By MATTI FRIEDMAN 06/29/11
Software developed by an Israeli team is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible.
Archive for June, 2011
Tax Payers Money Used By FBI To Train Anti-gay Group
June 30, 2011FBI: Anti-Gay Group Participated in Training
by Pete Yost
Associated Press, Thursday Jun 30, 2011
The FBI said Wednesday that members of an anti-gay fundamentalist group participated in the bureau’s training of police officers and FBI agents – a move the bureau says it will take steps to remedy in the future.
The bureau extended the invitations to Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., for training this spring at two bureau facilities in Virginia: Quantico and Manassas.
Westboro has stirred widespread outrage with raucous demonstrations at the funerals of U.S. military service members. The group contends God is punishing the military for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.
National Public Radio first reported the FBI’s involvement with Westboro.
At FBI headquarters in Washington, bureau spokesman Paul Bresson acknowledged that Westboro was invited to the training sessions.
An FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that in retrospect, the bureau underestimated how the involvement of the outside organization would be perceived.
As a result, said the official, there will be additional layers of review or approval on outside speakers.
The official added that bureau personnel organizing training courses were trying to bring in a variety of views they thought would be helpful to investigators.
Shocking: How Faulty Science Lands Innocent People Behind Bars as Accused Child Murderers
June 30, 2011Medical examiners and coroners have repeatedly mishandled cases of infant and child deaths, helping to put innocent people behind bars.
This story was produced in a collaboration between PBS Frontline, NPR and ProPublica.
By A.C. Thompson and Chisun Lee and Joe Shapiro and Sandra Bartlett, ProPublica, June 28, 2011
Her name was Isis Charm Vas and at 6 months old she was a slight child — fifth percentile in height and weight.
When the ambulance sped her to Northwest Texas Hospital on a Saturday morning in October 2000, doctors and nurses feared that someone had done something awful to her delicate little body.
A constellation of bruises stretched across her pale skin. CT scans showed blood pooling on her brain and swelling. Her vagina was bleeding, as well. The damage was so severe that her body’s vital organs were shutting down.
Americans Seem To Love Huge Families, But Only If They’re White
June 30, 2011We love women who pump out litters of babies — at least, some women.
By Anat Shenker, AlterNet, June 23, 2011
A quick click through evening television reveals America’s obsession with the huge white family. A short list would include oldies like “The Brady Bunch,” “The Partridge Family,” “7th Heaven” and “The Waltons,” as well newer entries in the scripted and reality show genres (“Big Love,” “Sister Wives,” “19 Kids and Counting,” “Kate Plus Eight”). If television programming is a cultural bellwether, we are really into white women having lots of kids.
What about women of color with huge families? How are they represented in our deep interest in fecundity? For the most part — big shocker — they’re not in the frame.
Obviously, a large part of this is general lack of black and Latino faces on the large or small screen. But even taking this imbalance into account, that still shouldn’t yield zero made-for-TV stories of big households with a darker-skinned matriarch.
The New Era Of “All Natural” False Flag Disasters
June 30, 2011CONTRIBUTOR: ZEN GARDNER
The Japan earthquake leading to a nuclear emergency gives a perfect cover to the general populace. The fact that suddenly a similar submerging of pumps and fuel rod holding tanks happens right in its wake therefore is digestible to most.
How Corporations Buy Access to Power
June 30, 2011By BooMan, BooMan Tribune, June 29, 201
I think you can imagine how a major bank/investment firm like Goldman Sachs can gain access to power. They obviously can make or withhold campaign contributions. They can throw money into political action committees that go after politicians who want to mess with them. They also can offer politicians lucrative six or seven figure jobs should they ever fail to win reelection or want to retire from public service. They can use their pull to get their employees hired by the government. They can hire their regulators. There are many ways that rich Wall Street bankers can assure that Washington DC will let them do pretty much anything they want to do, even if it’s harmful to the country. But, sometimes, they don’t need to do anything.
Epidemic: Over 400,000 Traumatic Brain Injuries for Vets Coming from Iraq and Afghanistan
June 30, 2011America faces a huge challenge in caring for the shocking number or traumatized war vets.
By Conn Hallinan, AlterNet, June 21, 2011
“We are facing a massive mental health problem as a result of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a country we have not responded adequately to the problem. Unless we act urgently and wisely, we will be dealing with an epidemic of service related psychological wounds for years to come.” – Bobby Muller, President Veterans for America
“The multiple nature of it [multiple tours and longer deployments] is unprecedented. People just get blasted and blasted and blasted.” – Maj. Connie Johnmeyer, 332nd Medical Group
According to official Defense Department (DOD) figures, 332,000 soldiers have suffered brain injuries since 2000, although most independent experts estimate that the number is over 400,000. Many of these are mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI), a term that is profoundly misleading.
As David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California at Los Angeles, points out, “I don’t know what makes it ‘mild,’ because it can evolve into anxiety disorders, personality changes, and depression.” It can also set off a constellation of physical disabilities from chronic pain to sexual dysfunction and insomnia.
Why Is Jerry Falwell’s Evangelical University Getting Filthy Rich off Your Tax Money?
June 30, 2011Excerpt: “In the span of a year, Liberty’s experienced about a 56 percent spike in federal student aid, from $284 million in 2008-2009 to $445 million in 2009-2010, according to Department of Education data compiled by The News & Advance. (LU calculates the total aid at $432 million and $277 million, still a 56 percent increase.)”
How taxpayers are funding the world’s biggest Christian evangelical university
Bill Berkowitz / Talk To Action June 29 2011
One might think that a private, decidedly conservative, and totally evangelical Christian University, that was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was openly critical of government programs, would spurn federal dollars.
Au contraire mon ami.
