The Nomination Of Sarah Palin: Religious Extremism Triumphant

Peter - a while back on this thread you wrote: "First you have to establish whether He is talking plainly or figuratively"

So why isn't it possible that God was speaking figuratively in Genesis and Exodus 20:11?

Peter Huff:

So what you are saying in your last post is basically that there is no evidence for anything that you will accept unless it comes from the Bible?

So if the mysteries of god are only understandable to those that he has given eyes to see and hearts to understand, why does he choose some and not others. I guess it doesn't matter because morality doesn't apply to god, right?

Hi Acebojangles,

ACEBOJANGLES: "All of the "evidence" that I see on the website you've provided seems to also make your assumption that the Bible is infallible. They also seem to assume that all mainstream geologists are twisting the facts to disprove the Bible. Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy that permeates modern science?"

Why appeal to a lower standard?

The conspiracy is the same old lie propagated by the devil in the beginning of God's creation - "Did God really say?" Six days? It is man's marred past coming back to haunt him. "Surely we will be like God, knowing good and evil, being wise in our own minds, not relying on anything but ourselves as THE standard for truth and knowledge by our autonomous reason?" All this so that you do not have to march to the beat of God's drum.

What you want to do is test/judge God's Word against the standards of this world, by the authority of your thinking, by a limited understanding of all things, thus making yourself and your standard of a higher value.

You are used to looking at evidence from a worldly perspective. The Bible makes a distinction between believers and unbelievers.

As an unbeliever or skeptic you have a worldview that is based on man as the highest authority.

God requires a repentant mind. What is a repentant mind? It is a mind that is not self-sufficient, a mind that recognizes its need for a Savior, a mind that has humbled and submitted itself to God's Word, a mind that is not self-governing, autonomous to its own reason.

The believer is a new man, born of God's Spirit whose thought process is attuned to the truthfulness of God's mind and His revelation. And through His light we see light and attain knowledge that is true, that is real.

So the question becomes why would a Christian try to answer the evidence from a worldly perspective when he has God's word on it? Why would a Christian who believes what God says is true, and that His Word is infallible, turn to a lesser standard that has no epistemic foundation? God is the precondition for intelligibility. What is your foundation for knowledge and intelligibility? Where did it originate from? How could knowledge originate from an inanimate object, a lifeless explosion; from non-thinking, unintelligent, impersonal, material, random, unpredictable, accidental, chance beginning? Please answer that question!

As believers, by God's grace, we recognize we have been made in the image of God, we are more than biological bags in motion, we are not in a hopeless existence, with no ultimate purpose, no ultimate meaning. We recognize that knowledge, personhood, consciousness, logic, reasoning, intelligence, love, truth, morals and being comes from Being, not a process that began by random chance without meaning or purpose.

ACEBOJANGLES: "Admittedly, I have only been able to give the website a cursory look. I'll try to read more."

As crazy as this may sound to you, may God grant you eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to believe!

PS. I will try to answer your other questions to the best of the ability that God has given me later tonight or this weekend.

let face it, people like you hate Jesus Christ and what he stands for, you also hate people that stand for the principle that Jesus Christ taught.

enough said

Peter Huff:

All of the "evidence" that I see on the website you've provided seems to also make your assumption that the Bible is infallible. They also seem to assume that all mainstream geologists are twisting the facts to disprove the Bible. Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy that permeates modern science?

Admittedly, I have only been able to give the website a cursory look. I'll try to read more.

Hi Acebojangles,

I'm rushed again. I will be glad to answer your post this Friday or Saturday, since I'm working until then.

Hi Notsogreatscot,

Peter Huff wrote: "Should we teach the alternative view of science that the earth is young and that there is growing evidence to these truth claims?"

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Science is based on observation of the physical world. So - humor me, what physical observations is this "growing evidence" based on? No biblical quotes - I'm looking for real observable physical data."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/young.asp

Peter Huff:

Examining the world based on physical evidence and the most advanced understanding of the universe science can provide is not willful ignorance even if there is currently no answer for some questions such as what existed before the big bang. Willful ignorance is attributing things that we cannot explain (or in cases such as evolution, things we can explain) to supernatural causes without any shred of proof. People used to think that god made rain fall, god made the sun rise, disease and sickness was caused by evil spirits, etc.

You must realize that I cannot accept any of the "arguments" for god's existence or the accuracy of the Bible you have presented. Here they are as I understand them (please correct me if I am wrong):

Argument 1: God exists, knows all, created all and is all powerful. This is evident because the Bible says so. The Bible is trustworthy because god knows everything and inspired it.

Argument 2: All human knowledge is flawed and incomplete. God knows all. The only way to know anything for certain is to be god or to be told something by god.

The first argument is circular. Can you provide some evidence that doesn't come from the bible?

The second argument makes sense, but since there is no proof that god exists, it's just an argument that you can't know anything for absolute certain. Also, according to the second argument, it is impossible for any human to have absolute proof of god or the Bible.

You say you can make sense of things by using god, but until you can make sense of god, how can that be true?

You keep saying that any non-religous argument or observation is only based on subjective human perspectives. That's not completely true. My arguments are based on what is. We live in a physical universe that can be observed and measured (unlike god, who nobody I have ever talked to has seen, measured or interacted with in any verifiable way). Science can be wrong about things, but when it is found to be wrong, it is updated.

So should we never trust science? Scientists don't know for absolute certain that the physical principles that they believe make electronics work or cars run are correct. After all, god didn't reveal them. But I bet you still drive and I know you use a computer. Scientists oberve the physical world, understand it as best they can and use that knowledge. Why should they go about studying the origins of life on earth any differently?

You aren't arguing that evolution doesn't belong in science classes, you are arguing that science shouldn't exist and the only knowledge worth knowing is theology.

Peter Huff wrote: "Should we teach the alternative view of science that the earth is young and that there is growing evidence to these truth claims?"

Science is based on observation of the physical world. So - humor me, what physical observations is this "growing evidence" based on? No biblical quotes - I'm looking for real observable physical data.

NotSoGreatScot:

Hi Peter, you wrote: "I hope that you will indeed at least admit that evolutionary science does not present objective unbiased evidence to the origin of man or that science has unbiased evidence to the origins of life and the universe? Can they be wrong???"

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I am firm believer in the objectivity of the process of science.

How do you know when you are correctly viewing the evidence that you believe is objective and can you be 100% certain of this? You admit below to the contrary - you cannot. With a life view that had its origins in Chance how do you explain certainty? What do you use other than your autonomous reasoning and the autonomous reasoning of others to judge "objectivity"? In a Chance universe (i.e. one that had its origin by chance) how can you be certain of the uniformity of nature (i.e. that what we have witnesses in the past and present will continue to be this way in the future)? Science does not predict the future, only that the probability of what happened in the past and present will happen in the future.

My position is not that you do not hold any true knowledge, for you borrow from the Christian framework when you make sense of this world, just that as an unbeliever you have no accounting for and cannot make sense of your reasoning and why it is true (when it is). Your foundation rests on nothing (but Chance), it has no explanatory power for God alone is the necessary condition to make sense of anything, because of the impossibility of the contrary. Without God and His revelation there is no objective, absolute, final standard and reference point that is necessary for certainty.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: " That is different from saying that all scientists practice it in an unbiased way. (I also don't believe that all theologians practice their craft in an unbiased way.)"

I agree, there is no such thing as neutrality or lack of bias for anyone who has come to a conclusion, the question is what is the ultimate reference point and why is it objective or true?

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Kepler started with a bias that God would make the planets orbit in perfect circles. He worked hard for years to maintain that proposition, but ultimately had to modify his work to allow for elliptical orbits to fit the observations. We reaffirm his work every time we successfully predict the timing of an eclipse."

So at first he was mistaken on the way God did it.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I do believe that science has given us objective evidence that the universe is older than 10 billion years, and the earth older than 3 billion years. Could we still be wrong about the details of what happened back then? Certainly."

Especially since the general consensus seems to be 13.7 billion years old at the present time, which is a lot more precise than "over ten billion". Isn't the science of origins so exacting, so sure!

NOTSOGREATSCOT: " Do we have any unbiased observations that anything other than the processes of physics, chemistry and natural selection were required to get from there to here? No."

"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day..." (Exodus 20:11a)

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Could an omnipotent God have created the earth 6000 years ago, and made it look like the universe is much older to test our faith? Yes, I would accept that this falls within the scope of omnipotence. Should we teach this in public school science classes? No. This is a question for a theology class."

Should we teach dogmatically that the theory of evolution is true and that this is how we came to be? Should we teach the alternative view of science that the earth is young and that there is growing evidence to these truth claims?

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Should we teach about the theology that leads some people to believe in creation in world history classes? Yes."

Only if we put evolutionary theory in the philosophy class.

Hi Acebojangles,

ACEBOJANGLES: "Why do you demand such a high level of proof from science and yet accept that the claims of the Bible about god are true with no proof? Could that be a bias on your part?"

To the first question I would ask how do you judge the truthfulness of subjective human opinion on something that no one witnessed and on evidence that no one has all the facts for? For the evolutionary framework you start with a speculation and what appears to your human subjective mind to be the most likely possibility and then you build your argument around that possibility to make it fit as best you can. But you still cannot make sense of it. Why did it happen? Was anything prior to the Big Bang? If it is just a random chance happening then how do you make sense of laws, the uniformity in nature, how you can know anything for sure, intelligence, reason, logic, personality, of whether everything in the universe has a cause (including the Big Bang), meaning, purpose, truth, morality, etc. I, as a Christian can make sense of these things; can you?

Second, God is the necessary condition of knowing anything as certain, so if I start from a place/position other than Him I no longer hold Him as my highest authority or have an absolute reference point. Why would I want to do that? He knows all things.

And yes, I am biased. In order to hold any opinion you have to build on a framework, on certain foundational starting suppositions. The difference between a believer and unbeliever is you can't make sense of your starting points. You are just as biased as I am, to the opposite end of course. You will not look at the facts as God's facts, the very things He made and sustains. You don't know where the facts come from - some mysterious Big Bang is your starting point.

ACEBOJANGLES: "This is one of my biggest problems with religion: it causes people to be willfully ignorant."

Actually you are the one who is willfully ignorant. The facts support God for He made them. Since you don't acknowledge Him you are willfully ignorant, since you cannot account for how the facts got here you are willfully ignorant, since you know nothing with 100% certainty you are willfully ignorant.

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God has made it evident to them...so they are without excuse." (Romans 1:18, 19, 20b)

ACEBOJANGLES: " When scientific facts don't agree with your supersition you would rather disbelieve them based on the fact that there are no million year old scientists than even consider the fact that you may be wrong."

I disbelieve them because God has been gracious to me in showing me that without Him you cannot make sense of the facts.

ACEBOJANGLES: "Incidentally, I never conceded that moral systems cannot exist without god."

Whose morals and why are they right? Because some subjective joe decided they were or are? What made him the starting point for defining "good"?

ACEBOJANGLES: "Without some sort of moral absolute, you suggest that morality just boils down to who is the stronger, right? Well isn't that just what your morality is? You believe that god is all powerful and so anything he says about morality is true (and he has said some pretty crazy things)."

Explain to me how without God - who is all knowing (therefore objective), benevolent (for He always does what is good since that is who He is and He never changes), and therefore is able to say with absolute certainty what good is - where your standard for morality comes from and why it is objective? If it is not objective then why is it good? If it is not absolute then what gives you the "right" to say it is good?

Yes please, make sense of it!

Hi Notsogreatscot,

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Isn't this the same process that occurs when a biblical scholar looks at a fragment of a scroll with a handful of letters on it, and comes to the conclusion that the entire received text of Mark existed at that time. (The alternate hypothesis might be that this fragment is from an earlier document, and Mark borrowed that passage from it, just as we know that Matthew and Luke later borrowed from Mark.)

As I said before, there are two types of apologetic methods; the evidential or classical approach (which relies on facts and historical information and man as the interpreter of such information) and the presuppositional method which relies on God as the final interpreted of all things and who without which nothing can be made sense of.

As such, I don't place the same emphasis on the classical or evidential method for the fact that it does not have the same effect that the presuppositional method does. It is useful for a believer, yes, but for an unbeliever it is an argument that he has already formed a bias against.

You or I where not there when the Bible was written, but unlike evolutionary origins there are written historical records that speak on the matters of how the Bible came about. I can give you accounts on how this came about but for you as a skeptic I do not believe this is the most effective method of speaking to you. No matter how compelling the evidence is, it is in conflict with your worldview and you are going to filter it through your rosy colored eyeglasses. Never the less, the evidence is in agreement with the Word of God, for there have been many men who have set out to prove the Bible wrong in its factual matters and have walked away believers. I think of two as I type; Sir William M Ramsay and Simon Greenleaf.

If I were to make an argument on the classical side I would direct you here for starters:

http://www.ronrhodes.org/Manuscript.html

Then I would get into a more documented approach by appealing to scholars such as F.F. Bruce, Craig L. Blomberg, Bruce M. Metzger, Gary Habermas and some of the older scholars such as early church fathers, Augustine for one.

As Greg Bahnsen quoted Van Til in Van Til's Apologetics,

"If the natural man is allowed the right to take the documents of the gospels as merely historical trustworthy witnesses to the Christ and His work, he will claim and can consistently claim also to be the judge of Christ Himself." p. 602

"That the argument for Christianity must therefore be that of presuppostion. With Augustine it must be maintained that God's revelation is the sun from which all other light derives. The best, the only, the absolute certain proof of the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presupposed there is no proof of anything. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof." p. 610

So any interpretation of the world to be true would have to line up with the Scriptures in order for them to be true. You as a man outside of the Scriptures take yourself or another man's experience and reasoning as the ultimate and intelligent reference point. What makes your assessment so? Where you there? Do you see all the facts? Do you think you are without bias in interpreting the facts outside of God?

"[T]here is simply no presuppositional-free and neutral way to approach reasoning, especially reasoning about the fundimental and philosophical momentous issues of God's existence and revelation. To formulate proofs for God that assume otherwise is not only foolish and futile, from a philosophical perspective, but also unfaithful to the Lord. Reasoning is a God-given gift to man, but it does not grant him any independent authority. The Christian concept of God takes Him to be the highest and absolute authority, even over man's reasoning; such a God COULD NOT be proved to exist by some other standard as the highest authority in one's reasoning. That would be to assume the contrary of what you are seeking to prove." p. 614

So the question is why would I place man's authority as proof above the authority of the only true God?

You have yet to show me how you can make sense of man's authority and proof.

Since I am a presuppositionalist by heart, I ask you how you make sense of truth, the uniformity of nature, logic, morality, laws, etc., without the Almighty God and His absolute, objective, ultimate reference point? Who are you going to appeal to - which subjective opinion are you going to trust - and what are your reasons for trusting them? Has science never been wrong? Is it right in its current assessments of all things? Which do you know for certain are true, especially in matters dealing with origins and man's assessment of the Bible (complete and utterly certain of is what I'm asking)?

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "This points up another question. We know that the earliest Greek copies we have of the NT don't all agree. From those - I now count 20 different English versions available at biblegateway.com."

In matters of dispute on the translation, evidentialists refer to the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic languages of the Old and New Testaments.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "How are we fallible humans to decide which version is "sufficient and complete", and does that mean the other versions are somehow insufficient, incomplete or both? How do we know? Can the answer the THAT question be found within the text itself?"

Yes, we are fallible and therefore in need of an authority higher than our own to make sense of all things. There again, God is able to communicate His message with peoples of all cultures and languages for He created us and He confused the languages in the first place.

We have as our reference God's very Word,

"The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether." Psalm 19:7-9

His Word is a living Word, the very breathe of God to man that gives life.

Evidentialists or classical apologists have as a reference the original languages the Bible was written in as a guide in disputed semantics and the number of manuscripts for verification to the accuracy of the words.

If you don't believe a correct translation can be done from other languages then there would be no means of communications between different cultures and languages groups. You and I know that the context greatly effects the meaning of the words and that all words have meaning according to their context and culture.

Presuppositionalists look to God first, and thr4ough His light we see light, and He makes sense of the facts of history for He does not lie. His Word is truth (John 17:17).

Peter Huff:

"Evolutionary scientists looks at the evidence - a fossil - and make their determination that this fossil is one million years old. Two questions: does the fossil have stamped on it "one million years old" and was the scientist there? In both cases - no. ... then comes to his conclusion on his biased opinion, since he does not know all the facts of the fossil."

Why do you demand such a high level of proof from science and yet accept that the claims of the Bible about god are true with no proof? Could that be a bias on your part? This is one of my biggest problems with religion: it causes people to be willfully ignorant. When scientific facts don't agree with your supersition you would rather disbelieve them based on the fact that there are no million year old scientists than even consider the fact that you may be wrong.

Incidentally, I never conceded that moral systems cannot exist without god.

Without some sort of moral absolute, you suggest that morality just boils down to who is the stronger, right? Well isn't that just what your morality is? You believe that god is all powerful and so anything he says about morality is true (and he has said some pretty crazy things).

Hi Peter, you wrote: "I hope that you will indeed at least admit that evolutionary science does not present objective unbiased evidence to the origin of man or that science has unbiased evidence to the origins of life and the universe? Can they be wrong???"

I am firm believer in the objectivity of the process of science. That is different from saying that all scientists practice it in an unbiased way. (I also don't believe that all theologians practice their craft in an unbiased way.) I believe that the inherent tendency of people to question forces objectivity into the process of science (and scholarship in general).

Kepler started with a bias that God would make the planets orbit in perfect circles. He worked hard for years to maintain that proposition, but ultimately had to modify his work to allow for elliptical orbits to fit the observations. We reaffirm his work every time we successfully predict the timing of an eclipse.

I do believe that science has given us objective evidence that the universe is older than 10 billion years, and the earth older than 3 billion years. Could we still be wrong about the details of what happened back then? Certainly. Do we have any unbiased observations that anything other than the processes of physics, chemistry and natural selection were required to get from there to here? No.

Could an omnipotent God have created the earth 6000 years ago, and made it look like the universe is much older to test our faith? Yes, I would accept that this falls within the scope of omnipotence. Should we teach this in public school science classes? No. This is a question for a theology class.

Should we teach about the theology that leads some people to believe in creation in world history classes? Yes.

Hi NotSoGreatScot,

Yes, this particular forum is fading fast, so we may soon have it to ourselves if you wish to continue the discussion.

Since this weekend is rushed please hang on to these questions until Monday or Tuesday. In the mean time I hope that you will indeed at least admit that evolutionary science does not present objective unbiased evidence to the origin of man or that science has unbiased evidence to the origins of life and the universe? Can they be wrong???

"Evolutionary scientists looks at the evidence - a fossil - and make their determination that this fossil is one million years old. Two questions: does the fossil have stamped on it "one million years old" and was the scientist there? In both cases - no. ... then comes to his conclusion on his biased opinion, since he does not know all the facts of the fossil."

Thanks Susan for articulating for us what comes out as simple as truth. McCain has turned way right off the center and his choice for VP has never been part of that center. As a woman I choose to vote with my brain instead of my x chromosome. Unfortunately,you have not mentioned that a lot of this women are overlooking their own interest for being vindictive against Obama, who has been accused of sexism against Hillary and against Palin as well. Especially white women who like white men find him too patronizing for his race. They can take the preachy style from a white man anytime at Bible school, or at a McCain rally or from any other white candidate.But from a black man, how dare him!!!
Also, if Obama looses only the Republican ideologues and voters who overlooked Obama because he is black get what they deserve. We the ones who vote on issues and on leadership qualities, we don't deserve this once again.

Hi Peter - we may be the only two left discussing this particular column!

Peter Huff wrote: "Evolutionary scientists looks at the evidence - a fossil - and make their determination that this fossil is one million years old. Two questions: does the fossil have stamped on it "one million years old" and was the scientist there? In both cases - no. ... then comes to his conclusion on his biased opinion, since he does not know all the facts of the fossil."

Isn't this the same process that occurs when a biblical scholar looks at a fragment of a scroll with a handful of letters on it, and comes to the conclusion that the entire received text of Mark existed at that time. (The alternate hypothesis might be that this fragment is from an earlier document, and Mark borrowed that passage from it, just as we know that Matthew and Luke later borrowed from Mark.)

This points up another question. We know that the earliest Greek copies we have of the NT don't all agree. From those - I now count 20 different English versions available at biblegateway.com.

How are we fallible humans to decide which version is "sufficient and complete", and does that mean the other versions are somehow insufficient, incomplete or both? How do we know? Can the answer the THAT question be found within the text itself?

For you Notsogreatscot, not the I agree that the evidential approach to apologetics is as effective as the presuppositional approach to apologetics used by Craig

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801021758/christianministr

http://garyhabermas.com/audio/audio.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsuczs8BJE8

PS. This weekend is going to be busy. I don't know how much time I will have to read and respond to posts, if any. If anything is added, it could be Monday or Tuesday before I reply to it. Take care!

Hi NotSoGreatScot,

Peter Huff wrote (in reference to differences between Luther and Zwingli): "By not properly interpreting the Word of truth."

Prior to that Peter Huff wrote: "but by just applying everyday rules of language you can understand what God says"

Precisely! God does not contradict Himself. Apparent contradictions can be worked out according to Scripture. You have to understand the language being used, whether figurative or plain by the context. "With the Lord, a day is LIKE a thousand years and a thousand years is LIKE a day" is not saying that a thousand years IS a day, that is contradictory, just that to an eternal Being that time is insignificant in the space of eternity and infinity. God sees the whole of time laid before Him at once, past present and future. Time was made for the creation, for human beings - Genesis 1:14 - so that God's timetable of human history would be recognized.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Clearly it is harder to find the truth than just everyday rules of language - otherwise Luther and Zwingli would have agreed. I don't think that any fallible human can claim that they are closer to extracting God's truth from scripture than any other."

No, God/the Bible speaks clearly, it is just that Christians bring baggage to their reading and interpretation of it.

These scholars which you hold in such great esteem, such as Crossan, change the meaning of the words to suit their preconceived worldview and look to outside sources to interpret the meaning of Scripture. Hence the plain meaning of Scripture is turned into a metaphorical meaning and the resurrection, for instance, becomes not an actual historical event, but an expression of some kind of spiritual truth. Now Notsogreatscot, we can discuss the difference between the two if you like and see just how people like Crossan and Sponge read into the text something that is not there.

Christianity is based on, among other things, the physical, bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and Scripture makes this clear.

"Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By THIS gospel you are saved, if you HOLD FIRMLY TO THE WORD I PREACHED to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:that Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He APPEARED to Peter, and then to the twelve. After that, He appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)

"Dear friend, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." (1 John 4:1-3)

"But Thomas, one of the Twelve was not with the disciples when Jesus came...'Unless I SEE the nail marks in His hands and PUT MY FINGERS where the nails were, and put my hand in His side, I will not believe it.'...Then He said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put them into My side. Stop doubting and believe.' Thomas said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!' Then Jesus told him, 'Because you have SEEN ME, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'" (John 20:24-29)

"Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?' But the temple He had spoken of was His BODY. After He was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what He said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken."

The language is plain. God says what He means. Would you care to dispute that this was a literal, bodily resurrection, as Crossan and Sponge do, that the same body that went into the tomb came out of the tomb? Let's see how plain God's word is.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Back to my original point - I think that true scholars are open and honest about what they DON'T know, and what they can't know with 100% certainty. I see this humility in Dr. Crossan's work, I have yet to see it in Dr White's."

That is because you come to the table already full and gluttoned out on Mr. Crossan's food and have no room left to digest some of Dr. White's delicious humble pie.

True scholars! You start from the opinion that we cannot know what is true from Scripture with certainty then gobble up what Crossan is feeding you. Why even bother reading, if you are not going to believe what the text says, if you are going to change it to suit your opinion, if you are going to read into it something that is not there. Make your own rules, see how far it takes you.

What gets me is that Sponge and Crossan call themselves Christians and yet doubt that God is able to preserve His Word accurately to us. Hence, you have the Jesus Seminar dismantling the text and casting votes on what actually are true saying of Jesus and what are not.

"And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe." (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

First of all you insist that true scholarship is of the brand that you decide it is to be, then you insinuate the Dr. White is lying, that he is not honest in his understanding of what the Scriptures say or is inaccurate in his lack of scholarly research and third, that God is incapable of communicating in a way that leaves no doubt to what He has said, when properly interpreted.

Let's see some of your evidence then.

Peter Huff wrote (in reference to differences between Luther and Zwingli): "By not properly interpreting the Word of truth."

Prior to that Peter Huff wrote: "but by just applying everyday rules of language you can understand what God says"

Clearly it is harder to find the truth than just everyday rules of language - otherwise Luther and Zwingli would have agreed. I don't think that any fallible human can claim that they are closer to extracting God's truth from scripture than any other.

Back to my original point - I think that true scholars are open and honest about what they DON'T know, and what they can't know with 100% certainty. I see this humility in Dr. Crossan's work, I have yet to see it in Dr White's.

Hi Acebojangles,

ACEBOJANGLES: "I appreciate your candor, but I think you're doing both of us a disservice by breaking my posts down sentence by sentence and responding to them individually because some of them are out of context."

You made some statements, I responded to them. Can you give me some examples? Maybe even in this round of discussion.

ACEBOJANGLES: "Let me restate this more clearly. Even if god existed and knew everything, you would still not. Therefore, it would be possible to know something for certain if you were god, but you would still not be able to know anything for certain because you could not know with certainty that god is god or that god isn't lying to you."

First of all, since I am not God I cannot know everything. That is a given. I can't even fathom in the tiniest part His creation and see it in the light that He does. That is a given. But what I can know as true is what He reveals as true. I can also know as true what corresponds to His written Word and also the natural revelation by thinking His thoughts after Him.

So, in order to know something as right, God would have to reveal it as such by giving through His revelation, His Word, a standard to go by, to govern and discern the difference. Other than that, as you yourself have admitted, nothing can be made sense of morally; it is just subjective preference.

ACEBOJANGLES: "Everything you know is based on your experience,"

No, it is not all based on my experience. There are lots of things that I have not experienced that I am trusting His Word to be true on, for God cannot lie, even though it may appear otherwise to my judgment. I have never seen a miracle such as a crippled man being able to walk by someones mere words (Acts 3:6-7). I have not experience Him as the disciples did after His death and burial, as a Person whom they could touch with their hands, yet I believe He rose bodily from the dead and is alive forever more!

ACEBOJANGLES: "...just as everything I know is based on my experience. You read the bible, but you are trusting that what you see is real and really the Bible."

There again, it boils down to your ultimate authority. Are you the final authority on what is true and what is right? If so, you do what Adam and Eve did, place judgment over and above God's Word, thus making something other than it your ultimate authority. But I keep asking you how you know that your final authority - yourself or someone else - (since you are placing what you believe above that of what the Bible says) is true? How do you make sense of it? You have no answer that you are not in doubt of.

ACEBOJANGLES: "You seem to be perfectly willing to apply doubt to everything but god and the Bible. Why is that?"

That is because of the impossibility of the contrary. Without God there are no answers, just personal preference, there is no truth, just one opinion over another, there is no uniformity in nature, for something that happened by chance, without original purpose cannot produce order. Where do you see that happening? By a random, chance, chaotic beginning how does information accumulate into an ordered system. Where do you see intent other than from a mind? Does a stone have intent? How does personality come from the impersonal? How does something such as logic (an abstract concept) come from physical matter. Why are there laws and how do you account for them? These are questions that you cannot make sense of - can you?

I don't know how to express it any clearer than by the many examples I have given you and the many questions I have asked you that you are unable to answer.

ACEBOJANGLES: " Does god tell you when doubt is appropriate? Also, what happens when you come across a situation which may not be covered in the Bible?"

Concerning His Word yes, I am never to doubt Him. He says to have faith and do not doubt for He does not lie.

When I come across a situation that is not covered by His word I am to have faith that He will answer my prayer, if I look to Him for the answer. Since He is in control of all things my life is in His hands. Some things I will not have the answer for immediately, or ever, but I can come to Him in prayer believing that He will guide me into what is right.

And from His Word I do know what is wrong - murder (taking an innocent life), adultery (cheating on my wife whether physically or mentally), lying or bearing false witness against someone, coveting (greed) something that is someone else's, dishonoring parents, making a false idol or another god before Him, whether physically or mentally (something that misrepresents who God is or is a substitute for God), misusing His name, and so one.

On teaching, for instance, I was told by a well meaning Christian that I could lose my salvation, that I could take myself out of God's hands. I had a hard time wrestling with this doctrine for which I prayed about and studied my Bible for over two years until one day, by His Spirit, through His Word He made crystal clear to me that I could never lose my salvation for it is Him alone who saves. Suddenly I saw who was the subject and who was the object doing the saving, who was doing the action and who was dependent upon that action. Over and over that night God confirmed His grace and mercy to me through His Word, by His Spirit. He gave me ears to hear what He said. He gave me eyes to see what was written. He gave me a heart to understand this truth.

"...[B]ecause HE WILL SAVE His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:23)

NOSOGREATSCOT: "Yet they came to different conclusions as to the nature of that truth. How could that be?"

By not properly interpreting the Word of truth.

Just as there is a difference of opinion today over the last days referred to by Jesus in the Olivetti Discourse and elsewhere in Scripture. Many interpret the generation spoken of as a future generation many centuries removed from the times that Jesus spoke. But a more logical and more agreeable interpretation that does not compromise the text is that Jesus was taking about the generation alive at the time.

When you follow the text of Matthew 23 into Matthew 24 you see in what the disciples were referring to, the scolding rebuke of the Pharisees by Jesus and the destruction of the Temple which would put an end to the Old Covenant, since there would be no more animal sacrifice or priesthood, with the destruction of the Temple forty or so years later in 70 A.D.

"Look, your house is left to you desolate....Jesus left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to Him to call attention to its buildings. 'Do you see all these things?' He asked. 'I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.' As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. 'Tell us,' they said, 'when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age."the disciples?" (Matthew 23:38, 24:1-3)

"Truly I say unto YOU, all these things shall come upon THIS GENERATION. (Matthew 23:36)

"Truly I say unto YOU, THIS generation will not pass away until all these things take place." (Matthew 24:34)

The reasoning is a lot deeper than this. I would recommend "Last Days Madness" by Gary DeMar if you want a well documented case.

So, yes, these men can be wrong on certain issues, but not on essentials and still be Christians.

Hi NotSoGreatScot:

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "If this is the case, why were there such strong disagreements between Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Melancthon? Clearly they all believed that the scripture was the sole source of truth. Yet they came to different conclusions as to the nature of that truth. How could that be?

Yes, there was disagreement but they had much in common also. Calvin, Luther and Zwingli started out as Roman Catholics, and through the grace of God became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was not living in the light of the truth.

One of the sharp disagreements between Luther and Zwingli was over transubstantiation, a Roman Catholic doctrine. I believe that Luther was wrong over that point as the Word of God makes clear and I can go over with you if you wish as to the reasoning.

But neither of them were in doubt as for the truth of sola scriptura, as you mentioned above.

God also used these men in different ways to bring to light the teaching of Rome as opposed to the Bible. But on the essentials they and we agreed. Salvation is by Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone and that through Scripture alone (after the canon), not tradition also, is God's revelation to us made known.

Hi Notsogreatscot,

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Peter - you originally suggested that Dr. White was a scholar, on par with some that CCNL mentioned (OK habitually mentions). What criteria were you referring to in calling him a scholar?"

Dictionary:
1.
1. A learned person.
2. A specialist in a given branch of knowledge: a classical scholar.

What criteria are you using that would make his teaching less of value, more untrue to the reader than your scholars? Just because he does not publish with the same crowd your crowd does? I mean you are using a value judgment of what is scholarship using the Jesus Seminar crowd as a criteria of good scholarship?

I believe he surpasses the folk of the Jesus Seminar on scholarship on the Bible. He has spent many years studying the Bible, studying church history, studying the culture, studying Greek, studying the early church writers and the influence of Christianity. Because he does not receive the recognition of your liberal theologians does not make him any less of a scholar.

