Religious Expression
The Messenger of Allah
My last article on how Random House bowed down to blackmail from Islamic groups must have hit a nerve with a lot of people so I thought that I might continue to explore this a little bit more. (I’ll get back to domestic politics and the election once the conventions start.)
Have you heard of the “Messenger of Allah Unites Us”? Probably not, but it should hit the news in the not too distant future. As I was surfing the internet, I came across a lot of eye opening sites, but this campaign caught my attention because I think it is the most dangerous to us.
In a nutshell, everybody remembers how violent the Islams became over those cartoons of Mohammed printed in the Danish newspapers, right? Long story short, a group of Jordan Muslims started a new campaign to stop this from happening again.
The “Messenger of Allah Unites US” condemns the previous violent reaction. Instead of violence, they are now boycotting Dutch companies. They even have a poster showing all of the products on their boycott list. But how a company can avoid this boycott is the true heart of this campaign.
According to Fact International, a website by the Messenger of Allah Unites Us group, the purpose of this campaign is to “criminalize any act deemed to be insulting to Islam”. That’s right. This Jordan group now says they won’t be violent or boycott your product just as long as your country never insults Islam again and jails anyone who does. As to what act might be considered insulting… who knows. And yet some companies actually signed this statement so that they would no longer be boycotted. Those are the ones I want to boycott!
They also submitted a resolution against defamation of religions to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Although France, Germany and Britain voted against it, 21 countries approved the resolution, including Cuba, China and Russia. Oh right, those three are known for their protection of freedom of religion! What hypocrits!
But the sheer audacity of the Messenger of Allah group is in this next move. They filed charges against a number of Europeans including Dutch parliamentarian, Geer Wilders, who made an anti Islam film. They were accused of blasphemy and inciting hatred. The impact of this was analyzed by TheFrontPageMag.com:
“But what is most disturbing is that an Islamic country would dare subpoena citizens of another state for an action not committed within its borders but in a land where no laws were broken. Besides being meant as a weapon of intimidation, this tactic also represents a frightening extension of Islamic law into the heart of western countries.
But perhaps most ominously, this incredibly brazen measure shows that even a small Islamic country like Jordan has no fear of Europe. And, indeed, no retaliatory response met the Jordanian court’s action against European citizens.”
Wow. Now they could try to silence anyone anywhere. Yet something like the above has no power unless you give it to them. However, just as some companies have given in to Islamic blackmail I am afraid that a democratic country will submit to this. Can’t you just see some bleeding heart liberal judge, who in the interest of respecting diversity, throws out the freedom of speech and turns over a citizen to Jordan? And once precedence is set then the game is over. So we must never give in.
Once again I’m not sure what everyday people like us can do about it. I guess the best we can do is to be aware of what is happening. I will try to help since I do have the time to research and look for things I think people should know about. And if we are ever faced with a decision ourselves, then we have to take a stand no matter the consequences. It may not be easy but we must protect our freedoms and our country.
And it is no accident that our national anthem ends with these words; the land of the free and the home of the brave. Because if we’re not brave when faced with these challenges and don’t do the right thing then we will no longer be free.
Islamic Blackmail Wins Again
Remember the date of August 7, 2008.
It is when America had another major loss in the war on terrorism and continued this country’s long slide into becoming subjugated by Muslims and radical Islams. Perhaps I am being overly dramatic, yet I really don’t think so. But let me tell you what happened and you can decide for yourself.
A journalist, Sherry Jones had written her first novel, “The Jewel of Medina” which followed the life of one of Mohammed’s wives. In a Reuter’s interview Sherry is quoted as saying “I have deliberately and consciously written respectfully about Islam and Mohammed…. I envisioned that my book would be a bridge-builder.”
Random House picked up the novel with a publishing date of August 12 and then an eight-city publicity tour. However, on August 7th Random House decided it was not going to publish this book and the Reuter’s article continued:
Random House deputy publisher Thomas Perry said in a statement the company received “cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”
“In this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel,” Perry said.
