Quite possibly the worst atheist argument out there

One of the silliest excuses for an argument raised by historically inept atheists is to question the actual existance of Jesus of Nazereth as an actual, historical figure. I've encountered this complete nonsense line of questioning before and I personally find it to be staggeringly dishonest. If youre going to deny the existance of Jesus Christ, then you might as well through out all of recorded history if that is your standard.

Proving the old adage that even a stuck clock is right twice a day, I actually find myself in complete agreement with a piece that appeared in The Huffington Post yesterday. Craig S. Keener does a masterful job of carving up this canard and I love how he does it...

"Contrary to some circles on the Internet, very few scholars doubt that Jesus existed, preached and led a movement. Scholars' confidence has nothing to do with theology but much to do with historiographic common sense. What movement would make up a recent leader, executed by a Roman governor for treason, and then declare, "We're his followers"? If they wanted to commit suicide, there were simpler ways to do it.

One popular objection is that only Christians wrote anything about Jesus. This objection is neither entirely true nor does it reckon with the nature of ancient sources. It usually comes from people who have not worked much with ancient history. Only a small proportion of information from antiquity survives, yet it is often sufficient...

Josephus, the only extant first-century historian focused on Judea, mentions both Jesus and John the Baptist as major prophetic figures, as well as subsequently noting Jesus' brother, James. Later scribes added to the Jesus passage, but the majority of specialists agree on the basic substance of the original, a substance now confirmed by a manuscript that apparently reflects the pre-tampering reading. Josephus describes Jesus as a sage and worker of wonders, and notes that the Roman governor Pilate had him crucified. On the cause of crucifixion Josephus remains discreet, but mass leaders were often executed for sedition -- especially for being potential kings. Perhaps not coincidentally, Jesus' followers also insisted, even after his death, that he was a king. Josephus was not a Christian and does not elaborate, but his summary matches other sources.

Writing even earlier than Josephus, Syrian philosopher Mara bar Sarapion claimed that Jesus was a wise Jewish king. Tacitus later reports on events from 31-34 years after Jesus' ministry, associating Roman Christians with him and noting that he was executed under Pontius Pilate. These and other sources provide only snippets, but they address what these sources cared about. By comparison, Tacitus mentions only in passing a Jewish king on whom Josephus focused (Agrippa I); nor was Tacitus interested even in Judea's Roman governors. Tacitus's mention of Pilate in connection with Jesus' crucifixion is Roman literature's only mention of Pilate (though Pilate appears in Josephus and an inscription)."

I believe that when Keener writes (re: Josephus) that "Later scribes added to the Jesus passage", he is referring to Josephus definatively mentioning Jesus as 'the Christ' in his writings.

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day." Josephus, Antiqities, 18.3.3

If I'm not mistaken, there are absolutely no copies of Antiquities that that do not contain this specific reference to Jesus as the Christ. None at all going back to the very earliest manuscript copies that we have and thus there are no contradictory writings that exist concerning this passage, it is merely theorized that the relevant passage up above was interpolated later. (Although I think it's a reasonable theory).

Check out Keener's entire article if you get the chance, it's quite good if you have an interest in this sort of thing. Also, if anyone would like to discuss these particular writings of Josephus, I think this entry by Tektonics would be a good place to start.

Obama White House gives shout-out to Nazi sympathizer

Fresh off the recent embarrasment of opting for a slogan utilized by the Hitler Youth, the Obama administration demonstrates it's ineptitude by celebrating a known Nazi sympathizer...

"The presidential proclamation commemorates “the enduring legacy of Jewish Americans,” and links to a website called JewishHeritageMonth.gov. It has since been edited, but the original version of President Obama’s proclamation added, “Their history of unbroken perseverance and their belief in tomorrow’s promise offers a lesson not only to Jewish Americans, but to all Americans. From Aaron Copland to Albert Einstein, Gertrude Stein to Justice Louis Brandeis.”

Gertrude Stein?

..“Stein’s closest friend,” (Alan) Dershowitz continued, “and a man who greatly influenced her turn toward fascism was Bernard Fay, who the Vichy government put in charge of hunting down Masons, Jews and other perceived enemies of the State. Fay was more than a mere collaborator as suggested by the Met exhibit. He was a full blown Nazi operative, responsible for the deaths of many people. After the war, when the horrendous results were known to all, Gertrude wrote in support of Fay when he was placed on trial for his Nazi war crimes.”