He has documented in his books and papers where he has obtained his information from. Check it out.

You discount much of what he reveals on his website about his education:

Teaching

Church History, Grand Canyon University, 1991-92, 95
Scholar in Residence, Grand Canyon University, 1995-1996
Apologetics, Grand Canyon University, 1996
Beginning Greek, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001
Greek Exegesis of Ephesians, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 2001
Beginning Hebrew, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1996, 1998, 2000
Hebrew Exegesis, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1997, 1999
Christian Philosophy of Religion, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1998-2003
Christology, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1997
Systematic Theology, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1996, 1998, 2004
Apologetics, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003-2004
Development of Patristic Theology, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 2004
Current Issues in Apologetics, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 2005, 2007
Islam, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 2008

Education

B.A. Bible (Major in Biology, minor in Greek), Grand Canyon College, 1985.
M.A. Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1989
Th.M. Apologetics, Faraston Seminary, 1995
Th.D., Apologetics, Columbia Evangelical Seminary, 1998
D.Min, Apologetics, Columbia Evangelical Seminary, 2002

Elder, Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church (www.prbc.org)

Critical Consultant, New American Standard Bible Update (1995)

Notsogreatscot, do you not recognize an M.A. of Theology, from Fuller Theological Seminary, 1989? That is a well known theological seminary. Do you not recognize that it would take someone of some reputation to be a consultant for an NASB Bible update, someone who knew Greek well? Do you not recognize that he has taught courses in a variety of Biblical subjects at a Theological Seminary? Can anyone do that without being recognized as a scholar? Do you not recognize that he has debated (64 debates) with the best of liberal scholars over the last 18 years, including Crossan? Are you saying that these scholars you hold in such high regard will debate with any joe that comes off the street?

No, he has been able to hold more than his own with every one of these men, and women. He has also spoken overseas as well as on radio and talk shows across the country.

Where do you get the right to call him anything other than a scholar, whether you agree with his expertize or not? Because he ruffles feathers, is politically incorrect to these liberal teachings, to the teachings of those you favor, does not publish in the same independent secular universities that your crowd does?

Come on Notsogreatscot. How about answering some of the questions I have posed to you during the course of these postings, including the ones earlier today? Let's make this more of a discussion, not just one sided. I take the time to answer the questions that others pose to me. Are you not going to offer me the same courtesy of a response?

Peter Huff wrote: "There will always be a controversy between the believer and unbeliever, but by just applying everyday rules of language you can understand what God says"

If this is the case, why were there such strong disagreements between Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Melancthon? Clearly they all believed that the scripture was the sole source of truth. Yet they came to different conclusions as to the nature of that truth. How could that be?

Hi Anonymous,

ANONYMOUS: "Peter, do unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview like the Christians borrowed from the pagan beliefs before them?"

There again, I'm sure that many believers were influenced by pagan beliefs but that does not change the truth of Christianity and the message preached. The Jews were the people God chose to make Himself known progressively to the nations of the earth and what was promised through the Jews, the Messiah, was made known through God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What you are suggesting is that the Christian gospels and epistles was influenced by pagan belief, not just Christians themselves, in which case I could offer loads of evidence to the contrary, just as I'm sure you can from your side, without any resolve. The question is, what is your ultimate authority since you or I were not there?

Basically you start with one of two presuppositions, from those of an unbeliever or from those of a believer, but I invite you to make sense of it from your perspective.

ANONYMOUS: "Apparently, since I am not a Jew who converts to Christianity I can't be saved anyway, so why the hell should I even bother? God might have mercy on me?"

"He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to ALL THOSE who received Him, to THOSE WHO BELIEVED IN HIS NAME, He gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, or of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." (John 1:11-13)

ANONYMOUS: "I could give a damn if he feels I'm worthy or not because I know that human law is better than his childish emotions.

"Better?" What is your ultimate reference point for "better"? Whose "better" are you referring to? Which human law, which culture, says who?

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them...For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but there foolish thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images...They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen." (Romans 1:18, 19, 21-23a, 25)

You have just confirmed the Word of God again!

Peter Huff wrote: ""[O]n the road to scholarship". Whose, those who favor your opinion?"

Peter - you originally suggested that Dr. White was a scholar, on par with some that CCNL mentioned (OK habitually mentions). What criteria were you referring to in calling him a scholar?

Hi Gerry,

GERRY: "Nobody has ever come up with an evidence of the existence of god. Nobody, not even Peter Huff."

There again Gerry, what kind of evidence will you accept? That is just the point, it has to be on your terms. You want to dictate what is and is not possible, what is and is not evidence. You want to act in God's place. You will not accept His Word, you will not accept that He is the necessary condition to make sense of this world, so you are left with your own subjective opinion and that of like minds.

But you still need to make sense of qualitative values that you use every day like good and right and evil and truth. I have yet to hear an atheist or pagan make sense of them and if I was a betting man I would bet as much from you.

You still cannot make sense of existence or of any ultimate meaning and purpose. Life is meaningless. Eat, drink and be merry, if you can, if you live on the right side of the tracks. You live, you die, who cares - that is the atheist manifesto? For the atheist meaning ceases at death - it is all meaningless, it does not matter what you do ultimately and living on Someone else's capital is the only way that you can make sense of life.

GERRY: "Mankind has in vain tried to find a proof for god's existence through the millenia - nothing!"

Says who? When did you become the ultimate authority, the all knowing expert? Have you known every mind, read every thought ever written on paper, been able to weigh and judge objectively every bit of evidence?

You stand in judgment of God's Word, the very Word that will one day judge you. Until that time...

GERRY: "Only faith. And faith is a product of the human brain, developed through evolution."

We all have faith in something Gerry. "Developed through evolution" - I don't see it the way you do Gerry. You're wrong. Unless you can show me some ultimate, objective, absolute standard and reference point it is meaningless, but you do not believe so, therefore you again borrow from the Christian worldview that says there is meaning in life.

GERRY: "On the light side: A mobile telephone, 100 years ago, would have been sufficient as a proof of the existence of god!"

Says you, big deal, mere opinion. To which god? There is only One true and living God. Matthew 11:20-24

Peter Huff wrote: "Well when you are talking about the Bible polemics is involved."

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Only if you are convinced that you have the one true interpretation of the bible. If I were to concede Dr. White's view point that the bible is "the written revelation of God, complete and sufficient in all respects"; I would still hold that none of us capable of understanding the mind of God, so we are not capable of interpreting the bible as God intended.

There will always be a controversy between the believer and unbeliever, but by just applying everyday rules of language you can understand what God says. First you have to establish whether He is talking plainly or figuratively and what is being said, what is the context, who is being spoken to, who or what is the subject and object of the sentence, etc.

For instance, it is very plain what is meant and Who is being referred to in Acts 4:12 or John 14:6. The Bible interprets itself in that God provides the explanation in and of His Word and by His Spirit.

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which they must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

What is the name given. See verse 10. But you do not believe in that Name so John 3:18-20 applies to you unless God gives you mercy in repentance. You do not see your need for a Savior, or do you? If you do then John 3:16 & 17 along with Romans 8:1 could very well apply to you.

Peter Huff wrote: "So yes, evidence can be verified and checked out, but it is also influenced and biased unless you look at it from God's perspective because He made the facts what they are."

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "None of us can see it from God's perspective, because we are not God. I think that Calvin would agree with me on this."

He would agree with you on the point that none of us are God, granted, but not on the point that we can't see it from God's perspective.

God is the most effective communicator, therefore He is able to communicate with His creatures in a way that they can understand. He says what He means and means what He says. He talks in plain language that has the meaning that He designed it to have.

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you have heard it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:14-17)

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who CORRECTLY handles the word of TRUTH." (2 Timothy 2:15)

There is a correct way of handling God's truth, His Word.

Hi NotSoGreatScot,

Peter Huff wrote: "The evolutionary, atheistic worldview starts with its basic tenants, its core beliefs, that the universe came about by a chance happening (i.e. it wasn't something planned or designed on purpose, it was an accident) and that evolution, not God, is how we got to be man."

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "No - science starts with observations, and then seeks explanations (hypotheses)consistent with those observations."

How can "science" start with something that is not observable, that cannot be seen? The supposed "Big Bang" is not something that has been duplicated; it is a theory. No one was around except for the Creator, so in order to understand it as it actually happened you would have to think the Creator's thoughts after Him.

Where has any scientist observed life originating from non-life? Where does it happen today that you could show me an observable example?

How does inanimate, inorganic matter take on personality?

How does truth derive from material matter without mind?

How does objectivity derive from subjective opinion?

No,in such matters scientists start with possibility and try to mold their theories to fit those possibilities in accord with what they feel is probable. That probability involves the scientist's starting point, and in many cases that involves a universe without God.

Let's get real here. What is your answer to these questions?

Ms. Jacoby,

I think that you have left out the fact that there are many more "left Wing extremists" than right wing. And don't forget that abortion affects not only the mother but the HUMAN baby. Is it right to take life from the baby when he/she has no choice. By the way, Christians are NOT evil. We would like a peaceful world. Oh and by the way, they already teach atheism in schools. It's called evolution and punishing people who mention God or wear religious jewelry. Or persecuting Christian group ( or calling them extremists). And what about those like me Who have been called stupidn because of my faith by, guess who, Atheists. Yu also must admit that many ( but not all) women were voting for Hillary because she is a woman. Just like many have voted for Obama because he is African-American. By the way, where in the constitution does it say that the Church and state should remain seperate.

Sincerely,

Joel Grey

Hi NotSoGreatScot,

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I don't claim to defend Bishop Spong, but yes, Dr. Crossan's (professor emeritus, DePaul) work does meet the criteria for scholarship that I posted."

Yes, I understand your point, but the point I am making is that these professors and scholars still come to the table (if you will) with their own personal bias and prejudice in interpreting the information and facts presented to them. Facts do not come pre-interpreted or unbiased unless they are interpreted objectively, and as God is the only objective source of truth unless you interpret them as He has revealed them you bring subjective opinion into the frey.

Instead of seeing the Bible as it claims it is, the Word of God to man, His self disclosure and revelation of who He is, it now becomes the words of men about God and their subjective self-descriptive experiences of God.

So with the likes of Kant, Schleirmacher, Hegel, Barth and the gang that follows comes the views of a dichotomy between religion and faith, between science and reason; Science and history as verifiable on the naturalistic level and faith and the Bible on the supernatural level as personal experience only, thus being unverifiable. The Bible no longer becomes an historical objective evidence from God, but man's subjective belief passed down through the annuls of history.

So as this natural (liberal) theology progresses along from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries anyone in this camp perceive that miracles and the supernatural events in the Bible are impossible, (such as creation, resurrection or anything that is not naturally verifiable today), or that these events must be interpreted in the light of naturalism. They assume the natural came before the supernatural or that the supernatural does not exist. Thus you get German "Higher Criticism" and the "Jesus Seminar" which makes for itself the authority on what God is, what is and what is not God's Word; what is and is not possible.

So what in effect is done is that man becomes the ultimate and final authority and judge over the Word of God (just as in the beginning), instead of God through His Word and by His authority judging the hearts and minds of men. Very convenient when you can make the Word of God say something it does not say to fit your lifestyle, as my friend Arminius on this post does.

Let me say it again, so what we have in effect is subjective man placing himself as the final authority of what is possible, of what is true.

So these liberal theologians no longer live by every word that comes from the mouth of God and Jesus' words no longer (possibly never did) remain in them and this is very conveniently to their lifestyle, since there now becomes no ultimate Judge and God's words do not apply,

"If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and MY WORDS remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." (John15:5b-7)

Jesus speaks to the people today in the same manner as He spoke to the Jews in His day,

"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears My words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects Me and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day." (John 12:46-48)

"If you believed Moses, you would have believed Me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:46, 47)

"If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous generation [speaking to the generation at His first coming, when He lived in the world], the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38)

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Regarding Dr. White's work (and your defenses of it) - if you start from a position that the bible is sufficient and authoritative, then seek only data that support your predetermined view - that's not scholarship."

There are only two positions, 1) The Bible is the Word of God, and sufficient in all matters of faith, [of which both the believer and unbeliever operate; one on a standard outside himself, the other on himself as the standard] 2) The Bible is not the Word of God and must be judged by human standards and human reasoning.

Are you going to judge it from your subjective human standpoint as to whether it is or is not, thus putting yourself as the higher and final authority?

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "It fails the "open mind" criteria, and it leads you to ignore data that fails to support your thesis.

Well you're "closed minded" to the position that it is the very revelation and Word of God, recorded by man but, because from God, without error in its original transmission and preserved by God so that it stands not only as a witness to Him but also a revelation of Him and judge of man in His sight. So much for your open mind.

Your mind tends to ignore the data, the Bible itself, because it fails to support your subjective thesis.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "On the other hand, if you take that data that fails to support your pre-determined view, and address it in a reasoned way, then you are on the road to scholarship."

Whose scholarship? The kind that agrees with your predetermined view, that addresses the matter in subjective human reason which can never be "independent" because it always builds on the views espoused by some other subjective "expert" that brings his own bias and prejudice to the facts, just like in every other walk of life.

Evolutionary scientists looks at the evidence - a fossil - and make their determination that this fossil is one million years old. Two questions: does the fossil have stamped on it "one million years old" and was the scientist there? In both cases - no. So he "observes" the fossil, he observes possible factors that could have made the fossil that age and then comes to his conclusion on his biased opinion, since he does not know all the facts of the fossil.

"[O]n the road to scholarship". Whose, those who favor your opinion?

As I said before, without God it is impossible to make sense of these matters because without an objective, absolute, ultimate, unchanging authority and standard, at best all you have is an "educated" guess. God is the necessity in order to make sense of this world.

Google it tells us the sources you use.
A little web spider finds nothing that's news.
The time that it takes you to cut and to paste
Is really a terrible terrible waste.

I'm also not sure why my name you repeat
'Cause Repeating your self is admitting defeat.

Insightful Farnaz:

"People warn against diversionary tactics such as Dominionism, exploited to keep us busy and arguing.

God did not create the food shortage. God did not create global warming, raise gasoline prices, or
cause this:

Dow Dives 500 Points on Banking Turmoil"

You tell us right truly fear mongering feeds
A panic that serves some political needs

They feed some distractions to the heated factions
and in all the noise, key facts get no traction.

Pseudo, Pseudo, Pseudo,

How can we educate you this evening?? Hmmm, Professor JD Crossan's works you already have memorized. And also those of Professors Reed, Borg and Fredriksen. And these many historic Jesus exegetes:

H.S. Reimarus, R. Bultmann, E. Kasemann, Earl Doherty, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Alvar Ellegård, G. A. Wells, Gregory Riley, Robert Eisenman, Robert Funk, Burton Mack, Stephen J. Patterson, Stevan Davies, Geza Vermes, Richard Horsley, Hyam Maccoby, Gerd Theissen, Bart Ehrman, Gerd Lüdemann, John P. Meier. E. P. Sanders, Robert H. Stein, Karen Armstrong, Albert Schweitzer (The Quest for the Historical Jesus)Mahlon Smith, and Karen Pagels.

How about some Schillebeeckx??

In his book, Church: The Human Story of God, Schillebeeckx notes,

"Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

Tis a great passage!!!

Ah, Pseudo,

I should have known you'd be here to serenade us in this moment of fiscal woe. Sing on!

Reasonable Not Hateful

"Arminius:

1) You reversed my moniker to suit your purposes. Nice."

You made your point well and did not call him names.
And so you avoided some childish games.
So will an adult discussion ensue,
Where both of you learn that that can be cool?

Ode to the Shell Script

Then there's the strange case of CCNL
It string copies Crossan so very well

Slams On Faith bloggers in just a short twinkling
But then we must ask ourselves: is it really thinking?

A tiny shell script can also string copy
To spread some ideas that would not fill a floppy.

Arminius:

Two things: actually three.

1) You reversed my moniker to suit your purposes. Nice.

2)Also, this website and its assertions prove nothing.

3)They also critique Rick Warren , who has a sterling reputation in helping the poor and down trodden.

I see no "proof" that Dobson is a "dominionist"

Have you ever even listened to one of his programs on the radio ?

Or do you go by websites that have no basis in reality?
------------
You assert that we are to love others, but how do you handle the problem of sin in people's lives?

Why did Jesus die on the cross?

Was he resurrected physically?

Answer these questions, please....

People warn against diversionary tactics such as Dominionism, exploited to keep us busy and arguing.

God did not create the food shortage. God did not create global warming, raise gasoline prices, or
cause this:

Dow Dives 500 Points on Banking Turmoil

This is WaPo's current headline. Our born-again president, he who is well-connected in Fema-less, blacked-out Texas, has, in fact, given a few bucks to Bank of America in the Merrill Lynch buyout. Not to worry, say born-again and born-once, no crisis to be expected from the Lehman Brothers fall.

Indeed, we need not expect a crisis since it is occurring. Believers: Religion belongs in your churches, synagogues, mosqs, etc. Intellect belongs in searching out the meanings of economic and political policies, neoliberal economics, in particular. None of the mortgage nonsense would have been impossible without Reagan and deregulation, but it was Clinton's neo-liberal economics (the Republican agenda) that brought us to where we are, globalization and mortgage wise.

This isn't 1929. If we go down for awhile other countries will suffer, but they will also pull their US investments (already starting)and direct them elsewhere. If McCain wins, we can expect, if not more retrograde Bush economics, something on that order. If Obama wins, we can expect more Bill Clintonesque economics. Note to fellow Americans: It hasn't worked.

This is God talk only in the sense that if you are a believer and have some concern for your fellow humans, the ones about to lose their jobs, the homeless (and Femaless) in Texas, the people without health care, then this might be an excellent time for you to recognize that the "culture wars" are, in part a sham.

Time to exit the cave, suggests Plato.

Hello, Anna the atheist,

So here I am, one of those old fart, boring believers....

Ya know what? I have no guilt. Also, I was a non-believer for three decades, and know just where you are coming from. I have no problem with that. I'm kinda a unique Christian.

We are certainly agreed on one very important thing: Obama. I am 65 years old, and he is the first politician that I ever gave money to.

There are many of us liberal Christians behind Obama. And we are glad you and your fellow non-believers are there too.

Shaida,

Just lovely. very well said.

I agree with Farnaz and Shaida! I think that religion is for old people and other boring types! Live life without guilt is what I say.

And I am SO very happy that all the down stuff on Wall Street will bring Obama and all the Dems into Washington. I mean, hedge fund types, so rich and mostly ALL atheists, really CONTRIBUTED to Obama and he can count on them to tell him what to do. And because the proles and pew peasants will be so poor, they won't worry about atheism and all that. So they'll vote DEM!!!

And then Lehman Bros. can leverage 30 to 1 again and take up humongous salaries too, just like sports jocks and movie stars, because they all will have a friend in Obama.

Happy days are here again. Thank God I'm an atheist.

Shaida: I agree with Arminius. Great Post!!!

Shaida, Shaida, Shaida,

Professing a belief is not imposing a religion on anyone. What we, the electorate, are looking for are the basics in goodness. Things like the Ten Commandments and "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself" and the Beatitudes.

This interest is more acute in contemporary times because of the scandalous activies of many of our leaders to include Bill Clinton's womanizing/ adultery, Larry Craig's lewd behavior,
adulterous preachers, pedophiliac priests", propheteering / profiteering" evangelicals, corrupt CEOs and "steroid head" athletes.

"Anonymous:
Peter, do unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview like the Christians borrowed from the pagan beliefs before them? Apparently, since I am not a Jew who converts to Christianity I can't be saved anyway, so why the hell should I even bother? God might have mercy on me? I could give a damn if he feels I'm worthy or not because I know that human law is better than his childish emotions."

I'm so loving it. People talk about Pagans not knowing their own history, I challenge that few really know the history of their religion. Honestly, religions are ever changing as we learn and grow as cultures and people. Religions have been stealing back and forth for more generations than many of us can count.

As for the other, I was raised Christian, I acknowledge the Christian God, I choose not to worship him. I read the bible, more than once, and to me the Christian God came across as a mean, vindictive fellow who opted to change his mind on a whim, plays favorites and can't be trusted for anything.

Shaida,

Well and beautifully said. All true Americans thank you.

Arminius

Well, anyone who doesn't believe Jihadist or me about separation of church and state can read Shaida below.

CCNL,

"You don't get CNN where you live????"

Yes, but maybe I overlooked them saying that reporters couldn't get to the worst hit areas (almost everywhere), that they were being forcibly kept out. It really is creepy.

The Lehman thing I knew, but as I was listening, it suddenly struck me that once again something very important was being soft pedaled. Occasionally, one hears the R word as in recession. Have you? But we'll hear it much more often very soon, unless some radical action is taken.

This pattern should be more familiar to you than me. I believe that they call where we're headed "deflation." You might want to take a good hard look at Bank of America, then at imperiled brokerage houses, banks, and European media. More emails this morning--we're not what we once were. We're "globalized." (God didn't do this, btw.) I'm not going to go on, since the rest should be obvious. Reaganomics, Clintonomics (Republicanomics) have brought us to a vulnerable position of which most of us rarely thing.

We all seem to have this sort of "generalized anxiety," short temperedness, etc. There are many factors contributing to the national mood, the economy being one of them.

I am an Iranian American with the first hand experience when it comes to disasters caused by religious extremists. What happened in Iran with nearly 6,000 years of civilization is to be studied by Western Nations so that death to humanity and freedom does not occur the way it happened in Iran due to an religious extremist government. Religion is extremely personal and is not to be imposed on others who might have different views. As a leader of a country, the only mission is to put emphasis on making sure people of the land are positively supported when it comes to their job securities, health care,and the education of their children. What we believe and discuss with our god in private should be kept totally private. As a public servant, a leader should definitely inforce seperation of church and state or in a country with hundreds of different nationalities and religious beliefs such as AMERICA, imposing one way of thinking when it comes to god will only result in destruction of a beautiful nation that was origionally built based on respecting individual's freedom.

Peter Huff:

I appreciate your candor, but I think you're doing both of us a disservice by breaking my posts down sentence by sentence and responding to them individually because some of them are out of context.

Let me restate this more clearly. Even if god existed and knew everything, you would still not. Therefore, it would be possible to know something for certain if you were god, but you would still not be able to know anything for certain because you could not know with certainty that god is god or that god isn't lying to you.

Everything you know is based on your experience, just as everything I know is based on my experience. You read the bible, but you are trusting that what you see is real and really the Bible.

You seem to be perfectly willing to apply doubt to everything but god and the Bible. Why is that? Does god tell you when doubt is appropriate? Also, what happens when you come across a situation which may not be covered in the Bible?

Peter, do unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview like the Christians borrowed from the pagan beliefs before them? Apparently, since I am not a Jew who converts to Christianity I can't be saved anyway, so why the hell should I even bother? God might have mercy on me? I could give a damn if he feels I'm worthy or not because I know that human law is better than his childish emotions.

Iris,

your last sentence:"...remains mysterious to most" - no, it remains mysterious to everybody!

Nobody has ever come up with an evidence of the existence of god. Nobody, not even Peter Huff. Mankind has in vain tried to find a proof for god's existence through the millenia - nothing! Only faith. And faith is a product of the human brain, developed through evolution.

On the light side: A mobile telephone, 100 years ago, would have been sufficient as a proof of the existence of god!

Thanks for this article. I 100% recommend it to others.

Peter Huff wrote: "That is the bias that the Jesus Seminar scholars and all liberal scholars bring to the table."

So your definition of liberal would be essentially the talk radio definition - anyone who disagrees with you is a liberal.

Peter Huff wrote: "Well when you are talking about the Bible polemics is involved."

Only if you are convinced that you have the one true interpretation of the bible. If I were to concede Dr. White's view point that the bible is "the written revelation of God, complete and sufficient in all respects"; I would still hold that none of us capable of understanding the mind of God, so we are not capable of interpreting the bible as God intended.

Peter Huff wrote: "So yes, evidence can be verified and checked out, but it is also influenced and biased unless you look at it from God's perspective because He made the facts what they are."

None of us can see it from God's perspective, because we are not God. I think that Calvin would agree with me on this.

Sorry for the double post. I posted the following:

Peter Huff wrote: "Are you saying that Crossan and Sponge are scholars that meet your criteria listed above?"

I don't claim to defend Bishop Spong, but yes, Dr. Crossan's (professor emeritus, DePaul) work does meet the criteria for scholarship that I posted.

Regarding Dr. White's work (and your defenses of it) - if you start from a position that the bible is sufficient and authoritative, then seek only data that support your predetermined view - that's not scholarship. It fails the "open mind" criteria, and it leads you to ignore data that fails to support your thesis.

On the other hand, if you take that data that fails to support your pre-determined view, and address it in a reasoned way, then you are on the road to scholarship.

Peter Huff wrote: "The evolutionary, atheistic worldview starts with its basic tenants, its core beliefs, that the universe came about by a chance happening (i.e. it wasn't something planned or designed on purpose, it was an accident) and that evolution, not God, is how we got to be man."

No - science starts with observations, and then seeks explanations (hypotheses)consistent with those observations.

It is extremely frightening to me that Sarah Palin has become so popular so quickly. This country was founded on religious freedom. I completely support her right to believe and worship as she chooses, but she is completely against my right to be an atheist and pro-choice. I fear that my rights will be drowned in a sea of people who dare to believe they speak for an almighty power who remains mysterious to most.

Peter Huff wrote: "Are you saying that Crossan and Sponge are scholars that meet your criteria listed above?"

I don't claim to defend Bishop Spong, but yes, Dr. Crossan's (professor emeritus, DePaul) work does meet the criteria for scholarship that I posted.

Regarding Dr. White's work (and your defenses of it) - if you start from a position that the bible is sufficient and authoritative, then seek only data that support your predetermined view - that's not scholarship. It fails the "open mind" criteria, and it leads you to ignore data that fails to support your thesis.

On the other hand, if you take that data that fails to support your pre-determined view, and address it in a reasoned way, then you are on the road to scholarship.

Farnaz, Farnaz, Farnaz,

You don't get CNN where you live????

Here is some news from earth, Texas, to be precise. I just received an email from a friend in Austin.
People are without ice, water, shelter in some areas effected by the storm; Fema is nowhere to be seen.

Eighty per cent (80%) of areas hit by the hurricane are under a news blackout, so no one really knows how much damage has been done, how many are without basic necessities. No media allowed--literally. Needless to say, reporters are alternating between states of outrage and shock.

What on earth is going on in this country?

Tomorrow, unless the Feds move in Lehman Brothers will go into Chapter Eleven. That is not good.

If we can just hold out until January, if a sane, liberal economic policy is implemented, along with re-regulation....Otherwise, pray for the welfare of Bank of America, along with those suffering in Texas, how many, under what circumstances, we don't know....

I'll check back Wednesday.

Hi Acebojangles,

ACEBOJANGLES: "Let's cut to the heart of your argument. I'm perfectly willing to question any of my views on moral principles or anything else. You are right that it is impossible to know anything for certain since it is impossible to know everything."

Yes, when you really dissect it it seems hopeless in a sea of subjective opinion as to what is right, why evil exists, what the solution is, is there ultimate meaning and purpose in life, what happens when we die, etc.

It would be impossible without an absolute, objective, ultimate standard who is God and His revelation to know anything for certain, but God has spoken to us, explained His creation, what went wrong (Adam's sin as our representative), man's rebellion and God's solution.

So the only answer that makes sense, if you want to make sense of anything, is to think God's thoughts after Him, to learn from Him by His Word, to be willing to submit to His authority and ask Him for His mercy and grace to you in revealing Himself and giving you ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to believe, realizing that you are totally at His mercy.

You also need to understand that there is only one way to God, through His Son (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). That is because in His Son taking on human flesh (John 1:14), coming to earth to do the Fathers will (John 6:32-40), meeting all the righteous requirements of God's law (The law which is good) that each and every human being has failed to do (Romans 3:9-27), substituting His life in the place of those He will save (Hebrews 9:14-15), bearing their judgment and the wrath of God upon Himself (Isaiah 53:1-12, esp. vs. 4-12) that we would be free from condemnation (Romans 8:1-4) who trust in Him (John 3:16). And those who God gives ears to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to believe (1 Corinthians 2:6-16) are those He redeems, those who turn away from sin in repentance (Luke 13:3; Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 5:17), those who die to the old life, are made anew by His Spirit (John 3:5-8), who come to know Him not exhaustively but still to truly know Him (Romans 10:8-17; John 10:14), and in knowing Him to worship Him as He truly is (John 4:23-26), not an idol made in mans image and likeness (i.e. a false god).

My prayer is that God will have mercy on you. You say that you are perfectly willing to question your views, but the question is are you willing to submit them before Him, cry out to Him for mercy (James 4:6-10), depend on Him (Proverbs 3:5-6), that He may set you free? (John 8:31-36; Romans 6:18)

Are you open to look up these verse that He may speak to you?

ACEBOJANGLES: "Do you know everything?"

Only God knows everything; I know very little but by His grace to me I know Him!

ACEBOJANGLES: "Then how do you know for certain that god knows everything?"

Because He is the highest authority, He knows everything and He has revealed who He is. (Romans 11:33-36; Colossians 2:2-4). If I looked to any other authority He would no longer be that authority and I would be deluded in my thinking. To judge His Word is to place another authority over Him for in effect you are calling what He has said a lie. That is what Adam and Eve did in the Garden when Satan said, "Did God really say?" They found out what evil was, doing what is contrary to the good of God in their disobedience by eating the fruit.

ACEBOJANGLES: "What I know is what I experience."

But how do you know whether you make correct judgments on your experience, that you truly see the facts for what they are?

ACEBOJANGLES: "By the way, god spoke to me and told me that you're wrong."

Oh, what is your god like? How well do you know your god?

ACEBOJANGLES: "If I were you, I'd doubt that it was true,..."

Don't worry about that.

ACEBOJANGLES: "...but since the Bible tells you that god is always right, you better believe it."

That is the difference between a believer and an unbeliever.

"Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 'I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep...I know My sheep, and My sheep KNOW Me - just as the Father knows Me and
I know the Father." (John 10:7-11, 14)

"Now this is eternal life: that they may KNOW You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." (John 17:3)

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of KNOWING Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Philippians 3:7-9)

To add to the evening of rhyme and reason:

O Islam
by The Reality Challenged's Pretty, Wingie Thingie

"O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Mohound, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Mohound greed and lustful, womanizing,
That too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Mohound, warmongering and hateful,
That too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from O Islam's hate.
Save us from these Islamic FEMS,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
As they ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like worms of death and wrench.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Reason, History and More Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!"

Farnaz:

"You are a studied rhymer."

"Prose"
But really, I do study classics in translation so I know that Homer wrote in "dactylic hexameter" but I can't sense what that is in a way that would allow me to write it. Someday, perhaps, who knows?
"/Prose"

No I just do it.
My doggerel is silly
And has no sense to it.

Puns, most definitely that is a yes.
But dactylic hexameter, that was a guess.

"Prose" Good night, and good luck. "/prose"

So, Jihadist is a she. I get it now. Jihadist taunted and mocked CCNL on his posts. He is trying to get back at her with his multiple posts. CCNL loses. Good luck CCNL.

--
Hello F.A.G.I.T.S: please Answer, a simple Yea or Nay?? not between!

From: Get Back , Get back From wence ye once belonged, Jo Jo!:

V O T E:

Answer Pleazea!

MARRiAGE is sacred , between a real Mavorite (Mr) & a Real Sporade (Ms), never between Mr & Mr..!

Yes or No?????????????????????????????? Yea or Nay????????????? DA or Nyet????

--
Hello F.A.G.I.T.S: please Answer, a simple Yea or Nay?? not between!

From: Get Back , Get back From wence ye once belonged, Jo Jo!:

V O T E:

Answer Pleazea!

