Auld Lang Syne (Smooth Jazz)
Happy New Year!
Dec 9, 2012
Ragbag Headliners
Illegal To Encourage Values?
A complaint has been filed against the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association with the Internal Revenue Service, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation seeks to have the Association's tax-exempt status revoked.
FFRF is complaining because of the full-page ads of Billy Graham featured in major newspapers leading up to the November 6 election. But Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel tells OneNewsNow the respected international evangelist was completely within his rights.
Staver, Mat (Liberty Counsel)"Billy Graham did not endorse or oppose a candidate," Staver recalls. "Billy Graham and the Association specifically encouraged people to vote biblical values, to vote those biblical values regarding Israel, life, marriage, and religious liberty. That's perfectly permissible."
But the attorney recognizes that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is free to have its own view and can write a letter of complaint to the IRS, just as anyone else can.
"But the reality is that's permissible under the IRS regulations," he continues. "Clearly, organizations that are non-profit can encourage people to vote consistent with the values that the organization represents -- and that's, in fact, what [the] Billy Graham Association and Billy Graham did."
Staver says the anti-religion legal group wants to strip pastors and non-profit organizations of their right to encourage people to vote their values, "and if you lose that right," he says, "you have no rights at all."
The Liberty Counsel founder does not believe the FFRF complaint will go anywhere. –By Charlie Butts/One News Now/November 16, 2012
A complaint has been filed against the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association with the Internal Revenue Service, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation seeks to have the Association's tax-exempt status revoked.
FFRF is complaining because of the full-page ads of Billy Graham featured in major newspapers leading up to the November 6 election. But Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel tells OneNewsNow the respected international evangelist was completely within his rights.
Staver, Mat (Liberty Counsel)"Billy Graham did not endorse or oppose a candidate," Staver recalls. "Billy Graham and the Association specifically encouraged people to vote biblical values, to vote those biblical values regarding Israel, life, marriage, and religious liberty. That's perfectly permissible."
But the attorney recognizes that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is free to have its own view and can write a letter of complaint to the IRS, just as anyone else can.
"But the reality is that's permissible under the IRS regulations," he continues. "Clearly, organizations that are non-profit can encourage people to vote consistent with the values that the organization represents -- and that's, in fact, what [the] Billy Graham Association and Billy Graham did."
Staver says the anti-religion legal group wants to strip pastors and non-profit organizations of their right to encourage people to vote their values, "and if you lose that right," he says, "you have no rights at all."
The Liberty Counsel founder does not believe the FFRF complaint will go anywhere. –By Charlie Butts/One News Now/November 16, 2012
<><><>*<><><>
Pastor: Bloomberg Brought Hurricane To NYC Because He Supports Marriage Equality
At a rally against marriage equality, fire-breathing pastor Luke Robinson blamed Hurricane Sandy on equality-minded New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and his support for marriage equality.
Robinson's words came Sunday at an anti-Question 6 rally in Maryland — voters will be asked to approve marriage rights in the state on Tuesday — reports the Washington Blade. Robinson, of the Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick, Md., pointed his finger at Bloomberg, who recently campaigned for Question 6 and donated $250,000 to the marriage equality cause.
“So here was the mayor of New York giving a quarter of a million dollars, coming down to Maryland discussing the matter,” Robinson said. “While he’s here somebody whispers in the ear, you better go back home and protect your stock because God is sending judgment. The thing came through the area. You have to understand the season and the time. It’s almost the end of hurricane season, but God sent one of the biggest hurricanes ever.” Click here to listen to Robinson's diatribe. –By Neal Broverman/Advocate/November 05 2012
At a rally against marriage equality, fire-breathing pastor Luke Robinson blamed Hurricane Sandy on equality-minded New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and his support for marriage equality.
Robinson's words came Sunday at an anti-Question 6 rally in Maryland — voters will be asked to approve marriage rights in the state on Tuesday — reports the Washington Blade. Robinson, of the Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick, Md., pointed his finger at Bloomberg, who recently campaigned for Question 6 and donated $250,000 to the marriage equality cause.
“So here was the mayor of New York giving a quarter of a million dollars, coming down to Maryland discussing the matter,” Robinson said. “While he’s here somebody whispers in the ear, you better go back home and protect your stock because God is sending judgment. The thing came through the area. You have to understand the season and the time. It’s almost the end of hurricane season, but God sent one of the biggest hurricanes ever.” Click here to listen to Robinson's diatribe. –By Neal Broverman/Advocate/November 05 2012
Angela Merkel Calls Christianity The ‘World’s Most Persecuted Faith’
Speaking on November 5, 2012, before a synod of Germany's Lutheran Church (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands or EKD), German chancellor Angela Merkel recently incited national controversy. Merkel's address in Timmendorfer Strand in the German province of Schleswig-Holstein included the passing comment that "Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world." The German federal government had thus made the protection of religious freedom, including that of Christians, into a goal of German foreign policy.
Merkel's singling out of Christianity did not find favor with various human rights advocates, as reported by the German news agency dapd. Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Germany director, Wenzel Michalski, found Merkel's conception "totally senseless" given that all religious persecution is equally wrong, irrespective of faith. Michalski cited Muslims in Burma, Falun Gong members in China, and Jews worldwide as non-Christian examples of persecution victims. A representative of Amnesty International also found Merkel's reference to Christianity "not sensible." Jerzy Montag, a German member of parliament from the Green Party (Die Grüne), likewise judged Merkel's estimation to be "misguided", given that any ranking of persecution among religions is "not especially helpful for combating human rights violations."
The United Nations Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, echoed Montag in assessing Merkel's qualification of Christianity as "not especially helpful." Bielefeldt expressed himself as "very reserved" with respect to such quantitative analysis. "Occasionally rumored numbers" indicating a particularly strong persecution of Christians were "not accurately enough demonstrable."
Yet the German branch of the international aid society for persecuted Christians, Open Doors, supported Merkel. A spokesman for the organization expressed its findings that 80% of all religiously persecuted individuals worldwide were Christian, some 100 million people in all. Volker Kauder, chairman of the Christian Democratic (CDU/CSU) members of the German parliament, also found "accurate" Merkel's prioritization of Christians amidst religiously diverse victims of persecution globally. Merely listing the world's regions in turmoil such as Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria, and Syria justified Merkel's statement for Kauder. Kauder thereby placed particular emphasis on the worsening situation in recent years in Muslim countries for Christians, whose fate would naturally draw the attention of fellow Christians in Germany.
Also supporting Merkel was Alexander Dobrindt, Kauder's parliamentarian colleague and general secretary of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (Christlich-Soziale Union or CSU), the regional sister party to the nationwide Christian Democratic Union (Christlich Demokratische Union or CDU). Dobrindt thereby singled out the Greens for criticism, declaring that Merkel's emphasis on Christians did not accord with the "Multi-Culti-worldview of the Greens" in which all cultures share fundamentally similar norms. For Dobrindt it was tasteless that the Greens wanted to recognize Muslim holidays in Germany, yet were unwilling "to bend a finger" for protecting Christians around the world.
Analysis of religious persecution around the world indicates that Dobrindt is right to reject such cultural equivalencies. The ranking of the world's 50 most religiously repressive regimes compiled by Open Doors' German branch, for example, lists almost exclusively Muslim-majority nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran or Marxist-legacy regimes such as China and North Korea. Many of these same names recur among the 17 Countries of Particular Concern cited by the United States Commission on Religious Freedom for their repression. Thus the two greatest opponents globally of religious freedom in general and Christianity in particular are various followers of Muhammad and Marx.
Practical political concerns demand that leaders always consider diplomatic sensitivities, yet Dobrindt, Kauder, and others are right to demand that such sensitivity not come at the price of the truth so necessary for proper policy formation. Such truth requires, among other things, accurate naming of victims and perpetrators. In a time of almost universal political correctness, the Lutheran pastor's daughter Merkel deserves praise for her refreshing honesty. –By Andrew E. Harrod/Family Security Matters/November 15, 2012
Foot Note: Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George Washington University Law School. He is admitted to the Virginia State Bar. He has published various pieces concerning an Islamic supremacist agenda at the Middle East Forum's Legal Project, American Thinker, and Faith Freedom International.