Joining Dershowitz in criticism of the Met for whitewashing Stein’s Vichy past from their exhibit, Alexander Narzaryan at the New York Daily News reminds us that Stein nominated Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938. And she wasn’t tepid about it. Stein told the New York Times in 1934, "I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace ... By suppressing Jews ... he was ending struggle in Germany."


I'm sure this was a mere oversight on Obama's part and a mistake by one of his subordinates.  But the pattern emerging here is troubling and causes one to wonder who is pulling the strings behind the curtain in this administration. 

A Refreshingly Honest View of How an Atheist Perceives Morality

For those who are Political Science/Pop Philosophy enthusiasts like myself, today's in-depth article by Robert P. Kraynak is pure gold. In it, Kraynak takes a close look at the writings of American philosopher and atheist Richard Rorty. Kraynak demonstrats brilliantly how atheists are basically moral parasites, absorbing the morality of the culture they live in. For example, check out this quote from Rorty that Kraynak mentions...

"With intentional irony, Rorty describes people like himself as “free-loading atheists.” He also displays exquisite sensitivity to human dignity in making this admission: he imagines “a child found wandering in the woods, the remnant of a slaughtered nation,” and asks if such a lost person should have “no share in human dignity.” He explains:

'..it does not follow that she may be treated like an animal. For it is part of the tradition of our community that the human stranger from whom all dignity has been stripped is to be taken in, to be reclothed with dignity. This Jewish and Christian element in our tradition is gratefully invoked by free-loading atheists like myself.... The existence of human rights, in the sense in which it is at issue in this meta-ethical debate, has as much or as little relevance to our treatment of such a child as the question of the existence of God. I think both have equally little relevance'.

Rorty’s point is that seeing a lost child wandering around as a naked, shivering homeless person inspires in him a strong sense of moral duty to “reclothe” that person with dignity (an elegant phrase), but not because he believes in God or in Kantian moral duties and rights. His justification is that he is part of a community of moral traditions inherited from Judaism and Christianity, which teaches us to care for a homeless person like the Good Samaritan would do. The problem is that our belief in God or rationally grounded moral duties turns out to be relevant after all: we have and need these beliefs, too, because we have been so taught by “the tradition of our community.” Rorty argues that we can subscribe to parts of our inherited traditions simply because they are inherited, but offers no grounds for why we can adhere to some parts and not others. He is thus a “free-loading atheist” because he lives off of the moral inheritance of the biblical tradition without contributing to it, and even while undermining it."

Kraynak goes on to point out the authoritarian streak prevelent in atheism through Rorty's musings..

"..'When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists ... we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank....

I do not claim to make the distinction between education and conversation on the basis of anything except my loyalty to a particular community, a community whose interests required re-educating the Hitler Youth in 1945 and required re-educating the bigoted students of Virginia in 1993. I don’t see anything herrschaftsfrei [free from moral authoritarianism] about my handling of my fundamentalist students. Rather, I think those students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents.... It seems to me that I am just as provincial and contextualist as the Nazi teachers who made their students read Der Stürmer; the only difference is that I serve a better cause. I come from a better province.'

Rorty’s technique is to use disarming candor in referring to himself as a benevolent Nazi rather than a rational educator, and in admitting that he is not free of moral authoritarianism. The effect is to shock or lull the reader into overlooking the contradiction between claiming his views are merely contingent on his accidental upbringing (namely, that he comes from a different province than Nazis or his bigoted students) while also claiming that he is “benevolent” rather than “vicious” and serves a “better cause.” In other words, Rorty says that he imposes his political views on others simply because he is more willful, while also claiming that his views are objectively better than Nazi ideology or religious fundamentalism. Yet he feels no obligation to give a rational justification for the moral superiority of his beliefs: he simply enjoys the luxury of imposing justice without foundations."

There is ALOT of information in the Kraynak article and if anyone would like to offer up their thoughts on it, please feel free to do so in the comment box below.

Occupy J Street

"I am appalled that Democrat politician after Democrat politician, including the president and vice president, are embracing these protests, even claiming to understand their supposed concerns and motivations, when so many of these people are using, among other things, anti-Semitic slurs of the oldest kind,” .... It is appalling and I hope the public takes note.” Mark Levin

While democrats rush to embrace the Occupy Wall Street movement, they never once considered what these clowns actually stand for or if they did, they just said 'to heck with it' and decided to show their own true colors...