If it weren’t so scary I would find it to be incredibly ironic. One of our most sacred freedoms is that of the free press. How often has the media berated conservatives for wanting to take out books they deemed offensive? How many times has the ACLU defended schools that stocked books that most of the parents find inappropriate for children?
Yet when a major publishing company backs down on publishing a book there isn’t a single outcry. No one at ACLU is standing up for Sherry Jones’s. There isn’t even a whisper on how Random House was blackmailed by “the Muslim community” except by bloggers. There are a lot of heated exchanges on the internet but it still all goes back to a writer’s freedom to write whatever she likes, even if it might offend some Muslims. Boo hoo. Could you imagine the outcry if that best seller the Da Vinci Code treated Mohammed the same way it treated Jesus? Or the uproar by the biased media if it had been a Christian group that threatened violence if Random House published an anti Christian book? It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.
It almost makes me say why bother? The press is crucifying anyone who supports the war in Iraq and the war on terror. But why should our soldiers give their lives to protect freedoms that the press is willing to roll over on when there is the first hint of violence? It is simply unbelievable that a major company such as Random House is terrified of upsetting the Muslims and actual gave in to their blackmail. And yet it did happen.
I use to think the conservative talk radio and TV shows were getting pretty extreme at times. I don’t any more. And to go back to the start of this article, do you think I was exaggerating about the importance of what just happened? No, I don’t think so, either. Not sure what we can do other than keep a watch for other instances of how this country is bowing down to the radical Islams. If the liberal press won’t do their job then we must do it for them. And if you agree then please feel free to start emailing this article and any others like it to your friends and even to conservative radio and TV shows. We need to let the Muslims and the liberals know that
once again it is the conservatives, the true patriots who will save the far left from their own cowardice and will protect all of America’s freedoms, including the freedom of the press.
Decline of Christianity
In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country (England) was mired in a doctrine of ‘endless self-indulgence’ that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking. . . . .
Dr Nazir-Ali’s attack on the decline of Christianity appears to put him in the opposite corner to the arch-liberal Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and many of his fellow bishops. But he holds some views in common with the Church’s other widely-heard and popular prelate, Ugandan-born Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.
Over the past six months, Dr Nazir-Ali has made a number of criticisms of Islam and its influence. Among them have been charges about the spread of no-go areas for non-Muslims and worries over the impact of new mosques. The entire report can be read at DailyMail.co.uk Dr Nazir-Ali detailed his arguments in an article in the newly-launched political magazine Standpoint.
The bishop, himself an immigrant from Pakistan in the mid-1980s, admitted that he might be thought of as the least qualified person to discuss British identity. But he quoted Kipling: ‘What should they know of England who only England know?’
The “Prosperity Gospel”
THE “PROSPERITY GOSPEL”
One of the slogans of the disciples of this new cult is “Name it and claim it.” (Some wags have it as “Blab it/Grab it.) We’ve been hearing for decades that God’s will is that everyone should be healthy and prosperous, so that anyone who isn’t is simply lacking in faith. In fact, I remember a healing specialist from Saratoga Springs, New York who went so far as to say, “If we have enough faith, God has no choice but to heal.” I honestly don’t know what she did with the Apostle Paul’s statement that he had prayed fervently three times to be delivered of his “thorn in the flesh” (possible the best guess: malaria), but that all God did was tell him, “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.” It’s a little hard to imagine Paul as a man lacking in faith.
The healer to whom I’m referring did some significant damage. When my ten-year-old brother-in-law ultimately died of leukemia (this being in 1959, when kids generally didn’t recover from it), my mother-in-law blamed herself and the family for not having generated sufficient faith to keep him alive.