“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” – The Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved
This year, the 40th anniversary of Liberty University, Rev. Falwell’s dream — now being looked after by his son Jerry Jr. — has become a reality thanks in large part to America’s taxpayers.
Founded by Falwell in 1971, Liberty University, which according to its website is “the largest and fastest growing Christian Evangelical university in the world” and “the largest private university in Virginia,” is “celebrating 40 Years of Training Champions for Christ.”
Liberty U. receives massive government aid
During the last fiscal year alone, Liberty received about $445 million in federal financial aid money, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Over the past few years, Liberty University has raked in so much taxpayer money from the federal government that is now ranked among the top ten universities in the United States receiving federal dollars. It is also Virginia’s top recipient of federal money.
Cont: http://www.alternet.org/story/151442/
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More Crazy Religious News:
What’s Victory? The Nine Orwellian Propaganda Terms That Define Our War State
Why Are Conservatives Scared of Cameron Diaz?
Did Glenn Beck Lie about “Attack” in NYC to Drum Up Publicity for New Show?
Christian Parents Deny Health Care for Dying Baby
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THE GAYS ARE COMING – a short history of homophobic documentaries
Batten down the hatches (and keep down your breakfast) because the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council is coming out with a documentary about the so-called dangers of marriage equality
Don’t Look on the Bright Side: Pessimism, Not Magical Thinking, Is What Will Save Us
June 30, 2011It would take a miracle for our intractable problems to become tractable. Being in denial about that doesn’t help anyone.
By Marty Kaplan, Smirking Chimp, June 28, 2011
It gets worse. If you pay attention to the news, the prospects for the future look grim. The new normal of high unemployment and stagnant wages will likely not turn out to be just a phase. The next generations may indeed do worse than the ones before them. Thanks to the Supreme Court, big money will keep tightening its stranglehold on elections and lawmaking. Financial reform and consumer protection will never survive the onslaught of lobbyists. Reckless bankers will go on making out like bandits, and the public will always be forced to rescue them. The Internet, along with cable and wireless, will be controlled by fewer and more-powerful companies. The world will keep staggering from one economic crisis to another. We will not have the leadership and citizenship we need to kick our dependence on oil. We will not even keep up with the Kardashians.
Domestic Spy Agency? 5 Outrageous Examples of FBI Intimidation and Entrapment
June 30, 2011In the 10 years since the Sept. 11th attacks, the FBI has expanded its powers, transforming into a massive domestic spying agency.
By Kevin Gosztola, June 30, 2011
In 2010, the FISA court approved all 1,506 requests by the FBI to electronically monitor suspects. They were also generous with granting “national security letters,” which allow the FBI to force credit card companies, financial institutions, and internet service providers to give confidential records about customers’ subscriber information, phone number, email addresses and the websites they’ve visited. The FBI got permission to spy on 14,000 people in this way.
Woman Gang-Raped by 7 Halliburton Employees “Signed Away” Her Right to Sue? How Justice Has Become the Privilege of Corporations
June 30, 2011Access to justice – like access to elected office, let alone a pundit’s perch – is becoming a perk just for the rich and powerful.
By Laura Flanders, The Guardian, June 29, 2011
Worried about the influence of money in American politics, the huge cash payouts that the US supreme court waved through by its Citizens United decision – the decision that lifted most limits on election campaign spending? Corporations are having their way with American elections just as they’ve already had their way with our media.
But at least we have the courts, right?
Wrong. The third branch of government’s in trouble, too. In fact, access to justice – like access to elected office, let alone a pundit’s perch – is becoming a perk just for the rich and powerful.
Take the young woman now testifying in court in Texas. Jamie Leigh Jones claims she was drugged and gang-raped while working for military contractor KBR in Iraq (at the time, a division of Halliburton). Jones, now 26, was on her fourth day in post in Baghdad in 2005 when she says she was assaulted by seven contractors and held captive, under armed guard by two KBR police, in a shipping container.
When the criminal courts failed to act, her lawyers filed a civil suit, only to be met with Halliburton’s response that all her claims were to be decided in arbitration – because she’d signed away her rights to bring the company to court when she signed her employment contract. As Leigh testified before Congress, in October 2009, “I had signed away my right to a jury trial at the age of 20 and without the advice of counsel.” It was a matter of sign or resign. “I had no idea that the clause was part of the contract, what the clause actually meant,” testified Jones.
FAT FUCK MAGGIE GALLAGHER Anti-Gay Group to Devote At Least $2 Million to Unseat Pro-Marriage NY Lawmakers
June 30, 2011(NOTE: THIS FAT PIG RUNS N.O.W., APPARENTLY SHE DOESN’T LIKE GAY MARRIAGE, DO YOU THINK IF SHE PAID MORE ATTENTION TO HER DIET SHE WOULD FEEL BETTER ABOUT HERSELF AND GET LAID ONCE IN A WHILE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL THE “BUSY BODIES” ON THE “RIGHT” I COULD OF SWORN “DON’T TREAD ON ME” MEANS LET ME LIVE MY LIFE MY WAY AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY. I GUESS THIS BITCH IS JUST TOO FAT TO MOVE QUICKLY FOR ME.)
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- FAT FUCK MAGGIE GALLAGHER
Anti-Gay Group to Devote At Least $2 Million to Unseat Pro-Marriage NY Lawmakers
by Kilian Melloy, Tuesday Jun 28, 2011
The anti-gay right has adopted the language of victimhood in recent years, claiming that changes in the law to grant sexual minorities the status of equality before the law deprives people of faith of their religious liberties and accusing the GLBT community of “bullying” those who oppose their civil rights efforts.