MARRiAGE is sacred , between a real Mavorite (Mr) & a Real Sporade (Ms), never between Mr & Mr..!

Yes or No?????????????????????????????? Yea or Nay????????????? DA or Nyet????

--
Hello F.A.G.I.T.S: please Answer, a simple Yea or Nay?? not between!

From: Get Back , Get back From wence ye once belonged, Jo Jo!:

V O T E:

Answer Pleazea!

MARRiAGE is sacred , between a real Mavorite (Mr) & a Real Sporade (Ms), never between Mr & Mr..!

Yes or No?????????????????????????????? Yea or Nay????????????? DA or Nyet????

Farnaz,

I missed a letter on the first line of the Aeneid, should be:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris...

Oh, dear.... Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Yup, Longfellow was definitely second tier. Still a good read, though.

Gotta go, getting late here, fading fast....

Pseudo:

"When I sing hymns at church they say I'm off key
And ask me to pipe down and let choir sing

Perhaps an aural version of a gargoyle. %-}"

You are far too modest, I say, just as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare. I shall desist, lest I bring on a shy attack, but your poetry is a wondrous thing. As you see, I am not your only fan.

Farnaz

Arminius,

But what you posted is from the Aneid, no?

I can read very little Latin, no Greek. I read the Aneid from time to time in translation, but I think this is the Aneid, no?

"Pseudo, I truly feared you would say something like you do this strictly by ear, which would mean you destined for great things. Do you play an instrument by any chance? Or sing?"

When I sing hymns at church they say I'm off key
And ask me to pipe down and let choir sing

Perhaps an aural version of a gargoyle. %-}

Ah, Arminius, this is way above my head! But I kind of knew that Andromeda wasn't consistently dactylic hexameter, just by ear. Nothing Hopkins did was ever true anything, metrically speaking, no? Sprung rhythm. No great poet ever did really did uninterrupted anything, including iambic pentameter, which is why Longfellow never quite made up there with the big boys, including Pseudo, of course.

Anyway, I'm trying to sound out what you posted. Longfellow is a better example than Hopkins, of course. Do you think Pseudo could be trying his hand at dactylic hexameter?

Peter Huff:

Let's cut to the heart of your argument. I'm perfectly willing to question any of my views on moral principles or anything else. You are right that it is impossible to know anything for certain since it is impossible to know everything. Do you know everything? Then how do you know for certain that god knows everything?

What I know is what I experience.

By the way, god spoke to me and told me that you're wrong. If I were you, I'd doubt that it was true, but since the Bible tells you that god is always right, you better believe it.

Farnaz,

'Andromeda' is not true dactylic hexameter.

A dactyl foot is either long, long or long, short, short. The second to last foot is almost always long, short, short, and the last foot is invariably long, long.

Arma virumque cano, Troia qui primus ab oris...

Arminius,

I believe that in Pseudo we have bona fide genius.

Ah, Pseudo, you jest!!

Worse yet, what's dactylic hexameter?
Tell me that and you'll have hit me a Homer.

You are a studied rhymer. How could I have thought otherwise! And a punster, too, like Shakespeare. No matter. No amount of studying could account for your splendid gifts any more than it could Will's. Surely, you are muse inspirited.

With admiration,

Farnaz

Farnaz,

Yes indeed the verse of Homer and Virgil is dactylic hexameter.

In English, one example:
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks...

Pseudo,

You hit a home run again!

Farnaz:

Concerning the Shell Script
I think I could well script
Its repetitive behavior
From Crossan, its savior

It fails the Turing Test.

Pseudo,

Dactylic Hexameter

Andromeda

Now Time’s Andromeda on this rock rude,
With not her either beauty’s equal or
Her injury’s, looks off by both horns of shore,
Her flower, her piece of being, doomed dragon’s food.
Time past she has been attempted and pursued
By many blows and banes; but now hears roar
A wilder beast from West than all were, more
Rife in her wrongs, more lawless, and more lewd.

Her Perseus linger and leave her tó her extremes?—
Pillowy air he treads a time and hangs
His thoughts on her, forsaken that she seems,
All while her patience, morselled into pangs,
Mounts; then to alight disarming, no one dreams,
With Gorgon’s gear and barebill, thongs and fangs.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hi Pseudo,

Arminius, the classicist is the one who can speak to dactylic hexameter, but a dactyl is one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables. Each such unit is called a foot. Hexameter means six feet. So, verse in dactylic hexameter has six dactyls to a line. BTW, ARMINIUS, wasn't dactylic hexameter Homer's meter?

A couplet is a rhyming pair with the same number of feet.

Pseudo, I truly feared you would say something like you do this strictly by ear, which would mean you destined for great things. Do you play an instrument by any chance? Or sing?

Farnaz

Farnaz,

Sorry, I don't remember any nice and civil CCNL. Before you came on these blogs, CCNL posted some of the nastiest stuff I had ever seen here. I blasted him but good about it. He has been somewhat milder since then. But don't expect any kind of change from him. I, and many others, gave up on him long ago. Life is too short for crap like that.

Frolicking On Faith?

How could I forget such an interesting thread
Here I though fun On Faith was so long dead

Then along came the remarkable funny Farnaz
Who understands frolicking and all that jazz

We need some frolicking in this On Faith
To inject some good humor in this boring place.

I wonder if some will take the advice
To stop the name calling and be much more nice?

BTW, Farnaz, What's a couplet?
Though it may sound so odd and maybe so queer
I actually do this just by my ear

Worse yet, what's dactylic hexameter?
Tell me that and you'll have hit me a Homer.

Hi Arminius,

Ah, well. I don't really think CCNL is insane, do you? I'm not even sure he is OCD, since he is able to refrain from list-posting every now and then. I fear the return of the gracious Jihadist was just too strong a temptation for him to resist.

Now, if she could be convinced to ignore him for awhile, we might get the other CCNL back again. You know the nice (and civil) one we saw here for awhile?

Farnaz

Hi, Farnaz,

CCNL is out of touch. In fact, one definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. CCNL keeps posting the same stuff over and over....

Pseudo!

Bravo! Keep up the verse! YES!

Hello Pseudo!

Even more verse! I posted yesterday welcoming you back, and I shall now welcome you again. You are approaching full mastery of the couplet, I see, and no doubt will soon be taking up other formal challenges. Not to include CCNL, I hope.

Hard to say about CCNL. I used to think he was intelligent, but now I'm uncertain. Parroting is not necessarily a sign of intelligence! Where is the synthesis? Where is the frank admission of doubt and gaps? Contradictions? Why the endless need to convince, persuade? Why all the name-calling? Is that Christian?

Oh well....Good to have you back, Pseudo, my friend. I missed your rhyming dreadfully.

Farnaz

cont: excerpts from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel:

p. 47 paperback issue:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!"

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

From Sir Salman Rushdie's book "Satanic Verses", p. 376, paperback issue - for those 1 billion Muslims to read as they are forbidden to purchase or read said book:

an excerpt:

"The faithful lived by lawlessness, but in those years Mahound - or should one say the Archangel Gibreel? - should one say Al-Lah? - became obsessed by law.

Amid the palm-trees of the oasis Gibreel appeared to the Prophet and found himself spouting rules, rules, rules, until the faithful could scarcely bear the prospect of any more revelation, Salman
said, rules about every damn thing, if a man farts let him turn his face to the wind, a rule
about which hand to use for the purpose of cleaning one's behind."

And then some excerpts from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel:

CCNL:

"Wow all that info on Malaysian politics by one Reality Challenged Muslim."

More unfortunate stresses and strains.
Why don't you listen and stop calling names?
Were you to listen and then understand
You could then learn, not just parrot Crossan
Its not really much of a rip-roaring pain
To just go ahead and use your fine brain.

CCNL:

"Wow all that info on Malaysian politics by one Reality Challenged Muslim."

More unfortunate stresses and strains.
Why don't you listen and stop calling names?
Were you to listen and then understand
You could then learn, not just parrot Crossan
Its not really much of a rip-roaring pain
To just go ahead and use your fine brain.

CCNL, was Jihadist talking to you in his last post? I wonder why he ever speak with you.

Pseudo and Farnaz, don't forget about me, or Josh and the others. Frolicking On Faith alter egos.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "The only part of what I believe that is pertinent to this discussion, is that the use of the word scholar implies certain standards. Among those standards are approaching questions with an open mind; seeking independent verification of your data and methods; submitting your work to the review of independent scholars in the field; and responding to the independent review in a reasoned manner."

Are you saying that Crossan and Sponge are scholars that meet your criteria listed above?

I've listened to interviews, read articles and watched debates by these two and I do not find their scholarship as solid as you think it is.

I feel that Reformed scholars do not get the same platform and respect that these sensationalists get because that is what the culture calls for, a watered down Christianity that has no power to save.

Whenever research is conducted on events that happened in the past there is a certain amount of bias that comes into the findings because we do not have all the evidence or every aspect of the evidence, we cannot always check for verifications of distant events or references to writers and scholars of the period and each person doing research brings preconceived ideas to the research.

You can put your findings before an "independent panel" to review, that is all well and good, but each of them also brings their own baggage to the research and verification method.

Someone once told me that if you want to know something about someone find out who influences them. I found that particularly revealing when dealing with the era of the Enlightenment and Darwin and the boys.

Each worldview has starting presuppositions, basic core foundational beliefs that it operates on. Yes, you are open to evidence based on that worldview. The evolutionary, atheistic worldview starts with its basic tenants, its core beliefs, that the universe came about by a chance happening (i.e. it wasn't something planned or designed on purpose, it was an accident) and that evolution, not God, is how we got to be man. That is just a couple of the core beliefs, there are more, but when the evolutionist or atheist looks at the evidence, he/she screens it to that worldview, those basic foundational beliefs held, and builds on all the evidence accordingly.

So yes, evidence can be verified and checked out, but it is also influenced and biased unless you look at it from God's perspective because He made the facts what they are.

You can check it with the revelation of God or with the revelation of man depending on your preference.

You are looking for an objective standard in your criteria on events in history that we do not have all the information on when you talk about "independent" and "verifiable". To find that objective standard you need to look to God, for without God anything is possible, nothing can be known as one hundred percent certainty, and Chance is your master.

When I say Chance is your master I mean in part that you presume that things will happen in the future as the have happened in the past, that the future is predictable on that basis, but in natural selection there is no guarantee that that will happen since it has not been planned out in advance, but happens randomly based on any number of factors.

I also mean that you can never be certain, as a subjective person, that the events, from the evidence you have gathered from the past and the way you interpret that evidence in the present is true to what actually happened by science. Therefore you are always speculating to some degree.

Not so with God who is in control of and determines all things (Colossians 1:16-18; Genesis 1:14).

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I haven't had the opportunity to review his full body of work, but I have yet to see any evidence of Dr. White engaging in those activities. Perhaps you, as the person who put his name up as a scholar, can post some some specific examples of his having engaged in this sort of scholarship."

Dr. White has as his starting point Reformed and Biblical theology; that the Word of God is true, that God has spoken in language that is plain and we can understand Him from His revelation (hence He has communicated with us) and that the facts pertain to His Word and His creation. Therefore his scholarship will look at the evidence, the facts from that perspective, just as Crossan and Sponge will look at it from a 1900th century liberal perspective and those influenced by it.

Hello NotSoGreatScot,

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I would like to hear his debate with Crossan, but alas I didn't find it anywhere."

There are bits and pieces from archives of The Dividing Line, but it may have to be purchased to listen to it entirely. I bought the debate entitled, "Is the Orthodox, Biblical Account of Jesus of Nazareth Authentic & Historically Accurate?", a debate between Crossan and White. I'm partial, but Crossan did not do a good job.

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I did listen to the small piece of of his debate with Bishop Spong that he has posted at YouTube, as well as several others. It appears that many of these "debates" are not debates at all, but rather they are interrogations of people that have been instructed not to ask questions in return to Dr. White (see for instance the clip of his exchange Rutland on inclusivism)."

Well, in any debate you get the opening statements on both sides and a series of cross examinations that test the position, and then the closing remarks. That is what takes place in all the debates I have watched and listened to by James White. And yes, he does hold his opponent accountable to answer his questions, which both Crossan and Sponge have a unique gift of avoiding, yet rambling on about some side issues for minutes on end, always skirting the issue, the direct question, never getting to the meat of it.

When you are opposed to the God of the Bible and are not willing to accept His Word of truth and stand as judge over it you are not going to take it on the authority that it has but on your own subjectively perceived authority to judge all things. You will not bow the knee; you will not submit to any authority greater than what you are willing to accept in your subjective judgment; you will not depend on God but on your own resources. That is the bias that the Jesus Seminar scholars and all liberal scholars bring to the table.

Their worldview works from the point of view that the Bible is not what it says it is, that God cannot preserve His Word as He said He would. In doing so they make the Scriptures and the God of the Scriptures out to be a liar. They, twenty centuries removed, are saying that the Canon of Scripture is in question, that we can't be sure which book are the Word of God or that God is able to preserve His Word. They sit down in a room, not only Christian scholars but other religious scholars also, and cast a vote on which words Jesus actually spoke and which He did not.

They come with a bias and leave with one, doing the very thing they set out to do, discredit God - "Did God really say?" (Genesis 3)

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "Interrogation can be a tool of scholarship of course, but only when you intend to listen to and consider the the answer given. Interrogation can also be a tool of polemics, which is what is see in Dr. White's videos."

Well when you are talking about the Bible polemics is involved. The thing about historical scholarship is, even though the facts do support the Word of God, (which they would have to since God is sovereign and in control of history and has planned purposes in His providence and counseling of all that happens, so facts are what they are because He made them what they are and He controls them - Ephesians 1:11; 1:16-17) men are biased to one position or the other, but there is no neutrality when discussing the issues. You are either a believer (by the grace of God) or an unbeliever (in opposition to His grace and mercy in Christ).

Van Til, as recorded in Greg Bahsens book, "Van Til's Apologetics" records an imaginary conversation about an Evangelical, a Calvanist and an unbeliever through some use of symbolism to contrast the three different worldviews and the attempts to evangelize the unbeliever. Hence the unbeliever is called Mr. Black, the compromising Evangelist is called Mr. Grey and the Calvanist is called Mr. White.

Mr. Grey would be theologians and scholars like Crossan or Sponge and on our particular forum, those who compromise the Word of God like Arminius, who to his credit has a tender heart but lacks sound judgment. As Van Til says, speaking of Mr. Grey trying to persuade Mr. Black that the death of Christ is founded on historical fact,

"[I]f the scientist cannot rise above rational probability in his empirical investigations, why should the Christian claim more? p. 583

... He [Mr. Grey] is so anxious to have the unbeliever accept the possibility of God's existence and the fact of the resurrection of Christ that, if necessary, he will exchange his own philosophy of fact for that of the unbeliever. Anxious to be genuinely "empirical" like the unbeliever, he will throw all the facts of Christianity into the bottomless pit of Chance. Or rather, he will throw all these facts at the unbeliever, and the unbeliever throws them over his back into the bottomless pit of Chance....But in failing to challenge the philosophy of Chance that underlies the unbelievers notion of "fact," they are in fact accepting it. p. 583

...No comfort can be taken from the assurance of the Conservative that, since Christianity makes no higher claim than that of rational probability, "the system of Christianity can be refuted only by probability. p.584

...How could one ever argue that there is a greater probability for the truth of Christianity than for the truth of its opposite if the very meaning of the word probability rests upon the idea of Chance. p. 584

...For him [Mr. Black] only that can be which - so he thinks - he can exhaustively determine by logic must be. He may at first grant that anything may exist, but when he says this he at the same time says in effect that nothing can exist and have meaning for man but that which man himself can exhaustively know. Therefore, for Mr. Black, the God of Christianity cannot exist. For him the doctrine of creation cannot be true. There could be no revelation of God to man through nature and history. There is no such thing as the resurrection of Christ." p. 585-586

Of course, Van Til argues that if you have a god who is not authoritative, who rests on Chance as the source of all things, just as unbelieving man does, who may or may not have revealed himself by a historical written revelation, then you no longer have the God of Christianity but a chance of god.

I hope what I have said and quoted is clear, that you can understand what I am driving at?

Wow all that info on Malaysian politics by one Reality Challenged Muslim. Just wait until the imams/clerics take over Malaysian politics!!!

And let us test the Malaysian Islamic goons checking blogs for criticisms of Islam:

From Sir Salman Rushdie's book "Satanic Verses", p. 376, paperback issue - for those 1 billion Muslims to include the Obfuscating Jihadist to read as they are forbidden to purchase or read said book:

The faithful lived by lawlessness, but in those years Mahound - or should one say the Archangel Gibreel? - should one say Al-Lah? - became obsessed by law.

Amid the palm-trees of the oasis Gibreel appeared to the Prophet and found himself spouting rules, rules, rules, until the faithful could scarcely bear the prospect of any more revelation, Salman said, rules about every damn thing, if a man farts let him tum his face to the wind, a rule
about which hand to use for the purpose of cleaning one's behind.

It was as if no aspect of human existence was to be left unregulated, free. The revelation - the recitation- told the faithful how much to eat, how deeply they should sleep, and which sexual
positions had received divine sanction, so that they leamed that sodomy and the missionary position were approved of by the archangel, whereas the forbidden postures included all those in which the female was on top.

Gibreel further listed the permitted and forbidden subjects of conversation, and earmarked the parts of the body which could not be scratched no matter how unbearably they might itch. He vetoed the consumption of prawns, those bizarre other-worldly creatures which no member of the faithful had ever seen, and required animals to be killed slowly, by bleeding, so that by experiencing their deaths to the full they
might arrive at an understanding of the meaning of their lives, for it is only at the moment of death that living creatures understand
that life has been real, and not a sort of dream.

And Gibreel the archangel specified the manner in which a man should be buried, and how his property should be divided, so that Salman the Persian got to wondering what manner of God this was that soundedso much like a businessman.

This was when he had the idea that
destroyed his faith, because he recalled that of course Mahound himself had been a businessman, and a damned successful one at that, a person to whom organization and rules came naturally, so
how excessively convenient it was that he should have come up with such a very businesslike archangel, who handed down the management decisions of this highly co{porate, if noncorporeal, God."

Comments from all the peace loving, tolerant Muslims out there???

Jihadist,

Have you seen this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/world/asia/14malaysia.html

"I agree with SUSAN JACOBY 100 per cent."

The old saying goes: "If two people agree completely, then one of them is unnecessary."

Feel free to disagree.

Spiderman2:

"I hope Arminius migrate to Malaysia. I've heard Malaysians hate garbage. Im sure they will lock him up there for writing too much garbage. It's getting very smelly here already."

I know Arminius has been calling you names and now you return the favor. This does neither of you any credit.

Name calling (Arminius) and penning content-free personal insults (you) mean that you both have conceded defeat. Stick to the facts and reason with your debate partners and mutual respect might develop even if you continue to disagree.

To supporters of Sen. Clinton: Don't worry about Sen. H. Clinton: If Sen. Obama gets elected, he will nominate Sen. Clinton to the Supreme Court as soon as an older member retires. The nomination will be a cakewalk for Hilary. A much better deal than a possible eight years in the White House for her, and a much better deal for the women of this country.

Hello Spiderman,

Good evening to you. A small break before I sign off here.

I have been missing your questions on how mud or earth turns into, or to brain cells.

Arminius is garbage? Ah, Malaysians do not know what the word, garbage, is. British English is used over here. So, it would be be rubbish, not garbage. Arminius is not rubbish nor garbage or trash. He is a humanist and a spiritualist.

Now, some of my posts are pure rubbish in keeping with the spirit of some pure garbage posted in these threads, but Arminius never did such thing. So, let us put some of your and my posts in the garbage can, or trash can, or as Malaysians would say it, rubbish bin, but not those by Arminius.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello Farnaz,

Let me give you a thumbnail sketch of the absurdity of politicising religion in the public square in Malaysia. Hope your country, a secular nation, with seperation of church and state, would not go down the path of regressing from first world to third world mentality on this.

It is often said that Malaysia has first world infrastructure, but third world mentality. If McCain and Palin is elected, it is not hard to wonder if the United States, which set the standards for first world infrastructure and first world mentality in the last century and currently, is in fact, no different from third world mentality and mindset on race and religion.

As for my friend, he did write some allegations and speculations in his blogs without any concrete evidence on politicians that is admittedly pure slander. On religion, he is quite on the mark. Naturally, he did cause some frayed nerves in the lower and higher temporal powers that be in Malaysia.

My friend, after all, is a true blue oppossitionist and member of the opposition party. Some of his previous blogs do border on libel and slander and he was taken to court for them, we have had to bail him out and pay the legal fees for him. But detaining him under the Internal Security Act, akin to your Patriot Act is unacceptable. Let him be in court to defend what he wrote.

So is detaining Teresa Kok, a Member of Parliament, under the Internal Security Act, for allegdedly being party to a petition against azan in a mosque. The mosque itself has said she has nothing to do with that petition. The said mosque, too, by chance, could not broadcast the azan due to its loudspeaker being broken and not because of the petition when the residents who petitioned and the mosque"s officials were still in discussions on it.

Taking Teresa Kok in under the Internal Security Act is unacceptable. The police could have only ask her to come in for questioning. If it be so, let her be in court too so we will know what happened, and let it be seen that it is her accusers who should be counter charged for libel and charged with sedition.

My friend did cross some lines as an enthusiastic frontliner and blog streetfighter on partisan politics, but he is not a terrorist to be detained under the Internal Security Act.

He will be fine. It is something he has been expecting and I know for certain he wants this to happen knowing full well the stupidity of the Malaysian government and its enforcements agencies. I must say it working as the the dimmer bulbs and lessser lights of government behaved and reacted as expected.

Good thing they released Tan, the journalist, for reporting on remarks made by a ruling party hardliner about Malaysians of Chinese origin being squatters in Malaysia. She was taken in supposedly for her protection as there were threats on her life.

This has to be a new high in low in police stupidity in Malaysia. Imagine detaining someone under the Internal Security act for her protection due to threats on her life, when they could have just posted police protection around the clock for her. You know, police cars outside her home and guards around her.

We have a particularly complex and contradictory Constitution that recognise Islam as the official religion of Malaysia, the primacy of Malays, and at the same time recognising the rights to freedom of religion and the rights of all races to practice their religion and culture, including education in their mother tongue.

Your Constitution is clearer on seperation on church and state and equal rights for all. I hope you do not go down our complicated road on religious and racial rights when you really do not have too against the core principles of your Constitution.

I agree with your observation that capitalism, and may I add, secure and confident democracies, can accommodate everything. But capitalism and democracy can also be unjust and double edged in practice. In times of prosperity, material well being do make people comfortable with themselves enough to either to be politically apathetic and religiously indifferent, or to call for more personal rights and for for better material things. In time of economic uncertainty, none are happy and all call for change in in goverment, in governance system, there be reversion to political and social conservatism or radicalism or extremism.

I have no problem if religion is "capitalized" though donations and focus for charities and humanitarian activities, but capitalised for political ends is a problem for everyone, even for adherents of the same faith group when some of their coreligionists do so.

As for the current Great Awakening as a reactionary but revolutionary movement akin to the Islamism of other nations, you do know some of the awakening in Muslims is in reaction to the perceived western domination or imposition of values. In reacting or rejecting those values do cause part of the reawakening of the religious right in the west.

But I am an optimist and have faith in people. It is hard to believe Malaysians are out for each others blood and demise in spite of personal religious and political disagrements. In spite of what some politicians, racial and religious chauvinistic individuals and groups would want Malaysians to believe is the cause of all their problems.

Best regards and out of here.

J

I agree with SUSAN JACOBY 100 per cent. Our intelligence is being questioned by McCain/Palin ticket. Is it so important for McCain the supposed MAVERICK to be become President that he is willing to impose the most unqualified person who could land up being our President. What will her religious beliefs do to this great country of ours. I as a woman, am absolutely apalled that other women could fall prey to all this nonsense that is being used as propaganda just to win the election. I blame the Media whose job is to question the candidates and they are not doing their job again - that is how we got 8 years of Bush. Questions should be bombarded until we get the answers - not merely let McCain/Palin get away by by quoting that she is being attacked because she is a woman - or these are elitest attacks; She knows very well that she is not the most qualified person for the job and if she wants the job she better answer all the questions qnd not hide under the bqnner of FAITH.

The malaysian government may have some valid reasons to arrest Jihadist's friend. They have the authority and the ability to intercept or eavesdrop conversations. Her friend may have crossed the line. We just don't know.

I hope Arminius migrate to Malaysia. I've heard Malaysians hate garbage. Im sure they will lock him up there for writing too much garbage. It's getting very smelly here already.

Peter Huff wrote:

"You should listen to some of his debates with Crossan or Sponge or the Islamic faction on textual transmission or the history of the early church... May I ask, are you a professing Christian or atheist?"

I would like to hear his debate with Crossan, but alas I didn't find it anywhere. I did listen to the small piece of of his debate with Bishop Spong that he has posted at YouTube, as well as several others. It appears that many of these "debates" are not debates at all, but rather they are interrogations of people that have been instructed not to ask questions in return to Dr. White (see for instance the clip of his exchange Rutland on inclusivism).

Interrogation can be a tool of scholarship of course, but only when you intend to listen to and consider the the answer given. Interrogation can also be a tool of polemics, which is what is see in Dr. White's videos.

The only part of what I believe that is pertinent to this discussion, is that the use of the word scholar implies certain standards. Among those standards are approaching questions with an open mind; seeking independent verification of your data and methods; submitting your work to the review of independent scholars in the field; and responding to the independent review in a reasoned manner.

I haven't had the opportunity to review his full body of work, but I have yet to see any evidence of Dr. White engaging in those activities. Perhaps you, as the person who put his name up as a scholar, can post some some specific examples of his having engaged in this sort of scholarship.

Jihadist,

"Religion in the public square happens when governments let it happens, be it the US or Malaysia."

I'm very sorry to learn of your friend and of the trials in your country. I'm also very fearful for the future of the US. It has often been said that US capitalism can accommodate everything, to which its "purchase" of 1960s and 1970s dissent gives evidence. One thinks of the women's civil rights movement, the end of cosmetics and sexy clothing as we know it. That was until Charles Revson and Co. came up with the Charley Girl ads. Faded jeans were vogue until the Gap started making them, etc.

But with religion, already "capitalized" here, we are in such a different domain altogether that the cheery blindness of some is terrifying to those of us who know what institutionalized religion can do. Very few see that the current Great Awakening is a reactionary but revolutionary movement akin to the Islamism of other nations. Americans are reacting to global upheavals and the entrance, numerically unprecedented, of culturally "different" peoples to their shores. They perceive a danger to the American "type," of which Frederick Jackson Turner wrote so long ago, and which has ever been evolving. That evolution is what gave this great country much of its greatness. It is to be nurtured, not feared.

Pseudo,

You have returned! Lo, these endless hours, I have been thinking of you. You must not disappear for so many days, for the absence of your great verse creates an aesthetic void that cannot be filled by another poet.

I was disconsolate and despairing, but now I rejoice. Let not the drudgery of the quotidian keep you from us!

Farnaz

Hi NOTSOGREATSCOT,

NOTSOGREATSCOT: "I couldn’t find anything in his list of publications that looked anything even remotely like peer reviewed scholarship."

You should listen to some of his debates with Crossan or Sponge or the Islamic faction on textual transmission or the history of the early church.

http://www.prbc.org/Sermons2.htm

Well you are not in the Reformed camp. Have you even read any Reformed writers? May I ask, are you a professing Christian or atheist?

http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Audio-and-Multimedia/History-and-Biography/
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/History/

There she goes again, the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist still cannot come to grips with the flaws and errors of Islam i.e. "It would be a cold day in hell before I changed from my Islamic ways" . That is very scary considering the violent nature of said Islam.

Said violence is very apparent in Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel, which the "obfusing" one dare not read because of the death threats by Islamic truth squads for those that do. That fact alone paints the true picture of Islam.

Since she cannot read Infidel here a few excerpts that hopefully get past the Malaysian Islamic filters:

p. 47 paperback issue:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!"

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

Comments from any Muslims out there???

Any interest in excerpts from Sir Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses???

Hello Arminius,

Thus far, this is a hellish Ramadan for me. A good friend is detained under the Internal Security Act of Malaysia for his blogging. I do not know as yet how to forgive my government for what they have done in this month.

You know too well that racially and religiously divisive leaders do tear people and country apart. It is happening here again in Malaysia. I do not know how long it is going to take to get us out of this current politicalised racial and religious abyss and to heal.

On the American election, yes, I am beginning to think it would be McSame on global issues if it is a Republican President. I do find Obama personally appealing as he does state his intention to heal his divided countrymen. We need the same sort of leader here. If only our prime minister would resign soon. He is not the solution he thinks he is. He is the problem, inherently decent he may be. It is a tragedy that the people are ahead of the government and the government is in denial of this and reacts ways ridiculous and repressive.

Oh yes, we not only have religious nut prostitutes but also racist nut prostitutes in our government.

And no, I am not going to be afraid, be very afraid. That is what they are hoping for, counting on.

Best regards
J

Jihadist,

To repeat, good to have you back. Apparently Ramadan hasn't done you in.

Writing? I have read things from you that had me rolling on the floor in tear-streaked laughter, and things that had me slack-jawed in admiration. You need some more of that here now.

St Sarah the Moose-Slayer has many of us here very concerned. The religious right has screwed us already for eight years, and four more could send us into a dark age and fighting in the streets.

McCain has been called McSame (more Bush). This is wrong. He would be McWorse. This man, who seemed so honorable and unique and good for America in 2000 has prostituted himself to the religious right, and groveled before Bush, who backstabbed him in 2000. And the addition of St Sarah only makes it worse.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Hello Pseudo,

You certainly are not me as you are much better in every way. Your prose and verse, form and content is way, way, way ahead of me. And no spelling and grammar mistakes too by you, unlike me.

I got some time to read the other threads in On Faith on Sarah Palin. Quite emotive and partisan posts too, from many. Never knew Sarah Palin simultaneously struck a chord and raw nerves for many. Politics is passion. Religion is passion. Such a combustible combination when both are mixed.

I should stop the wee islamics vs crossanics on Sarah Palin as a small time cheap thrill with the Concy pussycat. But truth be told, I am quite astounded by her selection. I am underestimating the depth of religiousity, conservatism and non openess of many Americans then.

Cheers

J

Pseudo,

Good stuff! Keep it up.

Jihadist:

While you were gone
Some said you were Pseudo
I told them that Pseudo was not
so immodest to be the Jihadist
Say it ain't so
You're not Pseudo
Are we?

De minimis:

Your paranoid theories are really a fright
They make you call names all day and all night
And mistreat your neighbors in self righteous fights
Your fears of dominion are just your opinion
But your fear and your loathing are long lasting blights.

Concy pussycat!

How fortunate for you that I am still on my keyboards...

It would be a cold day in hell before I changed from my Islamic ways what with the likes of Sarah Palin being lauded by you here as leaders for onwards towards the future. Is that so? We already have them here, and they are called retrogressives.

This is going to be long weekend for and to come here for comic relief in reading some posts.....

Can Sarah Palin hear you? Can Muslims hear you? Can you own government hear you? It is the will of the Singularity that many cannot hear you, and if they did, may only listen to their own hearts and minds, no?

Vote pussycat, vote.

PALIN FOR TASKED BY GOD WARS!

PALIN FOR GOD WILLED PIPELINES!

FREE TERESA KOK!

FREE RAJA PETRA!

Cheers

Cheers

Nothing changes with the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist.

Again we offer our Five Step Escape from Islam Program for her and all other Muslims:

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.

Accept these five "cleansers" and we guarantee a complete recovery from your Islamic ways!!!!

Hateful not Reasonable,

A May 2005 article by Hedges in Harpers described Dobson as "perhaps the most powerful figure in the Dominionist movement".

