsulate as ‘a belief in Reality’. This from some months back…..

And although you’ve declared yourself a churchgoer and follower of the superstition free and newly reconstituted Catholic Church of Crossan, what exactly are the parameters of a belief in Reality by was of Crossan, et al? Details here would be good….

What you don’t believe is abundantly clear – but the more important thing for all of your many readers is a presentation of your own ‘deflawed’ beliefs, think you not? Surely this document is somewhere in that great cyber-vault of prefab posts – but if not, there’s no time like the present!

And this would actually give more potential credibility to the many non-beliefs that you hold – so what say you? Have a go at it??

It is a shame that CCNL's style and intolerance so weakens his arguments. He really does have a brain that he could use if he changed the way he presents himself. However, given the way he does behave, he deserves all the harassment he gets.

CCNL - I'm being sincere in my conviction that everyone has a right to post here - like it or not. The problem with JJ was his petty rages, overt attacks on other posters, and thread spamming to the point of a complete shutdown....

He's the only real blog abuser that we've had here of note on a consistent basis ... IMO.

As to the discussion on 'identities' just below, this very topic fills textbooks. Picking up any elementary book on sociology we find under the chapter entitled 'group dynamics' that membership in a group presumes common identities, behaviors, beliefs and goals, and the very purpose and function of the group - and for better or worse.

Do individuals have identities that exist independently, autonomously, and completely separate from any group? Feral children, perhaps - but another book or three for sure.....

Whether or not this blog is 'too white' for example, is a matter of conjecture. What defines it, and how to know? This sounds like an opinion based on prejudice and pre-conceived notions of 'whiteness', rather than established fact.

Although universally present in all societies, the dynamics of identity change from group to group of course - those outside the group may even view identities and goals differently when compared to the insider perception - that's often when the trouble starts. Identity is a dynamic and fluid thing and not nearly as fixed as we might like to think. It's doubtful that we ever capture it in it's entirety.

Cherry picking definitions of 'identity' is a dicey and inaccurate business - as I said, whole books have been written ......

Bird's eye view,

It is called recycling of the truth. Learn from it just as students learn from reiterating the principles of Reality.

CCNL - I'm suppporting your right to post trash all day long as you see fit. After all, everyone else is posting theirs, right? Don't let the self-appointed gatekeepers of good posting etiquette and appropriate mindsets get you down. What do they know anyway?

Revisiting history for Mr. and Mrs. Obama's sake:

Jist, Jist, Jist, (formerly The Jihadist),
Well let us see how your road to Reality is proceeding via gleaning your commentaries about atheists and anti-theists.

The previous request and questions:
"The echoes of your mind still need a bit of sound adjustment as to what you hold true:

1. the existence of "pretty and ugly flying thingies" (a required tenet of Islam)???

-still no response- tough one -what do you teach your children about these "thingies"??

2. the koran being based on the hallucinations of one long dead Arab????

-still no response- another tough one since the if you agree there would be no foundation for Islam

3. the correct side of the Sunni-Shiite 800 year old blood feud???

It appears you take no sides although you are a Sunni and have the upper Islamic economic hammer in most Islamic countries.

4. theocracies, good or bad???

-You apparently dislike theocracies but you live in Malaysia which is fast becoming a theocracy. Have you sent letters of complaint to your government officials and clerics??

5. the sins of being Islamic??? (false "profits", greed, anger, lust, polygamy, warmongering, suicide)??

- I guess if you cannot see the problems of Islam, there is no sin but the koran's passages ooze of said sins

6. Islamic scribes plagiarizing the codes, passages and ways of the ancients even the anti-female passages of "Prude Paul"?????

- Again, you still adhere to the "Islam is perfect" mantra so this is a problem for you to grasp. Some courses in ancient history should help you come to grips with Reality.

Considering CCNL and JJ pose such a hardened and persistent mystery, it might be worthwhile to google the term Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and read information provided by NIMH and Wikipedia among others. Sometimes simply being able to name something can be liberating. No! No! No! No handing out online diagnosis, leave alone suggesting treatment please!

Arminius,

Last points because I've got to go. When anyone says "Jewish interests," then the assumption is that all Jews have the same interests and the same points of view. Do they? Do all white Christians? Do you have the same views as CCNL? Spiderman? Etc.

Are there black interests? White interests? Gay interests? How come we never hear the phrase?

Oh, we black dikes hear other phrases, I do know. But they aren't the topic right now. (What do you think life is like for Black Jews? Or brown Jews like Farnaz? What if they are gay? The world is multi, Arminius.)

Think about it. I'm not doing justice to double consciousness but I'm doing my best.

Goodnight

Goodnight, Arminius. I'm falling out. I think you're getting there. Just a few more steps. Does the anti-Defamation League represent "all" Jews?

Lee

Hi, Lee,

I'm getting there with the 'double vision' thing. But not being a minority (except for being an old fart liberal Christian), I cannot comprehend the fullness of this.

I don't know about the NAACP. I suspect that they do not represent all of blacks.

It is late, and my mind is shutting down. Be back tomorrow.

Arminius

Hello Concy pussycat,

Islam is perfect.
Islam is flawless.
Islam is error-free.
Islam is unmucky.
Islam is unstenchy.

And so Concy calls on Gabriel:

"O Gabriel,
gay Gabriel
wherefore art thou Gabriel ????"

Sorry pussycat.
Gabriel's with me.
We are having a fine gay time.
Want me to tell Gabriel to go over to you?
Ooops, sorry. Forgot that you do get "yucked up" over "gay" in every sense of the word.

Cheers
"J"

Arminius,

I arrived awhile ago, and was struck by Hamlet (Merry Anonymous). I did explain double consciousness to the best of my ability. You can read Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk. You can also see Wikepedia.

Black people, not all, but many have what he called double consciousness. So do many other minority group people. The me I see in white people's eyes is not the me I see in my own.

If you went to certain parts of Harlem, the world would be black. Not that people would even be thinking about you, but it would be. Go outside if you live in a city or town and paint everyone black. I've tried to explain it.

I'm a lucky dike. I've been to a lot of places, seen a whole lot of different types of people. A lot of black Christians, et al, are antisemitic, although we didn't get it from Africa. But it exists.

Some of us get the bigger picture. God gave me eyes. So when you talk about the anti-Defamation League, which a whole lot of New York Jews find pathetically week, and you say they represent "Jewish interests" I ask you if the NAACP represents black interests.

That is double consciousness. Can you answer my question? Does the NAACP represent black interests?

Lee,

If you're still there. I am a night owl, but this owl is still suffering from jet lag. Good catch about the language. I mean that.

I think Arminius has a good heart. I always have. Also, I wouldn't give up on this blog. I confess I've entertained the notion, but as an avowed atheist/secularist, I find the mix of viewpoints interesting. Too white, I grant you, too Christian/Catholic in background and in practice. Farnaz comes and goes like a lot of people on this blog. You may or may not be right about the cause of her absence.

Blindness to others occurs in people otherwise decent. Christians/Catholics, et al, seem to think they can say whatever they want about Jews. It is the oddest thing. The racism is so built into the culture that the most decent people don't even know when they're being bigoted.

With blacks (nonJewish!), it's still pretty bad, but the media works harder against anti-black racism, I think. Another reason I think you may be right about Perspective. He may not be American. Let us hope so; I don't think we need him.

Goodnight.

M. Anonymous

As noted by the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist latest attempt at poetry, she and her imams and clerics still cannot come to grips with the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam!!!!!!

O Gabriel, gay Gabriel wherefore art thou Gabriel ????

Lee,

You are tough, for sure. OK, delete the 'we' from my post, and substitute 'I'. For starters.

OK, ignore the anger bit. Try this, going back to the start. Explain the 'double vision'. I think I understand it in my mind, but not in my guts, and certainly not yet in my heart.

Your arrival on these blogs was rather explosive. But you are sure as hell no Spiderman2, no CCNL, and certainly no JJ. I see reason, and a hidden goodness. You have a story to tell. So tell it.

With respect,

Arminius

Lighten up folks! To take an online forum discussion so personally as to feel devastated by anyone's comment is outright silly. Keep those emotions in check and remember this is Cyberspace. Take twenty to thirty deep breaths and count as many numbers as you can before hitting the post button if you find yourself letting your emotions get the better of you in any comment.

WW III for Cyber-emotions? Hmmmm....

Just my 2 cents. :)

Arminius,

Please be specific. I, too, am not a night owl.

Lee

Arminius,

First off, I wouldn't speak for "everyone." Speak for yourself. What have I said that you need to have clarified?

Lee

Hi, Lee,

Glad you replied, I was about to get pissed off, and that is bad. I am Scots-Irish, and the Celtic fury is not pretty. And I don't like going there.

What I see in you is a LOT of anger. Yet you are here, wanting to be heard. I think you want to be understood, but cannot find anyone who understands you. Try this: just what are you angry about, in your heart of hearts? Not just angry about comments here, but the basis of your anger. I, and others, have tried to extend a hand of friendship. I don't think that you fully realize that, perhaps we did it badly. But you are damn right, I want to understand. I may not like it, but I am here to learn. The truth is seldom pretty, but what the hell, I'll survive.

Also, it is getting pretty late, and I am no night owl. Will sign off rather soon.

Arminius

Hey Arminius,

Can you be specific about what I need to clarify?
I'll do my best.

Lee

Lee,

I think you can explain just fine.

M. Anonymous

Arminius -

I have to apologize for remarks that may have offended you, and I can see that a few of them did. However, this particular incident is the first time I've been personally attacked on this blog, and in a manner that far surpassed the usual ad hominum exchanges that we might see from Spiderman2 and his ilk - there was in fact no real cause for this whatsoever.

Frankly, I don't take kindly to it - but this crap can happen anywhere, anytime on the internet, and it does.

No basis whatever can be found in my completely mild and even banal remarks that would warrant this assault - you see this yourself. Never have I witnessed overt racism, anti-semitism or any other isms from the folks that post here regularly - nasty and mysterious strangers do turn up from time to time posing with peculiar identities and unknown agendas.....this started with a broadside from MA, and I can easily imagine, continues with his alter-ego Lee - this is a totally phony, fabricated isue from start to finish. I'm only sorry that's not as transparent to others as it is to me......

Regards -

M. Anonymous (Hamlet),

Jeez, never expected to see you back this evening.
You do have a strong stomache. I was just about to log out.

Ole Arminius doesn't get it. Not about black folks, and not about Jews, whatever the color. I think maybe he wants to. Maybe, you could explain it. No offense, but white folks speak better to each other than black folks speak to them.

I'm real tired of this.

Lee

Hi, Jihadist,

As I am sure you are aware, none of us believe that CCNL really has the 'hots' for you. We do that to rile him up. Mean of us.......

Arminius

Lee,

Well, well, well. I confess I never thought Perspective would have come out quite so visibly, unmissable by anyone with eyes to see. Yet, most of them do in the end, bigots that is.

I'm afraid Curious is right about me, Lee. Early training, I suspect. It's hard for me to accept compliments sometimes, but I don't recall what Curious is referring to.

I haven't replied to you because I've never been clear about what my double consciousness consists of. I know what you're talking about, you see, and I've seen it in other "WASPs," as you once called me, but not in many.

Sometimes things still get by me, get by inside me. You've got way more than double consciousness. You have multiple consciousnesses.

As for my age, I said goodbye to thirty a long time ago, and I'm still here. But you're right. It's exhausting. I'm less and less able to deal with racism, bigotry, close-mindedness, refusal to entertain other views, dominance, ideology, living-room liberalism than I have ever been. But letting things slide doesn't seem to be your strong suit either, does it?

RE: "Bro." Nice catch. Might have missed it, linguistics background, and all. Maybe not American. I've travelled quite a bit, too, and as you say, "Folks are what they are."

PS. I liked your poem. Thank you.

Y’all got it wrong.

Concerned the Christian Now Liberated don’t have the “hots” for me. Concy is “hot” at me, with me. Too easy, does not take much, and to merely scratch the surface a wee bit to push Concy’s buttons and see the predictable reactions and posts thereon.

**************************************************

Yo! Concy Pussycat!

Want to get a court restraining order for moi to be at least a hundred posts from your posts as an obsessive-compulsive blogstalker of your goodself and posts in On Faith? Ooops, sorry. No such thing as a court restraining order in Blogosphere, in Cyberspace.

Dream on, pussycat. I ain’t taking off my clothes and be in the buff like Kola Boof the too easy to spoof “I want, I want I want” one.

I want my own lies
I want my own yucks
I want my own mucks
I want my own stenches
I want my own myths
I want my own legends
I want my own hallucinations
I want my own embellishments
I want I want I want I want

There are many good ways of living
There are many good ways of posting
There are many good ways of teaching
There are many good ways of communicating
On this be aware beware be aware beware be aware beware

Oh ye Catholic of Reality
Oh ye Christian of Reality
Oh ye Crossanized Christian of Reality
Oh ye Believer of the Singularity
Where goes the Trinity?

Oh ye Deyucked One
Oh ye Deborn One
Oh ye Debred One
Oh ye Debrainwashed One
Who did what to you
before and during Crossanization?

And this should really get Concy to pop a vein or two and regressed back to the conservative Concy is really is, or one hundred or two hundred posts in response:

Islam is all
Islam is perfect
Islam is the way
Islam is the right path

Islam is all
Muslims stands tall,
Islam is perfect
Muslims are moral prefects

Islam is the way
Muslims are not easy to sway,
Islam is the right path
Muslims are not forgiving of gaffs

**************************************************

Just A Comment,

Hello. Referring to that Ibrahim Mahfouz post in Pamela Taylor's thread?

I would think American atheists and non-Christians, and even some Christians, would be more afraid of Christians calling them "unbelievers" and shoving faith in the public square. "Non-believers" are those who don't believe in God. "Unbelievers" are even applied to believers who don't believe in and pursue justness, justice, peace and compassion for fellow men for amity and equity.

I take it you are fearful Muslims would all slay some 5.7 billion "unbelievers" who are not Muslims in the world. Quite a spectacular assumption. We can't even force out or question our repressive and corrupt governments without risk of life sometimes.

Look more closer and honestly and you'll see it it is Christian missionaries who are most active in bringing the "Truth" and "Salvation" to non-Christians, even to Christians not of the same denominations, than the other way around, even by Muslims around the world. The more converts, the more adherents for, er, funds for the church "headquarters", programmes and activities.

If there is any failure by "moderate" Muslims, I prefer educated Muslims, it is our failure to challenge our incompetent and corrupt governments which fails to alleviate poverty, bring even basic health and education to our populations, or develop viable development programmes. The imams riles against us too, for not helping our fellow Muslims in dire need to improve their lot this with functional policies and programmes. No amount of charities given seems to compensate for lack of government focus and will to help their populations. I do ignore non-Muslims, and even Muslims based in the west who lectures us on how to bring mental and material progress to Muslims in the Muslim world. Most are all mouths and that's it. We'll do it our way. Mistakes are part of the learning process and growing up.

Cheers

"J"

What you like Lee, is being very nasty and getting away with it under a phony flag of self-righteousness - you could care less what anybody says or thinks....you're goofing because that's what you do - as Lee. Ain't no thing.......

You're an ahole all the same. We're done.

What the motherf*** is this, WWIII?

Perspective, you blew it big time with that last remark. Bad.

Lee, cool it. I don't fully understand you. Perhaps that is impossible for me, dunno. But if you would try, just once, to explain where you are coming from, and explain in language that this honky can comprehend, it would be really appreciated. I know you are angry, and rightly, but that is a difficult way of getting across a difficult message.

CURIOUS - you need to work on your sense of humor as well. Since when is the 'bowels' of anything a derogatory location? I moved mine this morning -and let's not forget that Lee's fictional life takes place in Harlem.....

This entire exchange is a work of fiction my friend - exactly what do you think is going on here?

Wow - here I am a racist and an anti-semite to boot ....look's like I'll have to vote for McCain after all. This is exactly why I like Republican women - they always have great sense of humor.

Men of either party, not so much..........