But when opponents to family parity and other civil rights initiatives are not complaining that they are subject to “intimidation” by gays, they direct plenty of aggression at same-sex families and their supporters. The most recent example: Anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) vowed even before the historic June 24 vote in Albany that brought marriage equality to New York that they would target lawmakers who voted for the marriage equality bill.
Now NOM seems to be launching itself into making good on that threat, announcing that it intends to spend at least $2 million to unseat GOP state legislators who stood up for the state’s gay and lesbian families, according to a June 26 article at Gay Marriage Watch.
The Elite, the ‘Great Game’, & World War III
June 29, 2011June 10, 2011 By davidjones
By Prof. Dr. Mujahid Kamran
The control of the US, and of global politics, by the wealthiest families of the planet is exercised in a powerful, profound and clandestine manner. This control began in Europe and has a continuity that can be traced back to the time when the bankers discovered it was more profitable to give loans to governments than to needy individuals.
These banking families and their subservient beneficiaries have come to own most major businesses over the two centuries during which they have secretly and increasingly organised themselves as controllers of governments worldwide and as arbiters of war and peace.
Unless we understand this we will be unable to understand the real reasons for the two world wars and the impending Third World War, a war that is almost certain to begin as a consequence of the US attempt to seize and control Central Asia. The only way out is for the US to back off – something the people of the US and the world want, but the elite does not.
The US is a country controlled through the privately owned Federal Reserve, which in turn is controlled by the handful of banking families that established it by deception in the first place.
In his interesting book The Secret Team, Col. Fletcher Prouty, briefing officer of the US President from 1955-63, narrates a remarkable incident in which Winston Churchill made a most revealing utterance during World War II: “On this particular night there had been a heavy raid on Rotterdam. He sat there, meditating, and then, as if to himself, he said, ‘Unrestricted submarine warfare, unrestricted air bombing – this is total war.’ He continued sitting there, gazing at a large map, and then said, ‘Time and the Ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are’.”
Prouty further states: “This was a most memorable scene and a revelation of reality that is infrequent, at best. If for the great Winston Churchill, there is a ‘High Cabal’ that has made us what we are, our definition is complete. Who could know better than Churchill himself during the darkest days of World War II, that there exists, beyond doubt, an international High Cabal? This was true then. It is true today, especially in these times of the One World Order. This all-powerful group has remained superior because it had learned the value of anonymity.” This “High Cabal” is the “One World Cabal” of today, also called the elite by various writers.
Religious “shared reality” hinders acceptance of scientific reality.
June 29, 2011by Living Life Without a Net ⋅ June 29, 2011
One of the difficulties in discussing religion is that it is not a single phenomenon. It is a belief system, a social structure, a moral paradigm, a set of rituals and practices, and a sense of identity. Typically, when a critic of religion advances a hypothesis about something that religion “causes,” he is shouted down from all sides by people claiming that it’s not “religion,” but some kind of social phenomenon that is operating alongside religion.
This kind of goal-post shifting is frustrating, but ultimately, it is just a diversion from the reality of cause-effect factors in what we can loosely term “the religious environment.” A 2010 study published in the science journal “Social Cognition” has pinned down one functional difference between believers and non-believers. In an article curiously titled IN DEFENSE OF RELIGION: SHARED REALITY MODERATES THE UNCONSCIOUS THREAT OF EVOLUTION, researchers have verified the predictions of “Shared Reality Theory” with regard to believers’ perceptions of evolution and atheists.
[E]xposure to evolution-related words reduced the religiosity and anti-atheist prejudice of participants who perceived their religious experience to be unshared with their fathers, but not of participants who perceived their religious experience to be shared with their fathers… [E]xposure to evolution-related words reduced the religiosity and anti-atheist prejudice of insecurely attached participants but not securely attached participants. Together results suggest that dynamics in religiosity and religion-related prejudice are regulated by the two key elements postulated in shared reality theory: relationship quality and the degree to which relationship-relevant experiences are perceived to be shared.
In lay terms, here’s what it means. Humans are highly susceptible to beliefs about other people’s reality. In experiment after experiment, it has been proven that we consciously and unconsciously adopt the worldviews of those around us. The effect is profound when we want to be liked and accepted, but it is also quite strong in adversarial relationships, as well. (Stockholm Syndrome is a prime example of this.)
More Lies About Homosexuals from the Religious Right
June 29, 2011by Living Life Without a Net ⋅ June 23, 2011
The Family Research Council has fired another salvo in the debate on legalizing same-sex marriage with the release of a new documentary that details the harm same-sex marriage can inflict upon a society. (LINK)
Here we go again. The “dangers” of same sex marriage. Anybody want to take an over-under on how much unbiased science is going to be in this DVD? Here’s a list of their major complaints:
“Some immediate harms involve a loss of freedom for people who disapprove of homosexuality, and the threat to religious liberty for religious nonprofit groups, such as Christian adoption agencies,” says Sprigg.
If you missed it, Sprigg is talking about the fact that religionist adoption service providers will be forced to abide by anti-discrimination laws if gay marriage is illegal. For comparison, let’s substitute another word: ”Some immediate harm involves a loss of freedom for people who disapprove of blacks, and the threat to religious liberty for religious nonprofit groups, such as Christian adoption agencies.”
We’ve been down this road a number of times before, and the same logic has been used. Women weren’t allowed to vote because they were “inherently” less capable than men of understanding the intricacies of politics. Blacks weren’t allowed to… well… do much of anything except be poor and uneducated… because they were viewed as “inherently” less intelligent than whites. Now homosexuals aren’t allowed to marry because they’re “inherently” less capable of raising healthy children, staying faithful, etc.
It’s just bigotry. Let’s not give it more credit than it’s due by calling it something more polite.
Father of Liberalism John Locke’s contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the American Declaration of Independence
June 29, 2011John Locke, widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.
Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.