Merkel's singling out of Christianity did not find favor with various human rights advocates, as reported by the German news agency dapd. Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Germany director, Wenzel Michalski, found Merkel's conception "totally senseless" given that all religious persecution is equally wrong, irrespective of faith. Michalski cited Muslims in Burma, Falun Gong members in China, and Jews worldwide as non-Christian examples of persecution victims. A representative of Amnesty International also found Merkel's reference to Christianity "not sensible." Jerzy Montag, a German member of parliament from the Green Party (Die Grüne), likewise judged Merkel's estimation to be "misguided", given that any ranking of persecution among religions is "not especially helpful for combating human rights violations."
The United Nations Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, echoed Montag in assessing Merkel's qualification of Christianity as "not especially helpful." Bielefeldt expressed himself as "very reserved" with respect to such quantitative analysis. "Occasionally rumored numbers" indicating a particularly strong persecution of Christians were "not accurately enough demonstrable."
Yet the German branch of the international aid society for persecuted Christians, Open Doors, supported Merkel. A spokesman for the organization expressed its findings that 80% of all religiously persecuted individuals worldwide were Christian, some 100 million people in all. Volker Kauder, chairman of the Christian Democratic (CDU/CSU) members of the German parliament, also found "accurate" Merkel's prioritization of Christians amidst religiously diverse victims of persecution globally. Merely listing the world's regions in turmoil such as Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria, and Syria justified Merkel's statement for Kauder. Kauder thereby placed particular emphasis on the worsening situation in recent years in Muslim countries for Christians, whose fate would naturally draw the attention of fellow Christians in Germany.
Also supporting Merkel was Alexander Dobrindt, Kauder's parliamentarian colleague and general secretary of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (Christlich-Soziale Union or CSU), the regional sister party to the nationwide Christian Democratic Union (Christlich Demokratische Union or CDU). Dobrindt thereby singled out the Greens for criticism, declaring that Merkel's emphasis on Christians did not accord with the "Multi-Culti-worldview of the Greens" in which all cultures share fundamentally similar norms. For Dobrindt it was tasteless that the Greens wanted to recognize Muslim holidays in Germany, yet were unwilling "to bend a finger" for protecting Christians around the world.
Analysis of religious persecution around the world indicates that Dobrindt is right to reject such cultural equivalencies. The ranking of the world's 50 most religiously repressive regimes compiled by Open Doors' German branch, for example, lists almost exclusively Muslim-majority nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran or Marxist-legacy regimes such as China and North Korea. Many of these same names recur among the 17 Countries of Particular Concern cited by the United States Commission on Religious Freedom for their repression. Thus the two greatest opponents globally of religious freedom in general and Christianity in particular are various followers of Muhammad and Marx.
Practical political concerns demand that leaders always consider diplomatic sensitivities, yet Dobrindt, Kauder, and others are right to demand that such sensitivity not come at the price of the truth so necessary for proper policy formation. Such truth requires, among other things, accurate naming of victims and perpetrators. In a time of almost universal political correctness, the Lutheran pastor's daughter Merkel deserves praise for her refreshing honesty. –By Andrew E. Harrod/Family Security Matters/November 15, 2012
Foot Note: Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George Washington University Law School. He is admitted to the Virginia State Bar. He has published various pieces concerning an Islamic supremacist agenda at the Middle East Forum's Legal Project, American Thinker, and Faith Freedom International.
"Obey The Prophet, Even If He Tells You To Kill"
Just as, in the West, a general's orders – including to kill – are not to be questioned, so in Islam, according to Qaradawi, the "Godfather" of the Muslim Brotherhood, are Mohammed's orders not open to question by 1.5 billion soldiers, Islam's "soldiers."
Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi — the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who is now helping Egypt draft its new constitution, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and author of over 100 books on Muslim doctrine — maintains that Muslims must obey the commands of Islam's prophet, even to murder. This is the same Dr. Qaradawi that American academics such as Georgetown professor John Esposito praise for engaging in a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism, and human rights."
Qaradawi made this declaration, missed in the West, two years ago on his popular Arabic program, Al-Sharia wa Al-Haya ("Sharia and Life"), broadcast worldwide by al-Jazeera to an estimated audience of 60 million.
Towards the end of the show, the host asked Qaradawi what he thought of the fact that Sheikh Admad Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, had earlier said to an American delegation: "If [Muslim prophet] Muhammad asked me to reject Christianity or Judaism, I would have rejected him." Visibly agitated, Qaradawi answered as follows:
No scholar of Islam, or even an average Muslim would ever say such words. If you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then you must obey him—for he does not command except that which is good. So, even if he tells you to kill, you must— … The story about our prophet Musa [Moses], when al-Khidr killed the boy and Musa said "you killed and you did!," But then he [Khidr] revealed why he killed the boy, and why he punctured the boat. So we cannot distort the facts in order to please the people. Let the people be satisfied with the Truth [Sharia teachings], not the false.
Syria's grand mufti said many other things concerning goodwill for Christians that roused Qaradawi's ire. Addressing a large Christian gathering in Syria, where he was a guest speaker, for instance, he insisted that there were no differences between Christians and Muslims:
If Christianity is about believing in one God, so I believe in one God; if Christianity is about believing in Jesus, so I believe in Jesus; if Christianity is about believing in the New Testament, so I believe in the New Testament; if Christianity is about believing in the Old Testament, so I believe in the Old Testament; if Christianity is about believing that Mary was a pure virgin, so I believe she was a pure virgin, untouched by man; and if Christianity is about believing in the resurrection, so I believe in the resurrection—so what is the difference between me and Christians?
Qaradawi offered to correct Muslim doctrine in response to this otherwise egalitarian talk, confirming that, yes, Islam believes all these things—but according to its own narratives, not the ones recorded in the Bible, which, as the Quran teaches, have been distorted. Hence, if Muslims believe all those things that the Syrian grand mufti mentioned, they do not believe in the fundamentals of Christianity—including the Trinity, Christ's divinity or resurrection, and atonement of sins—hence they reject Christianity, as understood and practiced by over a billion Christians.
As for believing in the Old and New Testaments, the Quran claims that, once upon a time there were "true" versions, but that the current texts — which are older than the Quran itself—were "corrupted" to include, for examples, the fundamentals of Christianity. Thus the only "authentic" remnants of Christianity and Judaism are the ones Muhammad narrated in the Quran—where we meet many characters whose names are familiar, such as Isa [Jesus], but he a very different "Jesus": the Quran's Jesus was never crucified and will return to break all Christian crucifixes and kill all pigs.
It is this Muslim proclivity to create "parallel" characters, based on biblical figures, that explains Qaradawi's justification to murder people in blind obedience to the prophet. His reference to "Musa," is a reference to a story—possibly rooted in the 3rd century Alexander Romance and popularized by the 1970s martial arts movie, Circle of Iron—which, nonetheless, occurs in Quran, and so must be accepted literally.
According to the Quran's narrative (18:65-82), Musa seeks out al-Khidr—"the Green Man," who possesses powers of sight—and asks if he may follow him and learn from him. Al-Khidr reluctantly agrees, on condition that Musa not question anything he, the Green Man, does, until such time as the latter chooses to reveal the significance of his actions.
The Green Man, however, does strange things—such as randomly killing a young boy and destroying the boat that belonged to the people who helped give them passage—to which Musa demands immediate answers. The Green Man eventually explains that he killed the boy because his parents were good Muslims, while the boy was an infidel who would have burdened them with his transgressions; and he destroyed the boat of the good people because a king was about to seize it anyway.
Further, just as Islam introduced a parallel universe inhabited by figures based on Christianity and Judaism, it also introduced a parallel system of ethics and morality—one, as the Quran's Green Man shows, not to be questioned.
Just as a Western general's orders—including to kill—are not open to question by his soldiers, so, in Islam, according to Qaradawi, one of Islam's most authoritative voices, are the orders of Muhammad not open to question by the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, Islam's "soldiers." -By Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/November 26, 2012
Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi — the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who is now helping Egypt draft its new constitution, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, and author of over 100 books on Muslim doctrine — maintains that Muslims must obey the commands of Islam's prophet, even to murder. This is the same Dr. Qaradawi that American academics such as Georgetown professor John Esposito praise for engaging in a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism, and human rights."
Qaradawi made this declaration, missed in the West, two years ago on his popular Arabic program, Al-Sharia wa Al-Haya ("Sharia and Life"), broadcast worldwide by al-Jazeera to an estimated audience of 60 million.