Whitbread p.i.g. face Mayonnaise Perspective:

Take your filthy sht home, "Bro" You aren't even American, I'll bet. I'd bet a great deal. Either that or you're living in a cave.

Haven't seen many p.i.g.s in caves in the "bowels of Harlem." But at least we flush.

You just shtface it out all over folks.

Get b.e.n.t. whitebread, and do it somewhere else.

So what have you got lined up Lee? Surgery and shoe polish? I can see your fantasy coming true -one day you'll be 'black like me'. The rap don't cut it bro - better move South. Work on your sense of humor....

My God, Perspective, "the bowels of Harlem"? You really are a racist all the way around.

Sorry, but you have got to go. Do get lost, please, and quickly.

Don't hold back, Lee. No reason.

More power: the Catholic church

M. Anonymous (Hamlet),

Didn't mean to give you a compliment. Just come on back.

For all interested - see Obama's recent remarks as he addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - easy to google. Nobody disputes the political clout of this organization.

There is no argument here - a comment was made by myself in the most tangential way regarding these comments, and suddenly the forces for GOOD emerge from the bowels of Harlem with an onerous if not ominous message - perhaps inspired by Bill Clinton himself and delivered by his good friend Lee.....but pandering is pandering - nonetheless.

PS. Bill really needs to get some new friends - he and his pals sure didn't help Hillary all that much, now did they?

Lee,

I don't mean to intrude, but I have noticed something about M. Anonymous, whom I also admire.
He doesn't handle complements well, and I assume you're complementing him.

Once I was bowled over by something he wrote and I told him. He didn't post to me for a week. I guess I was too effusive or something.

Curious

PS. You're apparently right about rats.

Arminius,

Yes, you did say that to Farnaz.

Everybody of that type blames AIPAC, but there are other Jewish interests represented in DC, including the Anti-Defamation League.

The anti-Defamation League. I see. So then, the NAACP represents black interests?

AIPAC

Brags about its own self. So do we.

Power: Christian fundamentalists, American Riflemen's Association, Oil Lobby

Jeez, Lee,

Ya don't hold back, do ya? I admit to being a honky that is too trusting and always give the other guy the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps that is why I am poor....?

Anyway, let me take a look at two statements that you mention.

First, "When did Farnaz stop posting? When you asked her about antisemitism in good old NYC. You told her that if all the Jews left, the economy would fall apart." Did I say that? If I did, it was an exaggeration, at the least. The Jews do have a big presence there, of course. Also, when Spain kicked out all the Jews in 1492, the economy did take a tumble. Anyway, I do not harbor any prejudice like that.

Next, concerning the power of Jewish interests in American politics. It is there, to be sure. But it is also a target used by anti-semitic folks. Everybody of that type blames AIPAC, but there are other Jewish interests represented in DC, including the Anti-Defamation League.

Arminius

Lee, et al - that's all you got?

Sorry pal, your quasi black jibber jabber doesn't cut it down here in S. Carolina - if you were a real liberal, and of course you're not, you'd be quoting Eric Alterman and his new book 'Why We Are Liberals' - and you'd be quoting from his decidedly liberal Jewish perspective on conservative Judaism both here in in Israel - hey, he doesn't like it either - can you imagine, a New York Jew not liking Israeli policies towards Palistinians?

BTW, I'm not a Christian...and you're not a Jewish liberal, right?

Unbelievable - but that's not you, is it Lee? No, you're kind of an Al Jolson sort of entertainer, no? But the now familiar phony black face act don't cut it, bro.....30 going on 15?

You need to get out more - stop trying to impress folks with your deep insights....

In another thread a poster said that many sermons by Imams around the world fall under three categories.

1. Fight the "Unbelievers" till Islam is the only religion.

2. Establish the Sharia(Koran and Hadith; tradition of the Prophet) as the law of the land.

3. Details of the horrors awaiting the Unbelievers and the rewards Allah is preparing for the Believers i.e. Paradise with gardens crisscrossed by rivers of wine, milk and honey and populated by blackeyed nymphs reclining under silk tents etc.

Is this the common vision that guides the actions of the Imams and their followers? If true, moderates in the Muslim world have a tough task ahead.

Besides, all we are the "unbelievers". Creepy.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

Perspective:

RE: Your last post

You are a p.i.g. Shut up, and get the H outta here.

Get out.

Merry Anonymous (Hamlet),

Y'all just gotta keep on wid dat deblish double seein'. Ain't you evah gonna give ole Lee a hollah? I dun wrote a poem foa ya.

Do I read code correctly? I'm thinking of the last thread. Anyway, I think it was the last thread. Did you hook up with "antropological linguistics" or "linguistic anthropology" when you were in Islamabad?

Did you notice that Farnaz hasn't posted in awhile? And I think I know why. Ain't nothing to do with Mary Cunningham or Jihadist, none of that.
----------------------------------

Arminius,

I once told you you seem sincere, and you do. Please don't take this the wrong way, my friend, but you are just the slightest bit blinded by the white, the white Christian, that is. I'll skip what I was trying to tell you about Harlem, about you being in it, that is. The issue wasn't that folks wouldn't accept you. That had nothing to do with the point.
------------------------------------

To somebody like Lee, Perspective's post is transparent. You should be able to see it. Anyone should.

When did Farnaz stop posting? When you asked her about antisemitism in good old NYC. You told her that if all the Jews left, the economy would fall apart.

Now, what does that mean? Just what the H does it mean?

Those were your words, Arminius, not Perspective's. Now, put your words upside Perspective's and try to see. Open your brain, heart, and soul, Arminius. Cuz I think you got all three.
-------------------------------------------
Hey M. Anon (Hamlet),

If you're more than thirty, you're gonna die soon, you keep this up. You seeing too much, way too much. Healots is Healots as Bennan, the Bircher said. Been to four continents, outside of this one. Folks is what they is.

Give a holler.

Lee
----------------------------------------------
PS. Arminius,

Almost missed this from Sick shty Perspective:

If anyone can construe anti-semitism from my posts please do enlighten me - as regards Obama, he's a politician and is not immune to the power of Jewish interests in American politics - is anybody? This was all posted on MSNBC and First Read

LIKE all Jews think the same. Like MSNBC is the source.

YOU CAN'T GO, HAMLET. YOU CALLS THEM OUT. RATS COME OUT WHEN YOU CALL THEM.

Arminius -

I appreciate your point of view on this - we had previously had any number of completely reasonable discussions on a variety of topics and on different threads, until this debacle.

I recall a number of exchanges with other posters on Jewish issues, etc. and without any evidence of contention - if Merry is an 'expert' and advocate of Jewish history and religious practice, I hope he acquaints himself with Kaballah - the very heart of Jewish Mysticism - and an incorporation of the philosophy and experience of the Talmud, Torah, and Zohar together.

If the Israelis were more familiar with the heart of their own religion, they'd be talking less about the need to wage war on Iran as an 'inevitable' outcome of Iran's recalcitrant behavior regarding the build-up of nuclear capacities - these are in fact supported by other forces that are far more tangible (nuclear) enemies of the USA - namely North Korea and in all likelihood, China and Russia - all mortal enemies that seemingly have no real comprehension as regards the possible outcomes of their joint efforts at de-stabilizing USA influence in the Near East - potential chaos incarnate!

Iran is the nexus point, but who will inherit the problem? And we're arguing about implied anti-semitism? As I said, I'm deeply disappointed....

Perspective and M Anon,

This is troubling, and I suspect a classical 'failure to communicate'. Can we get civil here - you are both superbly capable of it - and try to clear this up?

With respect,

Arminius

My former view of said 'Merry Anonymous' was as an informed, worldly individual that had a broad and eclectic point of view on various and sundry topics - the self-declared conversion to atheism was really secondary. His ability to be so easily offended by the preceived prejudices of others is worthy of a second look.....

Now I see this identity as a 'former captive of Christianity' as suspect as the CCNL conversion to non-Abrahamic Christianity.....what, exactly is that?

Former believers in anything sends up the red flags - I begin to think 'hidden agenda' when I see evidence of a conversion. There is nothing more zealous than a convert - to any position whatsoever. Am I anti-semitic? How so?

If anyone can construe anti-semitism from my posts please do enlighten me - as regards Obama, he's a politician and is not immune to the power of Jewish interests in American politics - is anybody? This was all posted on MSNBC and First Read. To me, this failure by MA to read what was acually said indicates a pre-disposition to a certain point of view - you see what you're prepared to see.....even if it isn't there.

This has in fact been the hallmark of the Bush administration and I was hoping for better from so-called Democrats.

Here is a case in point. Again and again, CCNL had been told by I don't know how many Jews that the men, and possibly one woman, who wrote the Tanakh were not "scribes."

Not so New Age Christianist jargon imposed on another people. Bigotry, a milder form, but bigotry nonetheless. Born of an ossified brain.

Crowded theater.

M. Anonymous,
Former Captive, etc., growing increasingly irritated. For how many centuries must prejudice and bigotry continue?

M Anon,

I did not see any overt bigotry in Perspective's post. Could you give more detail to your accusation?

Arminius

Mr. Mark,

So to be historically accurate, the statement should be "the authors of the OT i.e. the Jewish scribes were actively and passively pro-abortion." And this statement should be followed by "These scribes had no clue as to the meaning of fetal life nor ever saw a fetal sonogram."

Bigots are always offended by being called bigots, Perspective. Ramble on.

I've never understood it. If one is a bigot, why not simply profess yourself as one? That would give you much more authority to speak.

Anti-semitism is the inaugural racism of the West. Every other form of racism will disappear before it does. You are a part of a time-honored tradition.

CCNL's bigotry, on the other hand, is, in some of its aspects, more recent.

M. Anonymous
Former Captive of Christianity

Merry -

Re-reading your post has now offended me in the extreme - as it turn out, you're a shallow pretender to knowledge. Sorry pal, you have no further weight, and no credibility. Ramble on...

Merry -

How ever did you arrive at your anti-semitic rendering of my post? I merely reported what was in the news - the Palistinians were quite distraught at Obama's declared position on Israeli vs Palistinian issues.

Did you fail to read this in the news? Your pre-judgemental statement on my (unknown) position rather surprises me - I would never have thought it. Your opinions are always valued of course - but with your usual informed and comprehensive reading.

I profoundly hope Obama doesn't pick Clinton as his VP, and I profoundly hope she doesn't accept the position, if asked.

1. WE need her in New York.

2. Carter and the Carterites, Obama's advisors including old Brezsinski, of the IRan Hostage Oil-gate Brezsinkis.

3. Clinton's health care position

4. Position on immigration

The last two won't change. Having said that he is opposed to mandatory health care, Obama would be hard-pressed to change his mind, if and when he is elected--that is, he would get no support.

Carter and the -ites hate Clinton, and I would find it hard to believe that will change. Hopefully, Obama will be elected. With a Carterite Secretary of STate, a Carterite cabinet, and Clinton as VP, fireworks are bound to develop.

You can continue to avoid what are serious issues, but we are talking about facts here, not about gender or complexion. Those facts will come back to you in January, when hopefully, Obama will be sworn in. Among the poor who don't have health care both women and black people number. A thought.

Hillary Clinton should endorse Obama, campaign for him, and push her Senate career to the hilt.

In a sense, you're right - but the unwillingness to engage in a reasonable exchange of opinions shows fixation to an inordinate degree.

While JJ is simply an unreachable self-centered egomaniac that has a patholigical point of view (he can be found on many blogs) CCNL has far more potential capacity for one on one communication - but the prevailing orientation and inflexibiilty that we see is always overriding - and that being, the hatred for Islam.

Can you imagine being fixated on Islam, for example? I can't - although I like the Sufi inspired poety of Rumi....but of course this is representative of deep mysticism, to which I'm quite partial. This is not part and parcel of the world of CCNL.....

The goal for CCNL is castigation of all things Islamic - and of course noboby cares. Enemies are always at hand - since when is today and 9/11 any different?

We live, we die - who in hell needs to fixate on imaginary enemies? We do get to see an encapsulation of mind sets on this blog that are quite interesting - e.g. how people spend their innnermost time and thoughts in miniature, as it were.

Mindless posting of saved and previously generated messages is antithetical to real communication - so this is the essense of CCNL.

He has a point of view, but it's not debatable. Slipping under the atheist radar just doesn't cut it........

Hi, M Anon,

Welcome back from Islamabad. My best wishes go out to Pakistan, that troubled nation. It is apparent there are many there who are trying to make it better. But it remains a serious flash point.

Not much poetry coming in.

Arminius

Btw. Arminius,

I returned on Monday from Islamabad. Worth a thought to send CCNL there. We could all chip in. Met some remarkable people there, struggling for a voice and democracy. Small world, as well, but more on that later.
--------------------------------------
Bewildful, Wiglaf, Pseudo--How goes it?

M. Anonymous

Arminius, et al,

I wouldn't care about CCNL either if he kept his posts short. I dislike bigotry in the extreme, and find his remarks about Islam offensive and inaccurate. But you can't stop that sort of thing.

I would no more try to stop him than I would Perspective's paranoia about Israel (read Jews), which is equally distasteful, unless either one went past a certain point. Hard to know where that point is--or would be, either with Perspective, or CCNL.

It's the length of CCNL's lists and and repeated pastings that annoy me.

Perspective, well, a common sort of bigot.

M. Anonymous
Former Captive of Christianity

PS. How goes the poetry volume?

A Birds Eye View:

You said,
"This obsesssion is no more cogent in it's expression than anything posted by JJ over these many months - you show yourself to have the very same affliction."

All true, up to a point. Note that I have been active in producing (usually bad) limericks about CCNL's endless cut-and-paste. Plus, I despise his bigotry. But, compared to the mindless spamming and really nasty hatred of JJ, CCNL comes out not so bad. I would not mind him being here if he kept his posts shorter, and managed to think about them. He apparently has a mind, but it is locked in an obsessive-compulsive black and white view of the universe. He needs to break out of his prison.

Arminius

I think we have a finally have the whole picture on CCNL, so here's a CSI profile - a political and social conservative that likes his religion of Catholicism very much, but can't buy the metaphysics ... so he buys into the apostate view of Crossan et al...but still enjoys church services.

In the meantime, the traditional values of Catholicism continue to inform his world view - and his ongoing pejorative critiques of Islam.

What could really be more 'holier than thou'? CCNL, you're a monumental hypocrite of the first order, and it's no wonder that you're obsessive-compulsive postings are finally wearing thin.

We see the core of your problem, and it is within you, rather than with Islam. While I care not a fig for Islam and it's philosophy, your obsession with patriotism and an eternal 'enemy' that is Islam is a huge waste of your time, and of course ours.

This obsesssion is no more cogent in it's expression than anything posted by JJ over these many months - you show yourself to have the very same affliction.

Why don't you see it?

Obama already knows where the attacks will come from and the basis of those attacks. Since race and any referral to said topic of race is verboten, the GOP swiftboaters will dwell on national defense weakness - really, that's all they've got.

Rather sadly, Obama has already allied himself with Israeli interests in anticipation of this strategy. And just when Israel declares that confrontation with Iran is 'inevitable' in the news today. As an aside, I have to agree with others that Obama's running mate is crucial, and Richardson is probably a first pick.

The Middle East is a mess, and this election will be all about who most cleverly skirts this confounding issue while seemingly declaring a probable strategy for OIL issues, and an uncontained, nuclear-based Iran.

But what about Iraq? The economy? All hale and bluster....the sages are already predicting an oil collapse on the order of today's real estate bubble.....and this is very probable given the runaway hyper-inflation of petroleum today.

And sorry folks, we're not getting out of Iraq any time soon.........

I have never been under the illusion that Obama was a social liberal - most white folks think black folks are invariably 'liberal'....you would be very wrong - again.

Obama is not, except in comparison to social policies crafted by the GOP - while that is a very big difference, he is fundamentally conservative in a number of regards - and that is not a bad thing in itself.

I have to see a presidential candidate as exceptional in their values and in their personal accomplishments, as well as in their political philosophy. For example, Obama is every bit as elite in his accomplishments, education and social status as Colin Powell and Bill Cosby (do I have to include Condi? well, OK) - three exceptionally successful and highly regarded Americans...who happen to be black. Others can and will enlarge on this issue in a plethora of ways.