Also, see the Discernment Ministries site, a very conservative religious place. (I am liberal, BTW). The article is "Dominionism and the Rise of Christian Imperialism" by Sarah Leslie. Dobson is apparently part of the so-called Patriotic Movement, which is the most hidden and subtle, but has the most power.

Peter Huff wrote: "The last part of the last post on James White's credentials was for you."

Yes - I had already seen that web page when I made my post. I still don't see anything there that looks remotely like peer reviewed scholarship. It looks like a lot of books published by non-academic publishers, and magazine articles in magazines with theology similar to his.

Arminius-

I ask that you provide proof of this. Dobson has said what to make you think that?

Everytime I have listened to his program(been a while) he speaks about improving yourself as Christian man to promote family, that is it.

I suspect you are listening to comments out context, or misinterpreting his intentions.

That said, I don't even know if you believe in the atonement, and in resurrection and what it means.

Do you?

Hi Common Sense,

CS: "Christian fundamentalists remind me of a group of castaways that have been living on a bountiful desert island for several generations. Plenty of food and fresh water, so folks are not only surviving, but are thriving in their good fortune..."

Funny.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Where are the proofs of its incredible claims (world created in six days, global flood, tower of babel, the exodus, talking donkeys, people coming back from the dead and invading Jersusalem)? Nowhere."

What is the cause of the universe and what was before it? How do you know this? If the Big Bang came from a singularity where did the singularity come from? Where is the proof that life came from non-life? Where have you ever witnessed it happening? Where do you see inorganic matter giving way to mind or personality? How does the transition take place? How can a random chance beginning produce order and where do you see order coming from chaos? Where did the information come from in DNA? How did the process of natural selection happen? What makes something want to survive? Where does logic come from? Where do laws come from such as the laws of logic or the laws of gravity since in a material world these laws are incorporeal, abstract, non-physical?

Care to answer any of these questions?

No, life gives birth to life, persons to personality, spirit and mind to thinking, intent, order, information, morals and design.

You don't see intent, personality, the ability to think and make moral decisions coming from a rock or piece of dirt or puddle of water. Yet according to the evolutionary framework life arose from dissolving chemicals in rocks and dirt mixing in a puddle of water. The magic ingredient, billions and billions of years.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Where are the proofs of its incredible claims.."

If you want to get into it more I can give you some web addresses that are far more capable than I am of giving you the evidence in detail. I have been through this many times before.

Let's take one example, a worldwide flood would cause millions of fossils buried in rock layers throughout the earth. That is exactly what you see. Fossilization requires the body to be sealed in with pressure fairly quickly. It does not happen to an animal falling down dead in the plain and exposed to the elements. It decays fairly fast that way. Catastrophic mud slides, sifting of sediment, fossils in different layers etc., are all signs of the Flood, not a slow process of Uniformitarianism like Lyell and Darwin thought. Fossilization does not happen that way. Why do you think Stephen J. Gould has proposed Punctuated Equilibrium? He knows that Darwin was wrong about Uniformatarianism and the evolutionary community is looking for another way to fit their starting point.

As for miracles, they are supernatural and that goes beyond the natural. God is almighty and all knowing.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Compare this with writing, which is about 6,000 years old, agriculture, which is about 10,000 years old, the use of fire, which is about 750,000 years old, or language itself, which may be millions of years old."

Where did you get your numbers from?

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Morality is a natural by product of human culture and social interaction and needs no deities to explain it. The Greeks had sophisticated literature on morality at the times the Israelites were still obsessed with foreskins, animal sacrifice, and bizarre notions of ritual purity. Few would argue that in the Roman republic, Chow-dynasty China, or ancient India that people were simply living lives of unbridled immorality."

How can a constantly changing value system ever be meaningful? You can't call something right one minute and then wrong the next. It becomes meaningless, just personal or cultural preference. There is no right about it.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Of course, you could always make the claim that your specific deity has endowed all humans with an innate sense of morality, except that you have absolutely no evidence to justify this claim."

The evidence is the inconsistency and impossibility of the contrary. You can't make sense of it. What is your highest reference point in determining what you are saying is true? Without an absolute, objective, ultimate authority - God - it is meaningless and your opinion of right can only be enforced by persuasion and power by people who are willing to adopt the same position. It can never be enforced because it is "right", only because it is the preference.

On that bases what right do you have to condemn another society that believes flying planes into a building is justifiably right? Their believe might differ from yours and be opposite to yours but why is it wrong on your logic?

Why the conflicts and wars in the world? Well, for a number of reasons but certainly over a difference of opinion about what is right, whether that be the right religion, the right to possess land or what is in that land, or whatever.

It is not fair to claim that Palin was born an extremist Evangelical, speaking in tongues. Such a deviant lifestyle is a matter of choice. Luckily this disease can be cured by long consultation with spiritual advisers, and by prayer to selected supernatural beings.

Of Crypt Keeper's Pictures Here Upon Faith.

O Susan, I don't want to be o so rude,
But your picture On Faith is just really too crude.

Though it just might do justice to Crypt Keeper's visage,
Methinks your real features are not of his lineage.

A better photographer could do a new shoot.
And make this whole point long gone and so moot.

And just so you don't feel it's a personal slight
Most of your colleagues are in the same plight

Hello UNBIASED OBSERVER,

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "What I hear from you are just a bunch of unfounded notions....The Christian God is real, because I believe he is, the bible is true and never wrong, because God says that it is, the bible says God exists, and because the bible is never wrong, that statement is true."

Actually if you are listening (or reading between the lines) I am challenging the notions that right and truth can be known apart from and without God.

These people are objecting to Sarah Palin's stance against the womans "right" to choose and the issue of same sex marriage as being right. I'm asking them to show me how it can be so without the absolute, objective, ultimate standard that is the God of the Bible and His Word to us. God is true because of the impossibility of the contrary. I am also questioning whether Obama has the right values to lead the nation when he supports issues that go against what God has revealed as right.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "What distinguishes the bible from other religious literature? Nothing.

To you quite possibly nothing as you say. Your starting point does not allow for faith because you are opposed to God (Romans 8:6-7). If you will worship a god it will be a god of your own choosing, someone who will supply the answers that you want to hear. An atheist acts as his own god, the final deciding factor as what he will permit to be, based on his starting point and most cherished foundational/core values.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "The fact that biblical literalists do not waiver from their preposterous claims about the age of the earth, the origin of mankind, etc. does not mean they are correct. Merely that they operate on an a priori basis believing that the bible is literally true."

What a priori bases do you work on? THERE IS NO NEUTRALITY. We all have a starting point but can it make sense of what is here, why it is here and what difference it makes in what you believe about why it is here or whether it matters?

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Christianity has no special claims on morality."

Sez who? What makes you the authority? When you make a moral judgment what do you base it on for truth?

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "Moral systems have existed long before Christianity existed..."

Sure, moral systems have existed before Christ came to this earth, but not before the Son existed for He is eternal. Right is from God alone.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "and will continue to do so long after it's ceased being practiced."

You are assuming here. You don't know if it will cease being practiced, unless of course you are someone who sees and predicts the future for what it truly is? No, only God does that. Christianity is based on the God of the Bible, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are followers of God and His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.

UNBIASED OBSERVER: "It's important to remember what a small blip on the radar most religions are. Mormonism is about 150 years old. Protestantism is about 500 years old. Islam is about 1,400 years old. Christianity is about 1,900 years old. Buddhism is about 2,500 years old. Hinduism and Judaism, about 3,000-3,500 years old."

But the God who chose the Jews to be the people who would testify about Him to the world is eternal and the only true God.

Concy pussycat!

Still here? Oh, forever here and in other threads, eh?

What has Harry S Truman got to do with Ms. Sarah Palin? Any quotes googled, yahooed and wikipipediaed to share here where Truman invoked the will of God, and as the task of God assigned to him for whatever action he took?

How do you explain Palin, who has all educational, economic and political access, opportunities and benefits?

We cannot say the same for the majority of Muslim women living mostly in developing, underdeveloped and least developed Muslim states. Or most Muslim men for that matter.

How do you explain Sarah Palin from a society with a long tradition of rights of women guaranteed by law, and seperation of church and state etc?

Come November, we will know if God and the American voters is on her side.

But the offer to export her to any Muslim states of her choice still stands. After all, exporting religion globally is big business for the US now.

We may need lessons from Palin to ban stem cell research and abortion etc as being morally and religiously wrong. We want to reach her standards of values to be regarded as God fearing people.

But then again, perhaps not such a good idea. We have had four female heads of state and government in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey. Not very effective and made blunders, but none invoke the will of God for things such as a new factory coming up, or that they are tasked by God when they hunt down seccesionists, dissidents, rebels, terrorists in their countries.

ONWARDS TOWARDS BACKWARDS WITH PALIN!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello Paganplace and Farnaz,

Paganplace, good to see you here again.

Farnaz, thanks for your post. Religion in the public square happens when governments let it happens, be it the US or Malaysia.

I have pressing concerns over here. The government is a bunch of clueless incompetents oblivious to public concerns in making inexcusable economic, social and political blunder after blunder after blunder.

A rather insecure government, and should be, seeking to repress voices of dissent and disagreement all in the name of national security and stability by detentions without trial and closing down of some blogs. Obviously, their own job security, the country and people be damned.

We will have to surge the ICT battles in the blogs, in SMS again to make them see the cost of their actions. It is always the public that has to pay the price for their actions. The cost is high in every way. At best, to make them step back and not regress.

Oh, just send Palin over to Malaysia right now for a study tour or fact finding mission on the dangers of jingoistically and nonsensically espousing on race and religion in public in a multicultural society. That may make her stop.

Third world politics is iffy, dodgy and reckless. America is not the third world. Palin knows not on foreign affairs and foreign countries and foreign cultures.

Best regards and out

J

Hi NotSoGreatScot,

The last part of the last post on James White's credentials was for you.

Hi CTCNL,

CTCNL: "Father Raymond Brown, Bishop NT Wright and Luke Timothy Johnson are hardly "liberal".

No comment for now.

CTCNL: "Keep in mind that Pilate was a necessary accessory in the "rise" of JC. Without that crucifixion, where would we Christians be??"

All in God's plan, He could have used whoever He wanted as an "accessory", what is your point? I assume by the abbreviation "JC" that you are referring to the Lord? That tells me a lot about your liberal or liberated theology.

CTCNL: "And JC an organizer?? Hardly!!! Paul did most of the organizing and original advertising. M, M, L, and J did the added embellishing and ad campaign raising a simple preacher man to deity status akin to the OT and Roman emperors campaign people. More necessary accessories!!!!"

God used these apostles to preach the message of Christ and who He is, as eyewitnesses of His miracles, life, crucifixion and resurrection, so what is your point? How do you know that it is not you who are embellishing the message they preached? Were you there? You don't and you are changing the message, making yourself a higher authority, or those you espouse as a higher authority, based not on the Word of God but speculative opinion. You are a false brother and an apostate if you do not stand firm for the truth and "faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and DENY JESUS CHRIST OUR ONLY SOVEREIGN AND LORD." (Jude 3-4)

You are playing with something you do not understand CTCNL.

http://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?catid=8

(1st video)

As for James White's credentials,

http://www.aomin.org/articles/bio.html

Have you ever read any of his books or articles or tested them against the Word of God?

Dear DZ:

I decided to check in on the old On Faith blogs and saw your note about your health. My thoughts and well wishes will be with you in the coming months. May peace be with you at this difficult time. They are better at cancer than they used to be, but as you know the techniques are far from good yet. Still we can hope for the best.

Meanwhile, you should consider staying in touch with your community here rather than signing off because the chemo puts you in a mood sometimes. People will understand, I think, well hope anyway.

Hi Gerry,

GERRY: "You might just as well talk to a brick wall as to Peter Huff. A guy who is convinced to be in the possession of absolute truth has ceased to be eligible for any intellectual discourse."

Ah yes Gerry, great way to address the issue - ignore it. So you are the all knowing, objective being who decides what is right and what is true! When you can't address it avoid the issue. Frankly your worldview has no answer that can make sense of right or truth. Is your way of addressing the questions to change the subject?

When Susan talked in her column about Sarah Palin's position on abortion and gay marriage I challenged Susan's notions of right and where those notions came from, how she can know for certain that she or others here are truly in the "right." Both you and they have not been able to make sense of this issue. I challenged the position of the Obama campaign as to their authority to call the woman's right to choose "right" and questioned their moral integrity to make the "right" decision in leadership.

That same question applies to you too Gerry. Where do you get you sense of right from and how do you know your judgments on God and these matters are correct?

GERRY: "All "eternal truths", starting with the genocide of the Amalekites, continuing with Islam (apostates must be killed), inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and more recently Bush (and "hopefully" Palin) have wrought havoc to the world."

Man is flawed but the question is where does he look for the answers? With your use of the word "all" you are making an absolute statement or a statement that you have no idea of as to its truth. Which is it Gerry?

GERRY: "Each one of these names "was" or "is" in the possession of eternal truth,..."

Eternal truth cannot be contradictory for truth can never be true and false at the same time. Each of these men were subjective individuals. Luther tapped into the God of truth and was able to see some things through His light.

GERRY: "People like P.H. have never matured from their infant mind...Their WAY OF THINKING, not only the strange content of their particular education, is the result of closed thinking systems, invented to exert power - and it works."

Oh yes Gerry, your mind is so open and you are so mature. Truth is narrow Gerry. It is either or. Either it is true or it is not. It cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same way. You probably wouldn't be arguing if you didn't think your position (You are an atheist - right?) was true. In a subjective world of ideas what makes yours true and better (qualitative value) than anyone else's? It does not unless there is an absolute standard to base truth on.

Either the material world is an illusion as the Buddhist claims or he will get schmucked when he crosses the street without looking both ways. So his worldview is inconsistent with the facts, just like yours is.

The reason I love talking to people like you is that you don't have any of the answers, you can't answer the tough questions, you can't make sense of why things are the way they are, how they got here, of any ultimate meaning or purpose in life. I like pointing out how atheism is bankrupt in the hope that God may bring someone to their senses.

GERRY: "To describe something - anything as weird as a religious "revelation" as "self authenticating" is equivalent to saying: I believe that white is black, and I feel fine with it..."

There again Gerry, your starting point is closed to the truth of God. What higher authority can be appealed too? What is your highest authority and final reference point in this matter? You make all judgment with yourself as the "one" who decides. Is your authority absolute, objective, ultimate, universal, eternally true? If not how do you know that it will not change as your electro-magnetic, biochemical structure reacts (since in evolutionary science you are nothing more than a bag of biological matter reacting to and changing with the environment around you) or when some poor subjective soul comes up with a thought or system of philosophy that you like better than your present one(s)?

Will your truth remain true tomorrow or will it be found to be based on false assumptions? Since you are constantly changing and the world around you is constantly changing can you say for sure? Do you know the future?

Peter, Peter, Peter,

Father Raymond Brown, Bishop NT Wright and Luke Timothy Johnson are hardly "liberal".

Added observations:

Keep in mind that Pilate was a necessary accessory in the "rise" of JC. Without that crucifixion, where would we Christians be??

And JC an organizer?? Hardly!!! Paul did most of the organizing and original advertising. M, M, L, and J did the added embellishing and ad campaign raising a simple preacher man to deity status akin to the OT and Roman emperors campaign people. More necessary accessories!!!!

Christianity really should be named for The Five Voodoo Doctors aka P, M, M, L and J with their changing of wine into blood and bread into living tissue and the raising of at least two dead people.

Peter Huff wrote: “Do you want a list of scholars who can make mush of this poor scholarship? … Start with James White”

Ummm … Dr. White’s “doctorate” comes from what appears to be a mail order school, with course descriptions like:

“AP-510/710 The New Age Movement 4SH Exposes the pantheistic anti-Christian beliefs of the New Age Movement. A Scriptural refutation of pantheism is provided.”

I couldn’t find anything in his list of publications that looked anything even remotely like peer reviewed scholarship.

Ms. Jacoby, in reading your piece and your bio, I found your background to be very impressive and your skill as a writer to be substantial. I noted that your principal claim was that Gov. Palin intended to force her personal religious values upon the rest of us. I though, "Ah, now someone will say something substantive about this issue, pointing out specific instances where Gov. Palin attempted to force her personal religious values upon the people of her village when she was mayor, or her state during her tenure as governor." Alas, I did not find such an instance.

I did, however, find some interesting definitions. I found that the definition of a religious extremist is someone who "wants to force her values on women who do not agree with her." Apart from the gender specificity of this definition, it would seem to apply to radical Islamists. It would also seem to apply to people who want to force pharmacists to cooperate in pharmacological abortion in violation of their consciences. It would seem to apply to people who want to force children to attend sex education classes that are tailor made to advance an agenda that is radically at odds the values of their parents. It would seem to apply to people who want to muzzle the words of those who challenge this agenda with timeless principles from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I call that extremism as well. Some of the people who advance such coercive agendas are members of mainline Christian or Jewish sects, others are not. Of the latter, some are anti-religious. The important difference here is not the specific religion of people who advance a coercive agenda, but the very anti-intellectualism you profess to oppose. Anti-intellectualism is not so much a matter of the institution that formed our values as it is a matter of a refusal to permit opposing points of view in the public arena and the refusal to take another's viewpoint as worthy of consideration precisely because it differs from our own. By that measure, some of the most anti-intellectual institutions on the planet are prestigious institutions of higher learning.

Reasonable not hateful:

Dobson is a dominionist, which has been labeled a heresy by some conservative religious groups. Dobson is, therefore, an enemy of the true church and an enemy of America.

It is not fair to claim that Palin was born an Evangelical speaking-in-tongues religious extremist. Such a lifestyle is a conscious choice, designed to win votes and acquire power. But luckily this choice can be reversed through counseling with selected spiritual advisers, and fervent prayers to certain supernatural beings.

Hi CCNL,

I recognize some of these names. They are liberal and eisegetical in their interpretation of the Bible, so what do you expect? It depends on your starting point where you land up. Once you start reading into the texts something that is not there you can make them say what they do not say. Once you start from the presupposition that the Bible is fallible and not the inspired Word of God you will get people and evidence to support your view. Do you want a list of scholars who can make mush of this poor scholarship?

Start with James White. Browse through his video section on You Tube of over 280. Look up his criticism and debates with of Crossan and liberal theologians or his articles on his web site if you want the other side of the story. I have his debate with John Shelby Sponge. Sponge is out to lunch.

http://www.youtube.com/DrOakley1689

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4mJZ6y_SZI

Sorry, Arminius-

I have to agree with Peter- you have lost your way from the word of God.

Dobson is the equiv. of the Taliban?

Boy, you are way out there.

Better sit down and read Romans about 10 times in a row till you get it.

MCCain/Palin is not the equiv. of Bush. Far different.

If your guy gets elected, he is a one trick pony like Carter, and America will suffer in ways you can't imagine.

Palin's views are no more "extreme" than the tenets of evolutionism, global warming, catholicism, Judaism, or even LIBERALISM. Once again liberal bias brands all smoke coming from other pipes as "non smoke." This outlook is biased toward the very judeo christian principles of such great men as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and a litany of other Great Americans who were according to "whats her name" liberal reporter "extremist."

In this day it would be a breath of fresh air for partisanism to take a large dosage of reality, and cease and desist from propagandizing the public with such ridiculous divisive claims. Is it now extremism to believe in the Bible? Is it extremism to believe in God? Most americans would agree that they believe in both, and a good portion of americans might also claim belief that the Bible is a book to be applied to our lives.

America will never unite so long as partisan hackery keeps peeling labels and slapping them on whatever it does not like.

- Rory

It is unfair to criticize Sarah Palin just because she has chistian faith. The USA was founded by people who believe in Judea/Christian faith, and to be criticized and treated unfairly because she is a woman of faith is unfair. She clearly states that she does not impose her believe on others, it is only, once again, an evidence of the liberal media who practices unfair reporting.

Math/Science - seems like we are splitting hairs here.

Clearly there is a distinction between pure mathematics - where rigorous proof of a proposition is possible, and pure experimental science - where one can only make observations that either support, or fail to support a hypothesis.

On the other hand I have met high level theoretical physicists who truly believe that their mathematical representations were truly reality.

DZ - if you are still checking in - get well.

Once upon a time I did battle with cancer. Ironically - it was on a day that I had had an angry outburst that I found out that it had recurred, and I needed another round of chemo and surgery to beat it.

That was 11 years ago, and I am now considered to be cured. I still see the oncologist once a year, but now he lectures me about my blood pressure being more of a risk than my cancer coming back. I hope your outcome is a good as mine has been.

DZ

If posting is beneficial to your course of chemo I see no reason for you to refrain. Frankly, I've been through much worse here and,to the best of my memory, you were not a contributor.

I don't post here, just had a quick look and saw this by chance.

Peter Huff,

Some reading material for you before your next commentary. These are some of the references used by historical Jesus exegetes (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen and the Professors on the Jesus Seminar Board) to conclude that only 30% of the NT is historic.

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, Elaine Pagels, 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 book The Real Jesus

Susan brings up a great point. The reason why many people are so fixated on Palin and her extremist views, stems from McCain's age and potential health issues, and places the VP candidate closer to the Presidency than anyone in the last 4 decades.

Christian fundamentalists remind me of a group of castaways that have been living on a bountiful desert island for several generations. Plenty of food and fresh water, so folks are not only surviving, but are thriving in their good fortune.

Now through a stroke of pure happenstance, the only book in their possession all these years has been a solitary Gideon Bible, brought ashore by a long-ago survivor.

It's tattered pages and the contents therein have become sacred over the generations and the interpretation of it's meaning is absolute law, with violations punishable by death.

Reading skills are now handed down with great care - only a select few ever actually read the Book. Fewer still are those that are 'gifted' with the vision to interpret it's meaning.

Needless to say, only the most cunning survivors rule in abolute authority - and by the Book. Battles for control are ruthless, legendary in magnitude, and invariably fatal to the losers.

Beheading, burning at the stake, and being drawn and quartered are all methods used to dispatch the vanquished, and of course violators of the Book of Law.

A court of 4 select individuals (including the island leader and his/her personal hierophant) decides the guilt or innocence of the accused - modeled directly after the 4 Gospels.

By now, this lucky little society has special individuals that 'speak in tongues' and are gifted with the ability to understand perfectly what the Book means - these natural born 'hermeneutics' experts are always in the employ of the island leaders and live privilaged lives, to say the least.

And odd to say, their 'divine' spoken authority conforms perfectly with the will of those leaders without fail. Their very lives depend on it!

And so it goes, just another day on the tiny island paradise ruled by God and the Bible.

Peter Huff,
What I hear from you are just a bunch of unfounded notions:

"The Christian God is real, because I believe he is, the bible is true and never wrong, because God says that it is, the bible says God exists, and because the bible is never wrong, that statement is true."

What distinguishes the bible from other religious literature? Nothing. Where are the proofs of its incredible claims (world created in six days, global flood, tower of babel, the exodus, talking donkeys, people coming back from the dead and invading Jersusalem)? Nowhere.

Th fact that biblical literalists do not waiver from their preposterous claims about the age of the earth, the origin of mankind, etc. does not mean they are correct. Merely that they operate on an a priori basis believing that the bible is literally true.

Christianity has no special claims on morality. Moral systems have existed long before Christianity existed and will continue to do so long after it's ceased being practiced.

It's important to remember what a small blip on the radar most religions are. Mormonism is about 150 years old. Protestantism is about 500 years old. Islam is about 1,400 years old. Christianity is about 1,900 years old. Buddhism is about 2,500 years old. Hinduism and Judaism, about 3,000-3,500 years old.

Compare this with writing, which is about 6,000 years old, agriculture, which is about 10,000 years old, the use of fire, which is about 750,000 years old, or language itself, which may be millions of years old.

Codified, "book" religions are a product of recent events in human history. Morality is a natural by product of human culture and social interaction and needs no deities to explain it. The Greeks had sophisticated literature on morality at the times the Israelites were still obsessed with foreskins, animal sacrifice, and bizarre notions of ritual purity. Few would argue that in the Roman republic, Chow-dynasty China, or ancient India that people were simply living lives of unbridled immorality.

Of course, you could always make the claim that your specific deity has endowed all humans with an innate sense of morality, except that you have absolutely no evidence to justify this claim.

Paganplace,

you might just as well talk to a brick wall as to Peter Huff. A guy who is convinced to be in the possession of absolute truth has ceased to be eligible for any intellectual discourse.

All "eternal truths", starting with the genocide of the Amalekites, continuing with Islam (apostates must be killed), inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and more recently Bush (and "hopefully" Palin) have wrought havoc to the world. Each one of these names "was" or "is" in the possession of eternal truth, Hitler with "Providence", Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot with the "scientific materialism" of Marx, the inquisition with the installation of absolute superstition, Luther with his conviction of the existence of witches and the necessity to burn them at the stake - you name them, we have them in history and present.

People like P.H. have never matured from their infant mind. They were not only brainwashed as to the CONTENT of their world views, but, worse, as to the ABILITY to process an information (Luther: Reason is of Satan!). Their WAY OF THINKING, not only the strange content of their particular education, is the result of closed thinking systems, invented to exert power - and it works. It is the ancient debunked Manichean thinking of good vs. evil, heaven and hell, no shades of gray, the most primitive and alas, the most comfortable way of thinking up to this day. To open those doors would be the next step of human evolution.

To describe something - anything as weird as a religious "revelation" as "self authenticating" is equivalent to saying: I believe that white is black, and I feel fine with it, which is the most important, and I won't change this, and if you want to take it away from me, you will get into deep trouble.

Hello again Paganplace,

""'The Word of God is self-authenticating."

PAGANPLACE: "Otherwise known as a fallacy...."

Please make sense of how your subjective viewpoint is the final, absolute, ultimate standard? Are you not making an absolute statement? You have accused God's Word as not being self-authenticating. If your standard to measure this is not absolute, how sure are you that it is reliable - 99.99999%? (Is that not the standard response - 99.99999%?) How absolute are you of the 99.99999%?
Do you know that 99.99999% can never be absolute? So there is room for doubt on the trustworthiness of your statement is there not?

If I can never be absolutely certain that what you are saying is true please make sense of how you know this for certain?

No, in order to make sense of anything you have to think God's thoughts after Him or read His revelation concerning truth - His Word, as revealed by His Spirit, because only in Him is every aspect of every fact seen. He created the facts from His infinite mind. There is inconsistency in any other position because we are finite in our understanding. Only by His revelation can we know anything as being absolute.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes. It is late.

ACEBOJANGLES: "My ideas of right and wrong do not borrow from Judeo-Christian values. They may be similar, but to you they are derived very differently."

You got them somewhere and I contend it is because you are made in the image of God that you know what is right although you suppress that truth because you want to be the one calling the shots.

"(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law [i.e. God's commandments], they are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)" Romans 2:14-15)

So although you believe that they are derived from somewhere else (evolution) you suppress the truth of God in your stubborn, self-seeking, prideful nature in resiting Him.

ACEBOJANGLES: "To me they are derived similarly since I believe the Bible was written and compiled by men, without divine inspiration, who arrived at similar rules with similar methods. The point is, god is nowhere in my rules and doesn't need to be.

You believe the Bible was written by man and it was, but it was inspired by God and men were lead by God in writing it as His revelation to us, the written Word. You believe other than what the Word says, but you do not know for certain for you are a skeptic and reject the truth. The nature of skepticism is uncertainty. What do you know for certain? What do you know absolutely as true? If your answer is nothing you make my case. If you know something for certain let's pursue it and see how certain it is.

ACEBOJANGLES: "Part of our disagreement is that you see right and wrong as universal edicts from the spirit in the sky, but right and wrong would be more aptly called beneficial and impermissible."

Beneficial to whom? It all depends on what you see as right and since you are not God you do not see the whole picture so it is quite possible something you perceive as beneficial may be malevolent.

ACEBOJANGLES: "The heart of your argument is that you can't know what is right and wrong without an absolute authority to tell you. I disagree."

Okay, well I disagree with you and you are wrong. How do you like me so far, and please do not be hurtful!

Are you the final and highest reference on right? Is your highest reference objective and unbiased? If not then it is just you personal preference and mine is different. IF NOT THE HIGHEST THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW?

Rights are based on qualitative values. If they are always changing what do you use as your fixed reference?

Abortion was wrong not so many years ago in your country, now it is right. How can something wrong ever be right? If wrong is right then what is wrong? If right is wrong then what is right?

Based on personal preference, in some cultures they used to feed their guest and in others their guests were the feast. What is your preference?

In some countries they treat woman as possessions, in others women are treated with equality. What is your preference?

In some countries they cut off your hands for stealing, in others they treat the victims as the culprits for not looking after their property better. What is your preference?

ACEBOJANGLES: "In any case, it's far better to determine right and wrong from the obersvable here and now, than to try to figure it out from what a currently silent, always invisible spirit supposedly inspired some people to right down over the centuries and then inspired a group of others much later to sift through and canonize."

He is not silent just because you have your fingers in your ears. To those who have an ear, let them hear the Word of God.

ACEBOJANGLES: "As an aside, it's funny to have someone who claims to subscribe literally to the teachings of god as found in a book suggest that I follow Christopher Hitchens blindly."

For one thing, Christopher Hitchens has not claimed that he is God to my knowledge, although his worldview sets himself up as his ultimate authority so he certainly acts like he is. I know that he is not the highest human authority that can be appealed to, but some may disagree. Do you know which human is? Why do so many people disagree with him/her?

Oh yeah, it's a collective thing. You interpret the facts as the majority dictates! But which individual originally decided that it "ought" to be this way?

I don't know who you follow or have been influenced by since we have not discussed it. I was just making a sarcastic point. You are following someones subjective human ideas (not necessarily Hitchen, but everyone builds their worldview on something) that you do not know with certainty are trustworthy and true. Human ideas are always changing as new evidence and new facts are learned and become available. How do you know that what science is telling you now it true when time and time again scientists have changed their findings as more data becomes available?

For goodness sake, they thought they found the missing link with Nebraska Man, a pigs tooth and human jawbone if my memory serves me correctly. Same thing with Peking Man, a single tooth and they reconstruct what the alleged man most probably looked like. That is not science, it is speculation. Granted they corrected the errors but how many times have scientific discoveries and theories been discredited. Evolution is based on a theory that is constantly changing and being modified. Darwin thought Uniformatarianism - discredited. Are you sure they have it right now?

Let the blind lead the blind. Only in His light do we see light.

Hello Acebojangles,

ACEBOJANGLES: "I alluded to my standard for what hurts others, but it seems I didn't state it explicitly. The basic rule is that if you wouldn't want something done to you, you shouldn't do it to others."

If it is a standard that comes from you how do you know it is the standard that others will follow? Everywhere around you there is hurt and cruelty to other human beings that aren't willing to follow or recognize that standard. What are you going to do with those people? If you eliminate them you hurt them, if you do nothing they hurt you.

Evolution promotes the strong selfish gene, the one that looks after itself. It is contrary to your standard. Hurt happens every day in the animal kingdom, of which you believe you are a part although the Bible says differently and reality confirms that humans are different than animals.

The reason we have similarities to animals is that when God designed the earth He made it so that we all would share our environment to some degree or another.

You are again borrowing from the Christian worldview but you do not realize it, however, Christians are called to go further than "do unto others as you would have them do unto you",

"And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that...But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:33-36)

ACEBOJANGLES: "There is also a societal component of right and wrong. We in society organize our ideas of right and wrong around what allows society to function smoothly."

And each society is different. When two have opposite values of right and wrong which one is right - the one that can harm/hurt the other to the greater degree? In other words, the one that can impose its will on the other? What allows one society to function smoothly may not be the case for another, such as in the case of a dictator.

And the ability to harm/hurt someone makes the difference between whose "right" is heard between individuals to a degree. The individual subjective sinful nature that is always trying to decide for itself what is right outside of God's objective revelation is always battling someone else's subjective individual sinful nature that thinks it knows right. That is just plain reality.