Towards the end of the show, the host asked Qaradawi what he thought of the fact that Sheikh Admad Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, had earlier said to an American delegation: "If [Muslim prophet] Muhammad asked me to reject Christianity or Judaism, I would have rejected him." Visibly agitated, Qaradawi answered as follows:
No scholar of Islam, or even an average Muslim would ever say such words. If you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then you must obey him—for he does not command except that which is good. So, even if he tells you to kill, you must— … The story about our prophet Musa [Moses], when al-Khidr killed the boy and Musa said "you killed and you did!," But then he [Khidr] revealed why he killed the boy, and why he punctured the boat. So we cannot distort the facts in order to please the people. Let the people be satisfied with the Truth [Sharia teachings], not the false.
Syria's grand mufti said many other things concerning goodwill for Christians that roused Qaradawi's ire. Addressing a large Christian gathering in Syria, where he was a guest speaker, for instance, he insisted that there were no differences between Christians and Muslims:
If Christianity is about believing in one God, so I believe in one God; if Christianity is about believing in Jesus, so I believe in Jesus; if Christianity is about believing in the New Testament, so I believe in the New Testament; if Christianity is about believing in the Old Testament, so I believe in the Old Testament; if Christianity is about believing that Mary was a pure virgin, so I believe she was a pure virgin, untouched by man; and if Christianity is about believing in the resurrection, so I believe in the resurrection—so what is the difference between me and Christians?
Qaradawi offered to correct Muslim doctrine in response to this otherwise egalitarian talk, confirming that, yes, Islam believes all these things—but according to its own narratives, not the ones recorded in the Bible, which, as the Quran teaches, have been distorted. Hence, if Muslims believe all those things that the Syrian grand mufti mentioned, they do not believe in the fundamentals of Christianity—including the Trinity, Christ's divinity or resurrection, and atonement of sins—hence they reject Christianity, as understood and practiced by over a billion Christians.
As for believing in the Old and New Testaments, the Quran claims that, once upon a time there were "true" versions, but that the current texts — which are older than the Quran itself—were "corrupted" to include, for examples, the fundamentals of Christianity. Thus the only "authentic" remnants of Christianity and Judaism are the ones Muhammad narrated in the Quran—where we meet many characters whose names are familiar, such as Isa [Jesus], but he a very different "Jesus": the Quran's Jesus was never crucified and will return to break all Christian crucifixes and kill all pigs.
It is this Muslim proclivity to create "parallel" characters, based on biblical figures, that explains Qaradawi's justification to murder people in blind obedience to the prophet. His reference to "Musa," is a reference to a story—possibly rooted in the 3rd century Alexander Romance and popularized by the 1970s martial arts movie, Circle of Iron—which, nonetheless, occurs in Quran, and so must be accepted literally.
According to the Quran's narrative (18:65-82), Musa seeks out al-Khidr—"the Green Man," who possesses powers of sight—and asks if he may follow him and learn from him. Al-Khidr reluctantly agrees, on condition that Musa not question anything he, the Green Man, does, until such time as the latter chooses to reveal the significance of his actions.
The Green Man, however, does strange things—such as randomly killing a young boy and destroying the boat that belonged to the people who helped give them passage—to which Musa demands immediate answers. The Green Man eventually explains that he killed the boy because his parents were good Muslims, while the boy was an infidel who would have burdened them with his transgressions; and he destroyed the boat of the good people because a king was about to seize it anyway.
Further, just as Islam introduced a parallel universe inhabited by figures based on Christianity and Judaism, it also introduced a parallel system of ethics and morality—one, as the Quran's Green Man shows, not to be questioned.
Just as a Western general's orders—including to kill—are not open to question by his soldiers, so, in Islam, according to Qaradawi, one of Islam's most authoritative voices, are the orders of Muhammad not open to question by the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, Islam's "soldiers." -By Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/November 26, 2012
Foot Note: Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
McCLUSKEY: Why Can’t We Stop Fighting Over Christmas?
Christmas is supposed to be a season of peace. But thanks to public schooling, for many Americans it is instead a time of war.
Battles over Christmas in public schools are, unfortunately, as inevitable as inflatable Santas and gridlocked malls, and this year is no exception.
After receiving complaints about a Nativity scene on a school bulletin board, the superintendent of Arkansas' Greene County Tech School District removed the image. That, however, sparked vehement complaints of a different sort, and the superintendent soon returned the scene to the board. “To be honest with you, we offended a lot more people by taking it down than leaving it up,” Superintendent Jerry Noble said. “So we put it back up.”
In Florida, Republican state Sen. Stephen R. Wise introduced legislation that would require school districts to call their late-December-to-early-January time off Christmas Break rather than Winter Break. The move elicited significant consternation, but Mr. Wise is insistent: “The reason we’re off is because of Christmas.”
In Texas, the Fort Worth school district created an uproar at the beginning of the month when district counsel Bertha Bailey Whatley sent a memo to staff instructing them to prohibit students from exchanging gifts or “personal holiday messages” during class. David Rapp, an attorney and father of two district students, attacked the memo, writing to the district that the guidelines trampled “the free exercise of religion.”
Skirmishes like these illustrate a sad, simple truth: Public schools cannot serve their diverse people equally, forcing battles for supremacy.
But this is not a problem restricted to the holidays. Religious diversity has made government schooling a social battleground for more than 160 years.
In the 1840s, just as government schooling was becoming established, it ignited religious warfare, most prominently in New York City and Philadelphia. In those places, Roman Catholics were gathering in large numbers, but the embryonic public schools were de facto Protestant institutions. Catholic requests for accommodations - most notably, the ability to use Catholic instead of Protestant versions of the Bible - were met with great opposition, and in the City of Brotherly Love, tensions eventually sparked two waves of street-level combat. By the time the Philadelphia Bible Riots had ended, at least 20 people had been killed and more than 100 wounded.
By the 1920s, the main ground contested in the schooling wars was between Christianity and secularization. The most prominent battle was the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial, in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for introducing evolution in violation of state law. The trial was a national sensation, and its subject matter - how schools teach human origins - remains a huge source of conflict more than nine decades later.
By the 1970s, the tide had turned - religion was officially out of public schools - but conflict burned on. Perhaps most notably, Kanawha County, W.Va., was engulfed in near-civil war in 1974, with residents clashing over textbooks that the school district had selected. Among many things, the aggrieved were outraged by what they saw as government pushing not religious belief, but disbelief.
Protests eventually became so widespread and heated that they brought schools and even commerce to a halt. Eventually, outrage produced violence, including shootings and the dynamiting of schools.
A 1975 National Education Association report on the troubles identified the root problem: The district includes communities that “may be only miles apart in distance, but which are light-years apart in values, beliefs and in what they consider to be a ‘quality’ education.”
Today, in addition to endless grappling over Christmas and evolution, we see conflagrations erupting over anti-bullying policies that might restrict expression of religious views, sex education, accommodation of Muslim holidays and prayer times, and sundry other religious flash points.
Thankfully, there can be peace, but to have it, we must phase out government schooling and embrace liberty, the most basic of American values. We must give educators the freedom to teach as they wish, give parents control of education funding, and let teachers and families who share values come together. In other words, we must let people put down their arms and, finally, educate in peace. –Neal P. McCluskey/Washington Times/December 22, 2011
Foot Note: Neal P. McCluskey is associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and author of “Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
Battles over Christmas in public schools are, unfortunately, as inevitable as inflatable Santas and gridlocked malls, and this year is no exception.
After receiving complaints about a Nativity scene on a school bulletin board, the superintendent of Arkansas' Greene County Tech School District removed the image. That, however, sparked vehement complaints of a different sort, and the superintendent soon returned the scene to the board. “To be honest with you, we offended a lot more people by taking it down than leaving it up,” Superintendent Jerry Noble said. “So we put it back up.”
In Florida, Republican state Sen. Stephen R. Wise introduced legislation that would require school districts to call their late-December-to-early-January time off Christmas Break rather than Winter Break. The move elicited significant consternation, but Mr. Wise is insistent: “The reason we’re off is because of Christmas.”
In Texas, the Fort Worth school district created an uproar at the beginning of the month when district counsel Bertha Bailey Whatley sent a memo to staff instructing them to prohibit students from exchanging gifts or “personal holiday messages” during class. David Rapp, an attorney and father of two district students, attacked the memo, writing to the district that the guidelines trampled “the free exercise of religion.”
Skirmishes like these illustrate a sad, simple truth: Public schools cannot serve their diverse people equally, forcing battles for supremacy.
But this is not a problem restricted to the holidays. Religious diversity has made government schooling a social battleground for more than 160 years.