The so-called prosperity gospel, sometimes known as the health and wealth gospel, is probably strongest among the general run of televangelists and in the megachurches. It goes without saying that anything resembling responsible interpretation of the Bible, as opposed to proof-texting, is not permissible in this context. Children and teenagers are urged to memorize Scripture verses containing God’s promises, and steered away from any discussion of Jesus’ statement that anyone desiring to follow him must take up his cross and do so. The cross, of course, has become an innocuous symbol of the Christian faith, having lost the impact that it must have made when Jesus first mentioned it in this context, some time before he died on one. It was simply the epitome of cruel and unusual punishment, an unspeakable horror for anyone facing execution by that means. What Jesus was saying was that his followers must be ready to give their lives for him by the cruelest means of torture available to his enemies.
By the same token, the Greek behind our word “martyr” originally meant “witness.” In those first centuries of evangelism, being a witness for Christ meant exposing oneself to the very real possibility of dying for him, and in time the word took on the meaning we still give it. I have read in a responsible publication that no fewer than a half-billion Christians are currently living under persecution, out of a total of two billion worldwide who claim to be Christians. Try telling THEM their problem is a lack of faith.
But then, the prosperity gospel is nothing new. At one juncture Jesus felt constrained to get rid of the many hangers-on who expected him to keep them healthy and well-fed. He did so by telling them, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53, NIV). It seems obvious to most of us that he meant a total involvement in faith with him that would come to be symbolized in the Eucharist, but many didn’t stay around long enough to find out.
The texts plucked out of the Bible by the purveyors of this ideology may sound very convincing, but a wise Bible scholar once pointed out that a text without a context is nothing but a pretext. And the Apostle Paul, speaking of some early perversions of the simple faith, stated, “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” Pretty harsh words, but a lot was at stake, both then and now.
Liberation Theology
Around 1959, One of my professors remarked, “The battleground of the remainder of the twentieth century will be the question of authority.” It wasn’t long before, as someone said, Pope John XXIII decided to open the shutters to let in a little air and the wind blew them off the hinges. The former Cardinal Ratzinger has pointed out more than once that unjustified extrapolations from the proceedings of Vatican II have formed the basis of liberation theology, which first took hold largely in a Latin American Roman Catholic context. Specifically, the adherents of the Catholic branch of the movement have set aside the teaching office of their church and attempted to bring their own authority to the development of their system.
Liberation theology is based on a complex set of presuppositions growing out of the deconstructionist aspect of postmodernism. Specifically, since even the Bible is thought to be informed by the prejudices of its time, it is felt that we may legitimately reinterpret it in the light of the pressing concerns of our own sociopolitical environment. As Cardinal Ratzinger, presently the Pope, expresses it, now “the experience of the ‘community’ determines the understanding and the interpretation of Scripture.” He goes on to say that Karl Marx’s dialectical view of history is brought into play in liberation theology’s approach to the Bible, leading to the view that human beings must engage in revolutionary activities to bring about the liberation of the masses.
The ideology itself is rather complex and has many submovements within it, and perhaps that is inevitable in the nature of the case. If no one’s truth is authoritative, ideologies tend to splinter. Be that as it may, at its most basic level, liberation theology goes to the Bible and finds that God often warns his people that he opposes the rich when they oppress the helpless, and that he is on the side of the dispossessed. This theme runs right through the Hebrew prophets and is picked up in a startling way in Mary’s inspired hymn of praise when she declares of God, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:53, NIV).
The problem for those of us who still believe the Bible should be approached through a set of consecrated common-sense hermeneutical principles is that there is a tremendous logical leap between God’s declaring himself to be on the side of the dispossessed and against the wealthy exploiter, and the idea that human beings should foment revolution, including the use of violence “if necessary.” What is plain on the surface of the New Testament is that Jesus never suggests that his followers should take up arms to change the world. A group of zealots tried that and ended up dead on top of the Masada fortress. It is also plain that Jesus and his apostles intended rather to undermine the evils of their time. St. Paul’s statement that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) is one of the most radical pronouncements ever made in the ancient world. The fact that the church was extremely slow to implement its implications does not invalidate the case.