Do you think Russia sees the situation in Georgia the same way the USA does? So who is right? They both claim the other is wrong do they not?

Do you think the Iran's see the USA as living "right" ethically or visa versa, especially in regards to equal rights between men and women in Iran?

Both Pakistan and India believe that they are right in their land dispute, they both believe the land is their's (same with Israel and the Arabs) so if right is determined by societies which ones have it right?

Without God you cannot make sense of right and wrong for you need an absolute, objective, ultimate final reference point to make sense of anything. Without that it is all subjective preference and don't call it right.

You don't see right in the world much because since the beginning of time, the first man and woman have rebelled against his Maker and wanted to be autonomous, self-governing, the ones who choose what is right, but without the proper wisdom for mankind does not see his dependence on God. Hence the bloody mess of world affairs.

What happens around a society that views suicide bombing (Iraq resistance forces, Palestinian militants) or gassing its undesirables (WWII Germany) or mass killing between 80-100 million of its people (Mao's China) as right because it serves its cause? That is a lot of hurt. Why are their ideas of right and wrong and their values of human life so different from ours? Your rules do not apply there.

Do you think the mob who is starving to death is going to play by your rules when you are the only one with food and giving it to them means you and your family dies? Are you willing to do that for the greater good? Someone is going to get hurt.

ACEBOJANGLES: "In fact, these rules would supercede god's rules, if they existed. For example, in the story of Abraham and Isaac god tells Abraham that he must kill his son. In the end, god says changes his mind, but who wants to have their emotions toyed with like that? By my rules, god has done wrong. By your rules, god can do no wrong."

God's plan of redemption and His working out all things according to His will means He knows and foreordains what will take place and all things work according to His will because He is sovereign and almighty. Nothing takes God by surprise for He is omniscient.

There are a number of lessons He was teaching partly for Abraham and partly for us, and Abraham understood one of them in his trust of God.

"By faith Abraham, when God TESTED him, offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promise was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." (Hebrews 11:17-19)

There are pictures and shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ in every page of the Old Testament and God's promise that pointed to the Messiah and Savior that was to come. This, as well as being actual history, is one of them.

God sent His only Son whom He loved, into the world as a sacrifice for sins and to to live a righteous, holy life to meet the righteous requirements of the law that every man (other than Jesus) has failed to do. What Abraham did was a picture or a shadowing of what was to come, the ultimate sacrifice.

Yes God can do no wrong. He cannot covert so He is not greedy, He cannot steal for He owns everything and has no need of anything, He cannot murder for He is the giver and taker of life and as the Creator has a right to do with His creation as He sees fit, He cannot lie for that is against His nature, He cannot dishonor father or mother because He is before all things, He cannot break the Sabbath for the Sabbath was made for man, He cannot commit adultery for He is pure and holy in thought and nature and there is nothing in all existence that deserves greater honor and glory than God for there is nothing greater to worship and honor and He cannot commit idolatry to any other gods for there are none.

""'The Word of God is self-authenticating."

Otherwise known as a fallacy....

Don't pick on Arminius, Peter. Prolly you ought to be learning from him.

A Great President and Vice-President

"Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen."[1] He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly regarded predecessor.

At one point in his second term, near the end of the Korean War, Truman's public opinion ratings reached the lowest point yet recorded for any United States president until George W. Bush. Despite negative public opinion during his term in office, popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. U.S. scholars today rank him among the top ten best presidents. Truman's legendary upset victory in 1948 over Thomas E. Dewey is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates."

From Wikipedia

Hi Arminius,

It has been a while since we chatted. I presume you are still a professing Christian, so as a brother I will speak to you and rebuke you in brotherly love.

Greg Bahnsen, in his book Van Til's Apologetics quotes John Carnell (An Introduction to Apologetics),

"'The Word of God is self-authenticating. It bears its own testimony to truth; it seals its own validity. If the Word required something more certain than itself to give validity, it would no longer be God's Word. If God, by definition, is that than which no greater may be conceived, then his Word is that which no truer may be conceived'....'When God says something, it is true, for God cannot lie; and when man reposes in God's Word, he has faith. If he fails to rest in its truth, we call him an infidel, i.e. he is not one of the faithful. The power by which the heart is enabled to see that the Word of God is true is the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is thus self-authenticating.' p. 570-71.

Scripture teaches that God made the heavens and earth and everything in them in six days (Exodus 20:11), that He made each animal according to its kind (Genesis 1), and He made man different from the animals, in His own image (Genesis 1), able to love and reason and think His thoughts after Him and with the ability to rule over the creatures of the earth (Genesis 1). God so declares it. The very breath of God (His Word) speaks to you. Can you hear?

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." (Matthew 7:24)

Arminius, make your foundation secure, don't oscillate between two different points of view, one worldly and the other godly. The world cannot make sense out of things. God does not lie. I read your thoughts all the time on these forums and you continue to fluctuate between the world and Christian values, trying to combine the two.

Hear what Scripture says,

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom DID NOT KNOW HIM, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe." (1 Corinthians 1:20-21)

Arminius, do you believe His Word my friend?

Arminius, we are in a battle here, not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces that, since the Garden, have been trying to discredit the Word of God - "Did God really say?"

Remember, "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the word does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Do you understand this?

Do not believe the lie of evolution. People have started with a certain presupposition and built a worldview on it. They have been suppressing the truth of God since the beginning of time in their wickedness, "since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been MADE, so that men are without excuse."
(Romans 1:18b-20)

Who are you going to believe? You cannot follow two masters. Remember Jesus said,

"My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." (Luke 8:21)

Blessings in Christ Jesus!

Sad to say, the real bill that'll come due, though, isn't in Dow Jones averages.

It's in time.

Time that ain't coming back.

Time we're out of.

Cause, I don't want to alarm you, conservatives, but Bush and the GOP had control of all branches of 'government' for years, in the name of 'small government.'

They increased it beyond any precedented measure.

They still run on 'smaller government' (ie, identify with the powerful and ask to have your rights of rederss removed)

But.

Ain't no smaller.

Just more intrusive.

and somehow more expensive.

Wow. Must be the libruls fault. Can't look who signs the checks....
This is war. We must *shop.* Even if we get sold junk mortgages and homeowners don't get help, no, the predatory lendes get a bailout at public expense when their profiteering collapses the economy.....

Yep. Wonders of small government and Christian righteousness.

Aren't you glad you preserved the 'sanctity' of your marriage against ever having to think *mine* might not be persecuted by your government for you?

Ah... 'Small government.'

Wait till you *really* see the bill.

"pull out the little box with the big red button labeled Armegeddan and tells you to push the button, will you push it?"

Actually, I'm more interested in if they can cope with the fact that Meggido is a really small piece of real estate, and there is no actual 'red button.'

Cause, I know, crazy naive liberal that I am, I kind of had this notion the government could do something productive, apart from sell itself and the public wealth to the corporations and tell people the world's ending, and it's 'small government' to screw up all the time as long as the bill goes to the private sector and said private sector owns the media.

Wait a minute.

"It is indeed inappropriate to ask Palin questions about her teenage daughter's pregnancy,"

Is *not.* Not if she wants to use force of law to impose what clearly didn't work in her *own* family, which is in fact being used as some kind of religious litmus test of pietitiousness in the election.

You *bet* it's appropriate. If the policies she wants to demand for *all our kids* didn't work with her *personal righteous attention,* wel...

You bet it's relevant.

She wants to put that religious belief of hers in everyone *else's* life, you *bet your bippy in a quite literal sense* this bears on things.

Question for Sarah,

When you are president and sitting in the oval office someday in the future and your God tells you to reach into the top right hand drawer of your desk, pull out the little box with the big red button labeled Armegeddan and tells you to push the button, will you push it?

A Great President and Vice-President

"Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen."[1] He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly regarded predecessor.

At one point in his second term, near the end of the Korean War, Truman's public opinion ratings reached the lowest point yet recorded for any United States president until George W. Bush. Despite negative public opinion during his term in office, popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. U.S. scholars today rank him among the top ten best presidents. Truman's legendary upset victory in 1948 over Thomas E. Dewey is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates."

From Wikipedia

DZ,

Please get well soon, and please continue to blog. Everybody gets testy now and then, and I'm sure Mary Cunningham will say the same when she reads your post.

I look forward to reading your comments!

Bravo Susan! There are so few journalists willing to promote eugenics these days. Who needs all those retards running around when we can snip them in the womb? Yes, Susan, with your selfless promotion of this wonderful concept we can recreate ourselves as a powerful, master race.

Let those who hide behind religion, trying to impose their so-called morality on us, the enlightened majority, be warned: No more will we allow you to hinder our progress as we make this world in our image.

Ziegheil!

DZ wrote "I'll be back when the poison is no longer in my body."

You also wrote "I reject the idea of any ultimate, universal authority. There is no word of god - all words come from humans. All morality derives from humans not supernatural entities."

I hope you would realize that the belief you hold is the POISON in you.

To many people a healthy life can be TOO LONG to live a HOLY and WORTHY life. Along the way, they fall by the wayside. On the other hand, a shorter life makes some people very close to God. It's easier to live holy in just a month or two compared to 50 years of living holy. I hope you got my point.

If you are about to die, try to make it HOLY and WORTHY. I always think that the thief on the cross was a very lucky man coz he only have seconds to live a holy life. I've seen many Christians who were saved but fall by the wayside. It would have been better if they were hanged on the cross and died when they got saved than live a longer life but fell out of grace.

Think positive and use your sickness as a gift rather than a curse. LIVE HOLY and be prepared to meet the Judge. It will cure you physically and spiritually. The devil is like a roaring lion. He will not touch you if he thinks that killing you would send you to heaven.

Oh There Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist,

First things first!! How can we move on to other topics concerning women's rights when your religion gives women almost no rights and treats them like fodder for the male species. Answer the basic questions about the Islamic treatment of women and then and only then can one move on.

Peter Huff,

You said, "Evolutionary science has been indoctrinating the world of science in a profound way since the Enlightenment, and especially since The Origin of Species."

Me: I respectfully disagree. Here is a revision:

Evolutionary science has been EDUCATING the world of science in a profound way since the Enlightenment, and especially since The Origin of Species.

There is no conflict between science, including evolution, and the Word of God. All you have to do is look at the incredible glory of the universe to realize that. There are two paths, the Word of God, and the Reason of Science. Oddly, they are parallel - parallel lines meet at infinity. That infinity is the endless love of God.

Walk outside and look at the stars. You will see.

Every Hillary supporter I have talked to is disillusioned with the democrats. Throw in the Edwards situation and the women for the most part feel like fools for supporting the democrats. Beating up Palin won't change that.

Why does everyone call Palin 'Talibunny' ?

I like rabbits.

FCS

Hi Gwillie,

GWILLIE: "What is important about Palin's religious beliefs is not her application of them to her personal life but her desire to impose them on others through public law and policy."
After 8 years of hearing this same line about President Bush, I think it’s time for something new. You know, like, issues?"

We all have religious beliefs, they just come in different forms. Atheists worship the creature (usually themselves as the ultimate authority) or evolutionary science as their deity, the be all and end all of all things, their all sufficient answer, the thing that they depend on the most. It depends on your starting presuppositions, your core values, the foundation you build on.

Evolutionary science has been indoctrinating the world of science in a profound way since the Enlightenment, and especially since The Origin of Species.

Best wishes DZ!

DZ,
I, for one, will miss you greatly on these boards. Please try to keep a positive outlook, get well, and hurry back!

I'd like to extand my sympathy to DZ, with best hopes for the successful conclusion of your cancer chemotherapy. I lost someone I loved to cancer this year, and I think it's impossible not to have grief, compounded by anger, in circumstances like these. Facing your own illness alone would only make it harder.

Peter Huff:

I alluded to my standard for what hurts others, but it seems I didn't state it explicitly. The basic rule is that if you wouldn't want something done to you, you shouldn't do it to others.

There is also a societal component of right and wrong. We in society organize our ideas of right and wrong around what allows society to function smoothly.

I'm sure there are other dynamics and caveats which are too numerous to list here. I'm equally sure that it's possible to come up with some scenario where it is difficult to determine what's right or wrong by these (or probably any) rules. The point is that laid out here are rules which provide a workable foundation for right and wrong and have nothing to do with god.

In fact, these rules would supercede god's rules, if they existed. For example, in the story of Abraham and Isaac god tells Abraham that he must kill his son. In the end, god says changes his mind, but who wants to have their emotions toyed with like that? By my rules, god has done wrong. By your rules, god can do no wrong.

My ideas of right and wrong do not borrow from Judeo-Christian values. They may be similar, but to you they are derived very differently. To me they are derived similarly since I believe the Bible was written and compiled by men, without divine inspiration, who arrived at similar rules with similar methods. The point is, god is nowhere in my rules and doesn't need to be.

Part of our disagreement is that you see right and wrong as universal edicts from the spirit in the sky, but right and wrong would be more aptly called beneficial and impermissible.

The heart of your argument is that you can't know what is right and wrong without an absolute authority to tell you. I disagree. In any case, it's far better to determine right and wrong from the obersvable here and now, than to try to figure it out from what a currently silent, always invisible spirit supposedly inspired some people to right down over the centuries and then inspired a group of others much later to sift through and canonize.

As an aside, it's funny to have someone who claims to subscribe literally to the teachings of god as found in a book suggest that I follow Christopher Hitchens blindly.

To Spiderman2 and pals:

Why are you guys so bogged down by the relationship of math and science? The point is that evolution is a fact. Anyone who wants to can research Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals and whatever other fossils they want to, none of which are the subject of scientific dissent.

You can reject evolution if you want to, but you are choosing not to believe in science because you are rejecting observable fact.

DZ,

Our best wishes are with you. Hang in there, friend.

Arminius

I will not be posting here at On Faith for a couple months. I left a very angry post for Mary Cunningham yesterday, and I am appalled that I did so. I disagree with her on almost everything, but that does not and cannot justify posting in anger.

By way of explanation (although not an excuse), my wife of 37 years died of cancer in December, I was diagnosed with two different forms of cancer in the last 8 months, I am also in the eighth month of chemothearpy, and I am in no mental position to be doing any posting on anything, anywhere for a while.

I'll be back when the poison is no longer in my body.

My apologies to all.

DZ

Concy pussycat!

It is better to stick to your pre-prepared posts, no? A bit hard to venture to a new topic when the only reading one does is limited to Jesus Seminarians, former Muslims and Wikipedia and quoted often in the lists, eh?

Come now, just send Sarah Palin over to us. Our ulema will teach her to say, "It is the will of God" after major disasters, not for such reasons as when a pipeline is build.

Just send Sarah Palin over to liberate Muslim women from oppression and from violence. Ms. Palin, as a long time member of the NRA, knows how to use guns and will blast away Muslim men who behave badly towards Muslim women.

SARAH PALIN THE LIBERATOR OF OPPRESSED MUSLIM WOMEN!

SARAH PALIN THE SAVIOR OF ABUSED MULSIM WOMEN!

SARAH PALIN THE ALASKAN BLIZZARD AGAINST VIOLENCE AGAINST MUSLIM WOMEN!

SARAH PALIN FOR WARS TASKED BY GOD!

Cheers and Ramadan to you, pussycat.

Arminius - as a old fan of sci-fi, it's curious that the idea of androids has been around for decades - perfectly anthropomorphic replicants to be sure, but you have to wonder if they are not a distant vision of our future ala H.G. Wells, et al.

Near as I can tell, computers are still just sophisticated calculators - maybe the frontier of artificial intelligence, but very far from conscious decision-making (executive) functions - much less any good at dancing or stand-up comedy.

And again the "obfusing" of one Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist goes on and on!!!

For the "upteenth" time plus one, she needs to address the violence of Islam towards women.

She believes in "pretty/ugly wingie, paranormal thingies" but still cannot bring herself to grip the insanity of the remaining issues of Islam.

Once again, we provide that opportunity via the following questions:

Does she believe:

2. That the long-dead Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the "Gabe" cave and therein received the warmongering and anti-female words now listed in the koran?

3. That Sunnis are superior to Shiites in all aspects of life?

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7 800 year-old feud between Sunnis and Shiites give significant credence that suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran?

5. That having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of lust and polygamy?

6. That the condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of anger and greed?

7. that Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book, Infidel, is her autobiography?

8. Are the following excerpts from Ayaan's book true:

p. 47 paperback issue:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!"

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

Hi, Jihadist,

Let me repeat the paeans of others: I'm glad you are back. We've missed you.

As to Wikipedia: for mundane things like history and general science and math, it is a good starting point. For things like religion and politics, beware.

Hi, Common Sense,

I must regretfully admit abject ignorance on the subject of any computer cybernetic model as a method for understanding and explaining brain functions. I was a purely practical programmer, not a master of theory. Sorry.

Obviously, this gets into AI (Artificial Intelligence). A murky field, but progressing. This too is beyond me, as much as string theory. I freely admit I ain't no rocket scientist.

Concy pussycat on Sarah Palin:"Her support of using Federal tax dollars to build two bridges to isolated towns in Alaska is disturbing. An overzealous governor trying to max out federal funding for her state? All governors appear to do that."

Oh ye pussycat!

Is this not pork barrel politics, no? This is no different from what other governors, both male and female do in maxing out federal funding for the benefits of their constituenties, yes?

Concy pussycat on googling and yahooing: "Good reviews for all the candidates are also published by Wikipedia. Read them all then."

No further comment on suggested reading limited to Wikipedia, the so-called renown or famous theologians etc. on religions and politics.

Jihadist the Bondaged and Oppressed and Repressed and Suppressed Muslim Woman?

Susan Palin the Bondaging, Oppressing and Suppressing Christian Woman?

Cheers and Ramadan to you too, pussycat.

I agree with you Arminius, but I think the field of 'computer science' tends to obscure the boundries.

A number of computer scientists have tried to use the cybernetic model as a method for understanding and explaining brain functions, for example. There are any number of popular books out there in the Barnes and Noble science section that covers this topic.

So far, I think these attempts have been successfully refuted - even by other physicists, much less by various specialists engaged in the field of consciousness exploration and research.

However, the idea that the brain is correlated with certain quantum functions does begin to close the divide.

What are your thoughts on that as a computer specialist?

Excellently well written analysis. Spot on.

Apparently you don't discern the difference between animate and inanimate matter?

Evolutionary processes pertains to the former, whereas engineering and structural fabrication principles typically pertain to the latter. You'd think an engineer would know that....by the way, you've never revealed your engineering specialty.

Whoever said mathematics was not a branch of science?

Common Sense,

Good reply to Spidey, but wasted words. Might as well talk to a brick wall, at least the bricks won't come back and insult your intelligence.

Math is not science. It is damned funny that every true college and university in the world has a separate department for math, and other separate departments for the various sciences. Most of those sciences use math extensively. Math does not use science. Spidey, of course, will find fault with this, because he is simply unable to reason about anything. It is fun to tease him, but no decent conversation will ever come of it.

Fact Checker

I saw the clip of Sarah Palin speaking about God's support for the war, and praying for the pipeline.

I saw it several times. So, I did not click on the link you sent me to watch it, yet again. Big deal. So what?

If she wants to clarify what she meant, she can do that herself. If her clarification seems scripted by Repbulcian men, then, that is what I must go by in judgeming her, not what you or her apologists say she meant.

Being mayor of a small town, and governor of a state is not what makes her "inexperienced." An incurious attitude towards the world, a la George Bush, and a cloistered and circumscribed view of life is what makes her "inexperienced."

People may like her looks and they may like her cute zingers and one-liners, and who knows how far these things will get her? Nevertheless, the fact is, she is a puppet of an old Republican man; and I am not particularly impressed.

Common Sense, present your case to wikipedia and to the science world who put math under the branches of natural science.

Here is Donald Duck's definition of science : " the ability to produce solutions in some problem domain".

The reason you evolutionist/leftist folks cannot comprehend science is because you guys don't have the ability to produce solutions. What you guys produce are more problems.

No evolution theory is used in any engineering field because they are NOT USABLE. It doesn't produce solutions. No wonder idiots cling to evolution. It's an idiotic theory.

Spiderman2 - since the 16th century, science has been an evolving human creation designed to comprehend the nature of the material universe and as Arminius notes, mathematics is a tool of science - and likewise, a human creation.

Now some (very smart) mathematicians disagree, and actually believe that mathematics exists in a realm separate from material reality - an archetypal realm similar to the dimension of Platonic Ideals. This of course is the most metaphysical of views, and completely without proof. Even great minds take things on faith!!

There is no evidence whatsoever that humans did not create mathematics from their own consciousness - although great math geniuses often intuitively comprehend a mathematical view of the world from an early age - and often visualize complex math problems and solutions with complete clarity.

This is certainly a special talent! And of course, there are pseudo-savants - severely mentally disabled individuals that have special intuitive mathematical & computational talents that defy normal human abilities in very mysterious ways. Remember Dustin Hoffman in 'Rainman'?

His (autistic) character was able to immediately identify the exact number of matches that brother Tom Cruise dropped by accident - this was based on the real abilities of a pair of twins that were severely retarded but had savant-like calculating and counting abilities - purely instinctual and intuitive.

Humanity is one with Nature - whatever Nature may be in it's infinite reach. There is nothing about humans or the cosmos that is unnatural, divine, or in some way not completely interconnected and co-dependent with the ultimate nature of Reality.

You are welcome to call that Reality God if you wish - that doesn't necessarily mean that you know much about it, or that your particular beliefs in any way accurately describe that Reality.

And the "obfusing" of one Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist goes on and on!!!

For the "upteenth" time, she needs to address the violence of Islam towards women.

She believes in "pretty/ugly wingie thingies" but still cannot bring herself to grip the insanity of the remaining issues of Islam.

Once again, we provide that opportunity via the following questions:

Does she believe:

2. That the long-dead Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the "Gabe" cave and therein received the warmongering and anti-female words now listed in the koran?

3. That Sunnis are superior to Shiites in all aspects of life?

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7 800 year-old feud between Sunnis and Shiites give significant credence that suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran?

5. That having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of lust and polygamy?

6. That the condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of anger and greed?

7. that Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book, Infidel, is her autobiography?

8. Are the following excerpts from Ayaan's book true:

p. 47 paperback issue:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!"

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

Hello Acebojangles,

ACEBOJANGLES: "I'm an atheist and I can tell you where my ideas of right and wrong come from. Something is wrong when it hurts others."

Hurts other by whose standard, for one? Since you do not see every outcome of every situation are you sure that your standard is right and does not hurt someone in the process, either physically or mentally. As an atheist pushing the atheist ideal are you sure that you are promoting something that is not hurtful to others? How do you know? What is your final, ultimate reference point - yourself or what Christopher Hitchens tells you? If my reference point is different from yours then who is right? Does it just boil down to who is the stronger? In that case then you won't object to me shooting you, will you? It is for the "good" of others!

ACEBOJANGLES: "This is generally agreed upon in society because people generally understand that allowing others to be injured is more likely to allow yourself to be injured in a similar way."

There again, are you talking physical injury or mental injury by believing a lie?

You also borrow from the Christian worldview when you promote the wellbeing of others above your own. It goes counter to your evolutionary framework.

ACEBOJANGLES: "I think it's wrong in society to steal from anyone because I don't want someone to steal from me."

Yes, and you are taking from the Judeo-Christian viewpoint. You guys are always borrowing from us!

ACEBOJANGLES: "There are also some more abstract ideas of right that humans have evolved (gasp!) because we have an instinct to ensure the survival of our species. For example, we generally accept that it's good to ensure that children are well cared for."

Again a Biblical principle that cannot be carried out by gay marriage because two people of the same sex cannot procreate, at least not naturally, because they weren't DESIGNED too. It is unnatural.

ACEBOJANGLES: "I think that things are right when they help others. This comes from a mix of wanting others to help you and wanting to help humanity to ensure our survival."

Someone else may not share your position on right. Richard Dawkin's wrote about the "selfish gene." Are you going to promote someone else's wellbeing over your own when evolutionary science shows time after time that only the strong survive and are selected to carry on, at least in the animal kingdom of which you think you are part?

Again, what makes you right?

ACEBOJANGLES: "I guess these ideas are subjective on some level."

You are guessing, but are you sure of that? Here is a hint, without God they have to be unless you think His thoughts after Him or it is revealed by His Word.

ACEBOJANGLES: "People can choose not agree with them, but society punishes people when they violate my idea of wrong too much."

What makes "your" idea of wrong right? Are you the absolute authority?

ACEBOJANGLES: "There is another level on which my ideas of right and wrong are much less subjective than religious ones. At least I can see how society organizes itself and what injures me or those around me. You can only guess what God thinks is right and wrong (A futile effort if you ask me)."

Actually, I can know for He has revealed it by His Word, through His Spirit.

ACEBOJANGLES: "I know that this has nothing to do with the topic of Susan's article, but I couldn't resist."

It does. When people are going to vote for a candidate that is for or against abortion you have to ask why their position is the right one. You have to look at their authority for their position. For that authority to be meaningful and make sense it has to be absolute, objective, ultimate. Otherwise it is just personal preference and there is no right to it. If every position is subjective which one meaningful? I disagree. So what are you left with? Warfare and struggle.

Another thing you have to ask yourself is why is it right today when twenty years ago it was wrong? Whose to say that in another twenty years it will be considered wrong again with the changing of the guard?

Is that any way to establish "right?"

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated: There appears to be nothing in the information provided that she ever tried or would try to impose her religious beliefs on anyone.

Concy pussycat!

Information from Wikipedia? The new complete and unimpeachable source of information?

We believers impose our belief and will on everyone and say it is the will of God. We are the agents of God on earth.

It is the will of God that Sarah Palin got a revelation from God to go forth and build that gas pipeline as a task from God. That is why she she said it is Gods will.

Just as God parted the Red Sea to save the Israelites, God made the gas pipeline happened to save consumers from higher gas prices. Its a miracle!

Sarah Palin is the messiah for big business, big wars and big religions. It is not quite the Second Coming, but the 0.5 Coming to undertake all the tasks set out by God for her.

I know so this about Sarah Palin because I am a true blue believer like her. We believers know everything and has the answer for everything. It is the will of God that we invoke God as the reason and answer when we build gas pipelines and go to wars and such acts of our free will and decision.

You cannot find the source for this in Wikipedia of course.

The invitation to send Sarah Palin over to us as a charitable act of Ramadan still stands if anyone do not want her over there.

Ms. Palin can chose to live in any theocracy we already have. She will be right at home with her love of God and guns and wars. But, of course, she has a choice to stay where she is now as some love those over there too, no? Just a charitible offer to get like minded ones together so they will live happily ever after in war and hate and love of certain things as the will of God and task for God.

Cheers and Ramadan to you.

J the Tasker of Gods Will and the Imposer of Gods Will on Everyone and Everything.

Hi DZ,

DZ: "I reject the idea of any ultimate, universal authority. There is no word of god - all words come from humans. All morality derives from humans not supernatural entities."

Are you absolutely certain? Without an ultimate, universal authority I would say you have a lot of doubt there, unless of course you are all knowing???

If all morality comes from humans, which subjective human has it right? Remember, "right" is a qualitative judgment and there must be a standard to determine right from. So which human has the standard, the final reference point?

DZ: "We atheists have been making sense of the world without religion for a long time. Your idea that only Christians like you are moral is arrogance in the extreme, not to mention that you can't demonstrate the existence of any of it."

Sez who? Oh, I forgot you are all knowing, or at least imply so with terms of absolutes in such bold statements! Why should I believe you if that is not the case?

DZ: "When it comes to societal values, I choose the Constitution not the Bible. The issue of gay marriage is exclusively one of equality under the law."

Is that also an absolute - your choice as the "right choice?"

When you speak of equality under the law, first off, whose law; second, does everyone get to decide their own "right" for there to be equality or third; is equality under the law not subject to each small interest group, but to each person having the equal right to live within the confines of the law? Fourth, what makes a law just and right - personal preference or an absolute standard? If not an absolute standard, why yours?

DZ: "You may or may not be a good Christian - I'm in no position to judge, but you are an awful excuse for an American, because you reject the core values of our country."

You are technically right, I am an American, a North American, but not a citizen of your country. I just find the On Faith Forum a great place to dialog with people. It is a shame, but I don't know of anything like this in my country - Canada.

DZ: "Also, I'm trying not to be hostile, but your statement that you're not anti-science, just anti-evolution is totally irrational. Evolution is science, opposing it is the definition of anti-science."

Origins, of which evolutionary science is a part of based on events that happened once and that no one was there to witness. Have evolutionists ever been wrong? You are speculating on what happened for you interpret the facts to suit your worldview and look at each one through those distorted eyeglasses. As God said to Job, "Where were you when I laid the earths foundation. Tell Me if you understand?"

Only in His light do we see light. Only in His understanding do we truly understand. Only by His truth can truth be known. Yes, bold statements but I don't see you being able to make sense of this.

Hi Daniel,

Peter Huff said:

"My contention is that all positions that are contrary to what the God of the Bible says [as] good are actually wicked and wrong."

DANIEL: "Then you are wicked and wrong?"

Well we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory that is God and it is only through His provision (Jesus Christ) that anyone meets His righteous standard and is saved, but in regards to being wrong first you have to show that my position is contrary to the Word of God; you have just asserted it.

DANIEL: "I cannot see wasting my time with someone like you. If you are rock-solid-certain in you intolerance, I have no way to change you."

Well thanks for being so tolerant! I have no way of changing you either, but I can reason and dialog with you in the hope that God will strike a cord. When someone refuses to reason it certainly makes any conversation one sided (pardon the pun, for there is no conversation without exchange).

One thing I have learned that is confirmed in the Bible is that you cannot change a man against his will. The nature of unbelief is skepticism. That is why the Bible divides people into the two camps. It takes an act of God for a person to believe.

AGATHODEMON: "Beside the fact that you were raised in it. So it's "just" evolution you have a problem with? How about the big bang [cosmology], the 4.5 billion year old age of the earth [geology], how about the origin of language [linguistics - not the Tower of Babel]. You clock stoppers want to eliminate the scientific method and allow supernatural causation - without a singe scrap of evidence that any such thing exists - except that you believe it. I have no problem with your believing such nonsense, but I do have a problem when you try to project your religious prejudices into the public arena and trying to make others adhere to your 1st Century views on reality."

No, I was just like you, subjected to evolutionary teaching my whole life long until God was gracious in saving me and opening me up to the truth of His Word.

Funny thing is that the scientific method was developed from a Bible believing Christian, Sir Francis Bacon.

No, the evidence leads from where your starting point is. You presuppose that the universe is 13-14 billion years old and you build on that supposition, but you were not there when it was formed so you have to interpret the facts(By the way, that figure - 13.7-14 billion years - has constantly changing as new evidence and new facts are uncovered that give way to the old facts and evidence. That is the nature of evolutionary science - just wait long enough and it will change again. That alone puts a question as to how reliable evolutionary science really is.) Then there is the, eh - the problem of life coming from non-life. How does this happen and where can it be demonstrated? Have you ever seen something non-living produce something living, something impersonal give birth to the personal? No, your magic ingredient is billions and billions of years. You only witness persons giving birth to persons. Ever seen a rock with a mind? No, only living beings have minds. Your evolutionary science is constantly modifying its position. What was thought true in Darwin's day -
Uniformitarianism - has given way to Punctuated Equilibrium. The list goes on but you get the message.

How certain are you that what you believe is true? Is truth absolute or does truth change? Think carefully!

Hello Agathodemon,

AGATHODEMON: "Are you contending that no society can be moral without Christianity? If so, that is absurd."

Societies can be moral when they adopt Christian values, to the extent that they do, in spite of their opposition to Christianity. People know that it is wrong to murder, commit adultery, steal, covert something that belongs to someone else, bear false witness, treat parents with disrespect, as well as take God's name in vain and worship other gods. They just suppress the truth so that they can be in control, try to usurp God's sovereignty and power. But it doesn't work. God cannot be mocked. One day we will all answer to Him, either through the merits of Jesus Christ or through our own merits.