In the 1840s, just as government schooling was becoming established, it ignited religious warfare, most prominently in New York City and Philadelphia. In those places, Roman Catholics were gathering in large numbers, but the embryonic public schools were de facto Protestant institutions. Catholic requests for accommodations - most notably, the ability to use Catholic instead of Protestant versions of the Bible - were met with great opposition, and in the City of Brotherly Love, tensions eventually sparked two waves of street-level combat. By the time the Philadelphia Bible Riots had ended, at least 20 people had been killed and more than 100 wounded.
By the 1920s, the main ground contested in the schooling wars was between Christianity and secularization. The most prominent battle was the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial, in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for introducing evolution in violation of state law. The trial was a national sensation, and its subject matter - how schools teach human origins - remains a huge source of conflict more than nine decades later.
By the 1970s, the tide had turned - religion was officially out of public schools - but conflict burned on. Perhaps most notably, Kanawha County, W.Va., was engulfed in near-civil war in 1974, with residents clashing over textbooks that the school district had selected. Among many things, the aggrieved were outraged by what they saw as government pushing not religious belief, but disbelief.
Protests eventually became so widespread and heated that they brought schools and even commerce to a halt. Eventually, outrage produced violence, including shootings and the dynamiting of schools.
A 1975 National Education Association report on the troubles identified the root problem: The district includes communities that “may be only miles apart in distance, but which are light-years apart in values, beliefs and in what they consider to be a ‘quality’ education.”
Today, in addition to endless grappling over Christmas and evolution, we see conflagrations erupting over anti-bullying policies that might restrict expression of religious views, sex education, accommodation of Muslim holidays and prayer times, and sundry other religious flash points.
Thankfully, there can be peace, but to have it, we must phase out government schooling and embrace liberty, the most basic of American values. We must give educators the freedom to teach as they wish, give parents control of education funding, and let teachers and families who share values come together. In other words, we must let people put down their arms and, finally, educate in peace. –Neal P. McCluskey/Washington Times/December 22, 2011
Foot Note: Neal P. McCluskey is associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and author of “Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
French Man Demands De-baptism, Sues Catholic Church
A French man is suing the Roman Catholic church in order to become “de-baptized.” While the church has formally recognized the man’s departure from the faith, it argues that baptism cannot be undone and thus even the names of apostates must remain on the roll of the once-baptized.
Rene LeBouvier, representing the sentiments of many others across Europe, has sued to the have the state force the church to remove his name from their books. The case, therefore, could have far-reaching implications as a precedent of state interference in purely religious beliefs and practice. NPR reports,
“They sent me a copy of my records, and in the margins next to my name, they wrote that I had chosen to leave the church,” he says.
That was in the year 2000. A decade later, LeBouvier wanted to go further. In between were the pedophile scandals and the pope preaching against condoms in AIDS-racked Africa, a position that LeBouvier calls “criminal.” Again, he asked the church to strike him from baptismal records. When the priest told him it wasn’t possible, he took the church to court.
Last October, a judge in Normandy ruled in his favor. The diocese has since appealed, and the case is pending.
“One can’t be de-baptized,” says Rev. Robert Kaslyn, dean of the School of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America.
Kaslyn says baptism changes one permanently before the church and God.
“One could refuse the grace offered by God, the grace offered by the sacrament, refuse to participate,” he says, “but we would believe the individual has still been marked for God through the sacrament, and that individual at any point could return to the church.”
French law states that citizens have the right to leave organizations if they wish. Loup Desmond, who has followed the case for the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, says he thinks it could set a legal precedent and open the way for more demands for de-baptism.
“If the justice confirms that the name Rene LeBouvier has to disappear from the books, if it is confirmed, it can be a kind of jurisprudence in France,” he says. –By Joel McDurmon/American Vision/January 30, 2012
Rene LeBouvier, representing the sentiments of many others across Europe, has sued to the have the state force the church to remove his name from their books. The case, therefore, could have far-reaching implications as a precedent of state interference in purely religious beliefs and practice. NPR reports,
“They sent me a copy of my records, and in the margins next to my name, they wrote that I had chosen to leave the church,” he says.
That was in the year 2000. A decade later, LeBouvier wanted to go further. In between were the pedophile scandals and the pope preaching against condoms in AIDS-racked Africa, a position that LeBouvier calls “criminal.” Again, he asked the church to strike him from baptismal records. When the priest told him it wasn’t possible, he took the church to court.
Last October, a judge in Normandy ruled in his favor. The diocese has since appealed, and the case is pending.
“One can’t be de-baptized,” says Rev. Robert Kaslyn, dean of the School of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America.
Kaslyn says baptism changes one permanently before the church and God.
“One could refuse the grace offered by God, the grace offered by the sacrament, refuse to participate,” he says, “but we would believe the individual has still been marked for God through the sacrament, and that individual at any point could return to the church.”
French law states that citizens have the right to leave organizations if they wish. Loup Desmond, who has followed the case for the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, says he thinks it could set a legal precedent and open the way for more demands for de-baptism.
“If the justice confirms that the name Rene LeBouvier has to disappear from the books, if it is confirmed, it can be a kind of jurisprudence in France,” he says. –By Joel McDurmon/American Vision/January 30, 2012
History, Archaeology and Jesus
Hard evidence from the ancient world dramatically supports the New Testament record on Jesus.
Mythical personalities are not involved in authentic episodes from the past. Nor do they leave hard evidence behind. In the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, however, there are many points of contact between His record in the Gospels and the surrounding history of His times. Just as the New Testament is studded with authentic geographical locations, it is also full of genuine personalities who are well known from secular sources outside of the Bible record, including some that are even hostile to Christianity.
Mythical personalities are not involved in authentic episodes from the past. Nor do they leave hard evidence behind. In the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, however, there are many points of contact between His record in the Gospels and the surrounding history of His times. Just as the New Testament is studded with authentic geographical locations, it is also full of genuine personalities who are well known from secular sources outside of the Bible record, including some that are even hostile to Christianity.
- All of the following are Bible characters about whom we know as much, or more, from secular ancient historical records than from the New Testament.
- Roman emperors: Caesar Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius.
- Roman governors: Pontius Pilate, Serguis Paulus, Gallio, Felix, Festus.
- Local rulers: Herod the Great, Archelaus, Herod Antipas, Philip, Herod Agrippa I, Herod Agrippa II, Lysanias, Aretas IV.
- High priests: Annas, Joseph Caiaphas, Ananias.
- Prominent women: Herodias, Salome, Bernice, Drusilla.
- Prominent men: John the Baptist, James the Just.
In some cases, the additional, non-Biblical information on these personalities is immense. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37—100), for example, supplies about a thousand times as much data on Herod the Great as does Matthew’s Gospel.
In other cases, the secular facts are crucial. The New Testament does not tell us what became of Jesus’ half-brother, James the Just of Jerusalem, the first bishop of the Christian church (Acts 15). Josephus, however, gives us the details of his being stoned to death by the Sanhedrin in A.D. 62.
Josephus on Jesus
Twice Josephus refers to Jesus. His second reference concerns the episode involving James, whom he defines as "the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ." Earlier, in the middle of his reports on Pontius Pilate’s administration, Josephus has a longer passage on Jesus. For centuries this had been dismissed as a Christian interpolation. But what is doubtless the original wording has now been restored. In view of its importance, the entire passage is presented here:
"At this time there was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. Many people among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified, and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have reported wonders. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day" (Antiquities 20:200).
Other non-Biblical, non-Christian ancient references to Jesus occur in the pagan Roman authors Cornelius Tacitus, Gaius Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger, as well as in the Jewish rabbinical traditions. One especially important notice in the last, the arrest notice for Jesus, will be dealt with in the next article.
Bottom line: In view of the many points of tangency between the Biblical and non-Biblical documentary evidence and the full correlation of these two, history also supports the complete historicity of Jesus of Nazareth.
Archaeology
A comparatively young discipline only about 125 years old, scientific archaeology has delivered a spectacular amount of "hard evidence" from the ancient world that correlates admirably with information inside the Old and New Testaments. A whole series of articles would be possible on this theme alone. However, a brief listing must suffice, which is limited to discoveries relating directly to the life of Jesus.
The existence of Nazareth in Jesus’ day had been doubted by critics—until its name showed up in a first-century synagogue inscription at Caesarea. Augustus’ census edicts (in connection with the Nativity) are borne out by an inscription at Ankara, Turkey, his famous Res Gestae ("Things Accomplished"), in which the Roman emperor proudly claims to have taken a census three times. That husbands had to register their families for the Roman census was mandated in census papyri discovered in Egypt.