Furthermore, liberation theology strays so far from the clear meaning of the Scripture that it often ends in fanatical irrationality. A former colleague of mine was an extreme pacifist and, as a sincere Mennonite, profoundly dedicated to the cause of the poor and downtrodden of Latin America. Yet that led him to become so enamored of liberation theology that he believed it was legitimate for the poor to take up arms and massacre the rich. He even declared that the rich of Latin America did not deserve to have the gospel preached to them. Great idea. The Bible says I don’t either.
Back to the question of authority. The traditional Christian presupposition is that the Bible has God behind it and is therefore authoritative as it stands. Liberation theology’s presupposition is that the Bible is a fundamentally human document, complete with outdated ideologies that must be identified and rooted out. The only authoritative reading of it, then, is one that the proponents of liberation theology can convince the public is pertinent to our time.
Convince away, but Marxism isn’t doing so well, for all its talk about “praxis,” and the Judeo-Christian ethic of redemption of the whole person, when properly applied, still works in practice.
Maps of War (and Peace)
Someone working on the Maps of War site has done a wonderful job of graphically portraying the development of the major religious groups through history in the video entitled “History of Religion.” There are slight errors, for example the portrayal of all of Spain as under Islam in the eighth century AD, when the northwest corner remained steadfastly Catholic, but overall it is an excellent history lesson. What strikes me, though, is that the Jews were never particularly interested in converting people, but that the Christians took off from their base in Judaism and spread over much of the world through persuasion.
That was at the beginning. With their so-called triumphalism in place, the “Christians” lost their biblical bearings and began massacring people (including each other) in the name of their faith. Islam didn’t bother with any initial restraint, but spread mainly by way of conquest from the outset. Its representatives have been called “meataxe missionaries.” As for the Eastern religions, their emphases, in particular Gautama Buddha’s insistence that “life equals suffering,” inhibited any movement to improve the lot of the people in material terms for many centuries.
Oh, religion! What crimes have been committed in thy name!
World Ends With A Whimper Not A Bang.
The National Policy Institute estimates what the world will look like in 2060 – about 50 years hence.
According to an article in Human Events authored by Pat Buchanan and published on May 2, 2008 in 1950 whites were 18% of the world’s population and Africans accounted for 9%. By 2060 the percentages will be about the same but the colors reversed. Two hundred million whites will vanish by then. Arabic people, counted among whites, will rise ten-fold to 743 million and account for 75% of whites.
Iran’s population will rise from 71 to 100 million. Pakistan will grow to 300 million from about 71 million today. Afghanistan will triple to 79 million and Iraq will leap from 29 to 62 million. In America Hispanics will triple to 127 million while Mexico will grow to 130 million.
Last October PEW RESEARCH asked 45,000 people in 47 countries what they thought and majorities in 46 countries expressed fear about loss of their national culture. Sixty-two percent of Americans said more must be done to protect “our way of life.” Three-fourths wanted stiffer immigration laws and restrictions. Asians, Africans and Middle Easterners appear, by simple weight of numbers appear to be poised to inherit the earth.
“This is the way the world ends, “wrote T. S. Eliot in his closing couplet of “The Hollow Men,” “Not with a bang but a whimper.” It begs the question of whose world to which he referred.
Wright’s Rants Wrecking Obama
Barack Obama said Tuesday that his relationship with REV JEREMIAH WRIGHT has changed because of what Wright said contradicts much of what Obama stands for has done and is trying to do. Obama said yesterday’s “performance” by Wright was a “bunch of rants.” Obama said what Wright said contradicts his fundamental convictions; was a:show of disrespect to me” and an “insult to what we have been trying to do in this campaign.” Obama said nothing Wright said yesterday was constructive and Wright “caricatured” himself. Obama said he made clear to Wright that his “sound bites” was inexcusable when he spoke with him before his Philadelphia speech.