AGATHODEMON: "Human societies have pretty much always behaved as we are now, some better, some worse, but with a sense of right and wrong that we would recognize."

Yes, from the Fall of Adam onwards man has been in rebellion towards God, doubting His Word and sometimes His existence so that they can feel in control (an illusion), and not have to answer to a higher power (another illusion), but since each one of us humans are made in the image of God we do know to some degree right from wrong, we just suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-32).

The question for you is why is there evil in this world and how do you explain it? If it is just evolution then why is it evil, or is it?

AGATHODEMON: "Again, I will ask the question - by what objective authority - god is not an objective authority [I know you will claim this is a supposition - perhaps, but based on absolutely no objective evidence for god]."

There is only One objective authority, and when you place yourself as the judge over that Authority you are putting yourself as the ultimate authority above God. May I say in a loving way that that is foolish. You are doing the same thing that Eve did in the Garden. You were created with limited knowledge and by disobeying God the door was opened to evil. Only the Personal God of the Bible is objective and right and good, for you and I are not omniscient and therefore objective because we do not see every aspect of every single thing. Without Him there is no objectivity, and hence no meaning for morals because they just come down to personal preference. What makes personal preferences right? Because you say so? I say opposite.

Two things for you to consider here, either God is or you cannot make sense of morality or truth or life or origins or anything else for that matter (unless you borrow capital from the Christian worldview).

Let's say that you are in the abortion camp and I am in the right to life camp for the unborn. We both have different viewpoints as to what is right, but both views cannot both be right at the same time and in the same way. That is a contradiction and you don't live your life like that, having one person driving through a red light and another person stopping for a red light or one person saying 2 + 2 = 4 and another 5. You can't live your life like that for you are not living according to what is real and you may get away with driving through a red light for a brief time but eventually it is going to catch up to you.

Unless you let go of those false starting points you have no answers that make sense. I can point them out to you and show you the inconsistency of your basic foundation that is built on thin air, but only God can truly change you.

AGATHODEMON: "Whose god? All religions claim to have the one and only path - why is yours superior?"

First off, there is only One true and living God, all the rest of the figments of man's imagination down through the ages. Logically you cannot have a God who is contradictory and where one religion claims that He is Person and another that God is impersonal, or that God is One and another that there are many gods.

It is not my path that is superior, it is God's. You'll notice that all of man's religions put the emphasis and onus on man meriting salvation (i.e. by what he does). Only Christianity points to what God has done without any merit from man.

The Old Testament, or if you like the Jewish Scriptures, reveal that when God laid down His perfect law (and God is perfect in all He does)that man was not able to uphold it - hence the provision of His Son which was spoken about in over three hundred Old Testament prophesies beginning in Genesis 3.

God is not unjust. He will punish all sin, either through the substitute He sent, His Son in our place of punishment and in fully meeting His righteous requirements, or in you, receiving the just punishment for your sins.

Hi Luke,

LUKE: "Actually Peter, Jesus didn't come to save everyone, since not every person has heard of him. You seem to forget that. Can you honestly say that every single human being on the face of the Earth has heard of Jesus?"

First of all, you are twisting my words Luke, for I do not believe Jesus came to save EVERYONE. If He came to save everyone, everyone would be saved and the Bible makes it clear that not everyone is saved. What I said was in one post was,

"God is Sovereign and determines who will be saved. It is not for me or another Christian to say who will be in heaven. The creature does not have the right to dictate to the Creator who made it what will be. But as a creature we can call out for God's mercy to save us from the wrong we have done. God is merciful as well as just. You can ask Him for that mercy, but alas pride comes before the fall, so will you and will you trust His Word?"

Second Luke, Jesus died for a specific people:

"....He WILL save HIS people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21b)

"ALL that the Father GIVES Me WILL COME to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I will lose none of ALL THAT HE HAS GIVEN ME, but raise them up at the last day...NO ONE CAN COME TO ME UNLESS THE FATHER WHO SENT ME DRAWS HIM, AND I WILL RAISE HIM UP AT THE LAST DAY." (John 6:37-39, 44)

"What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'
It does not, therefore depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy." (Romans 9:14-16)

No, Jesus came to save a people from every tribe and tongue and nation, men and women, slave and free, rich and poor for that is what Scripture tells me. I can give you many other examples but you get the point.

So when you read passages like John 3:16, it does not mean every single person on the face of this earth when it refers to "world", but more along the lines of Revelation 5:9. When the Bible refers to "ALL" such as in passages like 1 Timothy 2:4 you need to understand whether the "all" referred to is "all inclusive" or "all in distinction" such as for all kinds of people like kings and those in authority.

LUKE: "You can't make the claim that Jesus came to save every man if his word doesn't reach every man."

You are the one who is putting words in my mouth that I did not claim.

LUKE: "There are plenty of Gods that were written about before yours, were they just made up?"

Yes, made up gods in the imagination of man and as for the statement about gods written about before God, that is something you are speculating on. You read of the genealogies passed from generation to generation throughout the Old Testament that Moses probable gathered together in writing the Torah, "This is the written account of Adams line (Genesis 5:1)

So this God was known about from the beginning of time when God made the first man. You can't go further back than that.

LUKE: "What makes yours more valid...because your God says he is the right one?"

Yes. You start from one of two presuppositions; either the Bible is the Word of God and your highest authority or it is not. Without His revelation of Himself and of this world, the Fall and His plan of Redemption (among other things) you can't make sense of this world without borrowing from the Christian framework. This is something that the unbeliever does all the time, borrow from the Christian framework; he just does not realize it.

For those born from above, regenerated, made new spiritually or however else it is phrased, God gives a once hostile heart and mind spiritual discernment and new life, a life open to Himself (if you like eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to understand). Until that time we are dead in our old ways, dead spiritually to Him and I might add, in constant opposition and hatred to the truth. (see 1 Corinthians 2:9-16; Ephesians 2:1-8 or Romans 8:6-8 if you so please)

Again please read the information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin . The reference has what appears to be an accurate biography of Sarah Palin. There appears to be nothing in the information provided that she ever tried or would try to impose her religious beliefs on anyone.

Her support of using Federal tax dollars to build two bridges to isolated towns in Alaska is disturbing. An overzealous governor trying to max out federal funding for her state? All governors appear to do that.

Good reviews for all the candidates are also published by Wikipedia. Read them all then

VOTE !!!!!!

"What is important about Palin's religious beliefs is not her application of them to her personal life but her desire to impose them on others through public law and policy."
After 8 years of hearing this same line about President Bush, I think it’s time for something new. You know, like, issues?

Daniel and Arminius:

"I'm sorry.
You have reached an imaginary number.
Please rotate ninety degrees and try again."

Daniel and Arminius does not consider Wikipedia as a credible information source. Don't worry guys, I'll look for other sources. I'll look for what Mickey Mouse or Goofy thinks about math.

Im sure the two would convince you more.

Daniel in the Lion's Den:

"Fact Checker

Why don't you fact check Intelligent Design?"

I have been working on a methodology, but can't seem to prove any of the relevant hypotheses.

Perhaps you could help, because I seem to need someone expert at arguing without facts to proceed. %-}

It is nice to be talking to Common Sense,

Peter Huff says, 'we are not anti-science, just anti-evolution', etc. etc. etc.

CS: "And with that statement alone, Mr. Huff, you have destroyed your credibility with all truly educated people - not to mention with many other similarly crafted sentences that defy reason. Please note - evolution and science are one."

Thanks for including me as one of those truly stupid people who believe in a Creator and creation. It means a lot coming from someone who holds such unusual common sense.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4985/

The thing to remember is that nobody was around, other than the Creator, when the universe was made, it is not something that can or has been duplicated by science, and the facts do not speak for themselves, they have to be interpreted, and human beings do not see every aspect of every fact like the Creator who made the facts what they are does. Your starting point makes all the difference in where you go with the evidence.

CS: "You must realize that most republicans don't share your fundamentalist views - don't you feel used by the cynical and largely non-religious rightwingers that only want you for your vote?"

I'm not American, just fascinated by American politics. I don't get to vote, I don't live in the same fish bowl. My fish bowl is Canada. We too have two parties that stand on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to values, as their names might suggest - Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. Oh yeah, we also have the NDP (National Democratic Party), the Parti Québécois [PQ], and other fringe parties.

CS: "In many ways, the fundies and evangelicals would probably be quite disappointed once McCain takes office."

Quite possibly so, but the alternative is to sell out completely on core values such as the right to life for unborn babies and make marriage what it was not intended to be as defined by the one true God. Looking at your political system, or that of any country for that matter, it does matter what your core beliefs are and where they come from.

For me I would rather sacrifice certain comforts and live less well than compromise a host of godly values such as the right to life and what marriage was supposed to be about.

CS: " The neocons roll with the flow - religious or non-religious, makes no difference.
Control is paramount."

Yes, but the rules and where they come from makes all the difference. Don't sacrifice preference for what is right in key issues.

Well it is off to watch the Presidential Forum on CNN, the best political team on T.V. Don't you love to watch Jack Cafferty, a truly unbiased journalist who always covers both sides of the issues fairly! Take care!

Daniel ITLD,

You said, concerning Spidey:

"I know that alot of people will say, "Oh Daniel in the Lion's Den, you are giving Spiderman too much attention; you are just encouraging him."

But that is why I am writing such a long thing for you, because, I think you do need attention."

Me: indeed Spidey does need attention, but not from us. He needs help from a professional. Many here, including you and I, have tried to reach Spidey. But he is welded into his Cage of Hatred, and will never reply with any reason. He simply cannot do this.

For Spiderman AGAIN

I have to agree with Arminius that mathmatics is not what I could call science.

And you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the notation 1 + 1 = 2, or 2 + 2 = 4 . These are not rules or laws of nature. They are merely observations, that even animals understand. What is on the left side of the "equals" sign is the same thing, noted in a differnt way, that is on the right side of the "equals" sign. That is what puts the "equality" in the "equals" sign.

When you are considering only a few things, no more than 5 or 6, we do not even need math. It only becomes an aid, and in fact only exists as a tool of human thought, when we become interested in the relationships of things that are too numerous too keep track of by our own human nature or instinct.

Anyway, the concept of simple addition hardly qualifies as a law of nature.

And also, I have a persistent problem with your characterization of the word "evolutionist." Just what would that be?

I do not think there are any evoluutionists, because evolution is not a philosophy, nor is it a religious belief, nor even is it an opinion no a political party. It is a compilation of knowledge, which anyone, is free to observe, or not observe. But the mere observation and acknolwedgement of this complilation of knowledge would hardly make me or anyone an "evolutionist."

Evolution is settled science, and part of the world view of a modern and educated person. You are free to reject it, if you wish, but, then in this rejection, you take on the burden of being a backward and ignorant person. I am not saying that to insult you; I am giving you the straigt facts of the matter, that intelligent, educated, sophistocated people will never take you seriously, if you do not believe in Evolution, but if you do not, then that is ok, I suppose.

I suspect that your hostility to Evolution is really some sort of tranferrence of fear and doubt regarding you shakey relgious beliefs, and that targetting and attacking Evolutiion and people who believe in it, gives you some sort of assurance that your religion is well-founded.

All of this in in your head, and has no bearing on math or science.

I know that alot of people will say, "Oh Daniel in the Lion's Den, you are giving Spiderman too much attention; you are just encouraging him."

But that is why I am writing such a long thing for you, because, I think you do need attention.

Your point, Spidey. At least I am honest enough to admit it.

"While you guys laugh at your stupidity, here's one JOKE that would cream it."

iT'S A JOKE aRMINUS. iT'S A JOKE. iT'S TIME TO EAT. yOU'RE JUST HUNGRY.

Spidey the Liar, you said,

"Congress just made a law in which the secretary of defense should also be elected by the people."

Proof? Link? Of course not. Just your stupidity at work.

Come out of your darkness. You will finally know God.

While you guys laugh at your stupidity, here's one joke that would cream it.

Congress just made a law in which the secretary of defense should also be elected by the people. The Dems quickly have a candidate for that position. His name is Roger Laden. Their ticket would now list three people.

The OBAMA BIDEN LADEN ticket.

c ya later

here's another :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics

To all the liberals and evolutionist. See how hard headed you are even when faced with hard facts. Your brains are twisted that is why you can't comprehend facts.

Spidey,

You gave a link to 'Natural Science'.

If you would google 'science math' you will find that math is a tool of science. Just like a wrench is a tool of engineering. But I suspect you are one of those damn fool 'engineers' who refuse to get their hands dirty, and thus do know know engineering at all. I know engeneers of many types, and they all say if you don't have hands-on experience, you ain't no engineer.

Hi, Gerry,

I am in complete agreement. The entertainment value of Spidey is worth its weight in gold. I, too, look forward to his posts.

Yes, I get judgmental with him, because I have a definition of Christianity that is as different from his as the light is from the darkness. But his wild theories are lovely moving targets for those of us, you, I, and so many others, who have a lot more than just a few neurons to string together.

For all the liberals and evolutionists out there. It's not only Arminius who is stupid. All of you guys are. So share in the shame he is in right now.

Here is it Arminius :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science

Arminius,

we need spiderman2 both for the entertainment value of his emanations and as a crystallization kernel, just as a tiny speck of dirt is necessary to create a raindrop. It is remarkable how he keeps this discussion alive through his involuntarily humorous posts! I even caught myself looking for his next blip!

Again please read the information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin . The reference has what appears to be an accurate biography of Sarah Palin. There appears to be nothing in the information provided that she ever tried or would try to impose her religious beliefs on anyone.

Her support of using Federal tax dollars to build two bridges to isolated towns in Alaska is disturbing. An overzealous governor trying to max out federal funding for her state? All governors appear to do that.

Good reviews for all the candidates are also published by Wikipedia. Read them all then

VOTE !!!!!!

Spidey,

Get on the internet and find me a definition of science that includes mathematics.

You won't do this, because of course you can't. You will just continue to vomit your chunks of ignorance.

You are pathetic, consumed by hatred, and walk in darkness. You have no idea that the Light is just around the corner. Find it, and, as I did, you will weep with joy, beg forgiveness, and continue the journey on the true path.

Arminius wrote "1+1=2 is not science, it is mathematics."

The idiot strikes again. Make a little research on that please . Math is a branch of science. Have you heard of the word "school"?

Just like in any discussion, liberals and evolutionists are always in the wrong side. Heaven and hell, they always end up in hell.

Spidey is stupid as usual.

1+1=2 is not science, it is mathematics. Without math, science is lost. But... oh, dear... I forgot, Spidey doesn't know what science is. He claims something about brains from dirt, and a really weird theory about the receding of the waters after Noah's mythical flood. The list goes on and on.

Common sense wrote "all of science is theoretical"

WRONG. 1+1 will always be two. That is exact science. Just like in any discussion, liberals and evolutionists are always in the wrong side. Heaven and hell, they always end up in hell.

Thanks for the much-needed airing of these important points, Susan. Separation of church and state is the law of the land in America for very good reasons.

Unfortunately all too often it is only those of us whose religion is "none of the above" who are unafraid to call out the theocrats in our government. It's time to let go of the pervasive misguided deference for the dangerous beliefs of politicians like Palin that endanger us all if given free reign.

NotSoGreatScot:

Orwellian it is, to the sorrow of any thinking American. Think about the three rules of Big Brother:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

It grieves this American that the republican party is sounding more and more like Big Brother.

Think about it:

'War is Peace' - per Bush, don't worry about the wars, just go out and shop!

'Freedom is Slavery' - the right wing wants to clamp down on the free speech of us liberals so that we can be 'free' to knee jerk in goose-stepping precision to their rules.

'Ignorance is Strength' - did we not elect the Shrub for two terms, and are all too likely to elect their even-worse successors?

Wow - look at the commentary below, or any other blog written in the last 3 weeks. Is Sarah Palin the most divisive VP candidate ever?

Ironically, during the entire primary season, the conservative talking heads told us at every turn that Hillary Clinton is too divisive. Then Obama wins the nomination, and the same conservative talking heads do an about face and insist that Obama did voters a disservice by not picking Hillary as his VP candidate.

Then McCain goes out and finds a woman VP candidate for their side who is infinitely more divisive than Hillary.

How very Orwellian!

Anybody who proclaims to be in the possession of "truth" or even ludicrously calls himself "truth" is to be regarded as the worst fraud: Just about all huge atrocities in the history of mankind have had the mantle of truth, even "eternal truth" to them.

Thank you Susan. As always, you are spot on.

Peter Huff:

I'm an atheist and I can tell you where my ideas of right and wrong come from. Something is wrong when it hurts others. This is generally agreed upon in society because people generally understand that allowing others to be injured is more likely to allow yourself to be injured in a similar way. I think it's wrong in society to steal from anyone because I don't want someone to steal from me.

There are also some more abstract ideas of right that humans have evolved (gasp!) because we have an instinct to ensure the survival of our species. For example, we generally accept that it's good to ensure that children are well cared for.

I think that things are right when they help others. This comes from a mix of wanting others to help you and wanting to help humanity to ensure our survival.

I guess these ideas are subjective on some level. People can choose not agree with them, but society punishes people when they violate my idea of wrong too much.

There is another level on which my ideas of right and wrong are much less subjective than religious ones. At least I can see how society organizes itself and what injures me or those around me. You can only guess what God thinks is right and wrong (A futile effort if you ask me).

I know that this has nothing to do with the topic of Susan's article, but I couldn't resist.

The liberal 'freethinkers' who believe in themselves and not a creator God, are a mortal threat to the existence of mankind. They discount passages in a book where ages ago someone scribed the sheer immorality, and inhumanity, of man lying with man or may lying with beast. They discount, disregard, put their head in the sand (however it can be portrayed) how debauched and debased societies past, when they embraced such immorality, sealed their own demise in doing so.

Is God's will in a pipeline? Only God knows. The extreme left and over zealous right are only part of the problem known as religious confusion today, another passage of which foretold this very circumstance (Rev 12:9). Most of these who are decieved are very sincere in what they believe. But the adversary is busy, has been busy, at work seeing that the whole world is deceived one way or the other. We gave the adversary that opportunity through the vain and bold decisions made in Eden. To this day, human decisions made thru vanity, cynicism and denial of something out there larger than us are only reaping heartbreak and hardship on this world and our individual lives

There is a fundamental reason for all of this...and one doesnt even have to be a 'fundamentalist' to know it.

We human beings, who can create so many things, both good and bad, are pretty puny when we are so big in our eyes that we cant even understand that the same just may be the case with us, the works of a designer and a life giver.

Think about it.

AMERICA NEEDS SARAH PALIN!!!!!

HTTP://TINYURL.COM/VicePresidentSarahPalin

AMERICA NEEDS SARAH PALIN!!!!!

HTTP://TINYURL.COM/VicePresidentSarahPalin

. . . how about a book (and movie) Palin would hate?

** Welcome to “The Handmaid's Tale”, America **

McCain is a dupe. Now he’s just along for a ride into the abyss of fundamentalist political ideology, dominionism.

Palin comes "wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." She is exactly the gender traitor dominionists need to create the xian Iran of their dreams, under xian imams, xian enforcers of morals.

Have you ever read or ever viewed The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? A one sentence synopsis: “In a dystopicly polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.” IMDb.com/title/tt0099731

Atwood depicts a society in which women have been stripped of all rights in a fragment of a failed America, known as Gilead, a country controlled by christian fundamentalist terrorists and their transnational corporate overlords.

Obama PACs should buy The Handmaid's Tale, novel and DVD, by the box load and hand copies to every media person they know. Get TV outlets to broadcast it. If necessary buy time to show The Handmaid’s Tale in critical markets.

Palin emerges as a puritanical atavism directly from Atwood’s dystopia. She belongs to an all-too-possible future we must avert.

The republicans have always been masters of that most subtle form of the lie: the half truth. But now, as Daniel ITLD and others have noted, they are endlessly repeating bold, total falsehoods. Brings us back to the basis of propaganda: tell the Big Lie, over and over, and it will be believed by the sheep.

Yes, all this lying is sickening.

Daniel ITLD - Frustrated by all this unchecked lying, huh?

Me too. I like to think they'll get called on it and the "american people" will see they've been played for fools. Maybe it will happen, but it doesn't always work out that way. there are still people who think Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and that there are WMD in Iraq.

I've seen liars be very successful. They're different from you and me and most people, I think, who may lie occasionally, but don't have the innate talent to make it into an art. Maybe it's like having an ear for music -- except that it's dangerous to society.

"If you can't trust me with a Choice, how can you trust me with a Child?"
--Bumper Sticker see in Pennsylvania.
Hypocrisy is the cornerstone of Republican politics.
Whatever is ok for republicans is clearly not ok for anyone else; Whatever is ok for the US internationally is far from ok for any other nation.
So? The Taliban take-over of Afghanistan is the logical worst example of a theocratic government, but the Christian right calling the shots in the US is a Good thing.
May God or The Flying Spaghetti Monster help us all.

Spiderman2 - all of science is theoretical, in the event you ever wondered about the term 'theory' and how the two are related. And none, more so than mathematics.

The most accurate predicting tool in the arsenal is the math of quantum mechanics - never proven to be wrong, even though Einstein didn't get it. He would have, if they'd had computers in his day.

At the bottom of things, there are no 'things'. All is process, including you and me - and first and foremost from the standpoint of biology ..... evolutionary processes.

You would be hard pressed to find a single scientist worth their salt that didn't fully support the reality of the evolutionary process in all organic life forms, and even perhaps the developmental transitions of inanimate objects.

Especially if you consider complexity theory to be a feasible explanation for the novel and unique 'emergence' of new systems - both large and small....perhaps including the rudiments of life itself.

BTW, science has largely replaced the idea of the 'necessary' Creator. This is not a new revelation.

What about Cindy McCain's $300,000 dress she wore to speak at the Republican White People's Party Convention?

I hope she wore alot of expensive perfume with it, because the whole thing stinks.

What about Cindy and John McCain's story about adopting their children from India?

Mother Theresa contacted them personally, to request the adoption.

The only problem is, that NEVER happened.

It is just a big lie. ONE MORE BIG LIE in a mountain of lies.

Why doesn't anybody fact-0pcheck THAT?

The "bridge to nowhere" is not really a bridge to nowhere; it is a bridge to somewhere; it is (or was to be) a bridge to an undeveloped land, owned by people who sought to have it developed, once its value had increased due to the bridge, which they had bribed the members of Congress to earmark.

So, the plan was at least, that it would have been a bridge to a Republican Wonderland.

God’s will I would think would be to heal everyone. Back in the time Jesus saw that the wealthy were keeping all the protein for themselves and the poor and indentured servitude got only bread, a diet of which leads to severe malnutrition, biochemical malfunction and disease, so he was teaching them how to fish and make nets that they could get needed to eat protein and actually lift themselves from poverty. Therefore his will would be “The End of Disease” which you can read the steps and insight here.

There is no cure for disease, but there is a solution, the end of disease
http://intelegen.com/there_is_no_cure_for_disease.htm

You can also read the Fish Story Here
Sirius The FBI Agent and The Fish Company
http://iamblogging.net/Urgo/archives/2004/10/sirius_the_fbi.html

Obviously the people in positions of power are not doing God’s will because we would be implementing Universal Health not Universal Disease Care.

There's an odd schism right now in this country:
If you bother to analyze or question a politician's stances based on fact -- on reportable, provable fact -- you're elitist/intellectual/over-priviledged unpatriotic/terrorist-loving scum.

(In the case of the media, you're "out to get" the person questioned. And the media has been astounishingly willing to buy into that myth. I think it started in earnest when reporters were scared they'd be thrown out of President Bush's briefings.)

However, if you're proud NOT to use your brain. If you react with absolute and loud indignation from an emotional viewpoint -- you are all things good.

Religion is being used very conveniently and cynically in this campaign by the Republicans.

Didn't it strike anyone else as odd that on the stage of the RNC that final night there were two adulterers (John and Cindy McCain), a religious extremist (Palin) and an unwed teen . . . all being lauded as the champions of moral Christianity?

I was flabbergasted and, frankly, appalled.

When personal belief might becomes public policy the public has an ablagation to question that belief.

The only difference, I can see, between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats want to control the government and Republicans want to control everybodies life.

I have analyzed God's energy system design. Gas pipe lines are not his design.

He suspended a nuclear reactor overhead which distributes energy equally for free, all over the planet, effortless to use.

As I brought to our attention before:

In looking at the energy systems in the human body, and there isn't centralized production of energy, there is decentralized production of energy. Each cell has it's own energy production as should each house on the planet. We do need storage just like the ATP molecule in the body.

It's too bad that some don't have me by their side to duel against the fictions. I have this really cool sword ~Excalibur~.

GM is burdened by disease care costs it runs into the tens of billions. This is not good for America. It is time to implement Universal Health, not Universal Disease Care.

I also know about their internal accounting practices, and hence the need for transparency.

Everything you say is right. I can't beleive that people would fall for this extreme politician. I will be very diappointed and worried for the continued direction that our country will take if Macain and Palin are elected.

I find it really disturbing that Gov. Palin's stories on the Bridge to Nowhere and her version of selling the governor's plane have been completely debunked as lies and she keeps repeating them, ala Dick Cheney with WMD, and apparently can have the press amplify this falsehood with no consequences. A person who is running as MORE moral than other people who is lying outright!

Thank you for this column.

I hope America takes heed.

Common sense wrote "Please note - evolution and science are one."

There are two kinds of science. First is the exact science like math and engineering and the other which is theoretical science like evolution.

In theoretical science, if you can play it right, you can include spiderman in the picture or werewolves. All you need is a Ph degree and a big mouth. Proofs are secondary. Just pick any garbage like monkeys turning to humans and you're good.

Peter Huff:

I reject the idea of any ultimate, universal authority. There is no word of god - all words come from humans. All morality derives from humans not supernatural entities.

We atheists have been making sense of the world without religion for a long time. Your idea that only Christians like you are moral is arrogance in the extreme, not to mention that you can't demonstrate the existence of any of it.

When it comes to societal values, I choose the Constitution not the Bible. The issue of gay marriage is exclusively one of equality under the law. You may or may not be a good Christian - I'm in no position to judge, but you are an awful excuse for an American, because you reject the core values of our country.

Also, I'm trying not to be hostile, but your statement that you're not anti-science, just anti-evolution is totally irrational. Evolution is science, opposing it is the definition of anti-science.

Fact Checker

Why don't you fact check Intelligent Design?

Peter Huff said:

"My contention is that all positions that are contrary to what the God of the Bible says are good are actually wicked and wrong."

Then you are wicked and wrong?

I cannot see wasting my time with someone like you. If you are rock-solid-certain in you intolerance, I have no way to change you.

Peter Huff: I know that I am wasting my time, but I will respond anyway. Are you contending that no society can be moral without Christianity? If so, that is absurd. Human societies have pretty much always behaved as we are now, some better, some worse, but with a sense of right and wrong that we would recognize. Again, I will ask the question - by what objective authority - god is not an objective authority [I know you will claim this is a supposition - perhaps, but based on absolutely no objective evidence for god]. Whose god? All religions claim to have the one and only path - why is yours superior? Beside the fact that you were raised in it. So it's "just" evolution you have a problem with? How about the big bang [cosmology], the 4.5 billion year old age of the earth [geology], how about the origin of language [linguistics - not the Tower of Babel]. You clock stoppers want to eliminate the scientific method and allow supernatural causation - without a singe scrap of evidence that any such thing exists - except that you believe it. I have no problem with your believing such nonsense, but I do have a problem when you try to project your religious prejudices into the public arena and trying to make others adhere to your 1st Century views on reality.

Same old Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist as she rants on about women in USA politics while Muslims continue subjugating women around the world via their "koranic", Allah-approved operating manual.

Hmmm, lets see, the Jihadist also believes in the paranormal i.e. "pretty/ugly, male, wingie, talking thingies but she has yet to answer the following:

Does she believe :

2. That the long-dead Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" (Gibreel in Rushdie's book, Satanic Verses) in the "Gabe" cave and therein received the warmongering and anti-female words now listed in the koran?

3. That Sunnis are superior to Shiites in all aspects of life?

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7 800 year-old feud between Sunnis and Shiites give significant credence that suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran?

5. That having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of lust and polygamy?

6. That the condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of anger and greed?

7. And that Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book, Infidel, is her autobiography and that in the paperback issue, the statements:

p. 47:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!" is the truth?????

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

are true?????

Fact Checker

There is only so much time in a day. I have things to do. Why should I care what you say, or that you want me to review something that is alreadyy pretty clear?

Sarah Palin is a Holy Roller, Dunkard, Pentacostal Christian, isn't she? Is she ashamed of it? Are you ashamed of it?

And why do you keep bringing up Sally Quinn? What's your gripe with her?

And why don't you check on the "lip stick on a pig" remark? Because by McCain's own standard, he called Hillary a pig, didn't he? Do you think Hillary is a pig?

Actually Peter, Jesus didn't come to save everyone, since not every person has heard of him. You seem to forget that. Can you honestly say that every single human being on the face of the Earth has heard of Jesus? Of course not. Native Americans never heard of him before Europeans arrived, and by the time they did they were dying of smallpox. You can't make the claim that Jesus came to save every man if his word doesn't reach every man. There are plenty of Gods that were written about before yours, were they just made up? What makes yours more valid...because your God says he is the right one? By the way Spiderman, Christians don't have the greatest track record of being righteous, Palin included. Don't be an idiot like you claim the liberals are and jump the gun.

Daniel:

"I didn't review it because I already heard it, and I didn't care to hear it again. It said what it said. You're putting your spin on it. Spin is not fact."

1. It said what it said. You are right on that.
2. It did not say what Sally Quinn said.
3. That is not spin.

Your response is basically:

1. I've made up my mind.
2. I don't want to read the transcript.
3. Don't bother me with the facts.

Talk to you next time there is a factual gaff being used to whip up the crowd. That will be soon, if the future is like the past.

Peter Huff says, 'we are not anti-science, just anti-evolution', etc. etc. etc.

And with that statement alone, Mr. Huff, you have destroyed your credibility with all truly educated people - not to mention with many other similarly crafted sentences that defy reason. Please note - evolution and science are one.

I would greatly fear having someone with your worldview in charge of the Whitehouse - oooops!
We already have one. But please, not the goodlooking version in a pantsuit - aka Sarah Palin.

You must realize that most republicans don't share your fundamentalist views - don't you feel used by the cynical and largely non-religious rightwingers that only want you for your vote?

Fact is, McCain would probably get behind stem cell research and much more once elected. Sarah would just keep her mouth shut - for the time being.

In many ways, the fundies and evangelicals would probably be quite disappointed once McCain takes office. The neocons roll with the flow - religious or non-religious, makes no difference.
Control is paramount.

Sarah is just the goat that they put in with the thoroughbreds to keep them calmed down before the big race. Now don't you feel special?

Hello Agathodemon:

AGATHODEMON: "By what objective authority can you assert that your god is the one-and-only deserving of our worship and obedience?"

Without Him you cannot make sense of this world; of truth, of life, of morals, of ultimate meaning and purpose, of humanity. It is all meaninglessness.

AGATHODEMON: "Using the Bible to validate your god and your god to validate the Bible is a non-starter."

That is your presupposition, your starting point, not mine. I appeal to the highest authority there is. If I appeal to another authority or make myself the authority in which I judge then His Word is no longer my highest authority.

AGATHODEMON: "There is no evidence supporting the claims of your god [or any other god for that matter]."

There is, you do not accept it because you act as your own god, your final ultimate authority, the one who judges and decides on all things. It is the same problem that has plagued man from the beginning - Did God really say? (Genesis 3:1) Once you doubt His authority you put yourself in His place. The problem is humans are always arguing over what is right and wrong. Whose right are you going to say is right? In part, this is what this election is about - whose views will be carried to Washington. Ask yourself a question on a deeper level, who determines what is "right?" Why is it right?