That Herod the Great ruled at the time Jesus was born is demonstrated by the numerous excavations of his massive public works in the Holy Lane, including the great Temple in Jerusalem. That his son Herod Antipas ruled Galilee is shown in similar digs at Sepphoris and Tiberias. Coins from these and the other Herodian rulers are a commonplace in coin collections.
As for Jesus’ public ministry, the remains of the foundation of the synagogue at Capernaum where He taught still exist below the present ruins of the fourth-century synagogue there. The remains of Peter’s house at Capernaum, later converted into an octagonal Christian sanctuary, have been uncovered. The hull of a first-century boat that plied the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Jesus’ time was discovered in 1986, giving us new information on how Jesus could sleep through a storm during the famous episode of the Stilling of the Tempest (Mark 4:35ff.).
Relating to Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem, an ancient flight of stairs down to the Brook Kidron has been excavated, doubtless used by Jesus and His disciples on the way to Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives, where ancient olive trees still thrive. An inscription naming His judge on Good Friday, Pontius Pilate, was discovered at Caesarea in 1961. The very bones of the chief prosecutor at that trial, the high priest Joseph Caiaphas, came to light inside an ossuary (a stone chest used to store bones from burial sites) uncovered in 1990, the first bones of a Biblical personality ever discovered.
That they nailed victims to crosses, as in Jesus’ case, was proven when another ossuary was open north of Jerusalem in 1968, and a victim’s heel bones appeared, transfixed with a seven-inch iron spike. Burial in tombs closed up with rolling stone disks is more than apparent today in many such sepulchers in Judea and even Galilee.
In addition, many of the sites in Jesus’ ministry, such as Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, Caesarea Philippi, Shechem, Bethany and, of course, Jerusalem are in process of excavation, promising even more archaeological discoveries relating to the life of Jesus. If the past is any precedent, almost all of these will confirm the New Testament accounts.
The archaeological supports in the case of Jesus’ greatest follower, Paul of Tarsus, are especially impressive. Ruins in Cyprus, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome and elsewhere all bear out the many references about Paul in the New Testament.
As hard evidence from the past, "the very stones cry out" the reliability of the Biblical record. It is amusing to note that many of the last century’s most trenchant critics of Jesus and the New Testament refused at first even to consider the result of archaeology, so counter to their opinions was its evidence! Today, I can’t imagine anyone, friend or foe of the faith, would be stupid enough to hold so foolish an attitude.
At the 2, 000th anniversary of Christianity, then, we should be ready to tell everyone that the sum total of the literary, historical and archaeological evidence from the ancient world dramatically supports the New Testament record on Jesus. Those who claim it does not are sadly misinformed, tragically closed-minded, or dishonest. –By Dr. Paul L. Maier/Issues, Etc.
Foot Note: Dr. Paul L. Maier is professor of Ancient History and chaplain at Western Michigan University-Kalamazoo, MI.
Dec 1, 2012
Ragbag Headliners
Ugandan Leader Says Antigay Bill Will Pass This Year
Rebecca Kadaga, the speaker of Parliament, said lawmakers would pass the legislation before 2012 ends as “a Christmas gift” for antigay Christian activists.
Uganda’s Parliament will pass a controversial antigay bill before the end of this year, according to the leader of the lawmaking body.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told the Associated Press that Parliament would pass the law, which originally included the death penalty for some homosexual acts, because Ugandans “are demanding it.” Some Christian leaders at a meeting Friday in Kampala asked the speaker to pass the law as “a Christmas gift,” and she said Parliament would consider the bill within two weeks.
‘‘Who are we not to do what they have told us? These people should not be begging us,’’ she said.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but since 2009, lawmakers led by David Bahati have argued the country needs a stronger antigay law to curtail the influence of Western activists. Bahati and others including American evangelist Scott Lively have claimed that LGBT activists “recruit” Ugandan children.
Ugandan LGBT activists told the AP that the bill, which has generated condemnation from the United States and Europe, has drawn attention to their plight. Activist Pepe Julian Onziema said he and colleagues would seek a meeting with Kadaga.
Global campaign group Avaaz condemned the plan announced by Kadaga. The group launched a petition that garnered 1.6 million signers in an effort to stop the bill last year.
‘‘Sentencing people to life in prison for love is not a ‘Christmas gift,’ it’s a sickening violation of human rights,’’ said campaign director Emma Ruby-Sachs in a statement. ‘‘Hate speech by MPs has reached fever pitch in Uganda with politicians desperate to sacrifice its citizens. Governments and world citizens are unanimous in condemning this gay hate bill, we urge Uganda’s leaders to heed that call.” -By Julie Bolcer/Advocate/November 12 201
Rebecca Kadaga, the speaker of Parliament, said lawmakers would pass the legislation before 2012 ends as “a Christmas gift” for antigay Christian activists.
Uganda’s Parliament will pass a controversial antigay bill before the end of this year, according to the leader of the lawmaking body.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told the Associated Press that Parliament would pass the law, which originally included the death penalty for some homosexual acts, because Ugandans “are demanding it.” Some Christian leaders at a meeting Friday in Kampala asked the speaker to pass the law as “a Christmas gift,” and she said Parliament would consider the bill within two weeks.
‘‘Who are we not to do what they have told us? These people should not be begging us,’’ she said.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but since 2009, lawmakers led by David Bahati have argued the country needs a stronger antigay law to curtail the influence of Western activists. Bahati and others including American evangelist Scott Lively have claimed that LGBT activists “recruit” Ugandan children.
Ugandan LGBT activists told the AP that the bill, which has generated condemnation from the United States and Europe, has drawn attention to their plight. Activist Pepe Julian Onziema said he and colleagues would seek a meeting with Kadaga.
Global campaign group Avaaz condemned the plan announced by Kadaga. The group launched a petition that garnered 1.6 million signers in an effort to stop the bill last year.
‘‘Sentencing people to life in prison for love is not a ‘Christmas gift,’ it’s a sickening violation of human rights,’’ said campaign director Emma Ruby-Sachs in a statement. ‘‘Hate speech by MPs has reached fever pitch in Uganda with politicians desperate to sacrifice its citizens. Governments and world citizens are unanimous in condemning this gay hate bill, we urge Uganda’s leaders to heed that call.” -By Julie Bolcer/Advocate/November 12 201
Christmas Lights Go Out In Europe
The lights are going out all over Europe. The Christmas tree lights, that is. Not all of them all at once, mind you, but one at a time – one here, one there, one Christmas season after another.
Just the other day, for example, came the news about a co-op apartment building in Kokkedal, Denmark.
Not long ago, the co-op, which has a considerable number of Muslim residents, spent 60,000 kroner (about $10,000) to celebrate the holiday of Eid. Three days afterwards, however, when the co-op board, consisting of five Muslims and four unbelievers, got together to decide whether to spend approximately 5000 kroner on a Christmas tree – a tradition in the building – they voted the proposition down. Although a “private donor” later stepped in to pay for a tree, the news of the co-op board’s decision had meantime made the national news, drawing two journalists from Denmark’s TV2 who, after making their way to Kokkedal last weekend to investigate the story, found themselves under attack by a couple of dozen masked individuals who threw bricks and cobblestones at their van and called them “neo-Nazis.”
The tidings from Kokkedal were unpleasant enough. But then came the news that the traditional Christmas tree in the Grote Markt (Market Square) in Brussels has now also become a thing of the past. In interviews with the media, Brussels councilwoman Bianca Debaets expressed her suspicions that municipal authorities had put the kibosh on the tree for religious reasons. (Brussels, it should be noted, is at present 25% Muslim. And climbing.)
At first, Brussels city officials vehemently denied that the decision to banish the Christmas tree in the Grote Markt had any religious basis. Perish the thought! Instead, they sought to convey the message that Christmas trees are old-fashioned – yesterday’s news. And they made a strenuous effort to stir up public excitement over the fact that, instead of a tiresome old traditional tree, the Grote Markt will be the site of a cool, hip, up-to-date “light sculpture” that will suggest the shape of a tree, but that, instead of branches and needles and such, will be composed of strobe lights and other high-tech electronic paraphernalia.