Source:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Locke/109804249038696
The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition
June 29, 2011The following article from New Dawn Magazine No.23 Feb-March 1994.
This is an age in which news has been superseded by propaganda, and education by brain-washing and indoctrination. From the advertising used to sell poor quality goods, to the classes in schools designed to make children into conditioned robots of the State, the art of persuasion has displaced the simple virtue of truth.
Since the end of the Second World War we have been bombarded from all sides with references to the Western world’s “Judeo-Christian religion,” and “our Judeo-Christian heritage.” We are told by both church leaders and scholars that our society is based on a supposed “Judeo-Christian tradition”.
The notion of “Judeo-Christian religion” is an unquestioned — almost sacrosanct — part of both secular and church thinking. American Christian leader Prof. Franklin H. Littel, a vocal supporter of the Zionist state, frankly declared that “to be Christian is to be Jewish,” and that consequently it was the duty of a Christian to put support for the “land of Israel” above all else. Pat Boon, the North American singer and evangelist, said there are two kinds of Judaism, one Orthodox and the other Christian.
Yet such a decidedly Christian Zionist outlook is to say the least, wildly simplistic and profoundly ahistorical. As the astute Jewish writer, Joshua J. Adler, points out, “The differences between Christianity and Judaism are much more than merely believing in whether the messiah already appeared or is still expected, as some like to say.”
The comments of Jewish author Mr. S. Levin may well explain the Christian’s need for the Judeo-Christian myth. Writing in the Israeli journal Biblical Polemics, Levin concludes: “‘After all, we worship the same God’, the Christian always says to the Jew and the Jew never to the Christian. The Jew knows that he does not worship the Christ-God but the Christian orphan needs to worship the God of Israel and so, his standard gambit rolls easily and thoughtlessly from his lips. It is a strictly unilateral affirmation, limited to making a claim on the God of Israel but never invoked with reference to other gods. A Christian never confronts a Moslem or a Hindu with ‘After all, we worship the same God’.”
Back in 1992 both Newsweek magazine and the Israeli Jerusalem Post newspaper simultaneously printed extensive articles scrutinising the roots of the sacrosanct Judeo-Christian honeymoon!
The statement heading the Newsweek article read: “Politicians appeal to a Judeo-Christian tradition, but religious scholars say it no longer exists.” The Jerusalem Post article’s pull quote announced: “Antisemitism is a direct result of the Church’s teachings, which Christians perhaps need to re-examine.”
“For scholars of American religion,” Newsweek states, “the idea of a single Judeo-Christian tradition is a made-in-America myth that many of them no longer regard as valid.” It quotes eminent Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner: “Theologically and historically, there is no such thing as the Judeo-Christian tradition. It’s a secular myth favoured by people who are not really believers themselves.”
Newsweek cites authorities who indicate that “the idea of a common Judeo-Christian tradition first surfaced at the end of the 19th century but did not gain popular support until the 1940s, as part of an American reaction to Nazism . . ,” and concludes that, “Since then, both Jewish and Christian scholars have come to recognize that — geopolitics apart — Judaism and Christianity are different, even rival religions.”
The Jerusalem Post accused the Christian Church of being responsible for the Holocaust. The French Jewish scholar Jules Isaac was quoted as saying: “Without centuries of Christian catechism, preaching, and vituperation, the Hitlerian teachings, propaganda and vituperation would not have been possible.”
“The problem,” concludes the Jerusalem Post, “is not, as some assert, that certain Christian leaders deviated from Christian teachings and behaved in an un-Christian manner; it is the teachings themselves that are bent.”
Joshua Jehouda, a prominent French Jewish leader, observed in the late 1950s: “The current expression ‘Judaeo-Christian’ is an error which has altered the course of universal history by the confusion it has sown in men’s minds, if by it one is meant to understand the Jewish origin of Christianity . . . If the term ‘Judaeo-Christian’ does point to a common origin, there is no doubt that it is a most dangerous idea. It is based on a ‘contradictio in abjecto’ which has set the path of history on the wrong track. It links in one breath two ideas which are completely irreconcileable, it seeks to demonstrate that there is no difference between day and night or hot and cold or black and white, and thus introduces a fatal element of confusion to a basis on which some, nevertheless, are endeavouring to construct a civilisation.” (l’Antisemitisme Miroir du Monde pp. 135-6).
What is the Truth?
Is there then any truth in this term, “Judeo-Christian”? Is Christianity derived from Judaism? Does Christianity have anything in common with Judaism?
Reviewing the last two thousand years of Western Christian history there is really no evidence of a Judeo-Christian tradition and this has not escaped the attention of honest Christian and Jewish commentators.
Mr. Colson: Tolerance = Totalitarian, Secularism destroyed Enron, God punished with Katrina, etc…
June 29, 2011Colson: Tolerance Breeds Totalitarianism
by Brian Tashman on June 28, 2011
After warning that rights for gays and lesbians will destroy democracy, Chuck Colson now says that “the tyranny of tolerance” can drive America into a totalitarian state. Colson employs the worn out Religious Right argument that Christians face the most persecution and discrimination in America, arguing that tolerance in American society will be the end of freedom:
Is it possible that America could lapse into totalitarianism? Well, it’s not impossible, and I’ll tell you why not.
…
The Western experiment in liberal democracy, best embodied in the United States, achieved representative government, balance of powers, sphere sovereignty, the rule of law. These are bulwarks against totalitarianism.
But the very astute French observer of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned that even America could descend into soft despotism. That could happen, he warned, when the people expect their elected leaders to take care of them and their needs. Sound familiar?
But I’ve thought of another way democracy can slide into totalitarianism—the moral foundations of society erode so badly that the people become malleable. They embrace relativism, as we have in America today; they no longer believe in right and wrong. So popular culture, the educational and political elite, teach us that it’s wrong to judge other people. Tolerance becomes the supreme public virtue.