The black issue will lurk throughout this campaign, and we all know it. To my mind, this current presidential matchup forces every American to confront black and white issues, and perhaps come to new realizations and conclusions -this is much bigger than a presidential race, and yet nothing can provide more amplification and focus for this issue than the singular national forum for POTUS.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated writes:

"Mr. Mark, the Atheist,

Hmmm, invoking the mythical, fictional OT to prove something? How strange!!!"

The only thing I was "proving" was that the god of the OT condones and even demands abortion on certain occasions. That doesn't prove that said deity exists, nor does it prove that abortion is either right or wrong, but it does prove that those who would invoke the Bible as a source of an anti-abortion stance don't know what the Bible actually has to say on the subject.

The Bible is both actively and passively pro-abortion. I don't think that anything could be clearer.

Mr. Mark, the Atheist,

Hmmm, invoking the mythical, fictional OT to prove something? How strange!!!

And just what is that pounding heart connected to in fetal sonograms?

Re Republicans and Clinton,

All too true. The Republicans were ravening like rabid pitbulls to go on the attack against Billary. Do we not remember Rush Bimbo & Co. urging Republicans to cross party lines and vote for HRC? Now, they weep in their beer, having been robbed of delivering to America the most bitter and divisive campaign ever.

But wait... if the Obama campaign has a sudden mental breakdown, and HRC is the VP candidate, then here it all comes, and probably worse, since the political fundies will have two targets. What a nightmare.

Another fitting tribute to Karl Rove, the Republican "architect":

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/

Re: Republicans and Obama

I find it strange that the media hasn't run any stories on the fact that the Republicans were dying to run against Hillary. They have been attacking her and Bill relentlessly for years, and they were literally salivating at the prospect of hauling out Monica-gate, Health care-gate, Foster-gate, White Water-gate and all the other Clinton-gates they used to bash Clinton and the Dem Party for years.

Most importantly, they NEEDED to be able to bring the old bought-and-paid-for strategies out of mothballs to reuse them against Hillary, because the RNC simply doesn't have the funds available to work up a whole new strategy to use against Obama.

Now, the best they can hope for is that Obama picks her as VP which would allow them to first attack the bottom of the ticket and then move that strategy against Obama himself.

It must suck to be a Republican these days!

Dear Former Xian -

Any knowledgeable Xian knows that the OT not only condones abortion in some instances, but that Yahweh actually demanded it in some instances:

Abortion is not murder. A fetus is not considered a human life.

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. -- Exodus 21:22-23

Also, see:

Numbers 5:21-28; 31:15-17

Hosea 9:14, 16

To FH:

War are someone's associations so important about judging people? I have lots of friends -- many on the far right who I disagree with on the Iraq war and how we treat prisoners.

I have an equal number of friends on the left who think employers are the enemy.

Why should my friends be a primary means of evaluating me? Why would you look at what I do and what I say I'll do?

And isn't it time we abandoned labels like liberal and conservative. Bush proclaimed he was a compassionate conservative -- so how well did that work out? He defied many of the conservative principles like smaller, more effective government. And how about the ideas of responsibility and accountability? I'm pretty sure he'll close that $2 trillion deficit before he leave office. He certainly wouldn't want to force future generations to clean up his mess.

By the way Jacquiem, very good post. It says many of the things that I believe, but in a more forceful way.

What a wonderful column Susan. I couldn't agree more with everything you have said and I hope for the day when we can judge candidates by what they do and say and not by what their spiritual advisers said.

Well done.

The experience issue never meant a thing to me regarding Obama.

Against Mandatory health care

Carterite staff of advisors including Z. Brezsinski

Daley affiliations

Twice voted for unconditional increased funding in Iraq

Position to the right of Clinton and McCain on immigration.

That was and is pretty much it. Issues.

Yes, Johnson was a Senatory, of course, and in fact, I'd posted on this earlier. He had been, in fact, the most powerful Senate majority leader in history. Still holds the record. Had pushed through civil rights legislation in the 1950s.

I know why Kennedy wanted Johnson. He wanted to defuse him. The reason Johnson took the VP slot had to be that he thought it would position him for the presidency.

JFK also picked LBJ because the latter could, and did, deliver Texas in the election.

Re: JFK & LBJ.

JFK picked LBJ as his VP because he wanted to remove him from his power seat in the Senate.

For the record, Johnson was a senator, in fact, Senate Majority Leader, and one of the most powerful ever to hold that position. This experience enabled him to carry a lot of bills thru Congress.

As far as experience for being POTUS: Lincoln had exactly two not very successful years as a US Representative. Washington did have administrative experience - he managed an army. Same with Eisenhower. Truman was a state judge for a while, then US Senator from 1934-1944.

Arminius

Btw., Daniel, I see nothing new about Carterite donosaur Zbignew Brezsinski and the rest of the Carterite staff of advisors.

That stuff is old. Not having mandatory health care is old, as well. Voting for increased funding in Iraq twice in a row is new.

The only change I see in Obama is the word "change." He does have debts, Daley debts as Lee mentioned awhile back on this thread and Carterite debts.

There is nothing for it at this point. My interest in this was and has been issues. I supported Edwards, a white Christian man, since what the heck, we're doomed to have Christian presidents from now til eternity, because he was the most left-wing of the three. I admit that some of his leftier proposals hadn't a prayer of making it through Congress, but they were good for me to hear.

When he dropped out, I was left with Clinton. Now I'm left with Obama. Carterites and even Daleyites are better than anything McCain brings to the table. Politics is not for the naive or innocent. No offense, but it's brutal and ugly.

M. Anonymous
Former Captive of Christianity

Who, on this thread, is concerned about lack of experience?

Some thoughts:

I like Obama. I think he is a special and unusual person. There is a sort of newness about him, in his uplifting attitude, and in him, there is the hope of better things to come.

But I am not naive, or stupid. Perhaps the Obama paradigm will not work, in Washington. Maybe they will eat him up and spit him out. That is a danger; I know that. But I think it is worth the risk; I want to strike out in a new direction; I want to say goodbye to Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, and give someone new a chance. I am hopeful in Obama. What is so terrible about being hopeful, in someone that you like and admire?

In the past, I have been hopeful, and my hopes have been dashed. When that happens, you want to drag yourself into a hole, and forget about the whole thing, the sorry mess, mankind, and humanity, and all that. But then, something happens to make me hopeful again, and I like that feeling, and I want to go with it, even if it seems to be misplaced, and not likely to succeed.

Experience? Who knows what that is, or what experience might be needed? Who knows what will happen? I said here once that George Washington had no experience. People disagreed, but I think I am right. He just made it all up as he went along, and times were not so hard, and he was a sensible guy, and the rest is history.

Likewise, Abraham Lincoln did not have any experience. But he had lived an adventuresome and introspective life; he had weathered a difficult homelife; he had a good mind, and a senstive heart, and good and sensible relgiious outlook, and he worked his way through our national crisis, and then he was gone.

What about Harry Truman? No more country bumpkin was ever President, than he. He was not sophistocated or worldly, not at all. He was not in on FDR's inner circle; in fact they barely knew each other. He came to the Presidency, perhaps at one of the most critical times in all of history. And somehow, he had a good mind and a sensitive heart, and the experience of life, that we all acquire, and he, too, worked his way through things, and came out, not so bad.

So, this complaint about lack of experience, is not really all so valid after all, is it?

Dear Schmoozie -

Were studying scripture my raison d'etre,
Along with you, I'd surely fret,
'Bout eternal damnation
And belief in creation,
And that'd be as far as I'd get.

But limit your search to the scripture,
And you'll get but an incomplete picture
Of the world as it is.
For the myth-pushing biz
Demands intellectual stricture.

So, go often and enjoy your old fables,
While I sit at the hope-building tables
Of reason and science
And a truth-based reliance
On FACTS! - ready, willing and able.

;)

Curious:

Come to think of it, you're right. He has been less noisy of late. I had been wondering what was giving me a sense of calm. Hopefully, he'll be able to keep up the silence. He could always read, rather than announce, in his spare time.

M. Anonymous

MA:

She really knows how to handle Schumer. That I have noticed, and I can't imagine what strength she must be summoning to do it.

How many times I've seen the two of them questioned by reporters with him saying something characteristically idiotic and her smiling and giving a little nod. Somehow, she always ends up making substantive remard that brings the interview to a satisfactory close.

He's a hard worker, they say, and if he runs again, I think he'll win. It's been better since he stopped announcing his every passing thought and move.

Oh, he's (Mr. Mark) at it again. The know-it-all emeritus.

Here's one for ya:

Mr Mark despises religion
In his eyes, the opiate of the masses
But if he sincerely studied scripture
He too could see the big picture
Until then, get this man some glasses!

Wiccan,

I'll have to think about Webb. Clinton won't do Secretary of State, since it would dead-end her as far as the presidency is concerned.

Anyway, I think Obama will have to pick a Carterite, one recommended by his Carterite staff of advisors, more specifically, one recommended by old, old Zbiniew.

M. Anonymous

Curious:

I've got a theory about Schumer and Clinton. Schumer is an idiot about many but not all things. I know this is going to sound far-fetched, but Schumer knew Clinton was being groomed for the presidency, and I think he set out to create for himself the image of being her "protector." She clearly knew what she was dealing with from the outset. Did you ever notice how she acts with him whent they're in public together? Almost deferential. The whole thing is risible. I don't think the lady needs protecting, and he just ain't my idea of a knight.

Anyway, that's my theory.

M. Anonymous

Good morning, gents.

What do you think of Hillary as Secretary of State and Jim Webb as Secretary of Defense?

I had a grand time last night listening to my three boys (my son and his two friends who've been calling me Mom since they were 12) debating politics last night. M___ is a white liberal and supports Obama, , J___ is a good ole boy who supports McCain, and C___ is a black liberal who supports Hillary. Let me tell you, to these young folk (all in their early 20s), it didn't matter what color the candidate is, or what sex; they were all agreed that America needs rescuing from Bush and his neocons, and were fired up about the best way to do it. They came up with those two appointments if Obama wins the presidency.

The dinosaurs are dying off, the next generation is rising, and things will never be the same again.

M. Anonymous:

I agree with you about New York. I had a hard time believing she'd survive with Chuck Schumer, the egomaniac as you called him, but she did.

I hope she stays in the Senate. I admit I emailed her and asked her to.

LBJ was the least likely of VPs, far more powerful politician than Kennedy had ever been. And then look at Hubert Humphrey. I think sometimes politicians opt for the VP slot thinking it will better position them to run for president.

I hope she doesn't do it. New York needs her in the Senate. She can run for president the next time around. She doesn't have to be VP.

Also, she'd never get along with Obama's Carterite appointments, the prospect of which scare the hell out of me, I confess. But they will be there, just as they've been his advisors.

There is no choice, but Obama. That's the long and short of it. I think she should stay clear of him, just throw her support behind him and help him get elected.

DITLD:

Yes, you're right, of course. It was Kennedy who ws the last senator.

I think CCNL is married, so Florida won't do. At any rate he's got the hots for Jihadist, for whom he's too old, and she's married anyway.

He's got to go. Too bad, but there's enough hatred and bigotry. It's damned annoying to have to scroll through all this nonsense.

Daniel -

Obama can't afford to have Hillary in the #2 slot. She'd be a challenge to his power at every turn. And, I don't think she'd accept the position unless she had an agreement with Obama that she'd be an über-active VP, and Obama doesn't need or want such a player in that position.

If anything, Obama will offer Hillary a cabinet position from which she could be fired, if needs must. You can't fire your VP as they're elected to the position, but any cabinet officer must bow to the whims of the president or be sent packing. After Hillary's mudslinging in the primaries, Obama has got to be wary of her. He needs to put her in a job that carries the implicit "you serve at my discretion" sword hanging over her head.

A SCOTUS appointment is a lifelong gig. It's not a job you take for 4 to 8 years with the idea that you're running for president. As I said, Hillary might be interested, but she'd have to give up her presidential aspirations to accept it.

I think that CCNL should go to Florida, and meet up with a nice widow woman who is looking for some male companionship. Then maybe all those scary Muslims wouldn't seem so threatening, after all.

I think the last President from the Senate was Kennedy. Wasn't LBJ from the House? Am I remembering correctly?

I suggested that Obama might choose Chuck Hegel as his running mate. I thought that being a Republican might be considered a strong point for Hegel, since Obama says he is planning to do things a new way, and that would fit with what he says. And Hegel ia pretty good guy, I think, and is an outcast among Republicans, because he dared to criticize Bush.

I do not think that Obama and Hillary like each other very much. I do not think Obama wants her for VP and I do not thinks she wants to be VP. However, anything is possible, and I understand that these descisions are not just about personal preferences, but are political marriages, and anything is possible, so maybe he will pick her.

People attribute a lot of Machiavellian motivations to Hillary that I do not see. I think that she was sure she would be the Democratic nominee, and that she saw this Obama character rocket up from nowhere ahead of her, and was thrown off balance. And in reformulating her strategy and her presentation to the public, she actually became an improved candidate, but it was too late.

I do not now see her plotting and scheming for anything, but I see her as plodding forward in her difficult situation, just trying to get through it, wih some dignity, so that she might continue somehow, in the future to be a "player."

I cannnot see someone like her wanting to be Vice President. For someone like her, it would be a demotion to be Vice President. She has already been First Lady, which is almost the same thing.

Perhaps Obama could promise her a Supreme Court nomination. But then, she would have to wait, wait, wait, until someone dies to assume her position, like Prince Charles. Or he could promise her any one of a number of other cabinet level positions, which she might like better than Vice President.

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians".

Allegedly a quote from Martin Luther or just another LIE from atheists?

Tell these people that Barack Obama is white a few years from now and they would believe it.

Tell them that it's black powder that he uses on his skin. As long as it's a lie, they are predisposed to believe it.

Mr. Mark:

I agree with you about Richardson. Also, this, I think, is the first time since LBJ that we've had a Senator in the presidency since LBJ. Ford had been a congressman, I think.
--------------------------------------
Anynomouses and Another Anymous:

While I like to think of myself as the most tolerant of fellows, second, perhaps, only to Arminius, I think I, too, have had more than enough of CCNL. Free speech is one thing; spamming, spewing bigotry, conversionism are others.

Will email David Waters.

If, like me, you've had it with CCNL's endless lists of bigotry, hatred, and nonsense, please email David Waters. Click on his name on the bottom of the Main Page.

They may not be able to block him every time, but will surely be able to reduce the number of endless prefab empty verbiage.

Please click on David Waters, and email him.

Mr Mark:
Loved the poem.
I found this quote last night--

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians"
Martin Luther (1483-1546)

GOODBYE CCNL.

IT'S BEEN ALL TOO REAL

CCNL,

The truths of the monotheistic contemporary religions are disputed by few but what is still difficult to explain is how an ignorant/itinerant carpenter or a an illiterate, womanizing hallucinating arab captured the hearts and imaginations of millions upon millions of people over hundreds of generations. And there my friend is where you find God. You may pick at the messengers all you like but the proof is in the faith of the masses however they perceive the devine.

I appreciate your scholarship although I find your characterizations a bit cynical and juvenile but the bottom line is throughout the ages and among all peoples there is a desire to understand not just the how and when but the why.

BRAVO!!!!!!

ENCORE!!!!! :)

CCNL, okay you are not a scholar. My bad for presuming you were!

CCNL, given you are a scholar, why not prove it by responding only to the essay at hand instead of putting your reputation at risk with endless copy-paste of the same comments you prepared for this forum nineteen months ago?

Just imagine what a sensation you have become - so many bloggers have turned into "poets" in an attempt to "disappear you" in order to stop reading your words of "wisdom!"

If it's my doctrine, then it's looney. But it's not and I've seen firsthand the power of the Book. Who gets to know the future? Is it the pot or the potmaker?

If the pots have so many cracks, they are of no use to the Potter. From there , you would know the future of the pots. Even evolution believes that if it has no use, it would be discarded. It's a universal rule. As the Potter gathers the defective pots together, so are the flies converging in the Sodom of California.