It will, in short, be a trendy, twenty-first-century celebration of – well, nothing in particular, exactly. Certainly not Christmas. One thing that was made perfectly clear to the Belgian populace was that this newfangled installation would not allude in any way, shape, or form to the Christian holiday, but would instead be characterized as a “winter” decoration. Indeed, the Brussels city government took the trouble to issue a directive ordering that accounts of the new downtown “sculpture” should not include any reference to Christmas.
One news report described this postmodernist artifact as follows: “The electronic sculpture will stand 25 meters (82 feet) tall and consists of a set of television screens.” Another noted: “During the daytime you can climb to the top of the tree where you will be able to enjoy a panoramic view of the city.” And: “As soon as it becomes dark the tree turns into a spectacle of light and sound. Every ten minutes an amazing show will unfold.”
Debaets, for one, was not terribly impressed by this dubious step into the brave new Eurabian world. But the change had been made, and there was apparently no widespread movement to resist it. In any case, as the spokesman for the mayor of Brussels was eager to assure everyone, the switch to a treeless display had nothing whatsoever to do with any faith.
As it turned out, that was a lie. It soon emerged that the city fathers had relegated the tree to the history books for one reason and one reason alone – namely, that “the local Muslim population found it ‘offensive.’”
Now, it doesn’t matter whether you, as an individual, care for Christmas trees or consider them a big deal. That’s not the point. The point is that when you give way on one not-such-a-big-deal thing after another, it eventually does become a very big deal indeed. Step by step, one culture gives way to another – all the while telling itself that it isn’t doing anything of the kind.
The question here is this: at exactly what point do intelligent, self-respecting Westerners rebel against the ubiquitous concept of Islamic “offense” – especially when it concerns things that are at the very heart of the Westerners’ own culture and history, if not their own deepest beliefs? At what point do Westerners balk at the fact that “offense” has become a one-way-street, with Muslim “offense” at various aspects of Western culture being treated as sacrosanct while Westerners, if they so much as hint at being offended by any aspect of Muslim culture, are branded as racists and Islamophobes? At what point do Westerners refuse to whittle away at their own cultures and customs in order to please, placate, and pacify? At what point do they take a good, hard look at reality – at the fact that while they may experience a warm, fuzzy feeling at the spectacle of their Muslim neighbors celebrating Muslim holidays, a great many of those Muslim neighbors are determined to eradicate any outward sign of their religious holidays – and realize that something is going very, very wrong?
What a grim mystery the psychology of dhimmitude is! How staggering it is that so many people in the Western world are so willing to allow the furniture of their lives to be rearranged in response to claims of offense founded on some alien culture’s ingrained triumphalism!
When will it stop? For it must stop. For if it doesn’t stop, it’s clear as day where it will all end. –By Bruce Bawer/Front Page Mag/November 15, 2012
Just the other day, for example, came the news about a co-op apartment building in Kokkedal, Denmark.
Not long ago, the co-op, which has a considerable number of Muslim residents, spent 60,000 kroner (about $10,000) to celebrate the holiday of Eid. Three days afterwards, however, when the co-op board, consisting of five Muslims and four unbelievers, got together to decide whether to spend approximately 5000 kroner on a Christmas tree – a tradition in the building – they voted the proposition down. Although a “private donor” later stepped in to pay for a tree, the news of the co-op board’s decision had meantime made the national news, drawing two journalists from Denmark’s TV2 who, after making their way to Kokkedal last weekend to investigate the story, found themselves under attack by a couple of dozen masked individuals who threw bricks and cobblestones at their van and called them “neo-Nazis.”
The tidings from Kokkedal were unpleasant enough. But then came the news that the traditional Christmas tree in the Grote Markt (Market Square) in Brussels has now also become a thing of the past. In interviews with the media, Brussels councilwoman Bianca Debaets expressed her suspicions that municipal authorities had put the kibosh on the tree for religious reasons. (Brussels, it should be noted, is at present 25% Muslim. And climbing.)
At first, Brussels city officials vehemently denied that the decision to banish the Christmas tree in the Grote Markt had any religious basis. Perish the thought! Instead, they sought to convey the message that Christmas trees are old-fashioned – yesterday’s news. And they made a strenuous effort to stir up public excitement over the fact that, instead of a tiresome old traditional tree, the Grote Markt will be the site of a cool, hip, up-to-date “light sculpture” that will suggest the shape of a tree, but that, instead of branches and needles and such, will be composed of strobe lights and other high-tech electronic paraphernalia.
It will, in short, be a trendy, twenty-first-century celebration of – well, nothing in particular, exactly. Certainly not Christmas. One thing that was made perfectly clear to the Belgian populace was that this newfangled installation would not allude in any way, shape, or form to the Christian holiday, but would instead be characterized as a “winter” decoration. Indeed, the Brussels city government took the trouble to issue a directive ordering that accounts of the new downtown “sculpture” should not include any reference to Christmas.
One news report described this postmodernist artifact as follows: “The electronic sculpture will stand 25 meters (82 feet) tall and consists of a set of television screens.” Another noted: “During the daytime you can climb to the top of the tree where you will be able to enjoy a panoramic view of the city.” And: “As soon as it becomes dark the tree turns into a spectacle of light and sound. Every ten minutes an amazing show will unfold.”
Debaets, for one, was not terribly impressed by this dubious step into the brave new Eurabian world. But the change had been made, and there was apparently no widespread movement to resist it. In any case, as the spokesman for the mayor of Brussels was eager to assure everyone, the switch to a treeless display had nothing whatsoever to do with any faith.
As it turned out, that was a lie. It soon emerged that the city fathers had relegated the tree to the history books for one reason and one reason alone – namely, that “the local Muslim population found it ‘offensive.’”
Now, it doesn’t matter whether you, as an individual, care for Christmas trees or consider them a big deal. That’s not the point. The point is that when you give way on one not-such-a-big-deal thing after another, it eventually does become a very big deal indeed. Step by step, one culture gives way to another – all the while telling itself that it isn’t doing anything of the kind.
The question here is this: at exactly what point do intelligent, self-respecting Westerners rebel against the ubiquitous concept of Islamic “offense” – especially when it concerns things that are at the very heart of the Westerners’ own culture and history, if not their own deepest beliefs? At what point do Westerners balk at the fact that “offense” has become a one-way-street, with Muslim “offense” at various aspects of Western culture being treated as sacrosanct while Westerners, if they so much as hint at being offended by any aspect of Muslim culture, are branded as racists and Islamophobes? At what point do Westerners refuse to whittle away at their own cultures and customs in order to please, placate, and pacify? At what point do they take a good, hard look at reality – at the fact that while they may experience a warm, fuzzy feeling at the spectacle of their Muslim neighbors celebrating Muslim holidays, a great many of those Muslim neighbors are determined to eradicate any outward sign of their religious holidays – and realize that something is going very, very wrong?
What a grim mystery the psychology of dhimmitude is! How staggering it is that so many people in the Western world are so willing to allow the furniture of their lives to be rearranged in response to claims of offense founded on some alien culture’s ingrained triumphalism!
When will it stop? For it must stop. For if it doesn’t stop, it’s clear as day where it will all end. –By Bruce Bawer/Front Page Mag/November 15, 2012
Activists May Push For Gay Marriage in More States
Gay rights activists say they're energized by Tuesday's election and may push to legalize same-sex marriage in at least five more states next year, including Minnesota, Illinois, Rhode Island, Hawaii and Delaware.
On Tuesday, activists in Maine, Maryland, and Washington declared victory with their ballot intiatives to give same-sex couples the right to legally marry in their states.
Those states broke a 32-state record in which voters have voted down gay marriage rights every time. They will become the seventh and eighth states to legalize gay marriage and the first states to do so through the people's vote.
In Minnesota, voters rejected a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- but a state law outlawing it remains in place.
Traditional marriage supporters say they'll oppose any upcoming ballot measures to legalize same-sex marriage.
"We're not fighting a battle against gay individuals. We're all children of God. We respect and love everyone," traditional marriag ampaign strategist Frank Schubert said. "But marriage is something God created to bring men and women together and to protect children. And that's why it's so important that we fight whenever there's an opportunity to fight."
The battle was ugly in some states like Maine.Vandals there spray-painted swastikas all over one church Monday night. Before Tuesday, 32 states all rejected legalized same sex marriage.
Marylander Kenya Morton said her state was very open to alternate lifestyles.
"Your opportunities of getting by with stuff that you wouldn't be able to get by with in your state, most likely Maryland will be the state that will let you do it," Morton said.