When that happens, however, somebody has to enforce the tolerance. So-called cultural arbiters—the media, the academics, political leaders—begin to prescribe which things are in bounds and which things are out of bounds for public discussion.
…
This is akin to the soft despotism de Tocqueville warned about, the tyranny of tolerance where the cultural elites seek to eliminate the free expression of moral views in American life.
And that, my friends, is totalitarianism of an unexpected kind. It’s the kind that can catch you by surprise, where you’ll wake up one day to find that you have lost your freedom.
NOTES:
- Secularism brought Enron down, was guilty in Watergate and was honored by GW Bush: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Colson
- “Known within the Nixon administration as the “evil genius,” special counsel Charles W. Colson served seven months in prison in 1974 after pleading guilty.”: Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/charles.html
- The March 2002 online edition of the History News Network reported in “Chuck Colson, Moral Leader” that:
“In a recent column published by Christianity Today Chuck Colson, the Watergate-operator-turned-Christian-reformer, went after people caught lying. Predictably, Colson reprimanded Joseph Ellis, who has now become the poster child of deceit. But Colson also expressed disgust with Stephen Ambrose, whom he lumped in with the liars. Ambrose, Colson observed, ‘plagiarized portions of other historians’ works and — notwithstanding his public apology — seemed hardly disturbed by the resulting controversy.’ Why, Colson wondered, is there such an epidemic of deceit?
“Perhaps he should interview himself. According to the Los Angeles Times Colson did not write the column, though it carried his byline and photo. His assistant, Anne Morse, wrote it.
“The article remains posted on Christianity Today‘s website. At the bottom of the article there’s a section listing related links. The very first one? We swear we are not making this up: ‘Ghostwriting: A Borderline Deceit?’. This editorial, first published in 1982 and then republished just this month, concludes: ‘It is time for readers to be freed from the borderline deceit (and conceit) involved in ghost- and ghostly writing. The reader has the right to know that if an author’s name is given, it is the true author’s true name.’” Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_Colson
“Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call to this country . . . It wakes us up to the fact that our God is sovereign and we should be constantly in a state of repentance humbly seeking God’s favor.” Source: http://www.quotesdaddy.com/author/Chuck+Colson
Gov Brownback of Kansas Pushes His Christianity On Citizens, All Taxpayers Will Fund His Theocracy
June 29, 2011Faith-based frenzy: Kansas Governor preaches religion as solution to social problems
Sandhya Bathija, 28 Jun 2011
Since Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s first day in office, he has made it clear that he no problems blurring the church-state line.
In January, he all but turned his swearing-in ceremony into a religious revival, and he noted his intention to use religion as a way to help the state face its economic and social problems. It now seems those plans are well on their way.
According to the Kansas City Star, Brownback has thrown his support behind a “faith-based” program intended to make sure parolees don’t go back to prison. Called Out4Life, the approach was developed in 2007 by Prison Fellowship, an evangelical Christian organization.
Out4Life doesn’t deny that it proselytizes. Pat Nolan, a vice president with Prison Fellowship, told the newspaper that Out4Life does “give [parolees] the goodness of the gospel,” but he insisted that they don’t have to accept Christ in order to receive help.
Americans United’s Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser told the Star that Brownback is heading into constitutionally dubious territory.
“The states need to provide nonreligious re-entry programming that all inmates can comfortably take part in,” AU’s Luchenitser said.
Related articles:
Richard Nixon as Obama’s role model
June 29, 2011By Bill Van Auken, 29 June 2011
The New York Times published an opinion piece on Sunday drafted by the editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, Gideon Rose, entitled “What would Nixon do?”
Undoubtedly meant to be provocative, the question posed in the headline was directed to the quandaries confronting the Obama White House as it pursues the goals stated by the US president in his speech on the Afghanistan war last week. In his June 22 address, Obama promised a withdrawal of 33,000 “surge” troops by next September and a turnover of security operations to Afghan puppet forces by sometime in 2014.
In our response to the Obama speech, the World Socialist Web Site stated: “The plan announced by Obama will spell an escalation rather than a reduction in the bloodshed in Afghanistan. The aim is to carry out a military offensive over this summer and the next in an attempt to militarily crush the popular opposition to US occupation. To the extent that the withdrawal affects firepower available to US commanders, it will inevitably lead to the use of more air strikes and drone missile attacks and, as a result, an even greater number of civilian casualties.”
The opinion piece drafted by Rose provides added confirmation to this assessment.
Both the author of this piece and the publication that he edits are worth examining. Foreign Affairs, the organ of the Council on Foreign Relations, has long served as a public forum for debating foreign policy issues within the US political establishment. It is the same magazine where Henry Kissinger, then a private citizen, first advanced views on Vietnam that would subsequently be embraced by Nixon after his 1969 inauguration.
As for Rose, he is described by the magazine as an expert on international conflict, terrorism and economic sanctions. He was a Middle East advisor on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, helping craft the sanctions regime against Iraq estimated to have claimed the lives of over half a million Iraqi children.
Thus, Rose advises Obama as a member of the Democratic foreign policy establishment with real experience in the organization of war crimes.
Muslims and Jews Agree: Let’s Abuse Animals
June 29, 2011by Living Life Without a Net ⋅ June 21, 2011
It’s a very bizarre example of how religious belief perpetuates and promotes evil in the name of good. Jewish and Muslim representatives have put away their differences long enough to petition the Dutch government to continue allowing them to abuse animals as part of religious rituals.