Obama said Wright was never his spiritual mentor nor advisor but his pastor. That parses the words “mentor” and “advisor” when compared with what Obama described in his book. Obama has been sent reeling by Rev. Wright’s radicalism. Obama said it was only yesterday that he realized the tone and impact of Wright. Main stream media is filled with denunciation of Wright.
NEWT GINGRICH said yesterday and on Tuesday’s ABC SHOW the VIEW that Wright appears is trying to harm Obama. Observation and polls appear to prove that if that is correct Wright is succeeding.
Wright’s comments have raised Obama’s already majority unfavorability ratings even higher with 41% saying he hurts their opinion of Obama.
Wright’s Sunday Speech To NAACP To Be Carefully Watched.
The Detroit chapter of the NAACP is featuring Barack Obama’s longtime minister, Jeremiah Wright, as keynote speaker at its annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner this Sunday. It is billed as the largest annual sit-down dinner of African Americans in the country. At least 10,000 people are expected to hear the Rev. Wright speak.
The question on most lips is will Wright make his trademark denunciations of America as an oppressor of blacks and a creator of the AIDS virus to kill them off?
“When you take the t-e-x-t out of context, you’re left with c-o-n, and we have been conned,” Detroit branch NAACP President Wendell Anthony explained as he announced the dinner’s speaker at a news conference. If Wright shouts anything like, “Goddamn America,” the context will flow like sewage into Indiana, North Carolina and across the nation to Obama’s deficit. Stay tuned.
Question of the Day
Does Bill Maher deserve to be fired again as Newsday says in recent article?
Or is he America’s most politically astute comedian as The Huffington Post said recently?
Maher’s Non-Apology To Pope and Catholics
HBO’s Bill Maher issued a non-apology Friday night for having called the POPE a NAZI saying it was a joke that he’d never tell again. then saying he’s be in jail were he a CEO of day care centers involved in such sex abuse cases. Maher said on Friday he’s be in jail were he a CEO of day care centers involved in such sex abuse cases. Maher has called Catholicism a “cult” that promotes “organized pedophilia.” In May 2007 compared communion to homosexual oral sodomy and called for turning homosexuality into a religion.
Slightly less than a quarter of all Americans are catholics.
The Catholic Church Continues to Give Hypocrisy a Bad Name
The Catholic Church was once a blood brother in the warmongering, corrupt triad of eurasian armies with armed monks, the incestuous monarchies and state religion commanded by the city state that became the Vatican and the home of the Pope, the nation state of the Catholic Church. Before the Henry the Eighth sexually motivated break, it battled with the Muslims for control of the Holy Land, winning some battles but ultimately losing the war. Bill Maher belonged in the Catholic Church of that time, but not the evolving one that I hope I see emerging today.
The holy land remained outside of the control of Catholic, Protestant or Jewish authority until the controversial creation of Israel in 1948. I support the right of Israel to exist, acknowledging all of the injustices committed by all sides in that arena from the beginning and in so much of human history. Show me a place anywhere in the world inhabited by human beings, give me a little time and if there is written or oral history to be researched, I will show you a lot of injustice committed in human actions against other humans that will revolt you.
In more modern times the Catholic Church has renounced violence, becoming significantly but not completely pacifist, a goal I support and admire. The Church asserts its transnational rights on the basis of it’s agenda of searching and supporting human dignity first, at least it does so in the US where it can get away with it. It denounces the sovereign rights of the United States to have and enforce immigration laws on the basis that humans are not always accorded the dignity god wants them to have. Today the Pope’s TV surrogates emphasized that his agenda is not nation based, rather that his agenda transcends nations and is based on the search for human dignity. To be sure to distance himself from Bush, he refused a state dinner with the President. I might consider doing that same thing but for different reasons.
Today the Pope says he is deeply ashamed of the sexual abuse committed in America (or is it just exposed in America?) and wanted to assure everyone that it will never happen again in the Catholic Church. I give him credit for such a clear statement. But why no apology?
So many questions bubbling up, but one seems to be particularly jangling given the Pope’s view that the US does not have a right to protect its borders by enforcing its laws due to human considerations which should come before all.