Many Maryland churchgoers worry state-sanctioned gay marriage will mean they lose the right to teach their children what they feel is biblical about homosexuality.
Delegate Don Dwyer's been a long-time leader in the fight against gay marriage. He said it's all about education of children and the re-definition of the word marriage so that it can be taught in the public schools as a normal sexual lifestyle.
Schubert coordinated the traditional marriage campaigns in all four states that voted Tuesday. At an election-watch party in Washington, D.C., he told CBN News that Christians need to realize the issues going on in places where gay marriage is state-sanctioned.
"It's taught in the schools to young children," Schubert said. "People who believe in marriage as God designed it are punished, they're sued, they're brought before Human Rights Commissions. There are all kinds of consequences that befall us."
Gay marriage will now be legal in eight states plus the District of Columbia. –CBN/November 9, 2012
On Tuesday, activists in Maine, Maryland, and Washington declared victory with their ballot intiatives to give same-sex couples the right to legally marry in their states.
Those states broke a 32-state record in which voters have voted down gay marriage rights every time. They will become the seventh and eighth states to legalize gay marriage and the first states to do so through the people's vote.
In Minnesota, voters rejected a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- but a state law outlawing it remains in place.
Traditional marriage supporters say they'll oppose any upcoming ballot measures to legalize same-sex marriage.
"We're not fighting a battle against gay individuals. We're all children of God. We respect and love everyone," traditional marriag ampaign strategist Frank Schubert said. "But marriage is something God created to bring men and women together and to protect children. And that's why it's so important that we fight whenever there's an opportunity to fight."
The battle was ugly in some states like Maine.Vandals there spray-painted swastikas all over one church Monday night. Before Tuesday, 32 states all rejected legalized same sex marriage.
Marylander Kenya Morton said her state was very open to alternate lifestyles.
"Your opportunities of getting by with stuff that you wouldn't be able to get by with in your state, most likely Maryland will be the state that will let you do it," Morton said.
Many Maryland churchgoers worry state-sanctioned gay marriage will mean they lose the right to teach their children what they feel is biblical about homosexuality.
Delegate Don Dwyer's been a long-time leader in the fight against gay marriage. He said it's all about education of children and the re-definition of the word marriage so that it can be taught in the public schools as a normal sexual lifestyle.
Schubert coordinated the traditional marriage campaigns in all four states that voted Tuesday. At an election-watch party in Washington, D.C., he told CBN News that Christians need to realize the issues going on in places where gay marriage is state-sanctioned.
"It's taught in the schools to young children," Schubert said. "People who believe in marriage as God designed it are punished, they're sued, they're brought before Human Rights Commissions. There are all kinds of consequences that befall us."
Gay marriage will now be legal in eight states plus the District of Columbia. –CBN/November 9, 2012
Who Created God?
The other day a reader asked an interesting question:
“I believe in God, but what is your answer to those who ask, “If you believe in cause and effect, who created God?”
Let us first think of the context in which this question usually comes up. It tends to surface when a theist attempts to prove the existence of God using the first cause argument.
The argument goes something like this. The universe as it now exists is the outcome of a long series of events. These events have been linked by the cause-effect relationship: Each event is the cause of the event that follows it and the effect of the event that precedes it.
It is not possible, however, for the causal chain to extend infinitely into the past, since it is a practical impossibility to traverse an infinite regression. Therefore, the universe had to have a beginning. This logical conclusion is borne out by science and observation which confirm that the universe indeed came into existence at a definite point in the past. This beginning – some scientists tell us – is located in the so-called cosmological singularity which gave rise to the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago.
But since everything that begins to exist must have a cause, the universe, too, must have been caused. Its cause must have been immaterial and immensely powerful. This cause is what we normally call God.
“But, then, who created God?” the sceptic responds.
In the context of this argument the question is somewhat misplaced, because what we sought to address at the outset was not who created God, but who or what created the universe. If the logic and evidence point to the conclusion that it must have been God, then our inquiry is complete. For the answer to be valid, it is not necessary to explain the nature or origin of that cause.
But to pursue this question further, God was not created. He has always existed. This is admittedly a difficult notion for the limited human mind to conceive, but our difficulty in grasping the idea of an eternal, uncreated being does not invalidate its reality. In any case, even though we may not be able to comprehend such a being, we can certainly recognize the necessity of its existence.
If we accept causation as universally applicable then God becomes necessary the moment there exists anything at all. The impossibility of an actual infinite regression makes this inevitable. Once something exists there must also exist a non-contingent ground of being which is either the immediate cause of the phenomenon in question or the initial starting point of the causal sequence of which it is the effect.
God would be necessary even if all that there ever was a brief flash of light somewhere in the universe. The existence of God would, in fact, be indispensable even if all that ever happened was the arising of a single thought in the expanse of eternal nothingness. The reason for this is not difficult to see: Where there is a thought there must be a thinker. And that thinker can either be uncaused – which would be God – or an effect of a causal series which must ultimately ground in God.
The existence of any phenomenon – be it physical or psychological – makes God's existence inescapable. It does not matter whether one is an absolute idealist who thinks that the universe is a mere mental construct or a strict materialist who maintains that everything is either matter or energy. Logic and common sense lead to the same conclusion: The very fact of phenomenal existence implies an uncreated, unconditioned reality which is the ground of being for anything and everything that exists. –Vasko Kohlmayer/Washington Times/July 21, 2012
Foot Note: Born and raised under communism, Vasko Kohlmayer is a naturalized American citizen. He has lived in several countries under various forms of government, but he still marvels at the goodness of God and the wonder of life.
He has written for a number of newspapers, magazines and internet journals. Vasko currently lives in Europe with his long-suffering wife and two beautiful daughters. He is the founder of The Christian Writers Foundation.
“I believe in God, but what is your answer to those who ask, “If you believe in cause and effect, who created God?”
Let us first think of the context in which this question usually comes up. It tends to surface when a theist attempts to prove the existence of God using the first cause argument.
The argument goes something like this. The universe as it now exists is the outcome of a long series of events. These events have been linked by the cause-effect relationship: Each event is the cause of the event that follows it and the effect of the event that precedes it.
It is not possible, however, for the causal chain to extend infinitely into the past, since it is a practical impossibility to traverse an infinite regression. Therefore, the universe had to have a beginning. This logical conclusion is borne out by science and observation which confirm that the universe indeed came into existence at a definite point in the past. This beginning – some scientists tell us – is located in the so-called cosmological singularity which gave rise to the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago.
But since everything that begins to exist must have a cause, the universe, too, must have been caused. Its cause must have been immaterial and immensely powerful. This cause is what we normally call God.
“But, then, who created God?” the sceptic responds.
In the context of this argument the question is somewhat misplaced, because what we sought to address at the outset was not who created God, but who or what created the universe. If the logic and evidence point to the conclusion that it must have been God, then our inquiry is complete. For the answer to be valid, it is not necessary to explain the nature or origin of that cause.
But to pursue this question further, God was not created. He has always existed. This is admittedly a difficult notion for the limited human mind to conceive, but our difficulty in grasping the idea of an eternal, uncreated being does not invalidate its reality. In any case, even though we may not be able to comprehend such a being, we can certainly recognize the necessity of its existence.
If we accept causation as universally applicable then God becomes necessary the moment there exists anything at all. The impossibility of an actual infinite regression makes this inevitable. Once something exists there must also exist a non-contingent ground of being which is either the immediate cause of the phenomenon in question or the initial starting point of the causal sequence of which it is the effect.
God would be necessary even if all that there ever was a brief flash of light somewhere in the universe. The existence of God would, in fact, be indispensable even if all that ever happened was the arising of a single thought in the expanse of eternal nothingness. The reason for this is not difficult to see: Where there is a thought there must be a thinker. And that thinker can either be uncaused – which would be God – or an effect of a causal series which must ultimately ground in God.
The existence of any phenomenon – be it physical or psychological – makes God's existence inescapable. It does not matter whether one is an absolute idealist who thinks that the universe is a mere mental construct or a strict materialist who maintains that everything is either matter or energy. Logic and common sense lead to the same conclusion: The very fact of phenomenal existence implies an uncreated, unconditioned reality which is the ground of being for anything and everything that exists. –Vasko Kohlmayer/Washington Times/July 21, 2012
Foot Note: Born and raised under communism, Vasko Kohlmayer is a naturalized American citizen. He has lived in several countries under various forms of government, but he still marvels at the goodness of God and the wonder of life.