“We are against any form of stunning because it’s against our religion,” Yusuf Altuntas, president of the CMO — an organisation that links the Muslim community with the Dutch government — told a parliamentary commission. (LINK)
Dutch law requires that animals be stunned befores slaughter. However, the Netherlands have made an exception for both Muslim Halaal and Jewish Kosher rituals. The Party for Animals (PvD) has submitted legislation to close this loophole, and predictably, the religious are opposed.
Church vs. Evolution and Homosexuality: Nothing New Under the Sun
June 29, 2011by Living Life Without a Net ⋅ June 29, 2011
There’s nothing new about the struggle over gay marriage and evolution. Fortunately, there will also be nothing new about the resolution to either struggle. History has told us everything we need to know about how this will play out in the end.
Both of these issues represent a continual pattern in which religious dogma meets science head-on. In all cases, the church reacts predictably:
1. Denial.
2. Suppression.
3. Try to legalize it out of existence.
4. Incite socio-political struggle.
5. Concede defeat in the end when the science becomes too obvious to oppose.
Everyone is (or should be) familiar with the church’s opposition to all things progressive — where progressive means “more interested in truth than tradition.” At the very least, everyone knows about Galileo. As punishment for observing the truth that the earth revolves around the sun, he was censured in perpetuity, confined to his house for the rest of his life, and his books were banned. What many people do not know is the story of Maria Celeste, Galileo’s daughter. Secret correspondences between the two suggest that she was sympathetic and supportive of his love of astronomy as well as his discoveries. It is suspected that she helped write some of his books. We will never know for sure. She was confined to a monastery and relegated to second class citizenship. Because of her gender. Because the church wanted it that way.
FOX The Good Nazi News Outlet
June 29, 2011“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Göring shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
“….the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
INTERVIEW WITH HERMANN GOERING AT NUREMBERG, APRIL 18, 1946, BY GUSTAVE GILBERT
Church complains – Gets Special Right To Silence Free Speech In Form Of A Public Billboard.
June 29, 2011Church complains — ‘Good without God’ billboard removed!
by: Freedom From Religion Foundation 28 Jun 2011
A billboard featuring a cheerful student saying, “I can be good without God,” was too much for the delicate sensibilities of a local church in Columbus, Ohio, which insisted late last week that a local billboard company remove the message.
The billboard picturing Dylan Galos, a Columbus student and atheist, was removed and is awaiting placement at an alternate eastside Columbus location.
Dylan’s billboard is one of seven featuring local nonbelievers posted within the last week for a month-long lease in Columbus, Ohio, as part of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “Out of the Closet” campaign.
The colorful billboards bear the faces and personal views of friendly neighborhood atheists.
“The action of this censorious church shows exactly why our campaign, intended to encourage social acceptance of nonbelievers, is so important,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president.
“Do its deacons truly believe one can’t be good without God?” wonders Gaylor. “Nonbelievers know that it is not what you believe, but how you act, that makes you a moral person. We don’t feel the need to be rewarded in heaven or threatened with everlasting punishment in order to do good and be ethical.”
Related articles:
Is Michele Bachman Really a “Tea Party Darling”? Reporters should ask Missouri & AZ Tea Partiers.
June 29, 2011Welcome to Dump Bachmann, Opposition Researchers!
The internets and the media is all abuzz with “Bachmannia” – Michele Bachmann is gaining cred as a candidate for President of the United States. For other GOP candidates and the party, there is now an admission that Bachmann may be at the head of the ticket in 2012. What to do? Dig for dirt on Bachmann, naturally. But where?
It’s not like any of that is hard to find either. All of it meticulously catalogued at the Dump Bachmann blog, a treasure trove of ready-made opposition research and aggregation that’s currently fourth on the results page when you search Google for “Michele Bachmann.”
No doubt other campaigns already have that page bookmarked.
And to make it easier, here’s a short, quick list of of Bachmannalia culled from past Dump Bachmann posts and other sources. We will be updating it as new skeletons come tumbling out of Bachmann’s closet. We’ll be adding more stuff all the time, so check back often…
Rescued pics of Bachmann hiding in the bushes at GLBT rally.
Is Michele Bachman Really a “Tea Party Darling”? Reporters should ask Missouri & AZ Tea Partiers.
Michele Bachmann’s Former Campaign Manager and Mentor Bill Pulkrabek Arrested for Assault
Bachmann refused to shake hands with constituent.
Bachmann’s Cable TV Expenses Getting Charged to the State. Scans of cable bills HERE.
GOP blogger tells all about 2006 Bachmann convention hijinks and nasty tactics HERE & HERE.
Bachmann and Bathroomgate.
Bachmann claimed Iran had a plan to partition Iraq. Bachmann also claimed recently that Iran likely had nuclear warheads.
Michele Bachmann Senate transportation record….Bachmann & the Pod People.
Bachmann’s fundraising and prayers for Bradlee Dean and the financial shenanigans of YCRBYCH here and here.
Bachmann’s ties to sham charity U.S. Navy Vets… just curious how long she’ll keep that photo of USNV, and pod lobbyist Edwin Cain on her Congressional website…
The Fabulous Marcus “First Husband” Bachmann.
Bachmann preaching at Mac Hammond’s church.
Bachmann treats veterans like nameless props for her campaigns.
Bachman flirts with radio jocks: “It’s pink and it does what it’s supposed to do!”
Bachmann’s support for a group on the State Department Terrorist Watch List.
Bachmann apologized for using MN Senate as a prop for a commercial (Video).
… and that letter requesting a pardon for convicted money launderer and Petters Ponzi associate Frank Vennes Jr.
Ron Paul Supporters Discover Michele Bachmann Was an IRS Repo-Gal
June 29, 2011“What a liberty loving freedom seeker she is. I’m sure she has some excuse for being a henchman that saw the light.