Why then does the Catholic Church hide behind and exploit various US laws and procedures to try to evade or minimize it’s exposure of the than embarrassing sexual abuse of children, which was overlooked by Bishops who retain their positions.
What about that element of human dignity the Catholic Church now hypocritically ignores, even TODAY while the Pope was speaking, to take advantage of US regulations that protect the Church due to the passage of time? Why does it use some laws and feel it has the right to work against other laws. Why not look beyond US laws as it does with immigration laws, to enhance human dignity and accept responsibility for those whose rights have expired because their human dignity was seriously taken away so long ago?
When will the Church make amends to those many who kept silent so long that US laws now protect the Catholic church from prosecution?
Not being an insider, I do not know, but here is an outside clue: The Catholic Church has so far been forced to dispense 2 billion dollars in legal settlements. Yes, they want this embarrassing event to stop, stop the bleeding of their coffers. Hang the dignity of a person who kept quiet too long and has lived for decades with who knows what kind of shame, embarrassment and psychological disruptions.
So the first persons loss of dignity decades ago seems not to be equal in the eyes of the Churck to the loss of dignity experienced by mostly hardworking family men trying to make money to support their family who happens to be a citizen of another country is held accountable for breaking that law. What is the real difference in these two different circumstances of human dignity?
The first deserves for the Church to compensate him and the second is part of a fine group of people who are inclined to give the Church money.
Pay money or get money? A transnational agenda for sure.
The Catholic Church, despite stated good intentions and vast improvements from the embarrassing inquisitions and so on, continues to give hypocrisy a bad name.
Is Barack Obama Henry Wallace Reincarnate?
The Democrat presidential nomination dog and cat fight between Clinton and Obama continues to be a fur ball with charges and counter charges flying over Obama’s creepy extraction from Karl Marx’s 1867 communist manifesto Das Kapital [das kapi’ta’l] about religion and the proletariat.
Never before, not even by the so-called American Progressive Party (the political party of Communist Party USA) candidates, has anyone used such an alarming and elitist equivalence.
Perhaps the last time any major candidate espoused such an ideological notion was the 1948 election when Henry Wallace, who had served as Secretary of Agriculture and Vice-President under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wallace opposed the Cold War, the Marshall Plan and Big Business. H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson, accused the Progressives of being covertly controlled by Communists. Several leading figures of the Progressive Party (such as socialist leader Norman Thomas) quit the party in protest over what they perceived as the undue influence Communists exerted over Wallace.
It is an eerie coincidence that Wallace, like Obama, fell under the influence of a religious radical. Wallace, who was raised Presbyterian, left the church and became closely associated with the Russian theosophist Nicholas Roerich. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “Wallace’s search for inner light took him to strange prophets.”
Legend is that J. Edgar Hoover confronted FDR over his Vice President’s his pro-communist sympathies, and ideas not in America’s best interest and threatened to expose Wallace and FDRs own dalliances and forced him to pick another Vice President in 1943. Of course FDR did pick Harry Truman and America barely escaped a Wallace presidency when FDR died April 12, 1945.
Read America Alone
“The future belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West — wedded to a multiculturalism that undercuts its own confidence, a welfare state that nudges it toward sloth and self-indulgence, and a childlessness that consigns it to oblivion — is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization,” says Mark Steyn in his New York Times best seller America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a Muslim muezzin. Millions of Europeans already do points out Thomas S. Winter Editor in Chief, HUMAN EVENTS. “…(L)iberals will still tell you that “diversity is our strength” — while Talibanic enforcers cruise our cities burning books and barber shops… the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn’t violate the “separation of church and state” … and the Hollywood Left gives up gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy. If you think this can’t happen, you haven’t been paying attention,” he says Winter.
If you have not read AMERICA ALONE you will find it funny, sobering and in some measure alarming.