"Take the Occupy Wall Street movement. This uprising was sparked by the magazine Adbusters, previously best known for the 2004 essay, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” — an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy."

The Daily Caller follows up this particular revelation up with...

"Yeshiva World News, an Orthodox Jewish news outlet, explained in an editorial Thursday that “many Jews” are feeling a bit uncomfortable with the growing protests because of hateful video footage claiming the U.S. economy is organized for the benefit of Jews.

“The reasons for these ‘uncomfortable feelings’ don’t need to be elaborated on this page,” the editorial reads. “Suffice to say that Jews have been blamed for the world’s troubles for thousands of years, and many are nervous that this finger-pointing will soon start — or , maybe it already has.”

National Review Online and The Blaze have published online video footage this week showing Occupy Wall Street protesters saying and shouting anti-Jewish slurs.

“Go back to Israel,” shouted one protester at an elderly Jewish man."

One thing that I've learned from this ongoing circus is that the word 'banker' can be a code word for 'Jew' in some instances in the New World Order as Rush Limbaugh explains...

"To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there."

On Skeptics and so-called Biblical Slavery

As so often happens when one gets involved with skeptics in online argumentation, their patented method of snipe-and-dodge is employed and direct questions that require an 'either-or' or 'yes-no' type of response are steadfastly avoided by the skeptic. This is understandable from their viewpoint being that if a definitive answer is given, then a stating point is then created to actually discuss (and possibly decontruct?) their profoundly held but factually tenuous, pet belief.

I was involved in one such exchange recently and one can access the relevant thread I am referring to over at Mike L.'s blog by clicking here. I will copy and paste the pertinent statements so there is no ambiguity...

JD Curtis: Rather than getting bogged down in various rabbit holes, I would like to concentrate on the following 2 points. Especially since you have absolutley no rational basis for your own self-righteous indignation of the writings contained in the Holy Bible.

1. Is the system of 'slavery' you mention that appears in the Bible the same system of slavery that existed in the antebellum south or was it a system that was totally and completely different?

2. Let's pretend that there was an ancient, Old Testament admonishment to all households to 'free all slaves'

Then what? What were the newly freed slaves going to do? Hubby gets the 2nd shift job at McDonalds to help provide for the family while wifey-poo works the opening AM shift at 7-11?

I know that you aren't so completely clueless as to not know that the Industrial Revolution, the Department of Labor (Wage and Hour Division) and union shop stewards were only several thousand years ahead in the future.

So tell me, a that time, what were they going to do and what other options existed for them?



The Skeptical Magician:

JD - I'd hate for you to get bogged down in having to explain why rape was okay and encouraged by Yahweh, so yeah, let's move on.

"1. Is the system of 'slavery' you mention that appears in the Bible the same system of slavery that existed in the antebellum south or was it a system that was totally and completely different?"

Well, let's see... You have Israel going into foreign lands forcing people of another ethnic identity into slavery. We have the buying and selling of human beings, and passing them along as personal property (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT). You could buy sex slaves as long as you gave them food and clothing and screwed them (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT). You could beat your slave into a comma with rods and even kill them if it took a couple of days and it was okay, because the slave was your property (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB). If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, what else would you call it?

"2. Let's pretend that there was an ancient, Old Testament admonishment to all households to 'free all slaves' Then what? What were the newly freed slaves going to do? Hubby gets the 2nd shift job at McDonalds to help provide for the family while wifey-poo works the opening AM shift at 7-11?"

Gee, I don't know... maybe they could hunt and gather, or raise livestock like every other person during that time. By your logic here, we should take very low-income person who is working a job at McDonald's and make them a slave, because that would be the nice thing to do. By your logic we also should have never freed slaves in the United States."

Notice how TSM tries to change the subject and assumes that the God of the Bible thinks that "rape was okay and encouraged" when I just asked him two very direct questions concerning so-called slavery as it appears in God's Word. Obfuscation is one of the intellectually dishonest skeptic's best tools at their disposal. I don't mind discussing the fact that TSM seems to mistakenly believe that the Triune God condones rape, but I would just like to treat it as a seperate issue deserving of it's own thread.

That being said, I doubt that I could add anything else to a discussion on 'Bible rape' that hasn't already been cleared up by True Free Thinker who did such a knowledgeable job in decimating the matter.