You know – there should be a thread dedicated to opposition research to dig up stuff like this. Then in needs to culminate in a comparison chart and distributed at the straw polls and early states.”
Obama’s Katrina
June 29, 2011Obama’s Katrina
Patrick Martin, 29 June 2011
Large sections of rural and small-town America are being laid waste by storms, floods and wildfires, with little or no assistance from the federal government.
The devastation of New Orleans and much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina exposed the incompetence and criminal indifference of the Bush administration. A great American city was virtually destroyed by the failure of the levees maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The rescue effort was botched by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, while Bush gave his thumbs-up to FEMA chief Michael Brown, declaring he was doing “a heckuva job.” More than a thousand people died in New Orleans alone and half a million fled the hurricane zone, many never to return.
In recent months the Obama administration has presided over a series of smaller-scale Katrinas in rural and small-town America. Vicksburg, Mississippi; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Joplin, Missouri and Minot, North Dakota are just the best known of the towns laid waste. In each case, natural disasters have become social disasters because of neglect and indifference on the part of the state and especially the federal government.
…
In Washington, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has slashed federal disaster relief funding and demanded that any increased spending due to the unprecedented slew of extreme weather events be offset dollar-for-dollar by budget cuts in other domestic social programs.
This series of natural disasters have underscored the failure of American capitalism, which is incapable either of making the necessary preparations in advance, or mobilizing after the event the resources of society in a rapid and humane relief and recovery effort.
All those who have been devastated by the floods, tornadoes and wildfires should be made whole, with billions of dollars allocated for the reconstruction of damaged homes, farms and other small businesses and for compensation for lost income. A massive public works program should be launched to hire the unemployed and rebuild and modernize levee and flood control systems, tornado warning systems, and land management and fire prevention.
The resources needed for such an effort exist in abundance in America—still the wealthiest country in the world—but they have been monopolized by the financial aristocracy that exercises a stranglehold over both the US economy and the government.
To fight this corporate elite, and its two political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, the working class must build an independent mass political movement of its own, committed to a revolutionary struggle for socialist policies, to make human need, not private profit, the organizing principle of economic life.
Jesus Was Gay. See: Gospel of Mark
June 29, 2011JESUS WAS GAY, ACCORDING TO MARK
JK & Professor Morton Smith*
Professor Morton Smith, a Christian (believes that we essential know of the life and teachings of Jesus) has found a letter by the Bishop of Alexandria (c. 125 C.E.) describing a deleted passage of Mark’s Gospel.
It should be noted that Morton Smith is a Christian, and typical of them, even in their critical scholarship, they are committed to certain conclusion that the evidence fails to uphold. They invariable fail to address several compelling criticisms of the New and Old Testaments. They assume certain truths, which upon scrutiny aren’t truths. In the case of Morton Smith, he holds that there is an historical Jesus, a viewpoint that has been shown to be without merit by the German School of biblical scholars at the beginning of the 20th century and improved upon by later scholars.
Scholars have long wondered at a curious passage in the canonical Gospel of Mark (undisputedly the oldest of the canonical gospels) which seems to hint that a detail or two might have been left out: “Then they came to Jericho. As he was leaving Jericho with his disciples…” (Mark 10:46). But what happened in Jericho on Jesus’ whistle-stop tour of the provinces? Did Jesus simply pass through and then leave without doing or saying anything to anyone? If the visit was so irrelevant to Jesus’ mission, why is it even mentioned? The gap suggests a mission portion of Mark’s Gospel. The Letter—supplied below–of Clement’s, who had access to the complete version of Mark’s gospel, places the events in Jericho.
Both what is missing and why is supplied by Morton Smith, the Columbia University professor scholar whose 1958 research expedition culminated in the discovery of a copy of a letter in the 1646 edition of letters of Ignatius of Antioch (a 2nd century church writer) at the monastery of Mar Saba, twelve miles south of Jerusalem. The letter consists of 3 pages of Greek manuscript bound in as end-papers. This letter contains quotes from what Saint Clement of Alexandria (c.156-211) refers to as “The Secret Gospel of Mark.” Professor Smith writes, “Based on this letter we can conclude that “The Secret Gospel of Mark” was the older and more complete, and the version we have is an edited version with the troubling passages left out by the Church fathers. The portions supplied by Clement in this letter found by Professor Morton Smith fill in the gap at Mark 10:46.
Morton Smith published his findings in 1973 in two different books: one was a rigorously academic volume from Harvard entitled Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, while the second was a popular explanation The Secret Gospel. It is the latter which I have read.
Bishop Clement of Alexandria has 3 surviving books Exhortation to the Greeks, The Instructor, and the Miscellanies, and several fragments and lesser works. One is a letter to a disciple named Theodore who had asked for advice regarding the Caprocratians, (a Gnostic Christian sect) use of the “Secret Gospel of Mark.” Clement not only confirmed the existence and authority of “Secret Mark” in his reply, but actually denounced Carpocrates for using black magic to steal a copy “Secret Mark” from the church library!
So scandalous was the Carpocratian “The Secret Gospel of Mark” that Clement advised Theodore never to admit that Mark even wrote it: ”You did well in silencing the unspeakable teachings of the Carpocratians. For… priding themselves in knowledge, as they say, “of the deep things of Satan,” they do not know that they are casting themselves away into “the nether world of darkness”… For even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not, even so, agree with them….
“Now of the things they keep saying about the divinely inspired Gospel of Mark… even if they do contain some true elements, [these] are not reported truly….
“As for Mark then, during Peter’s stay in Rome [Mark] wrote an account of the Lord’s doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress towards knowledge. Thus he composed a more spiritual gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord… [and] he left his composition in the church in… Alexandria, where it is… most carefully guarded, being read only by those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.