Sermons of Race and Multiculturalism
To Christians worldwide, Easter Sunday is a day of hope, of forgiveness, of God’s undying love and His promise of a better tomorrow. When Christians walked out of church this Easter Sunday filled with His message what did they then face from the secular world?
They heard that at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago the new pastor who replaced Rev. Wright preached a sermon titled “How to Handle a Public Lynching”. Rev. Otis Moss stated that the recent news stories on Rev. Wright’s vile anti-American hate filled statements were like lynchings and compared it to the crucifixion of Jesus.
They heard that Muslims are once again protesting and boycotting Denmark due to a movie they say is anti-Islamic. This comes on the heels of 17 Danish papers reprinting the 2005 cartoons which caused world wide protests. The reasoning behind republishing the cartoons was to strike a blow for free speech and stand up for it in the face of mounting violence.
While writing this blog, I went to YouTube and somehow stumbled onto a truly radical video by an Englishman. Pat Condell is a comedian and writer and gives a speech on race and multiculturalism that puts Barack Obama’s earlier speech to shame. For Pat doesn’t mince words as he bluntly and courageously speaks out against the real inequities in today’s society. He actually says out loud that not all cultures are equal. That to treat radical Islam the same as other cultures is to acquiese to Islams fascist regime, their degrading attitude towards woman and their archaic rules of law. I urge everyone to take a moment and watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9dXGJ2rYdA before it, too, gets pulled when Islams protest it, as they surely will.
If more people take an honest stand like Pat does then maybe there is hope for tomorrow….
Wright Wrongs Help McCain
A Rasmussen Poll released Monday has McCain leading both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by an identical 48% to 42% margin. McCain has a double-digit lead over Clinton among unaffiliated voters and is essentially even with Obama among those same voters. However, McCain makes greater inroads among Democrats with Obama as the nominee. McCain has gained ground against both Democrats in recent days as stories about Obama’s former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have been widely discussed Wright is viewed favorably by just 8% of American voters and 73% consider his comments racially divisive.
Obama is viewed favorably today by just 47% of voters nationwide. That’s down five points since last Thursday. The number with an unfavorable view of Obama has risen from 44% on Thursday to 50% today. Among White voters, Obama is now viewed favorably by 43% and unfavorably by 54%. McCain, visiting Iraq and left out of the Democratic mudslinging, is now viewed favorably by 54%, unfavorably by 42%. Clinton is viewed favorably by 46%, unfavorably by 52%.
Barack and Michelle Obama’s vexing records.
Barack Obama’s longtime minister, friend, and adviser blames America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society that would never elect a black man as president. His hate filled speech have included his saying: America the No. 1 killer in the world; believes in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God, conducted radiation experiments on our own people, started the AIDS virus, and support Zionism shamelessly. He proclaimed that based on his assertions “God has got to be sick of this s***.”
In February Barack Obama described Wright to Jewish leaders in Clevelandas being like “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don’t agree with.” Obama has yet to describe the details of items of disagreement with the radical, racist minister whom he has frequently praised. Hearing Wright’s venomous and paranoid denunciations of this country, the vast majority of Americans would walk out. Far from walking out Obama and his wife Michelle listened attentively. Michelle Obama added to her record of peculiar statements and charges this week by saying America is “downright mean” and a place that “has gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.” She and her husband both received cost free Ivy League educations even though she admits her high school record would otherwise have disqualified her.
ST. PATRIK’S DAY MARCH 14 - 17 THIS YEAR
For the first time in nearly 70 years, the luck of the Irish has run out, and March 17th – St. Patrick’s Day falls during Holy Week. So, the Catholic Church has moved the saint’s holiday to Friday, March 14th. But, not everyone will honor the Vatican’s decree and any number of Irish will likely celebrate on both days, and preferably over the four day weekend. This calendar conflict won’t happen again until 2160 depressing whiskey distillers worldwide.