But back to TSM's objections to slavery as contained in the Bible. First off, ...

"You have Isreal going into foreign lands forcing people of another ethinic identity into slavery"

I'm not sure what TSM means by this so I'll let them explain this further. Because according to Scripture, slavery (or 'bond-service') was necessarily voluntary. If these people in the surrounding countries were 'bought" (I think 'hired' would be a more accurate term) then who received the money? I would say that it was the servants themselves unless TSM can argue otherwise. “‘If an alien or a temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the alien living among you or to a member of the alien’s clan, he retains the right of redemption after he has sold himself." Leviticus 25:47-48a, NIV, emphasis mine.

Furthermore, the practice of manstealing was strictly forbidden by the Israelites which further strengthens the argument for it having to be a voluntary act for anyone entering into such an agreement. "And he that steals a man, and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death" Exodus 21:16, KJV.

"We have the buying and selling of human beings, and passing them along as personal property (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)


Leviticus 25:44 "However, you may purchase male and female slaves from among the nations around you." New Living Translation

Insofar as "passing them on" as a "permanent inheritance", I'm sure SM realizes that this was from a time before Social Security, pension plans and 401 K's. What other cultures at that time promised that the infirm and elderly would be passed on to successive household generations and that they had to be provided for?

It so happens that I have a personal email (from 2009) from Rabbi Zev Leff pertaining to the so-called 'slaves as referred to in Leviticus 25:44-46. He wrote me concerning these passages, quote....

"dear mr. curtis,

these bondsmen and women were slaves that willingly subjugated themselves as such or were captured in war time. in any event they could only be held as slaves if they willingly accepted to
renounce idolatry and be converted to semi jewish status. if they completed this process they became the property of the master both they and their descendants and they were also part of the master's estate for inherhitance. under certain circumstances they could be freed upon which they became full fledged converts. the master had to provide for their basic needs and treat them humanely, if he even by accident put out their eye or tooth or any other limb ending as a finger etc. the slave went free.-sincerely, zev leff"

Such relationships were loving, familial ones and SM is free to quote the Torah scholar they consulted when examining this passage here. Which brings us to another canard point raised by SM...

"You could beat your slave into a comma with rods and even kill them if it took a couple of days and it was okay, because the slave was your property" (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)



"And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property"

TSM, let's say that you are living in Biblical times and the harvest that you and your bondservants (or 'slaves' if you prefer) have worked on all year is upon you. Your entire livelihood for you and your entire household depends on effectively harvesting your crop.

On the morning of the harvest, you notice that every single one of your harvesting implements have been destroyed and are now worthless. You are now facing almost certain economic hardship and famine and it comes to your attention that one of your servants (or 'slaves') was seen by multiple witnesses destroying the implements the night before and when confronted about it, it turns out that they admit they did it and it was over some petty jealousy. What would you do with the bond-servant (or 'slave' if you prefer) in question?

"Gee, I don't know... maybe they could hunt and gather, or raise livestock like every other person during that time"

As has been previously posited, these are people that sold themselves into servitude. Nothing really prevented them from being hunter-gatherers but perhaps they wanted a roof over their head and a daily cooked meal to look forward to after a day of working. How were they going to obtain livestock if they had nothing to exchange for it?

Author Wayne Grudem once wrote...

"Slaves in this sense had a higher social status and better economic situation than free day laborers who had to search for employment each day (see Matthew 20:1-7, where the master of the house goes into the marketplace to hire day laborers at different times during the day). By contrast, those who were bondservants (or "slaves") had greater economic security with a continuing job and steady income."

If this was true during Roman times, then was it not true in the Ancient Near East? Feel free to explain this here.

"By your logic here, we should take very low-income person who is working a job at McDonald's and make them a slave, because that would be the nice thing to do. By your logic we also should have never freed slaves in the United States"

This is just stupendously stupid SM as you somehow managed to twist facts and logic by using an illustration showing that there were hardly any competing offers for employment at that with I want low-income service employees made into slaves. Feel free to clarify though.

While The Skeptical Magician is struggling with the direct questions that they now should answer, I would like to raise a brief point concerning so-called enslavement through military conquests. Christian Think Tank has posited the following, citing the Anchor Bible Dictionary by David Noel Freedman (Doubleday, 1992) as their source...