“But since the foul demons are always devising destruction for the race of men, Carpocrates… using deceitful arts, so enslaved a certain presbyter in the church that he got from a copy of the secret gospel, which he interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine….
“To them, therefore, as I said above, one must never give way… [or] even concede that the secret gospel is by Mark… but deny it on oath. For, ‘Not all true things are to be said to all men…”
This letter is strong evidence that the Secret Gospel of Mark was in fact the complete version of Mark, and what we have is the edited version by the Church fathers. Barnstone at 340 lists as being visible signs of this editing process Mark 4:ll; 9:25-27; 10:21, 32,38-39; 12:32-34; 14:51-52. What, then, were these “true things” that the Church fathers hoped to hide from the untutored eyes of the average Christian? What was the unspeakable?
St. Clement quotes from this complete, “Secret” Gospel of Mark” at length towards the end of his letter. Clement in the last third of his letter to Theodore wrote: “To you, therefore I shall not hesitate to answer the questions you have asked refuting the falsifications by the very words of the [Secret] Gospel” (Barnstone 342). “And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me.’ But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her unto the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth came to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.”
“After these words follows the text, “And James and John come to him,” and all that section. But “naked man with naked man,” and the other things about which you wrote, are not found.
“And after the words, ‘And he comes into Jericho,’ the secret Gospel adds only, ‘And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved, and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them. But many other things about which you wrote both seem to be and are falsifications. ”
“Now the true explanation and that which accords with the true philosophy. ”1
This passage quoted by Clement from the Gospel, could be interpreted as an account of a baptism preformed by Jesus on this young lad—and some do—but for 3 facts. One that Clement and the Church fathers not only suppressed the passage but found it “scandalous.” Second, the plain meaning of the words “naked man with naked man” and “whom Jesus loved” support the conclusion that Sexual union with a man as part of the sacrament was practiced. Third, that it was a practice of some Christian sects for (like in Tantra Yoga) to engage in sexual intercourse as part of a union with God. Such was said of some Christian communities. There are passages in the Pauline Epistles which admonishing certain unnamed sexual practices and there is a letter from a Roman physician describing in detail this practice. Morton Smith, the discoverer of the letter writes: “Freedom from the [Mosaic] law may have resulted in completion of the spiritual union by physical union. This certainly occurred in many forms of Gnostic Christianity; how early it began there is no telling” (Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel, p. 94, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel according to Mark. New York: Harper & Row, 1973). From the tone of the letter of Clement, the fact that our present Gospel of Mark is incomplete in a way that indicates deliberate suppression of the passage, from the quoted passages of in the letter, and from the practices of early Christian communities it is quite reasonable to conclude that the Secret Gospel. Mark described the sexual union of Jesus with a young disciple.
This portrayal of the Messiah Jesus as partaking in sexual union fits well with the view of Jesus as a prophet, like Mohammed, Elijah, and others. Much has been written on the meaning of the Messiah (“anointed leader”) and the meaning of the “Son of God” needs to be set in its proper context. A number of heroes were the son of god, including Heracles, Helen, and more recently, it was widely believed that Philip of Macedonia was not the real son of Alexander, but rather a god. Mark was first, his Gospel was incorporated with aggrandizements, and revisions by Matthew and Luke. Mark saw Christ as a mortal unto whom the spirit of god has entered when he was baptized.2 If he was a god or part of Yahweh (as is currently maintained) then God would not need to inform his son3 that he is his son, unless “son of God” meant something like chosen one—a position held by the Gnostic Christians. “Son of God, most scholars agree, is an ambiguous title at best, so too, is lord from the Aramaic mare, which could be interpreted in a spectrum of ways from the mundane “sir” to the divine “lord.”4 As a mortal, having intercourse with women would be fitting, and to be celibate would be very abnormal. Having sex with a young man, in the Hellenized world also was quite unexceptional.
Would it be very abnormal for Jesus to take a young man and in the religious initiation have sex with him? The Greeks and Romans both approved such if done with the spirit of a mentor. Bisexuality was the norm. Three centuries of Greek and Roman domination had its effects. Mark had written in his fiction on the life of Jesus5 things that were deemed proper in the Hellenized world? Could not Mark, who was most certainly not Mark of the disciples6, be Hellenized? “Modern research often proposes as the author an unknown Hellenistic Jewish Christian, possibly in Syria and perhaps shortly after the year 70.”7 Clement of Alexandria in his letter acknowledges a complete and suppressed original edition of Mark’s Gospel, a copy in the Church’s library in Alexandria. Thus the most consistent explanation of the missing passages including the one concerning Jericho is that the Church Counsel was not as Hellenized as Mark, and that they upheld the Hebraic injunction against Greek love.
When Presidential Fundamentalist Conservative Christian Who States The USA Is A Christian Nation Michele Bachmann Is Fact Checked: 1 out or 23
June 29, 2011A TRUE CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN: ONE OUT OF 23 PAST STATEMENTS WAS TRUE !
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Fact-checking Michele Bachmann on ‘Face the Nation’
By Robert Farley, Angie Drobnic Holan, Louis Jacobson
Published on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 6:23 p.m.
Michele Bachmann is no stranger to PolitiFact. We’ve rated many of her provocative statements over the last few years. Bachmann, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, is now running for president, and a poll over the weekend showed her in a tie for first place in the Iowa caucuses.
On Sunday June 26, 2011, Bachmann appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation and was interviewed by journalist Bob Schieffer. Schieffer reviewed some of PolitiFact’s findings and asked Bachmann about her record for inaccurate statements.
We’ve reported two new fact-checks from Bachmann’s interview. Bachmann also repeated several talking points we’ve already reviewed and found less than fully accurate, so we’ll review those items as well.
Continue:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/jun/27/fact-checking-michele-bachmann-face-nation/