It's only a matter of time when the gathering will be over so the next phase will begin. When that time comes, we will know who's really hanging on the looney rope.

If it's my doctrine, then it's looney. But it's not and I've seen firsthand the power of the Book. Who gets to know the future? Is it the pot or the potmaker?

The pots have so many cracks. They are of no use to the Potter. From there , you would know the future of the pots. Even evolution believe that if it has no use, it would be discarded. It's a universal rule. As the Potter gathers the defective pots together, so are the flies converging in the Sodom of California.

It's only a matter of time when the gathering will be over so the next phase will begin. When that time comes, we will know who's really hanging on the looney rope.

Mr. Mark:

A fine tribute to Spiderman. However, I assure you CCNL is not gone. Won't you bring your mighty pen to bear on this troublesome topic?

Arminius and Wiglaf will soon be publishing Moving Poems on CCNL's Longed-for Departure, Vol. I. Contributions have been requested by Arminius.

M. Annonymous

So, Spidey returns with his Gospel of Fear,
Assaulting the senses of all who can hear.
Thoughts of pain and damnation,
Still fuel his elation,
Though the sane 'mong us find him quite queer.

Spidey thinks that our listening to reason,
Amounts to a blasphemous treason.
So he prattles and screams
Like one's nightmarish dreams
And he does this no matter the season.

Like a tape that is stuck in a loop,
Spidey flings wide his Christ-centered poop,
While his mirth he inspires
Thinking hell's burning fires
Will someday engulf this whole group.

So, hat's off to our resident dope,
Who's self image could e'en best the Pope,
With his endless drum banging
That equates to his hanging
Himself..with his own looney rope.

Dear DITLD -

I disagree on Chuck Hagel as Obama's VP. He will not cross the Party line when there are many, many Ds who would do nicely.

I believe that Obama will make a tactical move and avoid putting another Senator on the ticket. Senators rarely make it to president these days. Americans like governors. This year, a Senator WILL be elected president, but a VP as well? I don't think so.

Obama will do a thorough search, but at this point, I would bet on Gov. Richardson for the VP nod. He's an accomplished Governor, he's from the SW, he's a statesmen with real depth in foreign policy, he's friendly and accessible and I can see him fitting a #2 spot with ease. He's also Hispanic, which would be a big boon for Obama's ticket. Plus - and there's no other way to say this - he doesn't have strong ethnic features, so whites who worry about such things would find a comfort level with him. Obama could also promote him as having an excellent feel for both sides of the immigration faux issue, though I don't believe that will be an issue this fall.

Just my 2¢.

DITLD:

But doesn't what you write go against what you've been saying about the individual and belief?

You are closer now to my view, but not quite there. My own is that belief is a sociohistorical phenomenon. On the social level it doesn't change in the blink of an eye, but change can be brought about through various processes of indoctrination. Look at the progress we've seen through the civil rights and feminist movements.

Indoctrination, btw., isn't always a dirty word.

I guess I don't see belief in God as categorically different from other kinds of "social facts."

Merry Anonymous

Let me tell you a story.

The Civil War was fought over the state's rights to dissolve their ties to the Federal Union and sescede from the Union.

The political theorists of the North said that the Federal Union was permenant, and that states could not simply withdraw from the Union on their own. This was said to be a core value, which was inalterable.

The political theorists of the South said that the Federal Union was a voluntary union of sovereign states and that therefore any state could withdraw from the Union at any time, and reclaim their national sovereignty. This was likewise said to be a core value, which was inalterable.

Then they fought the war, and the South lost. After the defeat of the South, the North wished to amend the Constitution to obliterate slavery, and then to rule and reform the South, and to do this, they did not want the Southern states readmitted into the Union, and they did not want the Southern delegations invited back to Congress. They decided that the Southern states could not be readmitted into the Union as states, but would instead be divided up into military districts, under military rule, until the Northern program was firmly established. They changed their core value that they fought the war over, for simple political expediency. They changed their core value because suddenly, the core value did not suit them anymore, so it was easy, more than easy, to ignore it, and forge ahead, as though this core value had never been embraced.

And likewise, the Southern states saw that it was in their interests to participate in the political life of the nation, and they appealed in vain to be readmitted into the Union, since the North had won the war, and so now, wasn' the North obligated to take them back?

They also abandonned their core value that they had fought a war to preserve, because it suited their immediate needs to take the opposite view.

This is a story to show, that what people believe, deep in their heart, can be cast off in the wink of any eye, when it no longer suits their personal agenda and motivations. And that people are not ruled by core values, but just recite whatever core value might support what is in their own interests, at any given time.

And in fact, people do not even believe anything, but just state what is most advantagious to their own position, and then call that a core value. It is as though we have access to these great brains, and this great apparatus of language, but we don't know how to use it but just press buttons and pull levers in our minds, and in our voices, to get things to come out in a way that suits our own needs.

Thinking about Clinton as VP--Nobody would have thought of LBJ as a VP type either....

Mr. mark wrote "The odds right now say it will be an absolute wipe-out, the likes of which has never before been seen. "

Do you mean the burning of Sodom part 2 in Califonia? Nobody can't stop the fire, not even Obama or McCain combined. The problem lies on the people choosing destruction by breaking the rules of God.

It's coming just like the sunrise. The rules of God are unbreakable. Break it and you'll break.

DITLD:

You should read the article Steven posted if you haven't already done so. It goes to the discussion we've been having on belief.

M. Anonymous

PS. Politicians aren't the only ones who do this. It's also how people become dogmatic and why so many people like John McCain's public persona even if they'd never vote for him. He doesn't have to be consistent with whatever the prevailing view of consistency is.

About my previous post, I do not think that anyone who opposes Obama is a racist. But I am from the South, and my memory goes back to the days of Jim Crowe, and that experience growing up has probably had the biggest influence on me in my life. For in addition to the separation of society into the white race and the "colored" race, white people were also separated, often bitterly, between those who sought to sustain the staus quo, and those who hoped for a new and better day. The civil rights movement could not have succeeded with these people.

If someone opposes Obama on reasonable political or philosophical grounds, then I would not see any reason to wonder about racial motivations. But if someone doesn't like his looks, his middle name, his relgious affiliation, and if someone is suspicious of him because he is intelligent and is a good speaker, and points out that he does not wear a flag lapel pin, I aslo do not automatically attritute these motivations to racism, but I just wonder, and based on my background, I cannot help but wonder.

I think there is a very good chance that Obama will not be able to overcome people who will oppose him because he is not white. And I also think there is a very good chance that he will be killed. But, I have decided, he is the one I like best, by more than just a little bit, and I would follow him, even to defeat.

I have heard many people say that they do not know how Obama can be getting so many donations from so many people, and there is something funny going on there, that Oprah is perhaps funding him. But, I, an Obama supporter, have sent money to him, and I will send him more if he needs it. How can this be? ask people, who do not love their own candidate as much.

But it be!

And I have never given money to a political candidate before.

I did like Hillary better at one time. But, now, she seems like a fairly standard, cookie-cutter politician, who answers an interviewer's questions, not to give answers or to communicate ideas, but merely to run out the clock, 'til the interview's done. And she is too careful, weighing everything to see how it will be recieved, and she is never able to get out front on any issue, and lead the way, but must always hang back to see how her message is going over, and if perhaps, it might be tweaked and changed a little.

It is as though she has many many scripts memorized, which she can pull out at a moment's notice, one for any occaision. And that is an impressive quality to have. But she is not a leader, that people will follow. She reminds me a little of General McClellan, in the Civil War. Remember him? He was always getting ready, but no matter how prepared he was, he was never ready enough, and to make even more preparations. He was careful and cautious, and always worried, that things might not go right, and was sort of a failure as a general. But I like Obama better, whose mental appartatus seems to be generating his original thoughts, as he is saying them. At least, that is how it seems to me.

I think Obama is an unusual person. I do not consider that his wife is just not proud to be an American. I do not consider that he has no lapel flag pin. I do not consider the church he attended. I consider the intellect of his mind, and the goodness of his heart; I do not think I am so easily fooled as people were previously fooled by Bush; I do not see Obama as a sneaky and stealthy person. I see an open person, whose ideas I am interested in.

And as for Hillary, we do not need to worry about her. She had her place in the sun. She is not loosing out on anything so big. She is an iconic figure, whom everyone knows, simply by her first name. I cannot imagine that she would want to be Vice President. She keep her job in the Senate, or she can be or do anything that she wants. I do not feel sorry for her, and I do not think she feels sorry for herself.

I think that Obama will pick Chuck Hegel to be his Vice Presidential running mate.

Perspective:

I don't believe she'll run as an Independent. If she didn't win and if the Dems lost, it would take decades for the party to recover. She's no idiot and she knows that.

VP, I don't know. She really isn't the VP type, but, then, she make think it better positions her for the next go-round. And she may think it would improve Obama's chances--I'm serious when I speak of her hatred for the Republicans. It's quite real, and the feeling is mutual.

As for the Senate, she's done a hell of a job as junior senator to an ego-maniac. I can tell you she's very well-respected, very well-liked. She should be; she's done a damned good job. Personally, I think that's where she should stay.
Throw as much weight as she can into healing the rifts and getting support behind Obama. Again, I think her supporters are one bunch of angry people now, but that, one hopes, will change.

I think McCain's free pass days are coming to an end. As for Obama, who knows? Why would the "media" turn on him now and/or simply give him normal media scrutiny?

If they keep up the love fest with Obama, if McCain can't raise more money, I think Obama can do it. The right wing Republican Loonies loathe McCain and will continue to do so no matter what Nut Job he picks as Spiritual Advisor. Hard for him to be convincing on that score, especially since he's not one of the great church-goers of our time.

Whatever McCain's libertarian appeal may be, I doubt its enough to pull away many large numbers of Dems who had been Clinton supporters, especially, if she campaigns for Obama.

Even if the Democratic Party remains in the state of shambles its been in for years, and I suspect it will, I think Obama can pull it off--that is, if some of the other Ifs win out.

If Senator Obama is wise

he will not take victory for granted
he will fight for every vote until polls close on election day in Nov
he will choose the wisest advisors
and the best possible running mate

Rev Wright did not endorse Obama
Rev Wright as the media rightly noted
Was playing to his fifteen minutes of fame
Endorsing himself
He made it clear that Obama as politician
Had to do his bit by himself
Rev Wright was out to promote himself
Justifying the content of his sermons

Poor Fr Pfleger
The misguided fool
Played too much politics
Trying to please the black church
And the black president to be.
But he is at heart a professor robert jensen
Of school of journalism in Texas
Who wrote about the heart of whiteness.

Curious -

The downside to Hillary's now-fabled run at the nomination is it's resemblance to the fables of old.

Like the hare, she assumed the race was over before it started.

Like Icarus, she flew to close to the sun (ie: kept her campaign going too long) and has fallen from a great height.

I think Hillary is damaged goods in the Senate and has severely compromised her career there. She has pissed off a whole lot of Senators with her Obama bashing, especially the bashing that continued after it was clear she didn't stand a chance at the nomination.

Obama may throw her a bone - Sec of State or a spot on the SCOTUS, but accepting such an appointment would effectively end her hopes for the presidency.

Hillary is nobody's #2, so she'd never go for VP, unless she was actually running the show from the VP position.

Interesting article from

Scientific American Magazine: June 26, 2006

The Political Brain
A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias
By Michael Shermer

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion ... draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises ... in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. --Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620

Pace Will Rogers, I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a libertarian. As a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I have found at least something to like about each Republican or Democrat I have met. I have close friends in both camps, in which I have observed the following: no matter the issue under discussion, both sides are equally convinced that the evidence overwhelmingly supports their position.

This surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence. Now a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study shows where in the brain the confirmation bias arises and how it is unconscious and driven by emotions. Psychologist Drew Westen led the study, conducted at Emory University, and the team presented the results at the 2006 annual conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, while undergoing an fMRI bran scan, 30 men--half self-described as "strong" Republicans and half as "strong" Democrats--were tasked with assessing statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own candidate off the hook.

..the full article can be found here:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-political-brain&print=true

Merry -

Quite right - there's very little neutrality and quite a diminished sense of political practicality among Democrats these days. It seems as though they have as much loathing for the Democratic candidate not-of-their-choice as they do for GWB himself.

I followed the political blogs for many months, and there was a great deal of mutual dislike and rancor betwixt the Clintonians and Obamians, and that has not disappeared in any significant measure. While I doubt Hillary will run as an independent, I don't see her on the Obama ticket either. I initially liked Hillary for POTUS way back when, but in the end was willing to roll either way.

As far as the media goes, McCain has gotton a complete pass thus far in the press - will that media oblivian to his many foibles ever abate?

She's not going away, because if Obama gets elected and doesn't cut the mustard, she'll be right back next time around. There's no place like the Senate to hang out in the mean time.

Yes, McCain could win by default, if Democrats remain divided. In that sense, the Democrats are self-defeating, since the party platform ought to count for something above and beyond petty bickering and sore losering. A Democrat in the Whitehouse is a win, is a win, is a win.

I won't even get into the reasons why I've always liked Republican women, although without foregoing my own abrasive and obnoxious brand of liberalism - eventually they decide we're incompatible and leave...for bigger money and better political similitude, as a rule.

Anyway, I now have a Democratic girlfriend so I expect life to be completely different from here on out........but oooops. She loved Hillary and hated Obama, so now what?

Mr. Mark,

Hard to say about Lieberman. For awhile, I thought as you do, but then I started to have doubts. Sure, there's still a lot of rancor, but he won as an Independent. That says something about what he can do. Let's say (and hope) the Dems win in November. Lieberman has shown what he is capable of. I dunno.

My other thought is that if the Republicans win, they'll start wooing him (they already are) making promises of all kinds, manipulating among Republican Senators, so that they can dangle the right brand of grapes. He's just an inch away from the "liberal" Republican mainstream. It could happen.

Perspective:

You are forgetting one important factor under discussion, assuming, that is, that Clinton doesn't run as an Independent. (As for VP, she's publicly stated that she has not "asked for" the position, a point repeated as the emails urging her to run as an Independent have grown. Don't believe everyting you read in the newspapers; my advice would be to believe very little.)

Her constituency is more than furious about the hatchet job done by the media. I believe that some will vote for Obama. However, I've talked to too many, who are not hysterical, men and women, who gave me solid reasons why they will not. What will they do? 1. Not vote. 2. Vote for McCain. 3. Write in Clinton.

Calling them or Clinton names, as some have done, doesn't work. It digs them in deeper and deeper. This is no shoe-in. As I said, I never imagined Bush as president, McCain as Republican candidate. Remember Harry Truman.

And don't underestimate McCain. They are still searching for the bodies in the Senate. At the rally I attended, the crowd was booing him. His response? You had to see it to believe it. A few minutes later they were cheering.

Obama has a two-front struggle ahead of him. Win over Clinton's supporters. Defeat McCain.

Her only reason for running as VP would be to secure the election for Obama. She's well positioned nationally, and could run the next time around. Curious is right. She hates the Republicans with a hate that is more than a hate. They know it, and the feeling is mutual.
Whether that will be or should be enough to persuade her to take the VP slot, I don't know.

Dear MA -

Where Leibermann is NOW and where he will be after November are two different things.

I firmly believe that the Dems will strip him of all Party leadership positions once they gain a larger majority in the Senate. I fully expect Leibermann to switch to Republican for the next Senatorial election if not earlier. He'll claim the Lowell Weicker mantle.

Many good points made here both pro and con regarding the Obama candidacy. There is simply no way he's going to take Hillary on as VP - this will after all be the new Bill and Hil show - so out with the old. And I think many of us expect Obama to mop the floor with McCain in debates - but maybe we're deluded. Time will tell....

He will at least have the height advantage - and no small edge in that department - not that it helped Al Gore or Bill Bradley, of course. His cool temperment may serve him well if he can get McCain worked up on the issues...I'd like to see a much stronger advisory staff for Obama lurking in the wings, however.