AGATHODEMON: "Christians can not even decide who is really Christian and whose version should be followed. Everyone suffers if any particular theology is allowed to dominate our public discourse."

God is Sovereign and determines who will be saved. It is not for me or another Christian to say who will be in heaven. The creature does not have the right to dictate to the Creator who made it what will be. But as a creature we can call out for God's mercy to save us from the wrong we have done. God is merciful as well as just. You can ask Him for that mercy, but alas pride come before the fall, so will you and will you trust His Word?

AGATHODEMON: "Sarah Palin is just another step in the direction of imposing your "values" on the rest of the country, whether they will or not."

In some areas yes, but on weighing some of the issues she represents God's values, such as on abortion and gay marriage for it is God who establishes what is right and He has revealed it in His Word.

What moral baggage will the candidates bring to Washington? Those who do not recognize His Sovereignty and control of all events and outcomes and establishment of what is right will bring their own ideas of right rather than standing for His.

AGATHODEMON: "Worship who and what you will, but allow everyone else the same latitude."

I have no say in what will be, but what you are saying is don't shine God's light on what is morally wrong, just let it be?

If we all gave everyone the same latitude you are suggesting it would be total anarchy. You can't turn a blind eye to what is wrong and not suffer the consequences. You either stand for truth or you oppose it and truth is found in God.

The prayer for rain did not materialized during the Dems convention. God has something else in mind. He sent a storm by the name of Palin.

It's a kind of storm that would demoralize the liberals while envigorating the righteous. What a storm. Praise the Lord.

Hi Daniel,

DANIEL: "You are not a serious person."

If you were serious, Daniel in the lions den, then you would consider where your view of "right" comes from. What you are telling me is that I am wrong in my outlook on such issues as abortion and gay marriage. First establish what you point of reference is as to these and other issues as being "right." Let's get serious, you keep avoiding the issues showing how absurd and indefensible your position is. The quickest way, I would think, of silencing a critic is to show him/her that they are wrong.

DANIEL: "When you condemn all beliefs that differ from your own as a wicked and monolythic "lifestyle" how do you expect anyone to take you seriously?"

That is not my contention. My beliefs are only valid where the correspond with His revelation. My contention is that all positions that are contrary to what the God of the Bible says are good are actually wicked and wrong.

Hi Gerry,

GERRY: "Peter Huff is back with his old rhetoric prayer mill: "Who gives you the right to think for yourself" etc."

It is not a question of thinking for yourself but how you know what you think is true?

GERRY: "Peter, if people would not have brainwashed your thinking (or "informed" you about the "truth"), you would never even be able to quote from your bible. You certainly did not come to these "conclusions" by the thinking effort of your own brain. Your brain only processed what it was fed with."

Does that apply to you to Gerry? Your brain only processes what it has been fed?

Are you totally neutral and unbiased in what you believe and what you know? Or have you been influenced in your thinking by a myriad of other subjective opinions and beliefs, for without God all you have is subjective opinion?

Tell me Gerry, why should or ought I talk your subjective opinion as the "right" one?

GERRY: "The bible, a product of an ancient historical period with contents partially collected from other cultures and partially invented centuries after Jesus' presumptive death, is what these people told you to be the "eternal" truth. People are inclined to believe anything somebody with an assumed authority, like a priest, tells them. They even have a desire to emulate them."

There again Gerry, you are going by your own subjective authorities and your own presuppositions since you were not there and did not witness the events of that period of history. What makes you the expert and all seeing, all knowing authority?

GERRY: "The European enlightenment (basis of the American Constitution), from which your forefathers obviously have fled, restarted reasonable thinking (Luther 200 years earlier: "Reason is of the devil"), but reading sermons from people like you I am afraid that generations will pass before 2+2 equals 4 again, and not 5. (Palin/Bush: All opinions, also 2+2=5, should be taught in school)."

Now you are being absurd. I know what 2 + 2 equals.

GERRY: "Susan is right: You can think what you choose, any religion, any science, any nonsense, but the world has to be afraid more than ever to have people shove their idiosyncrasies down the throat of everybody else, and of people who make their decisions based on superstition."

I can equally apply your last statement to you Gerry - ditto - except for the fact that we cannot establish were your "right" comes from. First establish where your brand of "right" comes from Gerry and then we will talk. What reference point or authority do you have to make your view of "right", a moral judgment, intelligible?

Any religion, any science, any nonsense is not what I believe. What I believe is that God has revealed Himself to mankind by the creation, by His Word - the Bible - and by His Spirit. That is my starting point; what is yours? My highest authority is His Word, and the guidance of His Spirit in revealing Himself and the world to me by His Word, for He does not lie, and only by believing in Him can this world be made sense of.

Here's the thing--plain as unseasoned rice, unthinkable in my neck of the woods, but I'm doing my best:

Susan Jacoby- I know of no human being on earth or elsewhere who is thinking about voting for McCain because he put Palin on the ticket. This may come as a surprise, but women are not interchangeable. The woman many women AND men wanted was Hillary Clinton for (a) her position on health care, (b) her position on immigration, (c) her position on education, and (d) her position on taxes and the economy.

Now if one were to stand Governette Palin next to Hillary Clinton and the former remained erect, resistant to the atmospheric force released by the latter's brain, the differences between them on the aforementioned four (4)factors would loom larger than Palin's cup size.

I am voting for Obama, because, although I detest neoliberalism, economic conservatism gives me chills. "Dominionism" creeps me out.
*************************

Hi Jihadist,

I think sexy conservatives are the wave of the future. Thankfully, Chief Justice Roberts came onto the public scene and left quickly to preside over the Supreme Court, where his destructive presence will only be felt and neither seen nor heard. Now there you have the worst of all possible combinations: an attractive, brilliant, modest, highly personable right-winger, with a good sense of humor. Didn't bring religion much into the picture, praise be to Whatever Is.

This is the third or fourth Great Awakening in the US, except that most of the currently awakened are in the dark. In some ways it's very scary. IMHO, even those whose posts are close to theocratic cannot imagine where all this could lead. They simply cannot.

Just putting a little SANITY in this thread.

The U.S is a great country because of it's Christian Values. The Dems are the worst protector of our security. Al Queda trained here in the U.S to fly planes under Bill Clinton's nose.

Palin has good Christian Values so therefore she would make a good commander in chief.

One reason why Bin Ladin tried to burn the White House with jet fuel is because of Bill Clinton's immorality.

Hi DZ,

DZ: "Liberal lifestyle? What is that? I am more a leftist than a liberal, but I'll match my "lifestyle" against yours any day."

It is not a question of matching lifestyles, but which lifestyle is right, what values are good, what we teach our children and grandchildren concerning "right" and "good" and truth.

Lifestyle involves more than what you are on the outside, it involves your preferences, what you believe and what you promote. What you have listed is commendable concerning your marriage, your daughters, your charitable giving, your volunteerism, etc., but your lifestyle is also influenced by your moral convictions such as pro-choice, pro gay marriage, etc.

You talk about inclusiveness and anti religious bigotry and yet I contend that no one, NO ONE is neutral. You take a stand one way or the other. The question is, and it is a question I continue to press for an answer from you and atheists alike, what or who makes your views "right?" and what are the influencing factors the determine your views? What makes you or Susan or me "right" to say this is right and this is wrong? What gives you the authority to say that gay-marriage is right, that abortion is right, that your moral stance is the correct stance?

Again, without God you can't make sense of "right" or anything else for that matter without borrowing capital from the Christian viewpoint. Without an absolute, objective, ultimate reference point which one are you going to use? Whose right is right for you?

For the radical Islamic Extremists it was right to fly planes into the World Trade Centers, for Hitler it was right to exterminate an estimated 11 million people, of which six million were Jews, it was right for abortion to be considered wrong for a woman to choose not so long ago in your country. What suddenly makes it right; popular opinion?

I have been trying with Gerry and the atheist anti-religious, especially anti-Christian crowd to give me an answer I can make sense of for these and many more questions since I first blogged on the On Faith Forum, without luck. It is just mere subjective opinion and when you have contrasting subjective opinions which opinion is right? Who can you trust as having the "right" right? Who makes the rules? That is what this election boils down to - power to influence and make the rules and what makes their policy right. But ask yourself, who determines what is right and why is their stance the right stance? See if you can make sense of it without God? I'll be waiting for your answer, just like I am still waiting for Susan's and Gerry's and Timmy's and Luke's to make sense of it all.

DZ: "I forgot to mention that I am ...vehemently...anti religious bigotry (like yours)..."

The problem with such a statement is that it shows bigotry. You are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing.

The question boils down to epistemology and truth. How do you know what you know is true? Without an absolute, ultimate, objective reference point - God - it is just mere opinion, dust in the wind, feet firmly planted in mid-air, politics by force or persuasion. There is no "right" in it.

So I will ask you again, as I have continued to ask these atheists on these forums - who says so and how do you know that what you believe is right?

DZ: "Then, there is the Christofascist lifestyle. Anti religious freedom, anti equality under the law, anti woman, anti science, anti inclusive, anti everything different from you. Sound familiar?"

Again showing your prejudice and bias. There is no neutrality, and I include myself in that statement. Christianity is inclusive in that it does not discriminate against gender, race, color, for Jesus came to save both men and women, rich and poor, slave and free men, people from every tribe and nation, but exclusive in that there is only one way to God.

If I was to probe I would find out that you are also exclusive in many of your beliefs as well.

We are not anti-science, just anti evolution, not anti equal rights, just anti every "right" for people deserves to be treated with dignity and respect as we are all human, but since we are a fallen race we need justice too.

There are some things that are morally wrong like murder by abortion and we need to take a stance against such things. Our definition does not come from our subjective opinions like those who push for a mothers right to choose, but from One who is Omniscient and therefore objective, who is above us and weighs every situation with justice and fairness.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated: We assume you took a break from blogging so you could finish Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel and Sir Salman Rushdie's book, Satanic Verses.

Assume nothing.

Concy pussycat: Now we just have to get her(Palin)educated about the flaws and errors of the major global religions!!

What! No mention of the minor local and semi major regional religions?

And while we on a binge of Educating Sarah Palin, let us teach her on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae too.

No, Freddie Mac is not the latest hamburger big thing. And no, Fannie Mae is not a stripper.

There is a God and it is not Sarah Palin.
There is a Goddess and it is not Sarah Palin.
There is a Singularity and it is not Sarah Palin.
There is a Sarah Palin, the current Singular Goddess of those labeled as right wing religious extremists.

SARAH PALIN AS VICE REGENT OF GOD ON EARTH!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Susan Jacoby: There is no legitimate reason--none--to vote for any female candidate simply because she is a woman etc etc etc......

Certainly, stupidity, like aggression and bigtory, are qualities that are neither male nor female. This is obviously most dependent on who, or rather which gender, has more opportunity by social, cultural and political norms and institutionalised social expectations to act on their stupidity, aggression and bigotry.

History has proven it is men of course, now and in the future too. Surely we are not setting higher standards and higher expectations for women here as either liberals or right wing religious extremists?

We put women on the virginal pedestal. We put women on the moral pedestal. We put women on the political pedestal. This, of course, is not asking anyone to lessen their critical evaluation of women as to be leaders or as leaders, but we still do make much of a woman as a woman on her personal choices specific to her gender.

On her politics in the public sphere affecting the public, well, let it rip.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello Wiccan,

I thought you left these threads. Where is Terra Gazelle and Paganplace?

Beats me how Palin got where she is now, except that quite a number of Alaskans shares her views to get her elected as Governor of Alaska.

It is the voters that matters. Disagreeing with her is disagreeing with those who voted her in obviously.

She is luscious, she is delicious, no?

VOTE PALIN THE BOMBE ALASKA!

Perhaps she will melt away from politics and public life. That would be a hot and sunny day in mid winter in Alaska?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Norrie Hoyt: God allows evil to exist in the world because He's too busy willing pipelines and assigning wars as homework to the likes of George Bush?

Nay. Willing pipelines and assigning wars as homework is evil. Therefore, God is evil? God is a neocon? God is a Palinista?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mary Cunningham,

Hello, hello, hello. I thought you left On Faith.
Good to see you again here. From whom would I learn phrases like "spiritual airheads"?

I think many are underestimating the conservatism of some, many? women on values. Women, after all, are also some of the most passionate believers of religion in history. You know this already.

Do come back, do come by again. Your posts do add to my interest in reading these threads.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Daniel in the Lion's Den,

Hello. I was a bit busy at work and in life. The fretful global economic and political situation. A couple of deaths, a birth, three weddings and now Ramadan in and for the family.

I was also reading the first American blog I got into more often again. What Marci Hamilton said in Findlaws Writ on Sarah Palin is also interesting. Ms. Hamilton is a Goldwater Republican who is also a practicing Episcopalian. She and Ms. Jacoby are not that far off each other on Ms. Palin.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello Farnaz,

Always a pleasure to read your posts.

VOTE SARAH PALIN AND GET FREE ALASKAN KING CRABS!

I do feel obliged to campaign for one who is quite unwanted as a leader by who knows how many.
Is her selection the last gasp of American social conservatism, or the apex of it, or of things to come?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello Arminius,

Thanks for the tip on Ted's Montana Grill. Bison is delicious.

I thought a Quaker for President, man or woman, would be perfect, until I remember Nixon was a Quaker.

Best regards and out of here

J

Daniel in the Lion's Den,

Your views are similar to those of Father Edward Schillebeeckx, the famous, contemporary theologian:

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

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

"Nothing is determined in advance: in
nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices.

Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

Fact Checker

I didn't review it because I already heard it, and I didn't care to hear it again. It said what it said. You're putting your spin on it. Spin is not fact.

I believe that appealing to God for support in war and economic planning is not a credible or serious position for anyone to take, and from her tone and her demeanor, I suspect that she was making these comments more out of calculation, for political effect, much like President Bush does, than out of any sincere belief.

She impresses me as a shallow and plastic person. What does it mean that so many people have fallen instantly in love with her? A shallow and plastic culture?

Shocker!

Daniel,

Did you review the transcript of the video you commented on this morning? If so, what do you think?

Arminius

This is how you must look at it:

No one knows what will happen from one moment to the next. That is what is making you nervous and anxious; that is what is making us all nervous and anxious.

Even the Presidents of the oil companies, and the media corporations and the banks and the insurance companies are anxious and nervous, because they do not know what is going to happen.

Even the generals prosecuting the wars are anxious and nervous, because they do not know what is going to happen.

There is no mechanism in existence that is so complex and subtle that it can force a predestined end to all these things nor that can reveal to us what will happen; we must all wait, and see how things unfold.

All any of us can do is hope for the best; work for the best, and then continue onward, no matter what happens.

Life will go on, no matter who wins. It always has in the past, and so, why wouldn't it this time, as well? At least we will be done with Bush and his family. And I, for one, will be glad that we will not have Bush / Clinton / Bush / Clinton.

If McCain wins, I can imagine that he might wake up cold one morning, and then Sarah Palin would be President, facing a ferociously hostile Democratic Congress. In that case, how clever would she be? Could she maintain her position? Or would there be a quick impeachment?

Then again, I could picture a glamorously religious woman President, running a White House full of kids and grandkids.

But, I could also imagine McCain living to be as old as his mother, living through 2 terms, and on into his 90's, and even outliving you and me, and Sarah Palin shinking into oblivion.

Because, as I said, how can any of us ever know what will happen next?

And don't forget, theres is every reason to think that Obama could still win. The war is winding down, but it has been a national catasrophe. The housing market is bad, we have inflation, a deficit, and let's face it, a general heartburn of Republican rule for 8 years.

In every aspect of life, who ever knows what will happen next? Who knows if your roommate is going to work out? Who knows if your marriage is going to be happy or a failure? When your children are born, and you are so pleased an happy with them, who knows how they will turn out? Will they love you as much as you love them? Will they disappoint you?

If you we knew, in advance, the answer to all these questions, life would be easy, wouldn't it? But it is not easy; it is mystery and an adventure, everyday.

Hi Arminius,

Maybe CCNL should take a restful trip to Canada. He could deflaw first, then peacefully hibernate through the winter, and finally thaw, come spring. His brain, finally unfrozen after what metaphorically speaking must be decades, he can rejoin the flawed community of humans, etc.

Farnaz

PS. If he wants to deflaw Palin in Alaska, I suggest we take up a collection to send him there and report back on his progress.

Quinn gets a failing grade for this week for substandard research and yellow journalism.

Fact Checker transcribed the Palin tape in question. Please note that this was an unscripted appearance among her old church friends so there is an informality of colloquial speech so the punctuation is best a best effort.

Sarah Palin:

"My oldest, my son Track, he's is a soldier in the United States Army now; he's an infantryman.

And um, so Track sends his love also to his former nanny Christy.

And Track... Pray for our military, he's going to be deployed in September to Iraq.

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right.

Also for this country, that our leaders our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God.

That's what we have to make sure that we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan.

So uh... bless them with your prayers, your prayers of protection over our soldiers...”

Summary Sarah Palin said to her friends:

1. Please pray for my son who will soon be in harm's way.
2. And pray that our leaders are acting on a responsible plan that is blessed by God.

So Sally Quinn has a fundamental factual error in her frame of this week's debate when she says:

"Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin recently suggested that a gas pipeline is 'God's will' and the Iraq war is 'a task that is from God.'"

On replay, Fact Checker gives Quinn a failing grade this week for sloppy background research.

Anyone can view the video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG1vPYbRB7k

Farnaz,

As Disraeli said, "Life is too short to be small." Keep up your not-at-all-small posts, and ignore CCNL. He is an endless tape, repeating ad infinitum, offering nothing new, just the same crap. He does not debate, he does not converse. Occasionally he does his hatred rants against Islam, liberals, and homosexuals. But nothing else. Save your keystrokes for more important things.

CCNL, CCNL, CCNL,

"Now we just have to get her educated about the flaws and errors of the major global religions!!"

Dress warm. It gets cold in Alaska.

Susan Jacoby,

Have you read the information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin . The reference has what appears to be an accurate biography of Sarah Palin. There appears to be nothing in the information provided that she ever tried or would try to impose her religious beliefs on anyone.

Her support of using Federal tax dollars to build two bridges to isolated towns in Alaska is disturbing. An overzealous governor trying to max out federal funding for her state? All governors appear to do that.

Now we just have to get her educated about the flaws and errors of the major global religions!!

Arminius,

Funny you should mention Canada. I've been thinking about it myself. Of course, Canadians will tell you about Canadian problems. But there's still a lot of unsettled land there....

The thing is one couldn't bring one's computer as that would defeat the purpose of relocation. Ditto tv, etc. One could read books, though....

Farnaz :-)

Hi, Farnaz,

Well, you have rightly noted that I have ignored the complexity of the issues. This is really murky, the usual Muddy Pool of American Politics, but on Steroids this time. America is polarized, and this could be brutal. I am really afraid, and obviously I am lashing out blindly.

Not sure where to go here. I am torn between the upsurge of my ancestral Celtic fury, the despair of thinking that the demented will continue to rule the insane asylum, and the urge to say 'Screw it!' and move to Canada.

Perhaps I need another break.

Arminius,

You misunderstand me. If you scroll down, you'll see my post of an article by Ann Killkenny about Palin. I've also said my piece on her here and elsewhere. She represents for many men the fascination of what's mammarian (apologies to Yeats), religious, and unavailable. Her record as mayor and as governor does not inspire confidence. (Scroll down.) I think she's getting a big break from the media due to mammarian factors.

To me, it matters not a whit since under no circumstances could I vote for John McCain, as I have also posted. Even were he to have chosen Hillary Clinton for his running mate. (Wouldn't happen, not only because he wouldn't but she'd sooner live in the Republic of China than be that close to a Republican.)

What I take issue with is the naive view that some Clinton supporters are thinking of voting for McCain because he chose a female running mate. All one has to do is look back at old newspapers to see that this line of speaking developed long before the word Palin entered the American media. It began in concert with media sexist and ad hominem attacks on Clinton and her daughter.

The point is there is more subtlety to all this than might first be apparent. Calling these very angry people "stupid" understandably evokes the look-who's-talking factor and causes them to dig their heels in deeper. Let us remember that not a few Obama supporters blogged on WaPo, wrote letters to the editor, etc., protesting the ugly "reporting" on Clinton. It reached the point at the Times when the editors had to tell no less than Maureen Dowd, she needed to back off.

This is not directed at you, but if one opens one's eyes even partially, one can see that name-calling has brought us to this unhappy situation of leftists considering voting Republican. Is it wise for Susan and others to persist in this strategy?

Farnaz

Farnaz,

I would have cheerfully voted for Hillary if she had obtained the nomination. My loathing for St Sarah has NOTHING to do with gender or assorted anatomical appendages, it has everything to do with her religious distortion of reality. I CANNOT trust her, not ever. It is NOT about male vs female, it is about Palin's warped judgment. Why can you not see this?

"I still agree with Susan. The reasons for women switching from Hillary to St Sarah are three: (1) Stupidity; (2) Ovaries; (3) Sour Grapes."

Well, then, maybe I was wrong. Maybe, men are thinking with there balls in terms of Palin. Then we'd have a different combination of three to explain male support of the McCain-Palin ticket:
(1) testosterone, (2) balls, (3) male rage and emotionalism.

Arminius,

Also, please don't assume that women are another version of men. They aren't. Unfortunately, when permitted to compete seriously with American men, about forty years ago, they walked into and are still in a male political and corporate culture.

In settings somewhat less defined by gender, their behavior is markedly different. Significantly more women graduate from college, law schools, and, now medical school than men. (This has led to calls for reform!!!!!) This, despite the sexism that continues to manifest itself in lawsuits, etc.

Even in the business world, male dominated, a male culture, there have been studies of gender differences in management styles.
********************************************
Robert B.,

"If we had a woman president, there would never be a war...just every 28 days some 'severe negotiations'!" -- Robin Williams

I've heard other sexist jokes of Williams, but not this one, so thanks. Lucky for him that his mom menstruated, though, since it enabled him to be born. Same could be said of your mother.

Hi, Common Sense,

As I'm sure you realise, my story about the ruthless women referred to the Indian Wars. I'm not up on that era too much, but it is fascinating as well as very sad. Oh, well, off subject, shame on me....

You are right about young men and women. As Bill Cosby said, teens don't have brains, they have glands. Been there, done that.

I still have a good and hopeful feeling that people may still be able to sort through all of this and make the right decision.

McCain suffered alot as a prisoner of was, that is true. But that should not give him a free pass on everything, forever. He is now proving himself to be an unscrupulous campaigner, a cheater and a liar. Repbulicans may think that qualifies him to be President, but I do not.

And you know he is not motivated by male sex hormones; he's too old; he is motivated by good old fashioned lust for power. And Palin is his pawn. I hardly call being a man's pawn a giant step for woman-kind.

At the Republican Convention, John McCain's wife, appeared on stage in a $300,000 dress. (That's three hundred thousand.) She appeared with her adoped daughter from India, whose complexion is very dark. If you were to mistake her for an African American, then McCain's adopted daughter would have been 3% of the black people present at the convention.

The whole Republican Party, from top to bottom, is a freak show. I somehow cannot believe that Americans are going to pick them again.

Farnaz:

I still agree with Susan. The reasons for women switching from Hillary to St Sarah are three: (1) Stupidity; (2) Ovaries; (3) Sour Grapes.

Or some combination of the above.

Susan Jacoby:

A postscript to my most recent post. If you don't like what you're seeing among some male and female Clintonites, make a note of it, and remember it next time the media makes a concerted, vicious, personal attack on a candidate based largely on gender. Don't join with them.

Janet is correct. This is a good time for anyone not wishing to see the swearing in of John McCain to "make nice" to anyone who can still be persuaded to vote for Obama.

Robert B. wrote:

"One of the arguments against women's suffrage was that women would not be able to understand issues like men did and thus would vote with their hearts rather than their heads. What an irony it will be if the McCain/Palin ticket wins the election because of disgruntled Hillary voters who just want any woman in the White House..."

In other words, Friend Arminius, this is what I was responding to, and I wasn't thinking of "balls." Kindly note I mentioned looking down and BEHIND.

If Robert B. doesn't like heat, he shouldn't start fires.

Regards,
Farnaz :-)

Susan Jacoby:

"There is no legitimate reason--none--to vote for any female candidate simply because she is a woman. I would have voted for Hillary Clinton, although I did not support her in the primary, because her views about public policy are much closer to mine than any Republican's views--whether they come from a man or a woman--could ever be. Any Hillary Clinton supporters who would vote for the McCain-Palin ticket will be doing so out of pure pique and sheer stupidity. And stupidity, like aggression and bigtory, are qualities that are neither male nor female. They are human, but men have had more experience at exercising power stupidly. Do we need to vote for a Sarah Palin to prove that women in power can be just as stupid as men? I think not.

As I said initially, the reasons some women (and not a few men) appear to be looking to McCain are complex. Again the reason is not Palin despite the McCain campaign ads, as Palin has as much resemblance to Clinton as President Mubarek has to me. "White people" who support Obama because he is young(ish), gifted and black should not project their own identity issues onto these Clinton supporters. It is true at least among those I know and have listened to there exists the the firm disgust with WaPo, major columnists, such as Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, less major such as WaPo's Ghivens, MSNBC for the sexism and bigotry they directed against Clinton AND her daughter. Clinton's ankles, breasts, butt, etc., had as much to do with her abilities as Obama's lack of developed musculature and old-guy suits do with his. Yet of them, we did not hear.

TO REPEAT: Clinton supporters who are considering McCain are doing so for a variety of reasons, not least among them is an aversion to having the media (corporately owned, in cases monopolized, in cases transnationally owned) choose the next president of the US. Americans are not stupid. They know how what my father called "living room liberals" think. They are easily manipulated by the most right-wing interests, as they sit their soft behinds on their sofas and pontificate. Not out in the streets are they, which is not where big business wants them. The media is now owned by the very companies that advertise in it. It is manipulated by them, and spouts pseudo-leftist crap through its "reporters" and "journalists" that enables the less politically adept, including including said "reporters and "journalists" to deceive themselves and others.

A MEDITATION ON MANIPULATION

When do reporters ever tell us anything that is counter to the interests of big business?

Examples of what we do not hear about:

When, I wonder, will we see an expose on US "interests" in Haiti? Of Mike Wallace's wife's business there during the worst period in its history? When human body parts were visible in the streets? ANS. Never. Never saw Haiti on Sixty Minutes. OR anywhere else, then. How about the little island where rich Americans go but which is off limits to Haitians? How about the tight reign we put on Haitian immigration while freely opening the doors wide for refugees from Castro!!!

This one's a breeze, Susan. Papa Doc and Baby Doc were our friends. Therefore, Haiti could not be spawning refugees. Now, you'd think that some reporter somewhere, some journalist (I use both words loosely) would mention some of this at opportune moments, such as when, a few years ago we were set to deport Hatian parents but keep their American-born children? But no. We heard nothing. The rest of the world did, of course, but not us. WHY NOT?

So odd, that all the journalists were so silent. Then we had the first Gulf War, with "precision bombing." Now, I was very young when we "precision bombed" Iraq, had arrived here only recently, but was, nevertheless, dumbfounded as this was reported by journalists such as you, reiterated ad nauseum by my teachers. I tried to suggest common sense, but it was to no avail.

HOW COULD THE MEDIA BE SO STUPID (your word), YOU MIGHT ASK?

ANS. Although some of them truly were and are, others, a couple who were in Bagdad weren't. THEY WERE (A)GUTLESS OR (B)CYNICAL.

And here am I, one of three million middle eastern Jews in exile, many forcibly driven out of their native lands. How is it that one reads nothing about us, that when I give talks, people are in shock? "I don't understand. Why haven't any of these incidents been reported? Why don't we know anything about this?" What happened to the "fourth estate"?

ANS. Jews do not have oil. Antisemitsm is old. Put the two together and powerful interests easily pour antisemitism into the left, which always contained a heavy dose anyway. Do these people think they're anti-semitic? NO. They are "Leftists" (of the livingroom).

And the Obama supporters, despite his neoliberalism, his endless Carterite connections, are they supporting him because he's to the right of Clinton? NO. Are they supporting him because he's young(ish), gifted, wealthy, and black? Easy on the sofa placed behind? Hm, er, uh...No, because we want change.

Oh. Well that explains it.

Now let us look at you and your position. This would be the Susan Jacoby who wrote that those who supported Clinton in part because of her historic position on health care were using health care as an excuse for racism!! Tell that to the 47 million who are without it. Oh, and Susan, among those 47 million are African Americans.

Go ahead and call people stupid. Abuse them all you wish. But that is not the way to win them over. The thought of putting in office a man who said that mandating healthcare would be like requiring the homeless to own houses does not make me happy. The thought of a president who has been advised by Zbigniew Brzezinski does not inspire. That would be Brzezinski of the Iran hostage crisis. The eighty-year-old dinausaur under whose watch "Shah" fell and Khomeini was dumped on the Iranian people. BTW, where were the American newspapers (I mean serious journalism) while this government was supporting SHAH? And why did no Americans know that France had been keeping Khomeini safe and sound?

Please. I don't like to use the S word, but were I you, I'd be careful about calling others stupid. Or disingenuous, or anything else.

I detest neoliberalism, but I will vote for Obama as the lesser of two evils. But I'm not a moron, not cynical, and have no wish to deceive myself or anyone else.

BTW, do you know what "neoliberalism" means? Have you read David Harvey? (Were you in New York when the Towers went up in flames?)

Arminius - I always enjoy your Civil War tales. You really need to get to Gettysburg one of these days! Men seem to forget that women are perfectly capable of leaving their ovaries behind for more cognitively cogent pursuits - unlike men. See the Black Widow syndrome, as an example.

I don't like to imagine what soldiers endured under the genital-specific torture of combatant females that you mention!

In my experience, women are almost infinitely more mental regarding sexuality, compared to us gonadal simpletons. How many times does this need to be proven?

Ironically, Pete Seeger tells us, 'There is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven' (turn, turn, turn) - from Ecclesiastes.

Women know it in their bones, and men don't. Young men are on sexual overdrive, and young women are thinking like crazy about how to capitalize on the stupidity of male hormones. Been there and done that......

Therein lies the danger....as our astute female posters keep telling us, Sarah Palin has the power of female glamor - and will use it ruthlessly (per her character historically).

John McCain is 'whipped' as we like to say, but forget him - his controller, Karl Rove, is like an early Church prelate - castrated for the glory of God, but knowing the power of the Holy Mother. Mind over matter is what counts - and Karl Rove is thinking like a woman. His is a dark genius!

Pardon me for blasphemy, but in politics, no holds are barred.

And Hillary fanatics should remember that political memory can be eternal - helping defeat Obama now for Hillary in 2012 is a brain-dead strategy. You're sacrificing the well-being of the nation for your own ego - period.

Susan said, among other well-aimed remarks,

"Any Hillary Clinton supporters who would vote for the McCain-Palin ticket will be doing so out of pure pique and sheer stupidity."

ME: And the sword of reason cuts through the BS once again. Some women accuse men of always thinking with their balls. Well, all men do sometimes, some men do this always. But do women think with their ovaries?

In other words, friend Farnaz, please rethink. Women can be just as stupid as men. Or as smart. Are women really more peaceful? Did you know that the US Cavalry in the latter half of the 19th century, when instructing recruits, first told them that if you were captured, never to let the men give you to the women..... the men would simply kill you outright..... I leave the rest to your imagination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin has what appears to be an accurate biography of Sarah Palin. There appears to be nothing in the information provided that she ever tried or would try to impose her religious beliefs on anyone.

Her support of using Federal tax dollars to build two bridges to isolated towns in Alaska is disturbing. An overzealous governor trying to max out federal funding for her state? All governors appear to do that.

Now we just have to get her educated about the flaws and errors of the major global religions!!