"Within all the periods of antiquity, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Persian, and other Oriental rulers carried away great masses of captives from their victorious battles. But only an insignificant part of them was turned into slaves; all the others were settled on the land as palace and temple serfs….The question arises, why the masses of war prisoners were not enslaved. Slavery was the optimal form of dependence, and very often there was no shortage of prisoners captured in war. Besides, there were no legal or ethical norms preventing these prisoners from being turned into slaves. But this happened in a negligible percentage of cases, while the overwhelming majority were settled in places specially set aside for them, paid royal taxes, and carried out obligations, including military service." (Emphasis in the original )



TSM is of course free to attempt to refute this and cite their source while doing so.

CINO Nonsense in Kentucky‏

It has been reported that the proposed merger of the University of Louisville Hospital with Catholic Health Initiatives has some people feeling uneasy. Chiefly among those who have misgivings about the merger are two Catholic In Name Only state representatives (who are both democrats) named Thomas Burch and Mary Lou Marzian who apparently suffer from self-identity issues. Some excerpts of what passes for persuasive argumentation in the op-ed piece that they jointly submitted to Kentucky.com are as follows...

"Representatives from Jewish Hospital, University Hospital and the University of Louisville have been reassuring patients that reproductive health services will not change after the merger with a Catholic medical institution, St. Mary's Healthcare. Their reassurances have not worked. Several hundred people have signed a statement opposing the move."

Isn't it interesting to see how effortlessly they replace the decidedly violent option of the killings of innocents with such sterile and Orwellian terminology like "reproductive health services"? Who could be against that? If I described the local meth dealer here as an "undocumented pharmacist", that makes him not sound so bad either and I seem like a heavy if I criticize him.

"..an advertisement released by the heads of the three hospitals assured readers "the merger partners are committed to expanding, not limiting, services," including tubal ligations performed at the time of Caesarean sections. We applaud their intentions, but we fear they may be somewhat naive."

If anyone in this discussion is "naive", it is you two. You seem quite content in criticizing the party that places emphasis on how precious human life is without ever examining the Culture of Death that is slowly, yet steadily creeping forward in western society. For instance, I would bet my bottom dollar that neither one of you could tell me what percent of babies that are euthanized in the Netherlands are done so without parental consent. From the cited article..

"It took the Dutch almost 30 years for their medical practices to fall to the point that Dutch doctors are able to engage in the kind of euthanasia activities that got some German doctors hanged after Nuremberg. For those who object to this assertion by claiming that German doctors killed disabled babies during World War II without consent of parents, so too do many Dutch doctors: Approximately 21 percent of the infant euthanasia deaths occurred without request or consent of parents. Moreover, since when did parents attain the moral right to have their children killed?



Euthanasia consciousness is catching. The Netherlands' neighbor Belgium decided to jump off the same cliff as the Dutch only two years ago. But already, they have caught up with the Dutch in their freefall into the moral abyss. The very first Belgian euthanasia of a person with multiple sclerosis violated the law; and just as occurs routinely in the Netherlands, the doctor involved faced no consequences. Now Belgium is set to legalize neo-pediatric euthanasia. Two Belgian legislators justify their plan to permit children to ask for their own mercy killing on the basis that young people "have as much right to choose" euthanasia as anyone else. Yet, these same children who are supposedly mature enough to decide to die would be ineligible to obtain a driver's license."

Please explain to me how this can't possibly happen here. Also, would an agency that has Catholic oversight be more or less likely to see such horrific, moral failure?

"At St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Sister Margaret McBride lost her job for approving abortion care that saved a woman's life. Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted had her removed. Do we want local hospital workers to obey an authority that puts anything above the life of the patient?"

Given the nature of doctor/patient confidentiality rules, I doubt that either of you had any greater access to the patient's medical records than the rest of us and you are simply reporting second hand information. Carefully left out of your assertion are the facts that the Catholic Physicians Guild in Phoenix fully supported the bishop in this case and that at least one neonatalogy expert has questioned whether the abortion was really necessary.

Although I'm just some schmuck sitting in his undershirt in Florida, allow me to make a suggestion. Instead of advocating, in your own words, "a full range of reproductive health care", why not side with that the majority of pro-aborts who now agree that 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions are just plain wrong and support life for a change?

Why not try and be a representative of your denomination by following the example of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and pledge to help any pregnant woman in need? Carpe diem!