Still, he has one term to prove himself, not two. That's a pretty steep learning curve, and if he's the savvy guy we think he is, he'll know this going in (if he goes in). Big successes the first time around, or no brass ring on the second go. Unreasonable expectations, but the likely political reality.

I see a lot of promotional PR work at hand in this potential first term for Obama - and this would not necessarily have been the case with Clinton....but that's just my take.

Will he actually have time to do real presidential work? That's the only pressing question I have at the moment......

Mr. Mark,

MA is right. Clinton running as an Independent would not be amusing. Not for this Democrat anyway. Nor can I see her being anyone's VP.

Best case scenario. She continues in the Senate and finds a way to turn her constiuency over to Obama. She loathes the Rebublicans, and she is a Party person. Hopefully, that will deter her from running as an Independent. Otherwise, say hello to President John McCain.

Oh yeah. And where is Lieberman now?

Mr. Mark,

Sorry, but I don't find the prospect of Clinton running as an Independent amusing. Remember, she's know Obama cry-baby, whining U hurt my feewings, like Obama.

She put up with MSNBC, CNN, WaPo, Robin Ghivens, Maureen Dowd, and even Gail Collins, for whom I once had respect. She lost me on several occasions, particularly, when she was with Obama in Kanasa. All that was missing was Toto.

U hut my feewings is not her way. Her doing a Ross Perot could work against Democrats in a big way. That should be obvious.

Nice chatting.

Dear M Anonymous -

I had wondered if Hillary would have the chutzpah to run as an Independent. If so, then she'd likely pick Lieberman as her VP to secure the "Cry-baby Dem who can't stand losing so decides to run as an Independent" vote. Of course, if she won, she'd still caucus with the Dems, though she'd feel liberated to party with her old RW friends on occasion.

Here's a thought: why doesn't Hillary run as McCain's VP? They'd probably win, given the lay of the political landscape. She could end up as "uber-Cheney," and when McCain retired after 4 years due to Alzheimers, she could run and win an 8-year term, giving her in effect a 12-year presidency.

Not licking her wounds, I'm afraid. More like trying to decide amongst the three options before her. Up until this morning, I was told that her advisors were not even considering her running as an Independent. Up until this morning.

And don't forget her constituence, which will not be won over without a huge effort--and even then...

As I've said, I've seen McCain turn a Republican crowd ready to kill him just a few months ago because they, like immigrant voters, know where he stands on immigration. Amazing to see. He turned them BY defending his position.

Clinton sawed Obama in half the last time they debated, and I'd remember, that when McCain walks out he brings hero status with him.

Never did I think that an inarticulate idiot like Bush could be elected president. Never did I think that McCain could get the nomination.

Be careful about certainty in this domain. Remember, those who laughed at Harry Truman.

Nice chatting....

Mr Mark,

You make some excellent points about Obama, who is also my choice. Nevertheless, M Anon has a point - it may be close. Never underestimate either the stupidity of the American public or the ability of the Republicans to swift-boat somebody. Polls now show Obama and McCain even - of course it is very early. I see a hotly contested election ahead.

FH:

Kindly read my posts, one of which is to you, and read Lee's. Then please explain to me how this man is a left-wing liberal, a "Marxist," as you put it.

If I thought that were the case, I would have had no doubts about him. The Congressional record, his record in Illinois, the New York Times, WST say otherwise.

It is true that his position on immigration is in opposition to the REAL position of John McCain. Immigration is not trivial for McCain. If and when he is elected, he will do whatever he can to push through as much as McCain-Kennedy as possible.

The time for empty rhetoric is over. There never should have been such a time. The media all but forced it. Bloggers of every persuasion continually emailed the Times, WaPo, etc., to stop trying to emulate the Naional Enquirer.

We do not have to do so. Deal with candidates' stance on issues. Explain to me how this man is an ultra-left-wing liberal. A lot of us would have far fewer reservations about him, if, we, at least, believed he was liberal, not neo-liberal, like Bill Clinton, who gave us globalization, NAFTA, etc.

Dear M Anonymous -

You give McCain way too much credit.

Were the media not providing Teflon John with cover, he would be having even more trouble fund raising.

Obama will take McCain head-on. The worst thing that could happen to McCain would be for Obama to agree to debate him in no-moderator town hall settings. With McCain's well-known temper and his penchant for mis-speaking, I'd be willing to bet that he'd make any number of huge gaffes in such a setting, including letting fly some epithet that would show him up to being the out-of-touch, brain-addled shill that he has become since his long-passed maverick days.

Any credibility McCain has on military matters from his service in Nam is being undone on a daily basis by his foreign policy gaffes. That's a zero net game for anyone who wishes to play it.

And, I didn't imply in any way that people who vote against Obama are racists. I said racists were a minority in this country, by which I meant that they will be inconsequential as a voting block in this election.

As far as McCain not being a quitter, I'd ask you to observe what happened to the last non-quitter who took on Obama. She's currently licking her wounds and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

Nice chatting.

Daniel in the Lion's Den:
To FH and GaryD

Basically, you don't like Obama because you just don't like him. There is just something about him that you just don't like. You judge him by a standard different than you judge the white Republicans.

I find your views sincerely sad. I don't think Barak Obama would make a good Pres. because I think he is a big-govt liberal, and I am a small govt. conservative. I don't see how his skin-color, sex, or any other factor amount to a hill-of-beans. If he were a pink, multi-sexual alien, I would still not like his politics.

Anonymous,

The 'I didnt know so and so was like that...' responses, in and of themselves, clearly show a gross lack of judgement, in the very least

Huh?

I DID know that. Please clarify.

Mr. Mark:

First, people who don't vote for Obama are not necessarily racists, and I would be careful with that rhetoric. The Democratic Party has lost out by treating religious Christians as if they were morons, and name-calling of your sort is much the same thing. The Dems are aware of that the latter approach, at least, was misguided. The damage is till being undone.

Second, do not underestimate John McCain. Many people, including the Right Wing Loonies who continue to despise him know his real views on immigration. Those include immigrant voters and liberals (Do not forget McCain-Kennedy.)

Do not forget McCain-Feingold. Russ Feingold is the most liberal member of Congress. McCain, his temper, notwithstanding, can work with anyone, and he gets things done.

He has real military experience, and this gives him credibility when he speaks of Iraq, etc., whether that credibility is earned or not.

He is no quitter. He is a two-fisted fighter with a good sense of humor, who can win over a crowd. I've seen him do it. He is no George Bush.

UNderestimating the opposition here is no small mistake. There are many, and not just women, who are furious at the media handling of Clinton. I do believe unless they are seriously courted, unless they can be won over, they will write in candidates, vote for McCain, and/or not vote.

According to my contacts HRC is being innundated with emails variously recommending that she run as an Independent, continue on in the US Senate, or consider being VP.

The first phase will end on Saturday. In the meantime, I suggest we all brace ourselves.

Global warming is complex. Peruse en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming.

Hillary Clinton is not as complicated. Peruse
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

Neither is Barak Obama. Peruse
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama

Neither is John McCain. Peruse
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain.

Now we can all vote !!!!

M.A.

Regretfully, your posts do not tell the whole story of this 'freshman' running for president.

The 'I didnt know so and so was like that...' responses, in and of themselves, clearly show a gross lack of judgement, in the very least. Put on top of that a desire to meet with world leaders with terrorist views makes most Americans skin crawl.

His lack of experience, pat answers and questionable 'friendships' with loons makes his running for president the biggest farce of our 200+ year history.

I have to say all of this is funny.

Michelle Obama and Black Pride week.

Barack the religioso.

Pleez. Give to me a break.

If one looks at the numbers of Americans who hate bush and who rightly know that Republican rule has taken this country into the toilet, then it's clear that this election is Obama's to lose.

Ergo, the person facing the greatest task of "winning over" an unnatural constituency is John McCain. There are already more registered Democrats in the country than Republicans. There are more women than men. Independents usually break for the Democratic candidate. Racists are a small minority in the country.

Couple the above with the stinking economy, the-sky's-the-limit gas prices, foreclosures, two stalemated non-winnable conflicts sapping lives and billions on a daily basis, and it's clear that McCain and the Republicans don't stand a snowball's chance in hell this fall.

Obama need only hang onto a PORTION of the VAST MAJORITY of Americans who are champing at the bit to vote AGAINST REPUBLICANS this November to win the presidency. Obama need not "win over" anybody.

The only question remaining is how GREAT the Republican loses will be in the Congress and at the state levels. The odds right now say it will be an absolute wipe-out, the likes of which has never before been seen.

Sounds good to me!

Wiglaf,

Re: Last line

Maybe omit the preposition.

M. Anon

Wiglaf,

"Roam, all of them, mute, with hesitant footseps."

?
---------------------
Mr. Mark,

Exellent verse. Congrats!
---------------------
Arminius, Wiglaf, Bewildful, Pseudo,

How goes Vol. I?

M. Anonymous

To FH and GaryD

Basically, you don't like Obama because you just don't like him. There is just something about him that you just don't like. You judge him by a standard different than you judge the white Republicans. And if I notice it, then I am pathetic. I did not say that anyone here judges him because of the color of his skin. But what else am I to infer, when you hold his feet to a much hotter fire than you hold your white Republican leaders? And why is it wrong for me to say it? It is what we are all thinking, isn't it? And it is what you are daring people like me not to say, aren't you? So, I take you up on your dare, and you do not like it.

You judge Michelle Obama disingusously, projecting false opinions and false beliefs on a woman who is very simply very proud of her husband and her country. And then when I point this out to you, your reply is that she should have rephrased her joyous exclamation in a more "Politically Correct" way. But she is just a person talking, and for a moment, forgot that there are wolves in sheep's clothing, such as yourselves, at every turn and every corner, ready to pounce on her every nuance and word, and to turn it around to make her into someone who is bad, when she is not someone who is bad, but is instead, someone who is good.

Maybe you are not consciously against Obama because he is black, but you (both of you) certainly seem to imply that he is not white enough, which is a sort of negative inverse way of looking at things without really being negative against blacks. You don't mind a black person, in principle, being President, but just so long as it is a conservative Republican black person. But that is not likely to happen, due to the VERY racist corner that the Republican party has painted itself into.

You are all for equality of all people and all races, it is just that your Republican heritage and culture exclude all but white people.

That is how it is, isn't it? If you think you are not racist, then that is good, but I think you are mired in a complicated trap, which you do not really understand.

NOBAMA,

Kindly read my post. This is no "Marxist." Read Lee's post. He is a "Neo-Liberal," i.e., what used to be called a conservative. Check the Congressional Record, New York Times, etc. See Wikepedia on Neo-liberalism.

M. Anonymous

PS. There is a word for the Wright-Farkahn business: politics.

For all who back Obama:

Beside his pat answers of '...He's not the (questionable acquaintance) I knew...':

Do you want to be in the middle of Obama clashes with Louis Farrakhan?

Do you want the likes of people like Wright and 'Father Fanatic' be in the news stories for the next 4 years?

Do you want this leftist liberal, Marxist to lull you into thinking he is 'it' for this country of ours?

Then watch your taxes go up. Watch your standard of living go down even more. Watch our country kneel before despots such as those in Iran or South Korea. Watch this country falter like you have never seen.

And today, a picture shows people reaching just to touch this mans head. Unbelievable. Blind sheep.

Yes, he will bring change. But the change he brings we will wish he didnt bring.

Watch. Think. Beware.

FH writes:

Obama is running his campaign as a UNITER, that is not what his past paints him to be. I'm not sure why you think the written word is more profound than the spoken word...again, actions speak louder than words.

Sadly, this is quite true. His record on biparisanship in Illinois is almost nil, as is the case in the US Senate. This is not the case with Clinton whose record on bipartisanship is quite impressive. A telling point is that Obama is one of the few Democrats who has not worked well with John McCain, king of bipartisan legislation. Clinton, on the other hand, has done so, and has done so quite well.

I am in agreement with Lee on all points: This is the media-making of the Democradtic candidate. A more dramatic instance of this we have not yet seen.

One point omitted by Lee is that Obama used his "grassroots" campaign funds to pay students and others to show up and cheer at his rallies.

These are the important points. How did we get ourselves here, and is this where we want to be?

If not, how do we make the best of it and deal with the private ownership of media, which should be in the public domain?

M. Anonymous

If we are not to judge the content of a man's character based upon those with whom he has willing chosen to associate with over prolonged periods of time and then abandoned the minute those associations became uncomfortable then on what basis what pray tell are we to judge his character? Pretty words? Flowery speeches? The size of his ears? The shape of his nose? The color of his skin? All these strike me as far worse ways than the one the Obamanators have now declared off limits in their intellectual vacuity.

Funny how anybody could derive religious "truth" out of the fact (?) that 85 % of Americans call themselves Christians.

99,9999...% "knew" for an unquestioned truth that the earth is flat not so long ago, because the bible said so.

The equation 2+2=4 is not the result of a democratic vote. "Balanced" covering of opinions would have to give space to the crew who thinks 2+2=5.

What seems to be lacking in this tiresome media-sponsored droning on Obama's religious affiliation and Clinton's pantsuits is a discussion of the issues, the media-making of the Democratic candidate, and Obama's real drawbacks as a candidate. In this, I agree with M. Anonymous and DITLD

For me, Obama's religious affiliations would be entirely irrelevant had it not been abundantly clear that their major purpose was political, or that at least politics figured heavily in them.

More important are the following:

He opposes mandatory health care: Publicly stated that requiring healthcare for all Americans would be the equvalent of mandating home ownership for homeless people.

As US Senator, he voted two years in a row for unconditional funding to support the war in Iraq.

He is an elitist who considers the working class "bitter." (Let them eat cake.)

His wife's family is way up in the pants of Richard Daley and the age-old Chicago Daley Democratic machine.

His entire staff of advisors are ex-Carter administration officials including 80-year-old dinasour Zbigniew Brzinski, of Iran hostage, gas crisis numero uno fame.

His immigration proposals are to the right of both Hillary Clinton AND John McCain.

Michelle and Barack Obama are an extremely ambitious couple on the order of the Clintons, whose politics are to the right of HRC. Nothing more.

Black skin, good oratorical skills, good rhetoric do not a good president make, neither do they make one less neo-liberal (formerly known as moderate consevative).

It is worth repeating that the New York Post, a conservative rag endorsed Obama, damningly, arguing that Clinton was to the left of both Obama and her husband, and had the discipline to push her agenda through. Enough said. The lady had my vote.

Speaking as one of the darkly complected persuasion, I ask you to look at one, Clarence Thomas, not that BO is the equivalent, but therein lies the point.

Now, we are where we are, and all we can do is make the best of it. Ask questions of the media. Consider media ownship, media financial interests, which are huge. They've chosen the two candidates for us. Which one will do us less harm as a nation?

Concerned The "Libbed" Christian, aka "Cut-n-Paste,"
Has decided to leave, and to leave in great haste.
His long clips from a book,
Never garnered a look,
And our time, he'll no longer lay waste.

;)

Daniel in the Lion's Den:

"If you don't like Obama because he is too liberal or because he is a Democrat and you are a Republican, then just say that; that would be fine to say. But it is a little weird to portray him as some sort of strange, shadowy figure,"

And this is from my original post.

"That's fair, the GOP has a very low rating right now, and if the Dems want to nominate a guy who is to the far-left of center...that's what they should do. But it is outrageous to say that his past associations should not matter. You come to know a politician through their history, not from what they are telling you. I have no doubt that Barack will say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get elected...like most people running for office."

My point all along is that the man is from the far-left, and that he is trying to make the American people believe he is actually some kind of moderate uniter.

From You:

"And when Michelle Obama said that this is the first time that she had ever been proud of her country, I think it is pretty clear what she meant. I understand. I think she was referring to the abatement of white racism over black culture in America, via the rise of her husband to political power."

Than she should have said "I have never been prouder of my country"...again, what she said is not the message of a "uniter".

You said:

"And so Obama has no experience? Neither did George Washington; neither did Abrahma Lincoln; neither did Harry Truman. They all did ok."