America’s Religious Decline
Religion in decline in America says a massive survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life - considered the most comprehensive report on religious identification of Americans in recent years interviewing more than 35,000 people across the United States - found 28 percent of adults say they have left their childhood faith for another religion or none at all. Counting people who shifted denominations, the change rises to 44 percent. According to the study the U. S. will soon lose its status as a majority-Protestant country standing now at just 51% of the churched. That drop from about 2/3rd who said they were Protestant in 1960 has seen the number of those who called themselves religiously unaffiliated in the 1980s double to 16% now.In California 21% - more than one in five – call themselves unaffiliated and in Oregon that’s 27%. Religious scholars say the big reason is “rootless” people who have moved into the west abandoning not only their home and family and leaving their religion behind. Overall 28% of adults say they have left their childhood faith for another religion or none at all. The Catholic Church has faired the worst among all denominations falling to 25% from nearly one-third (33%), and it would be worse without a big influx of immigrations from catholic countries. Hindus have the highest retention of members at 84 percent. Jehovah’s Witness lose 2/3rds of those raise in the sect by adulthood. Overall mainline Protestant churches have fewer and older members, while nondenominational Christian churches are growing. Jews, on average, are also older than other groups and are literally dying out.Mormons and Muslims have the largest families. Black Americans are most likely to claim religious affiliation, nearly half of Hindus and one-third of Jews have postgraduate education. U.S. Buddhist adherents are made up mostly of native-born converts.
England’s Oxford University recently received a $3.7 million grant to find out whether belief in a deity is a matter of nature or nurture. Some believe the growth of humanism and secularism is contributing to the decline in religious beliefs leading to the rise in atheism and agnosticism or visa-versa. Others say a consequence is the vast increase in rudderless people saying they are depressed, using anti-depressants, addiction to prescription drugs and use illicit drugs.
Dueling Sabbaths in Colorado Sports
The COLORADO HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION refuses to change the time of a championship basketball game until after sundown on SATURDAY so a Jewish high school team can play in it. Although CHSAA forbids play on SUNDAY, the Christian Sabbath, it has no such restriction for the JEWISH SABBATH – SHABBAT. CHSAA says the Jewish high school knew this could happen but still joined it.
Shabbat, or the Sabbath, is a day of rest and is celebrated every week from Friday night at sunset until Saturday night at sundown (25 hours). God ordered its observance in the Fourth Commandment, “Six days you shall labor and do all of your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of God: you shall not do any work.” (Exodus 20:9-10).
Cupid Let You Down, This Year? There’s Always Jesus
So Cupid let you down, this year. There’s no one special in your life for you to spend your Valentine’s Day with. No one special to dress up for?
Never fear. Every good Christian woman knows that Jesus loves her. And, yes, Jesus wants you to look good for him.
So shake off those Valentine’s Day blues, slip into that Catholic school girl outfit, and don’t forget to put on your “Virtuous Vanilla” lip balm, Girl! Cupid ain’t got nothin’ on Jesus, so make sure you show him how much you love him.
Catholic Hospital Hypocrisy
I work for a hospital that is part of a Catholic organization. When I went to employee orientation 10 years ago, I was surprised to hear that they would not pay for any birth control medications or procedures based on their Catholic faith. They stated that it is part of their belief system and they feel strong enough about it to take this stance.
Dobson Endorses Huckabee
ALERT: Rev. James Dobson, head of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, is endorsing Mike Huckabee for President – himself a former Baptist minister – in part because McCain uses profanity.
Former sailor and POW McCain’s has a deserved reputation of using salty language and infamously telling fellow senators and others to perform anatomically impossible acts.
Dobson is if nothing else sanctimonious. For Dobson to be critical of McCain for this — after he famously and heroically served his country and suffered intolerable torture for years — while Dobson himself cowered as a draft-dodger and his own kids are on his payroll and who did not serve either is at best hypocrisy. By the way McCain’s son is serving in the Marines in Iraq.
America has had Eisenhower and Reagan Republicans, and Compassionate Conservatives – it is time for COMMON SENSE CONSERVATIVES