On Atheists and the Amalekites

"Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” 1 Samuel 15:1-3 (NIV)

If there's one point that atheists positively love to hop upon their collective Moral High Horses about and criticize the Christian God over, boy is this ever the one. It's almost as if they think they have a magical ace up their sleeves that they love to play at what they deem to be the appropriate time during online, internet argumentation and then its throw it down with an implied AH-HA! Gotcha! WhuddaboutheAmalekitessmartguy?!

Well? What about the Amalekites? Let's examine the issue, shall we?

Point #1-The Amalekites were not sitting around playing tiddly-winks, committing various, pagan inspired acts of charity and leading the Ancient Near East toward any sort of awe-inspiring enlightenment. Quite the opposite in fact. A famous archeologist, William F. Fullbright, once noted that the Amalekite religion was "perhaps the most depraved religion known to man.” Or, as Mike Woodruff describes for us...

"..the primary reason the Amalekites were to be punished is because they were wicked. The tribes that fall under “the ban” and are to be wiped out are vile. We certainly see that with the Amalekites. They were distant cousins of the Israelites who gained God’s ire by going out of their way to provoke him. They likely knew that the promise God had made was to bless everyone through the blessing of Israel, and they certainly heard of the way God was providing for the Jews; but the Amalekites did not fear God. Instead, they attacked the weakest of God’s people. After giving their promise not to attack, they waited for the Jewish slaves to file through their land on the way to Sinai and then attacked the stragglers—the sick, tired, and elderly. This actually became a bit of a pattern for the Amalekites. They preyed on the weak, and they never missed a chance to attack the Jews.

Even if we leave the Jews out of it, the Amalekites were vile. They burnt their children in front of statues of the idol Molech."

The act of defending child sacrifice never seems to make it's way into the atheist psyche as this item is somehow conveniently glossed over and apparently forgotten. One technique utilized by atheist apologists is to cite what they feel is a lack of evidence that the Amalekites were actually that evil. Paul Edwards encountered this type of, *ahem*, reasoning while discussing the matter with arch-atheist Christopher Hitchens.



"His (Hitchins') initial response was to suggest that the historical record relative to the Amalekites and child sacrifice could not be trusted because it was in the Bible. Interesting that Hitchens trusts the Bible relative to what it says about what Israel did to the Amalekites, but the same Bible can’t be trusted on what it says relative to what it says the Amalekites had done to their own children. (Here is an excellent exposition of the question of whether or not the actions of Israel against the Amalekites constituted war crimes.)"

So You see folks, they just can't have it both ways.


Point #2-The killing of the animals owned by the Amalekites actually had a purpose. Chuck Colson, Norm Geisler, Hank Hanegraaff explain why...

"Why were the Isrealites to kill the Amalekites' animals? In a land without money and banks (these did not exist during the days of Saul), livestock-oxen, sheep, goats camels and donkeys-was a major form of wealth. But God did not want the Isrealites to go to war in order to enrich themselves at their enemies' expense. This solemn task was done to carry out a divine death sentence, not for personal gain."

Point #3-The weight of evidence suggests that God was being hyperbolic when he commanded the destruction of the Amalekites. Joel from Unsettled Christianity explains why he thinks this is most likely the case..

"The question, of course, being that if God said that He would so utterly wipe the Amalekites off the face of the earth – even the memory of them – then why do we remember them in our Sacred Texts? Even today, some Jews still see the Amalekites as those who opposed Israel – from Adolf Hitler to the Palestinians. Those who do so see no problem with the biblical text as they seemingly do not take it as literal as many Christians.



The author who penned the 83rd psalm didn’t see utter destruction for the Amalekites, instead asking God to humble them, among other names, to His Name:

"O my God, scatter them like tumbleweed, like chaff before the wind!
As a fire burns a forest and as a flame sets mountains ablaze, chase them with your fierce storm; terrify them with your tempest.
Utterly disgrace them until they submit to your name, O LORD.
Let them be ashamed and terrified forever. Let them die in disgrace.
Then they will learn that you alone are called the LORD, that you alone are the Most High, supreme over all the earth." (Psalm 83:13-18 NLT)

So, what do the biblical literalists do? Do we feign an answer and say that God hasn’t kept His promise yet but will? How could He when he put the history of the Amalekites into the Sacred Text which will never perish? Esther’s author changed the name of the Amalekites and the Psalmist instead sung of the day which they would submit to the Name of the Lord. Where they expecting a complete wipe of memory, especially seeing that they recorded the events?"