Truman was VP, Washington...no experience...I guess that whole developing an army and defeating the British doesn't qualify as experience??? Washington's great strength was that he understood the value of keeping the military subserviant to civilian control. He was a great man who could have been king...let's not compare these two men just yet. Lincoln was an idealogue who abused the constitution at every turn.

"In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law."

Lincoln is considered great because he did what he felt he had to do...and it worked. He could very well have been seen as a disaster had the North not won.

From you:

"All of this sounds unpleasantly familiar, that his skin tone is not quite right, and therefore he is unsuitable."

Those are your words...I never mentioned the man's skin color in any of my posts. Frankly this one comment from you destroys your credibility. As if someone who does not support Obama must be a rascist...that's pathetic.

For FH

I do not think Obama is a mysterious person. He is actually refreshingly open. If you don't know anything about him, that is because you choose not to know, since his life is pretty much an open book, isn't it? What about him, isn't an open book?

And when Michelle Obama said that this is the first time that she had ever been proud of her country, I think it is pretty clear what she meant. I understand. I think she was referring to the abatement of white racism over black culture in America, via the rise of her husband to political power. And if you are going to use her words and her sentiments against her, then that is exactly, the reason, exactly and precisely, in your very own heart, why she has not been able to feel pride in her country before.

And so Obama has no experience? Neither did George Washington; neither did Abrahma Lincoln; neither did Harry Truman. They all did ok. Wit and intelligence can make up for lack of experience. And besides, just what kind of experience do you think would prepare a person for being President of the United States?

If you don't like Obama because he is too liberal or because he is a Democrat and you are a Republican, then just say that; that would be fine to say. But it is a little weird to portray him as some sort of strange, shadowy figure, with a foreign name, who may be a Muslim, posing as a Christian, attending a suspicious church, a man who is possibly some sort of hidden, stealth threat, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

All of this sounds unpleasantly familiar, that his skin tone is not quite right, and therefore he is unsuitable. You would not be motivated by any such thinking would you? It seems mighty suspicious. Because if it were just his politics that you didn't like, why wouldn't you just say that?

He is a fine and outstanding person; he is more than a "credit to his race;" he is a credit to America, that such a person as this might be our President one day. If you loved America as you suspect Mrs. Obama does not, then it seems to me that you would at least acknowledge all of these things, even if you plan to vote for a candidate whose politics are more conservative than Obama's.

Religion doesn't belong in U.S. politics. One of the bloggers mentioned that church people were part of the abolitionist movement. How many Christians owned and sold slaves? People have always wrapped themselves in the cloak of religion, spinning their actions, whether good or evil, as what the Almighty wanted. What a convenient Authority, unseen and unheard, except by the chosen few who are only too happy to tell us what He told them. Balderdash!

Steven,

Very nice.

This article is not about his point of view, it's about disregarding past associations. Giving people the benefit of the doubt...is not what politics is about. Obama is running his campaign as a UNITER, that is not what his past paints him to be. I'm not sure why you think the written word is more profound than the spoken word...again, actions speak louder than words.

I know full well what Mr. Obama's positions are. His books are about propaganda, and, again, the most famous of those "The Audacity of Hope" is based on a sermon by a guy we're supposed to let slide, according to this article.

Most on the left have developed a Black and White view of President Bush, evil, liar, whatever. I suggest you read a book by Douglas Feith(SP), it's the first serious book about the decisions that were made after 9/11.

FH:

I won't turn this any further into a personal argument between you and I--it's boring to other readers. It's all been said before. And I don't disrespect your opinion, in fact I think you are entitled to it.

I'm not a voter driven by fear.

I'm not a voter driven by accusations, or the demonization of character.

There's not a cogent argument to make toward someone who says "he's a total mystery" or "don't be the next Obama girl" or "he's anti-American" or "he's got no experience or clue about government." There's no ground of "truth" for us to begin a conversation or dialogue with these statements.

Yes we'll vote our conscience. Personally, I'm very comfortable with that. And yes, the old "faux" news is exactly what you're prescribing to me. "Cult of Personality?" To suggest that my (and others) brain dis-engages from critical thinking or reasoning because we are a "cult of personality?"

Hearing the "truth?" What of the truth have we heard the last 8 years from our current administration--do you suggest THAT as a model? I think the guys has been more truthful than a slew of politicians I've seen in my day.

Prior to your making the "nothing is known about this guy," and then trying to discredit his published work that describes his vision as a waste of time(?), and then in the same breath describing his radical left record (I guess much IS known after all?) is a bit schizophrenic. Yes I will "pipe up" on this issue. Do you think his voting record (all accessible, by the way to anyone who wants to read through them) is "bad news" to America? Compared to what? The GOP, 2-day a week workweek Congress that ruled for 6 years, enough time to rubber-stamp anything from on high? Would you think he wouldn't vote similar to those representatives?

I'm signing off, and will give you the last word on this. I think people here get the gist of what we're talking about.

Please don't take this as a personal attack. I don't mean to write just to make you mad. I respect your ideas even if I don't agree with them.

My ultimate hope: whoever we get in office will undo the damage that's been done to governmental process over the last 8 years, will restore some decency and respect to the office, and won't be so damn polarizing to keep us all at each other's throats all the time.

Steven,

If your going to pipe-up, at least have a cogent argument and stop the old faux news schtick...it's just old.

The truth is...this is a man with little govt. experience. Who has associations with numerous people who don't really like America. Whose own wife has not been proud of America until this very moment. A man who has the most liberal voting record in the Senate.

The truth may not be what you want to hear, but the truth is the truth. That's the candidate the dems nominated this year...don't fall for the "Cult of Personality" that is Barack Obama. If he wins the Presidency, hey, that's what America wanted...nuff said. But all those who want to deny who he really is...it's not going to happen.

Read 'em and get back to us.

We hear enough of the talking points from Fox.

Steve,

Indeed, let's read his books...oh yea, the most prominent one is based on a sermon by Rev. Wright...doh!!!

None of his proposals could even be considered moderate, let alone crossing the aisle. Again, that's fine...the GOP has low approval ratings and that's fair if you plan on nominating a far-left of center candidate. But saying his past associations should be thrown out the window is just a pipe-dream by people who are afraid his associations are going to hurt him in the general election.

As far as "saying anything he needs to say in order to be elected," I'd say that's not his exact "track record" so far.

Right off the top of my head:

Remember the "gas tax holiday" issue? He was odd man out.

I KNOW you'll remember the flag-lapel thing: it will be a GOP talking point for the next several months. Get ready for his "anti-patriotism" assaults, hurled just as harshly as was done to anyone who objected to the Iraq war--remember those "unpatriotic" people who objected?

I put up with the demonization of "the world" from my pastor for 45 years before I called it quits; my pastor was ready to say "God damn 'the world'," so what's new there? My pastor is a full-blooded patriot who flies a flag on his doorstep, what am I to make of that?

It's simple, really.

Republican-controlled corporate media went after the minister of Obama's church to discredit his faith. It was the most un-Christian thing to do to a person, which only proves that the Republican party is not the party of faith they want their base to think they are. On the contrary, they are lying, scheming, amoral criminals who are willing to maintain their power by any means necessary. Their pretentions to piety were calculated to add the Bible belt to their tiny inbred base of financial elites, and contrast themselves with "liberals" who, while may or may not attend church every Sunday, don't go around thumping their Bibles in public for all to see.

FH:

If you really want him to be less of a mystery to you, read his books. Go to his web site and read the specifics. There's a large amount of information out there which is immediately accessible.

How is it that he's not a "total mystery" to me? I've learned about his proposals, his drive, his ambitions from things that are out there already. It's not a mystery to me. I expect there are others here to whom he is not a total "mystery."

This sounds like a GOP Fox News broken record: he's a mystery. He's got no "track record." Nobody knows anything about him. Bah, humbug. He's a mystery to people who don't want to know anything about him.

Frankly, Obama is a mystery. He has almost no record to speak-of, and what he does have is extremely liberal. His rhetoric does not match his past associations, nor his voting record in the Senate. Far from being a uniter, his past associations and voting record seem to place him in the exact opposite corner.

That's fair, the GOP has a very low rating right now, and if the Dems want to nominate a guy who is to the far-left of center...that's what they should do. But it is outragieous to say that his past associations should not matter. You come to know a politician through their history, not from what they are telling you. I have no doubt that Barack will say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get elected...like most people running for office.

Why hasn't spiderman 2 been permanently banned from these discussion groups?

Maybe this song can convince you that going to church can be a refreshing experience. Although I don't fully subscribe to it's contemporary style, the chorus portion is passable. Listen to this link :

http://www.imeem.com/people/UjJk48e/music/_PbZMKaO/michael_w_smith_micheal_w_smith_holy_holy_holy1mp3/

You guys are missing a lot both here on earth and the coming next life -- The LIFE which made this life into being. NO SOIL CAN TALK OR BREATHE UNLESS AN INTELLIGENT BEING TOUCHED THE SOIL.

BE CAREFUL GUYS.

****

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

DoTheRightThing:

I don't believe Rev. Wright ever actually endorsed Barack Obama. If I'm incorrect, someone please correct me, but I do not believe an actual endorsement of Barack Obama for President ever came from Rev. Wright. I'm sure he supported him, but I don't think Rev. Wright ever officially endorsed Obama.

DoTheRightThing:
"It's clear Obama's endorsement by his preacher of 20 years who says, "God damn America" is much more damaging than McCain's endorsement by a preacher he never even met who says, "the Pope is the Anti-Christ." Now, it's clear Obama's religious background is much more suspect than McCain's."

Not exactly. In 20 years of preaching, he's probably given over 1000 sermons. Do you think that Obama heard every single one of them? In saying "God Damn America", he did not insult any race or creed. In addition to which, Obama did not seek his endorsement.

However,McCain sought the endorsement of Hagee and that other jerk. He went out of his way to have them join him. And he didn't even check them out first to make sure thay hadn't said anything stupid. They had insulted other religions and races. That shows a lot more about McCain's character.

Just a short note here because as a non-believer like Susan I would like to say that both of those "preachers - priest" spoke the TRUTH. Unfortunately, people in this country CAN'T TAKE THE TRUTH.

It's clear Obama's endorsement by his preacher of 20 years who says, "God damn America" is much more damaging than McCain's endorsement by a preacher he never even met who says, "the Pope is the Anti-Christ." Now, it's clear Obama's religious background is much more suspect than McCain's.

I think Merry Anonymous made a comment earlier that alot of these questions are lame, or words to that effect.

Yes, I agree; it is incredible to me that this is a question that we should care about, and take the time to answer.

In America, we are all mixed up together. Few people pick and choose their friends, aquaintances, and colleagues based on their religon. On the block where I live, there are atheists, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Moslems. In my office where I work, there are Protestants, Catholics, and atheists. Even in my own family and at family reunions, there are Protestants, Catholics, and atheists. And when I go shopping in public, or to the movies, or eat in a restaurtant, or get my hair cut, who could possibly imagine the relgious thoughts that may be going on inside the heads of all these other people, whom I may interact with? And who would care?

Not me.

Anonymous:

"Anti-theists are usually a *great* help in a discussion involving religion. Their only "wisdom" is to abolish the religion of 85% of the population and substitute exactly nothing in its place except their idea of *reason,* i.e. each person to their own idea of reason, their own idea of right and wrong."

Not to put too fine a point on it, that's exactly what you do, too, Anonymous. It's a fallacy to think that everyone's beliefs are "congruent." Or that it's some virtue to "believe" as long as it's "believing in something versus nothing."

And it is perfectly appropriate for non-theists to comment on this topic: Susan's premise is that the religious propoganda of this campaigning cycle has only emphasized the divisive, hateful aspects of religion in a political environment.

As an atheist, I don't particularly care what you believe. Just keep it out of my front yard.

Here's what makes me angry about this whole mess: Rev. Wright WAS NOT ENDORSING BARACK OBAMA!! The man wasn't working on his campaign. he wasn't being paid by Obama. He wasn't volunteering for him, on the stump for him, heck, Obama wasn't even a freaking CANDIDATE when those sermons wwere preached. Yes, Wright was his spiritual advisor and his pastor, but that's it. Wright explained the Bible to Obama, helped him know what Biblical principals would help him in certain situations in his life, told him What Jesus Would Do. THAT'S what a spiritual advisor does - they don't tell you how to think. If you start shaping your opinions around theirs because you assign them more prominence in your life than you should, then that's YOUR fault for forgetting that God gave you a brain that functions perfectly well outside of anyone else's. And honestly, those of you who go to church, do you agree with everything that comes out of your pastor's/priest's/bishop's mouth??? Especially when they digress from Biblical exposition to offering their opinions. Do you agree with everything that comes out of the mouths of the people in your family?? Do you go around denouncing and distancing yourself from them when they say some crazy, crackpot thing that rubs some folks the wrong way but that you totally disagree with? I don't understand why this man's comments/opinions/rantings were in any way imputed to what Obama thinks and I am absolutely disgusted that he - and any other politician who has to do this - had to go so far as to denounce someone for having opinions seemingly so abherrant to the American way of thinking and then having the unmitigated gall to air them. Tell the world "I agree with him on this issue, that one, and the one by the door, but on THAT one?? No, he's nuts on that one...," and move on. Opinions are like...you know the rest.

Here's the other thing that steams me about this mess: WRIGHT'S COMMENTS WEREN'T EVEN MADE THIS YEAR!!! They were taken from sermons he made over THREE YEARS AGO. Out of all the sermons on all the Sundays in all the months since then and before then, this is the great conflagration the media came up with to use to question Obama's suitability to lead the Democratic party to the White House - comments from two sermons in the decades-long career of the PASTOR OF HIS CHURCH??? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???? Comments that some may not agree with, but are nonetheless rightfully that man's to have and to espouse any way he chooses - he's not on anybody's payroll but that of his parishoners.

To be fair, recognizing the delicate situation Obama was in, Wright should have stopped at the speech portion at the National Press Club. But he was far more interested in grandstanding and one-upping the media that was raking him over the coals - fairly or not - than he was in setting the record straight or explaining his comments - which I think he absoultely should have done. He had no obligation to help Obama because, like I seem to recall saying at some point, he wasn't campaigning for him. But his ego during the Q&A part of the NPC event sure did hurt Obama, even if it really shouldn't have - because, oh, I don't know, he wasn't campaigning for him. I honestly don't see how few other people can see how ridiculous it is that the ONLY thing the media have come up with to cast doubt on Barack Obama's ability to lead the country is that he attended a church where the pastor had an opinion and said some unpleasant things that some folks might not like. Wow.

Truthfully, everyone in any kind of public venue should be mindful that we do indeed live in the information age, and every cell phone comes with a camera AND a camcorder feature now, so watch your mouth, unless you want to show up on YouTube and Hannity and Combs. (To be safe, if you're running for any kind of public office you'd better start distancing yourself from all your friends and family members who did anything remotely shady, scurrilous, scandalous, illegal, immoral, questionable, and/or held and voiced an opinion, thought, idea, statement, wish, hope, dream that could be construed as anti-American, hateful, meanspirited, sexist, racist, agist, elitist or could be turned into an -ist at any point in time in any way in the eyes of anyone who is not you right now.) Seriously, if you say stuff that pisses people off, be more willing to and definitely do a better job of explaining yourself than Wright did, especially when your comments affect the life and/or livelihood of someone else - fairly or not. Rev. Wright should be the perfect example of the tongue being mightier than the sword for modern-day preachers than the thorn-in-the-side of Obama's candidacy that he (and the recent Cathoolic priest fella) has been made out to be.

I've said my piece. I'm out.

Doggerel to follow:

Susan Jacoby gives us cause
To reflect upon the establishment clause

Candidates court the religious vote
Whose gods command a single note

"Follow me up to the sky"
But don't forget that all gods die

JFK and Lincoln found
Their offices on solid ground

Re: tuning out in sermons

You and me, Favorite, my friend, you and me. As a young girl I used to beg my mother to let me go to Mass with my gran. She had a soft spot for old Fr. Mulcahy and so did I. He compensated for the awfulness of his sermons by preaching them in Irish!

politics & religion cannot mix.