He has written for a number of newspapers, magazines and internet journals. Vasko currently lives in Europe with his long-suffering wife and two beautiful daughters. He is the founder of The Christian Writers Foundation.
Totally RAD: Bioengineers Create Rewritable Digital Data Storage In DNA
 |
| See Below For Photo Explanation |
Sometimes, remembering and forgetting are hard to do.
“It took us three years and 750 tries to make it work, but we finally did it,” said Jerome Bonnet, PhD, of his latest research, a method for repeatedly encoding, storing and erasing digital data within the DNA of living cells.
Bonnet, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, worked with graduate student Pakpoom Subsoontorn and assistant professor Drew Endy, PhD, to reapply natural enzymes adapted from bacteria to flip specific sequences of DNA back and forth at will. All three scientists work in the Department of Bioengineering, a joint effort of the School of Engineering and the School of Medicine.
In practical terms, they have devised the genetic equivalent of a binary digit — a “bit” in data parlance. “Essentially, if the DNA section points in one direction, it’s a zero. If it points the other way, it’s a one,” Subsoontorn explained.
“Programmable data storage within the DNA of living cells would seem an incredibly powerful tool for studying cancer, aging, organismal development and even the natural environment,” said Endy.
Researchers could count how many times a cell divides, for instance, and that might someday give scientists the ability to turn off cells before they turn cancerous.
In the computer world, their work would form the basis of what is known as non-volatile memory — data storage that can retain information without consuming power. In biotechnology, it is known by a slightly more technical term, recombinase-mediated DNA inversion, after the enzymatic processes used to cut, flip and recombine DNA within the cell.
The team calls its device a “recombinase addressable data” module, or RAD for short. They used RAD to modify a particular section of DNA with microbes that determines how the one-celled organisms will fluoresce under ultraviolet light. The microbes glow red or green depending upon the orientation of the section of DNA. Using RAD, the engineers can flip the section back and forth at will.
They reported their findings in a paper published online May 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bonnet is the first author of the paper, and Endy is the senior author.
To make their system work, the team had to control the precise dynamics of two opposing proteins, integrase and excisionase, within the microbes. “Previous work had shown how to flip the genetic sequence — albeit irreversibly — in one direction through the expression of a single enzyme,” Bonnet said, “but we needed to reliably flip the sequence back and forth, over and over, in order to create a fully reusable binary data register, so we needed something different.”
“The problem is that the proteins do their own thing. If both are active at the same time, or concentrated in the wrong amounts, you get a mess and the individual cells produce random results,” Subsoontorn continued.
The researchers found it was fairly easy to flip a section of DNA in either direction. “But we discovered time and again that most of our designs failed when the two proteins were used together within the same cell,” said Endy. “Ergo: Three years and 750 tries to get the balance of protein levels right.”
Bonnet has now tested RAD modules in single microbes that have doubled more than 100 times and the switch has held. He has likewise switched the latch and watched a cell double 90 times, and set it back. The latch will even store information when the enzymes are not present. In short, RAD works. It is reliable and it is rewritable.
For Endy and the team, the future of computing then becomes not only how fast or how much can be computed, but when and where computations occur and how those computations might impact our understanding of and interaction with life.
“One of the coolest places for computing,” Endy said, “is within biological systems.”
His goal is to go from the single bit he has now to eight bits — or a “byte” — of programmable genetic data storage.
“I’m not even really concerned with the ways genetic data storage might be useful down the road, only in creating scalable and reliable biological bits as soon as possible. Then we'll put them in the hands of other scientists to show the world how they might be used,” Endy said.
To get there, however, science will need many new tools for engineering biology, he added, but it will not be easy. “Such systems will likely be 10 to 50 times more complicated than current state-of-the-art genetic engineering projects,” he said.
For what it is worth, Endy anticipates their second bit of rewritable DNA data will arrive faster than the first and the third faster still, but it will take time.
“We’re probably looking at a decade from when we started to get to a full byte,” he said. “But, by focusing today on tools that improve the engineering cycle at the heart of biotechnology, we’ll help make all future engineering of biology easier, and that will lead us to much more interesting places.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, and by fellowship grants from Stanford’s Center for Longevity and its Bio-X program. –By Andrew Myers/Standford School of Medicine/May 21, 2012
Foot Note: Andrew Myers is the associate director of communications for the School of Engineering.
“It took us three years and 750 tries to make it work, but we finally did it,” said Jerome Bonnet, PhD, of his latest research, a method for repeatedly encoding, storing and erasing digital data within the DNA of living cells.
Bonnet, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, worked with graduate student Pakpoom Subsoontorn and assistant professor Drew Endy, PhD, to reapply natural enzymes adapted from bacteria to flip specific sequences of DNA back and forth at will. All three scientists work in the Department of Bioengineering, a joint effort of the School of Engineering and the School of Medicine.
In practical terms, they have devised the genetic equivalent of a binary digit — a “bit” in data parlance. “Essentially, if the DNA section points in one direction, it’s a zero. If it points the other way, it’s a one,” Subsoontorn explained.
“Programmable data storage within the DNA of living cells would seem an incredibly powerful tool for studying cancer, aging, organismal development and even the natural environment,” said Endy.
Researchers could count how many times a cell divides, for instance, and that might someday give scientists the ability to turn off cells before they turn cancerous.
In the computer world, their work would form the basis of what is known as non-volatile memory — data storage that can retain information without consuming power. In biotechnology, it is known by a slightly more technical term, recombinase-mediated DNA inversion, after the enzymatic processes used to cut, flip and recombine DNA within the cell.
The team calls its device a “recombinase addressable data” module, or RAD for short. They used RAD to modify a particular section of DNA with microbes that determines how the one-celled organisms will fluoresce under ultraviolet light. The microbes glow red or green depending upon the orientation of the section of DNA. Using RAD, the engineers can flip the section back and forth at will.
They reported their findings in a paper published online May 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bonnet is the first author of the paper, and Endy is the senior author.
To make their system work, the team had to control the precise dynamics of two opposing proteins, integrase and excisionase, within the microbes. “Previous work had shown how to flip the genetic sequence — albeit irreversibly — in one direction through the expression of a single enzyme,” Bonnet said, “but we needed to reliably flip the sequence back and forth, over and over, in order to create a fully reusable binary data register, so we needed something different.”
“The problem is that the proteins do their own thing. If both are active at the same time, or concentrated in the wrong amounts, you get a mess and the individual cells produce random results,” Subsoontorn continued.
The researchers found it was fairly easy to flip a section of DNA in either direction. “But we discovered time and again that most of our designs failed when the two proteins were used together within the same cell,” said Endy. “Ergo: Three years and 750 tries to get the balance of protein levels right.”
Bonnet has now tested RAD modules in single microbes that have doubled more than 100 times and the switch has held. He has likewise switched the latch and watched a cell double 90 times, and set it back. The latch will even store information when the enzymes are not present. In short, RAD works. It is reliable and it is rewritable.
For Endy and the team, the future of computing then becomes not only how fast or how much can be computed, but when and where computations occur and how those computations might impact our understanding of and interaction with life.
“One of the coolest places for computing,” Endy said, “is within biological systems.”
His goal is to go from the single bit he has now to eight bits — or a “byte” — of programmable genetic data storage.
“I’m not even really concerned with the ways genetic data storage might be useful down the road, only in creating scalable and reliable biological bits as soon as possible. Then we'll put them in the hands of other scientists to show the world how they might be used,” Endy said.
To get there, however, science will need many new tools for engineering biology, he added, but it will not be easy. “Such systems will likely be 10 to 50 times more complicated than current state-of-the-art genetic engineering projects,” he said.
For what it is worth, Endy anticipates their second bit of rewritable DNA data will arrive faster than the first and the third faster still, but it will take time.
“We’re probably looking at a decade from when we started to get to a full byte,” he said. “But, by focusing today on tools that improve the engineering cycle at the heart of biotechnology, we’ll help make all future engineering of biology easier, and that will lead us to much more interesting places.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, and by fellowship grants from Stanford’s Center for Longevity and its Bio-X program. –By Andrew Myers/Standford School of Medicine/May 21, 2012
Foot Note: Andrew Myers is the associate director of communications for the School of Engineering.
Photo Explanation: Under ultraviolet light, petri dishes containing cells glow red or green depending upon the orientation of a specific section of genetic code inside the cells' DNA. The section of DNA can be flipped back and forth using the RAD technique.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)