In the end, the Amalekites were not completely destroyed. They were however, diminished to the point that they werent quite the threat that they previously were.



If atheists are still going to cling to such a shoddy criticism of God as this one, then they must abandon another pet grievance of theirs, that of the problem of evil, pain and suffering. It seems that when God actually DID do something to a cruel, horrible people who caused pain and destruction, the best that atheists can offer up is that they think they certainly could have done better if they had the chance. Yeah right. Good luck with that line of reasoning. Keep believing that and there's a bridge on Brooklyn that I want to show you.

Questions posed by an atheist..

Jay D. Homnick writes about a recent phone conversation he had with a young man who states that he is an atheist but still has some doubts concerning the validity of his position. It's an interesting article and I highly encourage you to check it out on your own time. In the meantime, I will highlight a few of the points raised in order to pique your interest in it. For instance, right off the bat, the young man states...

"I was brought up Jewish but I rejected that and became an atheist," he begins. "This friend of mine is very positive about her religion and now I am beginning to wonder who is right."

"Well, were your parents knowledgeable about religion?" I (Homnick) asked.

"No, not at all."

"Did you attend religious school?"

"No."

"So you never really rebelled against Judaism. You rebelled against your parents' attempt to saddle you with a religion without an explanation."

"I guess you're right."

"What it amounts to is that you need to get enough information about the claims of the religion so you can make an informed judgment. The problem is that it's hard for you to find the time to essentially go back to college and study a new discipline."

Religiosity is in decline in the West and as the old adage goes, 'If you don't believe in something, you're liable to fall for anything', in this case, the lie of atheism. Dr. Norman Wise once said, "It doesn't matter to the devil what lie you believe in. You can believe in Hinduism with it's plethora of gods, or you can believe in atheism with it's idea that there is no God. Both are a lie. The only thing that he doesn't want you to explore and more fully understand is the Christian gospel". I wholeheartedly agree that there are many Christian theists out there who have no idea how to defend their beliefs when asked hard questions about it. Of course, that in and of itself does not make their belief in the Christian God invalid, it just means that there are very many out there that seldom engage those who have points of view that are in opposition to theirs. Unfortunately for the state of discourse, certain (yet not all of course) atheists seize upon the lack of a profoud answer and this in some way reinforces their worldview. The young man goes on to ask Homnick, "How can you prove to me that God exists in the first place?", to which Homnick replies...

"In a way the Bible itself proves God. Once you accept the Jews could not have made up the story of what happened at Sinai, then you have to believe it was true revelation. Either that or a genius theatrical production which not only fooled a few million very sharp cookies in the audience, it also left behind a book of such superior literary quality that it still moves people to live nobly thousands of years later."

As a literary work alone, the Bible is unlike anything else we know of. It is almost beyind comprehension how 66 books written over the millenia in three different languages could be so harmonious.

I think the key thing here is that Homnick stated that the guy approached him with "an open mind". Is your mind at least open to the possibility that God exists? I believe that stating with certainty that God does not exist is folly and I don't see how one could ever prove this universal negative. Vox Day has said that he always found agnosticism to be a much more reasonable position than atheism and for the afore mentioned reason, I agree.


Feel free to leave your thoughts on the article or any legitimate questions one might have concerning today's topic here on this thread. I'll check back in later.

A Form of Bigotry You Seldom Hear of

I have long known that the idea of impartiality on the part of academics when it comes to denouncing the villians of this world was a complete and utter farce. They are quick to denounce those who are within the confines of unacceptability if it happens to be a person or group that does not squarely fit with their leftist worldview. Anyone else? Fuhgeddaboutit. They will turn a blind eye and completely ignore them just as quick as you can say Jack Robinson. Today's article citing an experiment by Prof. Fred Gottheil shows statistically that this is in fact the case....

"Prof. Fred Gottheil told Front Page Magazine that he compiled a list of 675 email addresses from 900 signatures on a 2009 petition authored by Dr. David Lloyd, professor of English at the University of Southern California, urging the U.S. to abandon its ally, Israel. Prof. Gottheil discovered that six of the signers, who hailed from more than 150 college campuses, were members of his own faculty.

“Would these same 900 sign onto a statement expressing concern about human rights violations in the Muslim Middle East, such as honor killing, wife beating, female genital mutilation, and violence against gays and lesbians?” he wondered. “I felt it was worth a try.”