Ms. Jacoby -

Lincoln may not have chosen a Springfield church but much of his abolitionist instincts were rooted in his relationship with preachers like Henry Ward Beecher of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, NY. Also, I think there has been no finer outline of how the church and politics mix and support one another than Obama's speech in response to then-rival Alan Keyes. It's terrific.

The "poets" don't have a special blog for their "literature"? More than 100 messages and more than 60% is crap. By the way, good article Mrs. Jacoby. It is a pity we can't find similar deep thoughts in the people that posted a comment

Arminius - please note I didn't mention falling asleep during sermons, I said "tuning out" - a skill I acquired as a Catholic child offended by sermons that were condescending, money grubbing or both.

Episcopal sermons can be quite good, I agree, but the "tune out" response is hard to overcome.

Thanks, Susan, for putting us clergy in our place. But may I point out that President Lincoln's sober appraisal of the clergy's electoral influence stood in rather sharp contrast to his appreciation for the social influence of the nation's churches. In a 1864 hand-written letter to Bishop Matthew Simpson of the Methodist Episcopal Church North, President Lincoln said: "God bless the Methodist Church - bless all the churches - and blessed be God, who in this hour of great trial, giveth us the churches." (Bishop Matthew Simpson Collection, United Methodist Archives and History, Drew University: Madison, NJ)

More fodder for the "blog hogs"??? Yes, indeed!!!

To reiterate an important theme, a theme of Reality and Realism about the dangers of Islam!!!

Although the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist and other Muslims cannot bring themselves to discuss, there is a strong possibility of fear. Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of/for family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the "fems" of Islam!!!

McCain appears to be keenly aware of the "fems" of Islam. We are not so sure about Mr. Obama.

Anti-theists are usually a *great* help in a discussion involving religion. Their only "wisdom" is to abolish the religion of 85% of the population and substitute exactly nothing in its place except their idea of *reason,* i.e. each person to their own idea of reason, their own idea of right and wrong. Imposing the idea of a tiny fraction of the 15% of atheists who happen to be anti-theists on 85% of the population doesn't seem strange to them at all.

That said, it must be added that Ms Susan Jacoby doesn't come across as an anti-theist who wishes to impose her atheism on others.

I never We need years later. turtles with box his else

I couldn't agree any more with Ms. Jacoby. Let's keep those "d.....ed religions and their representatives out of political life! Choosing the right president should be about finding the right person to solve our nation's domestic economic and social issues and inspire the world through political pragmatism. Enough is enough, let's tax those voodoo (religious) nuts!

Anon,

Are you saying he's going to cut and paste until doomsday, 'cause I think the blog will shut down by then

Writing limericks to coerce CCNL into leaving?
Well, well, well...
Wait till doomsday,
That's what I say,
To you folks
Whose eyes are sore from reading
The same cut and paste of CCNL.

Concerned, Concerned, Concerned,

What is it about these many posts, poetry, comments, direct and indirect that you do not comprehend?

Hog your own blog, and leave us alone. No one wants to see your damned handle. You can't believe anything unless everyone thinks the way you do.

Hello?! They don't.

Also, we're not all bigots like you. Nor do we lust after Jihadist, though we like her. Take a plane and find her. Big country. We won't see you for awhile. Bon voyage.

Nobody's gonna deal with you. Nobody wants to. You waste cyberspace.

BE GONE &

DEAL WITH IT!!!

More fodder for the "blog hogs"???

In all fairness: Although the "fems" of Islam continue to be subjects The Jihadist cannot bring herself to discuss there is a strong possibility of fear. Fear of Islamic death squads? Fear of the truth? Fear of her husband? Fear of/for her family? Fear of the Jinni? Having such fears simply and tragically adds to the "fems" of Islam!!!

Desolation III: Adieu, CCNL
(Apologies to T. S. Eliot)

We are the thread men,
Earpiece filled with straw,
Alas, our voices are quiet and neediest
Like rain in on the roof
Or mosquito feet on our wet tar.

Weight without mass, depth without container
Listening speech, Mute pleading

He who has come from the Loonasphere
Remembers us, if at all
As dream's patient whispers, beckoning
The promised end.

-Bewildful 2008

Ms. Jacopy, I am just so grateful for your consistent intelligence and common sense in this public discourse. Years-old rants by someone's pastor ought not to be either a qualifier or disqualifier for ANY job for goodness sake. How incredible it is that such a statement has to be made in this country, of all places. And would anyone care a whit about such silliness if so much of the media was not bombarding us 24/7 with this kind of pseudo-news and the corresponding histrionic blather of the media's most prominent talking-heads?

Then there is that most famous of quotes,

"Until the koran is deflawed, no one is safe!!!!"

RE: My poem's last line

Roam endlessly, monklike, reticent.

?

DITLD,

Sorry, Daniel! You know how it is--like with Whitman. Folks have to learn to read the works of the great poets!!

More please,

Sincerely,
Wiglaf

PS. Clearly, the WaPo blocker is not muse-inspired.

But that WAS my poem.

(And when I posted it, over and over, it got blocked and blocked, but finally it made it).

Lee,

You turn a good limerick. No surprise here. You may have opened a can of worms with it - but I see good results. Keep it coming.

--------

JAC,

Stop cowering! Produce verse! We know damn well you can do it.

---------

Arminius

DILTD,

Ditto Arminius. Great lines--a poem about to be!!

--------

JAC,

Nah! You've got the gift. I can see. Just go for it!

Wiglaf

For M. Anonymous (Hamlet)

There was a white man who saw double,
Giving Lee a distressing new bubble,
But his posts, they were just
With no ifs, ands, or buts.
A new thing has burst in to trouble.

Lee

Thanks Wiglaf!

But don't expect poems from my keyboard, you will lament that.

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

For M. Anonymous (Hamlet)

There was a white man who saw double,
Giving Lee a distressing new bubble,
But his posts, they were just
With no ifs, ands, or buts.
A new thing has burst in to trouble.

Lee

Daniel ITLD,

Make that into a poem. We know damn well you are capable.

on CCNL's Longed-for Departure, Vol. I:
(with apologies to myself)

In calcified posts of fossilized splendor:

Might I think,

"Could this be the missing link?"

JAC,

Welcome aboard!

Wiglaf

If Jihadist stops posting for a couple of weeks, CCNL will fall in an unrecoverable mental disorientation crisis, making him unable to copy-paste.

But then some friends will not have a compelling incentive to produce immortal poetry, besides the best selling book under edition will not get to the market.

Arminius is right, I’m starting to join the fun!

Peace to all and best wishes,

Hi, Lee!

Hangin' in there. How are you! What's happening?

Arminius

Susan, allow me the opportunity to offer a Nicely Done. Excellent thoughts and well written. Words that people need to read and hear. Thank you.

Same one, Arminius,

How you doin'?

Lee

Hi, Lee,

Good verse there! I have not seen you here in a while, if you are the same 'double vision' Lee.

Arminius

There once was a rusted religionist
Whose posts were dreaded, divisionist.
He hemmed and he hawed
And endlessly bored
'Til dispatched to a mental nutritionist.

Lee

Wright and Hagee are not mere nut-cases. They are the leaders of congregations. They preach hate and racism. What Wright said about white people and the US government was horrific. Barack and Michelle Obama were members of such a congregation until it threatened Obama's viability in politics. Wright was Obama's spiritual advisor, remember? If Obama truly was repelled by Wright's messages, he would've left that church a long time ago. His recent exit smacks of opportunism and makes this former Democrat highly suspect of all of NObama's motives.

Wright and Hagee are not mere nut-cases. They are the leaders of congregations. They preach hate and racism. What Wright said about white people and the US government was horrific. Barack and Michelle Obama were members of such a congregation until it threatened Obama's politican viability in politics. Wright was Obama's spiritual advisor, remember? If Obama truly was repelled by Wright's messages, he would've left that church a long time ago. His recent exit smacks of opportunism and makes this former Democrat highly suspect of all of NObama's motives.

nice article well written i would add i think it might be important to actually take the time to actually listen to exactly what people who we either truely disagree with or all to common i think people we have never actually listened to. if nothing else to know exactly what is is and why we disagree, isn't this supposed to be the underpinnings of advanced civilization and science actually looking to see what is there and why aren't these the basic build blocks of learning and truth?... .....i wonder how many disagreement are amonst people who have truely never investigated the other for what it is they are really saying and believe.. this idea in politics and now in society of "guilty by association or merely investigating " is sad and counter productive to the actual stated aims of the people who claim to want to proteckt us but instead seem to want to rob us and enslave us maby or perhaps in the real world it takes a lot of money and coersion to force people to do the wrong things in life even if people have good intentions and ar incorrect... but please check 4 truth if any i'm just a dyslexic artist

Wiglaf,

Get a grip, friend. CCNL will never be healed by us. He is no more capable of change than a fundie. And that is sad - the guy is not stupid, just rusted shut.

Arminius

Arminius,

Great Anouncement!
------------
Curious,

Great verse!
--------------
Wiglaf,

I think "maintain a monkish reticence."

Alas, I don't know about a cure.
-----------------
Jihadist,

Some verse?

M. Anonymous

Curious,

Nice contribution! Send more.

Hi Arminius,

I know! I was wondering. Do you think this volume of moving poems on CCNL's longed-for departure might heal him?

Wiglaf

Wiglaf, my friend,

If I really thought this were a waste of time, my contribution would be nil! I am enjoying myself hugely, and I think we bring value here.

The 'time wasting' comment meant that we are not directly contributing to the theme of the thread, and also, alas!, that we will never be rid of CCNL. But that is for the good - he affords endless entertainment for good minds.

Arminius

There once was a blogger initialled.
Whose posts crazed all but officials
He ranted and raved
His leaving we craved
His exit was most beneficial.

Curious

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Our noble and beneficent contributer of great verse, Wiglaf, has made an impassioned plea for verse urging the quick departure of one 'Concerned the Christian Now Liberated', hereinafter known as 'CCNL', to be submitted post haste to this exalted blog.

All entries will be greatly appreciated, and will be submitted for approval for an upcoming volume of poetry.

For those who do not know, 'CCNL' is a notorious spammer and bigot that pollutes many blogs here in 'On Faith'. We need your help.

Thank you.

Jihadist,

Certainly, our volume must have a poem from you. Any variation on the theme would be most welcome.

Wiglaf

Arminius, JAC,

I don't know about time-wasting. The subject of this blog, in one way or another, has been worried to death. Surely Quinn, et al, can come up with something other than these low brow topics we've been innundated with, as of late.

Wiglaf

JAC,

Quite so. You have hit upon it! Moving poems to CCNL's longed-for departure will reduce said spam, expressions of irritation at it (not counted by you), and produce a publishable volume, for our children and our children's children.

We eagerly await your contribution.

Respectfully,

M. Anonymous, Future Contributor
Moving Poems on CCNL's Longed-for Departure

JAC,

Yes, our dedication to producing bad verse in response to CCNL's drivel is rather time wasting, as far as the subject of the blog goes. But ya know what? It is GRAND fun!

Meanwhile, Jihadist has entered, and is making some good comments.

Jihadist, well met,

First and foremost, CCNL needs your loving attention! He has been most annoying, hence the outpouring of limericks.

Next - right you are about Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, and Mel Gobson. I generalized too much.

Then, 'treason', at least here, is rare. It usually is concerned with spies who relay critical info to potential foes. Very tricky, and rightfully so.

And then, 'The Mashed Potato Menace'. A staple here, if I might make a bad play on words. As in, "Did you know that 90% of convicted murders - 90%! - are habitual mashed potato eaters! This menace must be abolished at once!"

Last, I think it is just, within some sort of reason, that leaders should be held to a higher standard. Else, why are they leaders?

You do make me think. Thank you.

Arminius

Wiglaf, Arminius et all,

Transcendental statistics about this thread from the beginning at 10:57AM until the post at 7:30PM:

Rows of text dedicated to moving poems on the longed-for departure of CCNL= 52

Rows of text of by CCNL dedicated to spam this thread=79

It appears that there are no more important things to dedicate our precious time, including mine :)

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

Maintain a monkish reticence.

?

Wiglaf

Hello Arminius,

Thanks for your post.

I'm not too sure movie stars are exempt from criticism on politics, religion or even personal behavior. All those stars such as Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, Mel Gobson spouting quotable quotes and giving YouTube some of its most popular videos.

* Yes, what the "preacher" at Trinity Church said was offensive to those who regard it as such, but it is not treason.

* The 'mashed potato menace'? That's a new phrase I learn today from you.

* Yes, we expect our politicians and religious figures to be 'better than us' too here, and they are made to pay (by public vilifications and/or calls for resignations) for what we do and got away with it too. We set them up to higher standards in "leadership by examples".

Best regards
"J"

PS - Was there, is there, a pussycat purring and stroking itself against my foot wanting my attention? Nahhh...I must be hallucinating as a believer is prone to of course.

Wiglaf,

I think "maintain." For some reason, "defend" sounds to me like early Yeats. Arminius?

Arminius,

Will you put out the call for submissions?

M. Anonymous

defend a monkish silence?

RE: the last line

maintain a monkish silence

What do you think?

Arminius,

Excellent verse! Stands at the very angles of vision!

Could you, perhaps, if it is not too much trouble, put out a call for contributors?

Moved,
Wiglaf

Wiglaf,

Don't force the last line, because you have something really good working here. It will come to you.

Arminius

Wiglaf and M Anon,

This is really entertaining! I have not had so much fun here for a long time. We need more contributers!

Arminius

M. Anon, Arminius

RE: The Last line

Roam to find the miraculous (re)birth.

I dunno....

It is painfully plain unto all of us
When we condemn Concerned's long wordy mess
Our verdict is just
He's eaten with lust
Concerned's got the hots for Jihadist

Arminius and Wiglaf,

May I say that Moving Poems on CCNL's Longed-for Departure, Vol. I, is an affecting, stirring, inspired, and touching thought?

Calligraphy, the interspersing of CCNL's drivel combine elegance and pastiche to insure a masterly work.

May I suggest frequent calls for submissions? As we know, this thread does not lack for poets.

Wiglaf,
May I be the Wordsworth to your Coleridge? Perhaps for the last line--Roam to seek the miraculous (re)birth. (Apologies to W.H. Auden)

M. Anonymous, Future Contributor
Moving Poems on CCNL's Longed-for Departure

And the Jihadist returns and still the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) of Islam continue to be impossible for the "googling" Jihadist to come to grips with. Strange indeed since she "goggles" and grips all other subjects with great gusto with Mr. Obama being her recent favorite subject.

As a reminder the "fems" of Islam:

1. Belief in "pretty/ugly wingie thingies".

2. Belief that an hallucinating, illiterate Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the hot "Gabe" cave and therein received the warmongering and anti-female words and resultant laws now listed in the koran.

3 That Shiites are less than human or Sunnis are less than human depending on what Islamic cult you belong to.

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7, 800 year-old blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites gives significant credence that greed, hate, suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran. Having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of rape, adultery, lust and polygamy. The condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of hatred, anger and greed.

O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha greed and lustful and womanizing,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, hateful and warmongering,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from Islam's hate.

Save us from these Islamic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
They ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like worms of death and wrench.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

One commandment alone should put an end to the mixing of religion and politics: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Any attempt to enlist the Almighty in something as mundane and narrowly self-interested as a political campaign can be seen as nothing else.

Wiglaf said,
The last line needs work.

Yup. Looking forward to the fix. You have something really good working here.

Arminius

The last line needs work.

Wiglaf

Wiglaf,

Well, my friend, you have your work set out for you! We look forward to the assembled poetry, interspersed with CCNL's drivel, to render meaning to our verses. I can turn it all into calligraphy, and we can publish.....

Arminius

Sorry. There were errors in the earlier version, stemming from a rush into print. Here is the revised version.

Moving Poem on CCNL's Longed-for Departure
(Apologies to W.B. Yeats)

Turning and turning on the lengthening thread
Posts CCNL who cannot be read
Cyber Space unravels; it cannot hold
Mere Loonacy is loosed upon the world
The Loonasphere is loosed, and everywhere
The conventions of forebearance are drowned.
The best post mournful poetry, whilst the worst
Endlessly roam the net awaiting the great birth

-Wiglaf 2008

Hi, Jihadist,

Some replies here.