There is no legitimate reason--none--to vote for any female candidate simply because she is a woman. I would have voted for Hillary Clinton, although I did not support her in the primary, because her views about public policy are much closer to mine than any Republican's views--whether they come from a man or a woman--could ever be. Any Hillary Clinton supporters who would vote for the McCain-Palin ticket will be doing so out of pure pique and sheer stupidity. And stupidity, like aggression and bigtory, are qualities that are neither male nor female. They are human, but men have had more experience at exercising power stupidly. Do we need to vote for a Sarah Palin to prove that women in power can be just as stupid as men? I think not.

Another comment somewhat lacking taste:

From the Bond flick *Tomorrow Never Dies*:

Admiral: "Frankly, M, sometimes I don't think you have the balls for this job."

M (played by Judi Dench): "You may be right, but at least I don't have to think with them all the time."

:)

Farnaz,

OK, time for a totally tasteless comment:

"If we had a woman president, there would never be a war...just every 28 days some 'severe negotiations'!" -- Robin Williams

:)

As to your comments about male leadership, I'm not sure matriarchy is any better than patriarchy. After all, women are just as human as men are and that seems to be the problem...

One of the arguments against women's suffrage was that women would not be able to understand issues like men did and thus would vote with their hearts rather than their heads. What an irony it will be if the McCain/Palin ticket wins the election because of disgruntled Hillary voters who just want any woman in the White House.

Interesting. And as I look around the world, at the number of enemies this government has created through its support of dictators (like Sadaam Hussein), Papa Doc Duvalier, Baby Doc, etc., the "House of Saud," "Shah" of Iran, Mubarek, etc.,etc., its exploitation through the World Bank/IMF of starving peoples, I gaze at the work of men.

Do they understand the issues? Do they make policy with their heads? Their hearts? Some other organ? Further down and behind?

As I posted earlier, I don't agree that the reason former Clinton supporters are turning to McCain is Palin, regardless of what McCain and others might think. The issues are far, far more complicated. As for enfranchisement, given what men have done with the vote, legislation, the world, if we're going to question either the judgment of either sex, we ought to "question" that of the male persuasion. NOt only in the US but everywhere, IMHO, they have rarely demonstrated the ability to look at issues in perspective, are chronically shortsighted, and can
keep neither their emotions nor their guns at bay.

...yes, and once, she declared a state of emergency.

PRIVER wrote: "This is a terrific article. Palin is an insult to female intelligence everywhere by her selection."

That's not fair. She's very intelligent. Why I hear that the McCain campaign is fixin' to give her credit for single-handedly identifying a previously neglected alternative fuel source... books.

Gerry,

Actually, Bruno's heliocentric theory was based not on scientific observation, but on his *religious* conviction that the brightest star in the heavens must be the center of the universe. He may have been right, but only by accident...

As for Galileo, the French Enlightenemt philosophes (with their visceral hatred of the Church) transformed a minor conflict over a publishing contract into a full-blown war between faith and reason.

Here's what the ignorant Thomas Aquinas has to say about the physical nature of the earth:

"For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself."

Sarah Palin’s new slogan – “Vote for me because I’m cuckoo for cocoa puffs”

The only difference between people like Sarah Palin and a suicide bomber is she doesn’t strap explosives to her body. When there is armed conflict and we sight God’s will and that he is on our side we are spouting the same rhetoric as the terrorists.

The danger here is if God says we are to kill others then who is there to conscientiously object to the killing of people?

Is this the type of person we want with their finger on the button?

Yes, Robert, and that is why Giordano Bruno was burned, and that is what took the Vatican 300 years, up to a couple of years ago, to acknowledge that Galilei was right. The Vatican must have referred to the more uneducated middle agers, lol.

Educated Chinese also knew all along that the earth was a sphere.

Gerry wrote, "That led to earth "becoming flat again" for one and a half millennium (before that, the solar system was well established), allowing superstition to grow exponentially during all those years."

Actually, Gerry, educated people in the Middle Ages knoew that the world was spherical. It is the modern era that prefers to think of the Middle Ages as wholly ignorant...

Great article, Susan!

Peter Huff is back with his old rhetoric prayer mill: "Who gives you the right to think for yourself" etc.

Peter, if people would not have brainwashed your thinking (or "informed" you about the "truth"), you would never even be able to quote from your bible. You certainly did not come to these "conclusions" by the thinking effort of your own brain. Your brain only processed what it was fed with.

The bible, a product of an ancient historical period with contents partially collected from other cultures and partially invented centuries after Jesus' presumptive death, is what these people told you to be the "eternal" truth. People are inclined to believe anything somebody with an assumed authority, like a priest, tells them. They even have a desire to emulate them.

The first thing your Christians did as soon as they were in power is destroy all the old Hellenistic scientific wisdom and philosophy amassed in the library of Alexandria, together with a huge amount of cultural beauty, just like the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the Buddha statues.

That led to earth "becoming flat again" for one and a half millennium (before that, the solar system was well established), allowing superstition to grow exponentially during all those years.

The European enlightenment (basis of the American Constitution), from which your forefathers obviously have fled, restarted reasonable thinking (Luther 200 years earlier: "Reason is of the devil"), but reading sermons from people like you I am afraid that generations will pass before 2+2 equals 4 again, and not 5. (Palin/Bush: All opinions, also 2+2=5, should be taught in school).

Susan is right: You can think what you choose, any religion, any science, any nonsense, but the world has to be afraid more than ever to have people shove their idiosyncrasies down the throat of everybody else, and of people who make their decisions based on superstition.

Peter Huff

You are not a serious person.

You have alot to say, but it is hard to counter because it is foolish, silly babble.

When you condemn all beliefs that differ from your own as a wicked and monolythic "lifestyle" how do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

Peter Huff: By what objective authority can you assert that your god is the one-and-only deserving of our worship and obedience? Using the Bible to validate your god and your god to validate the Bible is a non-starter. There is no evidence supporting the claims of your god [or any other god for that matter]. Christians can not even decide who is really Christian and whose version should be followed. Everyone suffers if any particular theology is allowed to dominate our public discourse. Sarah Palin is just another step in the direction of imposing your "values" on the rest of the country, whether they will or not. Worship who and what you will, but allow everyone else the same latitude.

Peter Huff:

I forgot to mention that I am pro-choice, pro gay marriage (equality under the law), pro inclusivenees, vehemently anti war, anti discrimination, anti religious bigotry (like yours), anti torture, anti warrantless surveillance, etc.

Then, there is the Christofascist lifestyle. Anti religious freedom, anti equality under the law, anti woman, anti science, anti inclusive, anti everything different from you. Sound familiar?

Ms. Jacoby,

I often do not agree with your posts, especially when you take potshots at honest people of faith. But you're spot on here, especially as regards Hillary voters going over to the McCain ticket because of Ms. Palin.

One of the arguments against women's suffrage was that women would not be able to understand issues like men did and thus would vote with their hearts rather than their heads. What an irony it will be if the McCain/Palin ticket wins the election because of disgruntled Hillary voters who just want any woman in the White House...

Peter Huff:

Liberal lifestyle? What is that? I am more a leftist than a liberal, but I'll match my "lifestyle" against yours any day.

Marries and faithful to the same woman for 37 years

Two spectacular daughters who are now both physicians

Give 10% of my gross income to charity, not to churches which are NOT charitable organizations, but to orgs that provide actual goods and services to people who need them.

Volunteer 12 hours per week plus I'm on the Board of Directors at several non-profits

Live in a modest 100 year old bungalow in Portland

So, what's the problem?

Merry Meet, dear friends. Jihadist and Norrie, it's a pleasure to see you posting again.

Peter Huff,

Your worship the Abrahamic YHWH, as is your right. I do not worship YHWH, as is my right. Can you tell me why my life should be governed by the edicts (or your interpretation of those edicts) of a God I do not worship? Why should these edicts be the law of the country of which I am a citizen? Do not the edicts of my God and Goddess deserve the same respect?

Hi Daniel in the Lion's Den,

DANIEL: "So, just what is the "liberal lifestyle?"

DANIEL: "In fact, there is no such thing."

The liberal lifestyle is one that is for values that it cannot explain why they have any "right" to them other than someones subjective opinion. It goes counter to what God has said is good and "right." Abortion and same sex marriage are just two of the more obvious examples. One undermines human life, the other family structure. In the early part of Genesis God gave us the definition of what marriage was to be as well as that murder was immoral and that no INDIVIDUAL had the right to take an innocent life. Why are much of the Hollywood crowd behind the Democratic campaign? Because it agrees with their lifestyle and beliefs and that is what people base their decisions upon. The issues factor in, but people want a leader with good moral judgments, someone who can evaluate what is right.

DANIEL: "It is just made up. Apparently, Peter Huff, religious conservatives, and Republican can just make stuff up. Where does it say in the Bible that Jesus is a Republican? If he came back to Earth today, what kind of tie do you think he would wear?"

No there is a distinction between Democratic and Republican values. There would not be the two major parties if there were not ideological differences. The moral values of the candidates give a view of the kind of programs, legislation and ideals they will fight for. There are no ideal candidates for we live in an imperfect world but the question is what makes ones view of any issue "right?" First off, "right " needs to be established by an absolute, ultimate, objective and universal authority. Other than that it is just subjective opinion and meaningless for whose opinion becomes the "right" one. Without God you cannot make sense of "right."

DANIEL: "Apparently if you are not a Republican, then you have a "lifestyle." I find this phraseology truly obnoxious and disgusting."

The Democratic platform is promoting issues and lifestyles that are liberal and inclusive. That is plain to see. Some Republican's blur the line too. They are trying to change the definition of marriage and condone the "right" of the mother to "terminate" her child, as long as it is before birth. If they are willing to do this, what else are they willing to do? In tough times as well as good you need good leadership with a good foundation. Where does the foundation rest for Obama and the Democrats?

The idea of equal rights is not that everyone has the right to do whatever they want but that everyone has the same rights, but what are those rights based on and who determines them?

Let's be honest here: every politician imposes their beliefs on the people they lead. This is true whether those beliefs are secular or religious. To pretend otherwise is absurd.

Now we have the answer as to why God allows evil to exist in the world:

He's too busy willing pipelines and assigning wars as homework to the likes of George Bush to pay attention to that kind of thing.

After Sarah Palin invested her public life on the issue of aboriton, did she really have a choice in deciding to keep Trig? Did she have Trig because she really wanted him, or did she have him, because she thought it would be a good career move?

Is it cynical for me to bring this up, or even wonder about it? I do not think it is; she makes me wonder. And there is nothing she can say, to settle this question in my mind. So, it is a non-issue for me; it is her baby; she should be quiet about it.

Maybe she is really a good person for having Trig. Or, maybe it is just more calculation. The fact is, she has a calculating past which involves the exploitation of religious belief.

On matters of morality and belief, Fundamentalist religious people like the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Holy Rollers, the Born Agains, the Dominionists, and the Drunkards, are all disqualified. Also religions that engage in enforced, top-down enforced belief, like the Mormons and the Catholics are also disqualified. They are disqualified because, in one way or another, they are not allowed to engage in true dialogue and discussion; they are required to believe in a dogma that they have chosen to bow down to, and they cannot go against it, without some sort of psychological difficulties. They are required to promote their religiously motivated bigotries and politics, in an unthinking and un-analytical way. They would deny this, of course, and say that they have free choice. But they do not have free choice. They gave away their free choice, they squandered their free choice, with a mental conformity to doctrine and dogma. They are fit only fit to engage in “dialogue” and “discussion” with people who think exactly like them, and with no one else.

Peter Huff

You said,

"For the "liberal" democrats and those who are pushing pro choice and the liberal lifestyle..."

So, just what is the "liberal lifestyle?"

In fact, there is no such thing.

It is just made up. Apparently, Peter Huff, religious conservatives, and Republican can just make stuff up. Where does it say in the Bible that Jesus is a Republican? If he came back to Earth today, what kind of tie do you think he would wear?

Apparently if you are not a Republican, then you have a "lifestyle." I find this phraseology truely obnoxious and disgusting.

Good article by Camille Paglia in Salon:

"Palin is powerful new feminist force"

http://tinyurl.com/6kjyf4

Paglia the iconoclast, punchy as ever, about the only Democrat liberal to 'get' the meaning of Palin. All the rest ranted and slandered and delivered McCain a 10 point turnaround and a small lead. None moreso than No Faith's own Sally Quinn.

Anyway,best to all, cannot stay. Nice to see you again Jihadist,

MC

Hi Jihadist. I hope all it well.

Hello Jihadist!

Long time no see, hear, etc.! Good to have you back!

Farnaz

Oh yeah I forgot, the Judeo-Christian God is the ultimate God, so awesome that still there are millions of people who don't know about him. I'm voting for Obama, plain and simple. I don't need any more Jesus in my government, useless as he is.

Jason S - apparently you're looking forward to a Pentacostal President? And I suppose there will be pictures of Jesus on every wall in the Oval Office and throughout the halls of Congress?

I wonder if snake handling and tent revivals will be featured on the White House lawn?

If this doesn't sound good, then vote
Obama/Biden in 2008.

Oh there Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist,

We assume you took a break from blogging so you could finish Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel and Sir Salman Rushdie's book, Satanic Verses. Apparently these books did not help your identification of the flaws and errors of Islam to include the koranic approved mistreatment of Islamic women.

Again, a synopsis of said flaws and errors for your perusal and commentary:

Mohammed (Mahound in Sir Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses) was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/ hallucinating/ plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" aka "pretty, wingie thingies" 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.

Current crises:

The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder

And from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's autobiography, "Infidel".

"Thus begins the extraordinary story of a woman born into a family of desert nomads, circumcised as a child, educated by radical imams in Kenya and Saudi Arabia, taught to believe that if she uncovered her hair, terrible tragedies would ensue. It's a story that, with a few different twists, really could have led to a wretched life and a lonely death, as her grandmother warned. But instead, Hirsi Ali escaped -- and transformed herself into an internationally renowned spokeswoman for the rights of Muslim women."
ref: Washington Post book review.

three excerpts:

p. 47 paperback issue:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!"

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

This article is a joke and the author should look within for extremist views. Do we really need such discourse and rhetoric?

Thanks for an excellent article Susan. And thanks to Farnaz for the Susan Kilkenny article.

The selection of Sarah Palin as his VP candidate represents the kind of flawed & self-serving decision-making that we could expect from a John McCain administration. And he has nothing on Sarah Palin in that regard. She represents a significant risk to all of us.

CCNL - what a monster hypocrite you are. Well, no surprise. Your credibility is now completely in the toilet where it belongs.

Daniel:

"You can split a hair 40 ways, but she said what she said on the tape."

I watched one tape that was played on CNN in the evening. But I don't think I am engaged in a "Clintonian parse". I am willing to give it another listen; you should too and we can discuss it later on.

Many on this forum, particularly Sally and Sue, are clearly spiritual disciples of Barry Goldwater:

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. ... Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Remember that one? Sound familiar here On Faith? Extremism stunk then. It stinks now. From it stunk from Barry. It stinks from Sally, and Sue.

Concy pussycat!

Long time no see. This thread is pallid and limpid. So, let us be mindless. Mindlessness is so nirvana. Theology is so turgid.

Were your preaching in your post here to Palin the Preacher and Imposer of Values? And words of advise from you to Ms. Palin? Quoted verbatim from Edward Schillebeeck, a famous, contemporary theologian? Is he?

Careful there. Palin, the hockey mum, is a long time member of the NRA and not a Crossanized or Schillebeeckian Christian. God, hockey and guns. Uhhh! What kind of God, what kind of hockey, what kind of gun?

Sarah Palin is God into the doctrine of predestination by imposition of her values?

Sarah Palin God who left nothing to chance nor fatenot into chance, but determinism of what has to be done and you have no choice on that pussycat?

Sarah Palin is the God into determining the future of men and women. And what in the world is ""historical future"?

Sarah Palin is God as puppeteer who wants to hold and is trying pull your strings?

For Sarah Palin, the God, history is not an adventure, nor is it open for men and women, but which She will determine?

Sarah Palin has a mental hijab. Put her in a burqa or chador and send her to us. We will take her as a charitable act of Ramadan. We have room for religious extremists such as her. Even female ones. We are not that elitist and quite inclusive of fanatics, extremists and fundamentalists.

SARAH PALIN FOR GOOD LOOKS AND BAD VIEWS!

SARAH PALIN FOR RIGHTS OF WOMEN TO BE RIGHT WING RELIGIOUS EXTREMIST!

SARAH PALIN FOR WOMENS RIGHT TO BE WRONG IN VOTING!

SARAH PALIN FOR GLASSES AND NOT CONTACT LENSES!

Sarah Palin can"t hear you, pussycat. She only hears God. Do not ask me which manifestation or interpretation or understanding of God/s she hears.

I am the unrepentent religious extremist
I am the unreconstructed right wing twit
I am the rapacious capitalist piglet
I am the oblivious snobbish uppity elitist
I am the unmindful and the mindless
I am not the Crossanized Christian of Reality

Onward and forward towards backward for a new generation of fanatics, extremists and fundamentalists like moi and Sarah Palin!!!!

Cheers

J the Lower Power.

To continue Susan,

SUSAN: "Palin is also on record as supporting the teaching of religious alternatives to evolution in public school science classes. That is yet another issue at the intersection of public policy and private religious belief."

There again God is the maker of all facts and understands them completely. You can not say that of yourself or anyone else because positions are always changing in the evolutionary community as "facts" become more fully understood. What you need to answer as an atheist is are you looking at the facts objectively and unbiasedly (whether on the subject of evolution or ethics or anything else), were you there when the universe was formed (that is a given, so therefore you speculate as to what the facts mean), do scientists ever change their position on these facts as more facts become available and what kind of presuppositions do you hold and are ingrained in your thinking to arrive at your position?

SUSAN: "I hope that journalists (and Democratic candidates) will not be deterred by those who will try to claim that Palin's religious beliefs are a "private" matter. Religious beliefs are never private when candidates wish to impose them on others. If I were interviewing Palin, I would ask her in the most direct terms why, when she is perfectly entitled to act on her moral beliefs and give birth to a baby with Down syndrome, she wishes to deny other women the right to act on their own convictions."

There again without an absolute, objective, ultimate authority and reference point - God - who can make sense of right and who determines right; who becomes the all knowing, all moral, always right, self autonomous, be all and end all on every moral issue? Whose consensus rules the day?

Second point is that we all have religious beliefs that are open to scrutiny, just like a persons belief in atheism that make themselves the ultimate authority on any issue but they cannot justify why they should be the ones who set the rules and are valid in their opinions and preferences.

SUSAN: "I would ask her about the famous 1962 case of Sherri Finkbine, who had taken thalidomide early in her pregnancy without knowing that it caused severe, often lethal, birth defects. Denied an abortion in Arizona, Finkbine had to fly to Sweden for the procedure. The Swedish obstetrician who performed the abortion told Finkbine that the badly deformed fetus could not have survived."

The question goes back to who determines life and who has the right to take it away? Only the Creator and by the rules He has set out.

SUSAN: "The Palins of politics are true elitists in the original sense of the word: they believe in government by the few--in their case, a minority religious elite that does not reflect the views of the majority of Americans. And they get away with it because the media, and politicians, are terrified to ask questions that might seem critical of anyone else's religion."

I agree with you that the questions should come. Americans should know the religious beliefs of each candidate, for those beliefs in part will govern the way they make decisions. The moral character is important and that, in part, is what many people will base their decision on? That is where the "religious right" stands - on whom do the candidates base their moral issues, some man-made ideal that cames from some other man-made ideal Ad infinitum, ad nauseam, that no one can nail down and thus it becomes meaningless, or from an unchanging outside of self ultimate, objective standard?

Unless things change your country will still be in political deadlock between the Republicans and Democrats not only in the months leading up to the election but in the next four years and beyond because of their two opposing value systems. At least I know where the Republican candidate stands for the most part - on a Biblical, conservative setting with an objective absolute standard for such issues as abortion and marriage. I'll also agree with you that Bush has done a lousy job in running your country.

SUSAN: "If I were running on a platform pledging to teach atheism to students in public schools, the media would be right to jump all over me about my lack of respect for the First Amendment."

You do have a platform as an atheist teaching atheism as one of the most frequent writers on the ON Faith Forum. That is an influence on the lives of many people. You have as much right to express your views as she does to express her views, the question is how do you make sense of them?

Where do you ultimately get the opinion from that a woman has the right to decide on another human life? Who made or makes it right? Is your "right" based on popular opinion, you seeing and knowing something objectively that others do not see and if so, what makes it objective in the first place? How do I know that you are seeing things in an unbiased fashion?

Hi again Susan,

You missed your mark again on this article, as usual. Here are your statements and some of my thoughts on what you had to say:

SUSAN: "...What is important about Palin's religious beliefs is not her application of them to her personal life but her desire to impose them on others through public law and policy. Palin, who wants to criminalize abortion, chose to carry a Down syndrome fetus to term after receiving a prenatal diagnosis through amniocentesis. That is her absolute right. But 90 percent of American women who receive the same diagnosis choose to terminate their pregnancies. Palin wants to force her values on women who do not agree with her, and that is the definition of religious extremism."

It is not a question of "her rights" but in doing what is right. For the "liberal" democrats and those who are pushing pro choice and the liberal lifestyle the question is where do they get there sense of right from and how do they justify it? Only one position is absolute, that is God's. Other than that it is impossible to talk about rights and justice and good and make sense of them? Whose rights, whose reference point, whose authority do these pro-choice base their idea and ideals of right on?

And that is the question that leadership should be based on - doing what is ethically right as determined by the only true God - the God of the Judeo-Christian faith. Other than that good and just and right is just one subjective preference against another subjective preference and may the stronger win and you might as well forget about equal rights and equal justice.

Equal rights should be about everyone having the same rights but those rights should be based on what is right.

And doing what is right is not religious extremism. Why should a woman be allowed to "terminate" her unborn baby one day, one week, one month before birth and yet be charged with murder for terminating the baby one day, one week, one month after birth? That is the same logic you would have to use for the baby is still human before and after birth. By murdering it before birth you deny it the potential that it should have had, and who makes a mother "god" in deciding whether the baby lives or dies. That alone is God's prerogative.

If you want to give the woman the prerogative before birth to "terminate" the baby maybe you would also agree that the family of an elderly couple has the right to decide when it has fulfilled its usefulness and "terminate" them too since they are now viewed as a parasite to the family dynamics. Where does it all end?

The same can be said for same-sex marriage. What is next, polygamy, incest? Who draws the line; who makes the rules? In an atheist society they are made by those who can exploit the masses, either as a charismatic leader or by despotism and tyranny.

SUSAN: "It is indeed inappropriate to ask Palin questions about her teenage daughter's pregnancy, but it is perfectly appropriate for journalists to press her on the issue of contraceptive education for teens. Palin, on religious grounds, has been a vigorous supporter of "abstinence only"
sex education, and journalists should ask her why she thinks that countries like Denmark, which have comprehensive contraceptive education programs in their schools, have a much lower rate of teenage pregnancy (and of abortion) than the United States."

Again, pointing to other countries to justify what is right is just taking a pragmatic approach (whatever works regardless of the moral issues), but the deeper question is without an absolute, ultimate, objective reference point - God - anything goes and anything can go. It is just a matter of whether a person, a group, a society can either get enough people on board with its policy or it is a matter of enforcing the policy regardless, but it does not have anything other than subjective preference as its final reference point; the question is whose? It is all meaningless when you try to make sense of it as I keep challenging you atheists to do of anything at all.

CCNL, CCNL, CCNL,

I'm assuming you are familiar with what follows and know that it has been authenticated by no less (or more) than CNN, not that that counts for much. However, its has been confirmed by other sources, quite publicly. But don't despair. You can disabuse her of her "flawed" understanding when you visit her in Alaska, where, ideally, she will remain. Dream on, dear CCNL....

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
•"Hockey mom": true for a few years
•"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
•"NRA supporter": absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
•"Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
•"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
•pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Anne Kilkenny

Sarah Platin is new to politics and that is a great attribute. Let us hew her newness into being a great vice president!!! We shall start by introducing her to the flaws and errors of the global religions. We know them well and soon shall she.

Onward and forward to a new generation of leaders!!!!

4th Watch

Why do you think Obama did not choose Hillary for his Vice Presidential nominee? Because he is a small and petty person?

No, it is because she is married to an x-President. And not just any x-President, but an x-Presient who was personally charming and dominating, whom Obama might view as a rival. I think that it might be a little creepy for him.

So? why be so regretful that Obama did not pick Hillary? Why not be regretful that Hillary did not divorce Bill? Because if she had, then she would have been a more viable Vice Presidential candidate for Obama.

But she didn't think of that, did she? And that is assuming that she would want to be Vice President, which I do not believe. And that is a ssuming that all of her personal decisions are politically motivated, which I also do not believe.

You can have regrets and recriminations about anything and everything, endlessly; no one ever knows what the next day will bring; no one ever knows what reactions their decisions may motivate in others.

There is no going back. You turn the page and continue writing the story as you go, and there is no going back, to make corrections, ever.

What is that one word slogan that people use, when they begin to loose their nerve?

I think it is, "onward."

Barack took the Nomination and Pocketed the “Change”

You know the “Change we can we Believe in”?

The Senator should have tapped Hillary as Veep. In selecting Biden he didn’t just throttle back on the power of change, but cut said power off. He obviously believed his soaring campaign had enough altitude and air speed to make the oval office … Pilot error.

Obama neglected the powerful and appealing “Hope” his campaign had created. That is hope for change … real change …, in choosing Biden over Hillary, Obama discriminated against that very “Hope”, shortchanging himself and many others.

What a wasted opportunity.

Fact Checker

You are not right. You are mistaken.

There's tapes; I heard them.

You're just putting a spin on it.

You can split a hair 40 ways, but she said what she said on the tape.

"To you I would suggest what I have suggested to others. It's not a good idea to attack those who may go Republican after having supported Clinton.
They're already damned angry and rightly so. The more they're attacked, the angrier they get. It would be better if Obama supporting journalists and bloggers came clean about the embarrassing way they conducted themselves during the primary."

You think?!! Getting late, too. Time's running out for damage repair. Time to eat it and make nice.

What we need in the US is decent voter education and we will never have it as long as political parties count on swaying voters on shallow personality issues.

Having recently been to a high school reunion, I was very disheartened to see that some of my old civics classmates have apparently forgotten everything they learned about how to study the issues, then choose a candidate and a party that best serves them. I know they learned it, because I was sitting right there in the class with them, long, long ago. But I guess too many years of watching American idol has taken its toll.

Daniel ITLD - right on re elitism.

Arminius - please do more than vote - please get out the vote - call, knock on doors - you can have a much greater impact that way and it seems to be something you really care about.

Susan - Great essay.

Sally Quinn writes:

"Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin recently suggested that a gas pipeline is "God's will" and the Iraq war is "a task that is from God." Are you concerned about these or any other candidate's religious views?"

Actually Sally, she did not assert that the war Iraq is a task from God. I watched the tape last night on the news. What she asked was for people to pray that what our leaders are doing be guided by God. So the actual sense of what she said was more like: "Pray that we and our leaders are getting this right."

A fine article, Susan. Difficult though it is for me to believe, the anger over Clinton (not only of women) has appeared to drive some voters over to McCain. Truthfully, I know few Evangelicals, progressive or otherwise, so the folks I'm speaking of are of different religions, ethnic groups, etc., and you can toss in a couple of agnostics, atheists, etc. As for the media, it doesn't quite seem to know which way the disgruntled will go, but predict they'll see the light and vote for Obama.

Those I know personally are not moved (at least not positively) by Palin. Some, at first, told me that Obama doesn't have adequate experience, but when pushed they admitted it was the media's sexist hatchet job on Clinton that is driving them. First off, as you know many people are aware of media ownership interests, and having watched said media launch blatantly sexist, bigoted, often groundless attacks on one candidate (and HER daughter) while hymning another does make rader go up. Then, too, for some reason, people think WaPo, Ghivens, Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, MSNBC, etc., should not be choosing Democratic presidential candidates. Go figure.

Happily, the majority of my disgusted acquaintances have chosen either to forgo voting or to support Obama. But it seems to me the minority of angry Democrats seriously considering McCain isn't small. As for me, although I supported Clinton (for her commitment to mandatory health care, education, immigration, and her record on same) I'll be voting for Obama.

I disagree with you about McCain, the maverick.I believe that McCain can hold back his libertarianism for but so long and that if he wins, we will see it again. The problem for me is that I disagree with him on more issues more strongly than would ever allow me to vote for him, notwithstanding my nausea over the "fourth estate's" (?) wretched conduct during the Democratic primary.

IMHO, the reason the media's going light on the governorette is, as I posted on another thread complex. Here is the complex: She's a "hot," religious, lucid (?), married (and, therefore, unavailable) religious babe.

One could ask why they're not looking more closely at Joe Biden, but my guesses are (a) they want Obama and (b) nobody in his/her right mind would want to take him on. That they already know enough about him, as some have claimed, is silly.

To you I would suggest what I have suggested to others. It's not a good idea to attack those who may go Republican after having supported Clinton.
They're already damned angry and rightly so. The more they're attacked, the angrier they get. It would be better if Obama supporting journalists and bloggers came clean about the embarrassing way they conducted themselves during the primary.

Daniel ITLD,

You just clobbered the proverbial nail on the head with one hell of a heavy hammer. Yes, an elitist is one who thinks that they have all the answers to everything. In other words, the religious right, which now rules the republican party.

Robert Levine

You are right about McCain.

Has anyone ever stopped to think that McCain had more than 5 months to think about his Vice Presidential nominee, and five months to choose?

And this is the best he could do?

I think that he could have done better.

It's worth noting that McCain's choice of Palin from among a great many qualified conservative women speaks to his own lack of intelligence and reflectiveness. I have always thought that he was one of those right wing figures who instinctively respond to the tocsins of hyper patriotism and the group hysteria of a sports fan, rather than reason and principle. When he chose Palin, he demonstrated an appalling disdain for the commonweal and the traditions of the enlightenment that guided the founders.

Susan

I think that you have a point about the misuse of the word "elite."

Appreciating good food, caring about art and music, being interested in Europe, knowing about evolution and science does not make a person an elitest. Being a well-rounded and knowledgable citizen of the world in the twenty-first century does not make some one an elitist. Wanting a good life, and appreciating nice things is not elitist. Aren't all these these traditional American ideals?

If you think that you have the one true religion, when there are many others all around who disagree, and then setting yourself up above all of these other people in a position of cultural and moral superiority, THAT is being elitest.

It is really nothing more than old fashioned love of oneself; in high school, they call it being stuck up; I call it being a snob, but it is essentially, elitism.

Susan,
This is a terrific article. Palin is an insult to female intelligence everywhere by her selection.
And the strain of religious extremism in our government has to be stopped. NOW.

I hope other people are reading this. Lots of them. And getting just as mad as I am.
People had better wake up, or this country is finished.

Susan!

Oh my dear God, what an essay! I salute you, I raise my beer - in other words, I am very impressed. Wow! Few writers today can cut to the truth like you can. Your sword is sharp indeed.

I think this may be the most crucial election in our country's history. We have before us the decision to reject the horrid mistakes of the past eight years, and strive to stem the tidal wave of disaster - or, continue a slide into a theocratic dark age.

St Sarah the Moose Slayer - right out of the old testament, here to subdue us 'unbelievers', and impose Christian sharia. The Christian Taliban. Dobson is chortling with pseudo-religious dominionist joy. "Who would Jesus bomb?"

Be afraid, America, and get out there to vote for Obama, for freedom.

Sarah, as we all do, needs to read some of Edward Schillebeeck's Words of Wisdom ( Ed is a famous, contemporary theologian:

To wit:

from his book, Church: The Human Story of God,
Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

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

"Nothing is determined in advance: in
nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices.

Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."

We just forwarded these Words to Sarah. Being bright, she will immediately see the wisdom in them and continue to adjust to her ever growing maturity.

Ms Jacoby - You hit the nail on the head this time. Great column!!!