* Free speech: all public figures are subject to scrutiny. Oddly(?), movie stars are exempt from much criticism. But political figures, and religious figures when they are associated with political figures, are moving targets.

* Patriotism - at least here, criticism of America is not treason. What is treason is a threat to overthrow the government and/or Constitution. What those 'preachers' at Trinity spoke was offensive, but not treason.

* Tainted by associations - guilt by association, the 'mashed potato menace'. 'Nuff said.

* Unrealistic and unreasonable expectations - yes, we do expect our politicians and religious figures to be 'better than us', because we look up to them as our leaders. We always forget that they, like us, have feet of clay. But the standards must apply to the leaders and the followers equally. There is an implied dicotomy here.

Arminius

Moving Poem on CCNL's Longed-for Departure
(Apologies to W.B. Yeats)

Turning and turning on the lengthening thread
Posts CCNL who cannot be read
Cyber Space unravels; it cannot hold
Mere Loonacy is loosed upon the world
The Loonasphere is loosed, and everywhere
The conventions of forebearance are drowned.
The best post mournful poetry, while the worst
While the worst read wander the net in search.

-Wiglaf 2008

AMEN

There she is again. The "Obfusing" One i.e. the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist in the past says she is not superstitious but apparently believes in pretty, gay?, greedy?, wingie, flying, talking, fictional thingies. Very, very strange rationale!!!

And she previously notes "By the way, all organised and institutionalised religion is human and humanity based with flaws and all, just like humans are." So Islam is not an organized and institutionalized religion??? More "strangeness" from one who believes Islam is a perfect and error-free religion revealed to us serfs via gay(?) Gabe, Allah's/God's/religion's messenger to the hallucinating Mohammed et al.

And of course, the "fems" (to include the greed) of Islam continue to be impossible for the "googling" Jihadist to come to grips with. Strange indeed since she "goggles" and grips all other subjects with great gusto with Mr. Obama being her recent favorite subject.

Great article. Fully agree. I can only add what I wrote earlier: Obama doesn't need a new church… he has already built his own.

Arminius, Doug, Bewildful, Pseudo, and Everyone,

The moving poems on the longed-for departure of CCNL will surely make a wonderful volume, a fit gift for any occasion--birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, Chanukah, Eed--indeed, for any precious moment when we are feeling thankful and appreciative.

Kindly post your submissions for the volume of Moving Poems on CCNL's Longed-For Departure on this thread. Volume I publication date to be announced.

Wiglaf,
Editor

Sophie: "thanks for the most -- if not only -- intelligent comment I've seen on what should be a non--issue."

Ahhh...time for some unintelligent and unintelligible comments on this "non-issue".

I learn something new today from Mr. Cal Thomas -"theological tenants". Puts a whole new perspective on this "non-issue" as per "theological tenants vs theological tenets" - we believers are like renters in a place that we will live in, put up with, until the landlord is untenable, and then we move out (as tenants), but want to have the same type of accomodation or adobe (tenets) or have a completely different kind of adobe?

The question is, when and why do we move out of a home, an organisation, a job, a political party, a church? The when and why by Obama in leaving the Trinity Church is quite politic it would seem.

This is not quite a non-issue but a significant one as another manifestation of how the public (or rather the media), in wanting to know the personal belief of public officials, then demand he not do so or back off from it, or distance himself from it once it is apparent the kind of belief, or church he is member of, or the pastor/minister/priest of his church is not one the public wants to hear, accept, tolerate on what he has to say.

What does this mean? That we only want to hear what we want to hear? And then wonder why politicians lie in doing what we want them to do and telling us what we want hear? Even if it is not the right thing to do and say?

There is a whole range of issues playing out here -

* Free speech and limits of it and to whom - are politicians and men of God expected to have higher standards? Or are they victims of our shifting and random standards?

* Versions and variations of patriotism - are criticisms of one's country treasonous, and who define what is patriotic and what is not?

* Tainted by associations - when someone we know said something disageeable and everyone else stained us who listened because we do nothing for any given reason both valid and dubious?

* Unrealistic and unreasonable expectations - for men of State (politicians) and men of God (ministers, priests, rabbis, imams) in what they do and say and we have higher standards for them?

More questions and issues on this of course on ethics and values in the public square. We expect our leaders and men of God to make ethical decisions that correlates with our personal values, and want it to be best for all. Or is it just for us to make us feel better and comforted never mind what others feel, think, went through and are going through?

Cheers
"J"

Way to completely miss the obvious Susan. Father Pflager likely hurts Barack even more than Jeremiah Wright. Barak didn't really have to quit after all Pflager was only a guest preacher and not one he invited.

Quiting simply makes him look like just another power hungry politician and will likely raise more questions among some of the more radical black activists regarding his 'blackness'.

You also grossly misinterpret the point Hagee was making.

people are bandying about the term demagoguery like it's pennies, but how about using it appropriately. There was nothing in this essay that remotely approached "demagoguery". A perfect illustration of why this country is ranked so far behind others in education.

CCNL, poor fool, can't see
That it's not just us 'gainst he
He spews his hate in many ways
On Muslims and upon all gays -
But it's not us and them, but WE and WE!

Didn't finish reading your essay because you made a major mistake upfront: equivalancy.

Try again, without the demogogry, and your arguments may be worth reading.

Dean I love your Lincoln quote. What a simple but profoundly true statement!

Thumping, thumping the bible and koran for these many, many centuries. Time for thumping the Reality and Truth about religions.

Obama and his wife like all of us need to step back and reveiw the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) before choosing a new church/religion.

For those eyes that have not seen, a synopsis of said "fems": (see the first commentary of the day)

In these days and times, Presidential aspirants would do well to follow Lincoln's response to a question about his religious beliefs:

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.

Given today's press, we could never elect another Lincoln. It is our loss as a nation that religion has been dragged out of the private sphere into the public domain. And it is religion's loss as well to be held up to ridicule in the press. I would think that smart clergymen would run away from the political arena as they could, but I suspect many of these people are, in truth, just more politicians.

CCNL is leaving? Well, less spam to roll through.

When this embarrassing incident hit the major media channels and the Internet, my heart went out to Barack Obama and his family.
The humiliating videos did nothing to further the dignity of this Primary contest.
In fact, it made a travesty of what is a serious electoral exercise to choose a new leader for our nation.
Barack Obama and his family took the only avenue they had left to salvage all their hard work during this campaign.
He has taken action carefully with reasoned discretion.
He made no inflammatory remarks which would have added to the fray.
He simply resigned, which spoke volumes.
The more I see of Senator Obama, the more I appreciate the manner in which he confronts situations.
His demeanor is admirable, considering especially what pain this must have caused and what this decision cost him and his family.
The founding fathers were more than prescient when they supplied us with the separation of church and state.
That miracle of freedom, previously unheard of in the history of most nations, is a hallmark of American genius.
We need to treasure it and keep it pristine.

The best preachers are iconoclasts.... That is their appropriate role. If you make a career of being provocative, well, you're going to provoke some people. So do we want no one to be provocative? What a boring world it would be, and how intellectually/creatively barren. And I would hate to have a President who never heard anything truly provocative.

For the record, I am an atheist. Specifically, though, a humanist -- which means to me, delight in things that are uniquely human. How, then, could I not be delighted by the likes of Rev. Wright and Fr. Pfleger? And their provocative, ridiculous, iconoclastic, but occasionally, I suppose, spot-on counterparts on the right, too?

Thumping, thumping the bible and koran for these many, many centuries. Time for thumping the Reality and Truth about religions.

Obama and his wife like all of us need to step back and reveiw the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) before choosing a new church/religion.

For those eyes that have not seen, a synopsis of said "fems": (see the first commentary of the day)

Doug,

Good one! Here is another offering:

There's a blogger who says that he's liberated
But his posts seem to show he's obfusticated
He always will post the same stuff,
Until we scream, 'Stop, that's enough!'
Which makes us all think he's inebriated

...........
Wiglif, are you paying attention?

E Favorite,

Regarding your recent post as Anonymous concerning sermons, especially Episcopal sermons. Most sermons everywhere in mainstream churches are pretty sleep-inducing. However, I have had the remarkable experience of being a member of a progressive Episcopal parish that uniformly delivers spell-binding, informative, even inspiring sermons. They have four priests, two of them women. All four are remarkable people. This is unique in my long experience.

As far as a discussion of sermons, that should be reserved for an after-the-service meeting, not during the service itself. IMHO, at any rate.

Did I hear that Concerned might now leave us?
Such an opportune thing--how 'twould please us!
No more skipping the lines
His insipidness 'pines:
We can read fresh new thoughts--how ingenuous!

I'm the recent anonymous

Ms. Jacoby,

This post, like all of your others I have read, strikes me as too cynical, too black and white. I encourage you to step back from your obviously very strong convictions and see the starting beliefs that lead you to these convictions. Then try to see how a different initial position leads to conclusions that you seem to hate so much. I hope you get the chance to read this and I wish you luck.

thanks for the most -- if not only -- intelligent comment I've seen on what should be a non--issue.

Ms. Jacoby,

This post, like all of your others I have read, strikes me as too cynical, too black and white. I encourage you to step back from your obviously very strong convictions and see the starting beliefs that lead you to these convictions. Then try to see how a different initial position leads to conclusions that you seem to hate so much. I hope you get the chance to read this and I wish you luck.

Ms. Jacoby,

This post, like all of your others I have read, strikes me as too cynical, too black and white. I encourage you to step back from your obviously very strong convictions and see the starting beliefs that lead you to these convictions. Then try to see how a different initial position leads to conclusions that you seem to hate so much. I hope you get the chance to read this and I wish you luck.

Wiglaf,

Methinks it behooves you to dutifully assemble all the poetic efforts directed at CCNL, and to publish the same on one of these distinguished blogs. Verily, a Labor of Love, to be sure!

Arminius

I once went to an Episcopal church that had something called “Sermon Seminar.” After the priest gave the sermon he/she would take questions and comments from the congregation. It seemed like a good idea – an opportunity to challenge clergy on their pronouncements from the pulpit.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out very well. What usually happened was that parishioners used the time to gush about the sermon – how it was so meaningful and how they’d be thinking about it all week.

Other parishioners would get up and give their own sermons, sometimes directly related to the one just given, sometimes not.

I finally stopped going to this service and resumed my old patterns from Catholic church days of just trying to tune out the sermons.

Wiglaf:
Hi Arminius,

Here is another moving poem on the longed-for departure of CCNL, this one posted by pseudo.
----------------

Once there once was a blogger named shell script
Who pasted so much he could well skip
They knew he was witless
'cause he bored them...*
And wished he would bid a farewell quip.

*well kids, I know it is not metrical, but he really bored them, anyway.
-------------------

I'm not really poetically inclined, but the theme inspires me, so I guess I'll give it a shot.

Sincerely,
Wiglaf

Arminius,

Not at all, my dear friend. The majesty of your mighty pen renews my deepest hope that on the blessed wings poesie, Man shall yet sail past CCNLs Loonasphere into the very ether itself.

With deepest apprecitation,

Wiglaf

Wiglaf,

You are entirely too kind.

Arminius

One of my early moving poems on the longed-for departure of CCNL

Desolation I

There once was a CCNL,
Whose posts made everyone yell.
They yammered and yammered
At the unceasing Spammer
'Til he left to get a brain cell.

-Bewildful 2008

Arminius,

Congratulations on your fine verse. It brought tears to my eyes. I am thinking of putting out a collection of poems dedicated to CCNLs longed-for departure, to include, minimally, your poem and Bewildful's of course.

Your works are not of an age but for all time.

Yours,
Wiglaf

Maybe this song can convince you that going to church can be a refreshing experience. Although I don't fully subscribe to it's contemporary style, the chorus portion is passable. Listen to this link :

http://www.imeem.com/people/UjJk48e/music/_PbZMKaO/michael_w_smith_micheal_w_smith_holy_holy_holy1mp3/

You guys are missing a lot both here on earth and the coming next life -- The LIFE which made this life into being. NO SOIL CAN TALK OR BREATHE UNLESS AN INTELLIGENT BEING TOUCHED THE SOIL.

BE CAREFUL GUYS.

****

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Susan, Absolutely. Who cares. Candidates should keep their church affiliations or lack thereof to themselves.
--------------------------
I wonder if you wouldn't mind adding a paragraph or two that could open up this endlessly reviewed and persistently stupid topic to a discussion that will lead us somewhere?

Also, in future, please don't use the word "famously." :)

Thanks!

M. Anonymous
Unfamously

Describing these pastors and priests as "nut-cases" is pretty unfair. Certainly, their statements are outrageous, but you have no special knowledge that they are untrue, do you? Your Atheistic beliefs are just that, beliefs. You don't actually KNOW if God or God's exist, do you? Of course not. But you go ahead a keep believing that all of existence just willed itself into being and managed to order itself just perfectly. To me, that seems more of a "nut case" notion than some entity at least starting the whole process.

Why do people think that "their" preacher is any smarter than their tax accountant or their barber? The phony title of "Reverend" seems to give more weight to a person's opinions than, say "Mr. Engineer" or "Mr. Accountant". The members of most churches are aptly called "The Flock", because of their blind belief that any silly statements which are made by the mind-control expert are being piped directly from the man (not a woman) upstairs someplace. We now let such will-benders dominate our politics and even are certain that we must also guarantee the safety of Israel in our national plans, in order to take no risk in alienating God's "favorite folks". Millions of people have died, over the ages, in the name of some religion or another. It would be a refreshing change, if all those who seek political office would sign an affidavit of "non-religious affiliation".

Oh CCNL, it's clear you're not well
Your endless posts a sad story do tell
You're really confused
Befuddled, bemused
An end to your posts would be swell!

Obama and his wife like all of us need to step back and reveiw the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) before choosing a new church/religion.

For those eyes that have not seen, a synopsis of said "fems": (see below)

My deeply felt poem on the longed-for departure of CCNL

Desolation II: Adieu, CCNL
(Apologies to Hopkins and Wiglaf)

CCNL is grieving
Because Susan's thread he's leaving
His posts, the stale thoughts of him, he
With brain froze cares for, can he?

Ah! As mind grows wiser
It will come to such thoughts higher
By and by, nor spare a cry
Though all space cyber from him fly.

-Bewildful 2008

Maybe this song can convince you that going to church can be a refreshing experience. Although I don't fully subscribe to it's contemporary style, the chorus portion is passable. Listen to this link :

http://www.imeem.com/people/UjJk48e/music/_PbZMKaO/michael_w_smith_micheal_w_smith_holy_holy_holy1mp3/

You guys are missing a lot both here on earth and the coming next life -- The LIFE which made this life into being. NO SOIL CAN TALK OR BREATHE UNLESS AN INTELLIGENT BEING TOUCHED THE SOIL.

BE CAREFUL GUYS.

****

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Thanks Susan, and I wonder what is ahead of us in the campaigns after the close of the Democratic Convention?

Here's a quote from Jacques Berlinerblau: "On a night of big speeches, McCain and Obama avoid religious themes. Maybe they're learning."

And I hope in general, the American public will forevermore be very skeptical about a sector of our population called the "values voters."

Obama and his wife like all of us need to step back and reveiw the "fems" (flaws, errors, muck and stench) before choosing a new church/religion.

For those eyes that have not seen, a synopsis of said "fems":

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

The muck and stench in Judaism you ask?

Belief that that the Jews are god's chosen people and its resulting consequences.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ 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. earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

The muck and stench of Catholicism you ask?

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

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

The muck and stench of non-Catholic Christian churches you ask?

Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology. .

4. Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing (11 wives), lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/ plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added gay(?) "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 assassination of Bhutto, 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 Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

The muck and stench of Islam you ask?

The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering , womanizing, hallucinating founder.

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 centered 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/reverence are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

The muck and stench of Hinduism you ask?

The caste system and cow worship/reverence.

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. e.g. Buddha by one legend was supposedly talking when he came out of his mother's womb.

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