The results? “Almost non existent,” he told Front Page editor Jamie Glazov. Only 27 of the 675 “self-described social-justice seeking academics” agreed to sign Gottheil’s Statement of Concern – less than 5 percent of the total who had publicly called for the censure of Israel for human rights violations.

The refusal of women’s studies professors to publicly condemn honor killings, or academic advocates of gay rights to speak out against the treatment of homosexuals in Muslim countries, is just about as hypocritical as it gets. Their loathing (dare we call it hate?) of the UN-created Jewish state is so deep that it “trump[s] their professional interests,” leading them into a “ideologically discriminatory trap of their own making,” Prof. Gottheil added."

Anyone with an open mind could have seen this coming if they would have just gauged the amount of rhetoric coming forth from academics against Israel and weighed it against the amount of criticism they reserve for the Muslim world. I think that such people fall into one of two categories for the most part.

1. Their leftist behaviour and pretentions to a supposedly high degree of intelligence allow them to disguise their anti-Semitism much better than those who do not care if the entire world knows that they are anti-Israel. Or..

2. They are sissies who are scared to speak out against a potential target of their consternation that might take offense to their criticisms and actually do something about it, violent or otherwise. Thus, they are content to pick "soft targets" for their scorn and condemnation and the real root of the problem (radical Islam) continues to fester.

On Obama, Political Suicide and the Mosque at Ground Zero

Fresh on the heels of back-to-back home runs by Nile Gardiner on his recent articles comparing the Obama administration with L' Ancien Regime along with listing 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown, Chairman Zero has unexplicably decided to weigh in on the contraversy to build a thirteen story mosque and Islamic center a mere stone's throw away from Ground Zero of the attacks on 9/11. Quote...

"We must never forget those who we lost so tragically on 9/11, and we must always honor those who have led our response to that attack – from the firefighters who charged up smoke-filled staircases, to our troops who are serving in Afghanistan today. And let us always remember who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for. Our enemies respect no freedom of religion. Al Qaeda’s cause is not Islam – it is a gross distortion of Islam."
President Barack H. Obama

Is this some sort of sick joke?

Seriously. Please explain to me why we should show deference in this particular matter to a religion in which the very idea of "Freedom of Religion" is anathema to it's very core. It staggers the imagination. Unless President Obama could guide me toward the largest Episcopal church in Saudi Arabia or the 3rd largest Pentecostal gathering there, I'm calling Complete BS on this one.

Not to be outdone by the above columnists, Fred Dardick explains in perfect clarity how such an idea of the construction of a mosque on this site sets in the minds of many people on these shores...

"For you liberals who somehow got forwarded this column and still don’t know what Sharia law is, allow me to enlighten you. It is the literal interpretation of Islam that leads to the widespread abuse and enslavement of women. It’s also called the reality of “that woman in Iran who’s waiting to see if she’s going to get stoned to death for adultery” rules. Who knows if she really committed adultery? In Islamic societies all a man has to do to give his wife the proverbial dirt nap, is simply claim she did.

Under Sharia law, men are the judge, jury and executioners of women, and Obama apparently thinks Americans are too stupid to know this. While Obama may be able to lawyer his way around the Ground Zero mosque as a “religious tolerance” issue, the rest of us know a load of bs when we see one...

Not only do Americans view the structure as anything but a bridge to understanding, Islamists around the world will also rightly perceive the mosque in a very different light than the simple “right to build a place of worship”. They will see it as spitting in the face of evil America and hold it up as a shining example in their enslaved societies to promote hatred of the West. It will become a “stupid Americans let us build a mosque on their graves, so let’s finish the job and kill them all” kind of thing.

Ever wonder how the Islamic Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem got built smack dab on top of the ancient Jewish temple mount? I can promise you, it was no attempt to “build bridges” either that put it there. It was more like “let’s take over the Jews most treasured religious site and plant a mosque on it to show them who’s boss”. That’s why Jews pray at the Western Wall, because if they tried to visit the top of the temple mount, the Arabs would riot.

Every time Obama speaks to Muslims, it’s always how wonderful and understanding Islam is compared to our knuckle dragging Judeo-Christian customs. Rather than apologizing endlessly for America, and in this case our opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, how about being honest for a change, champ?

Over the past 100 years, America has brought peace and prosperity to billions around the world, while at the same time Muslims have been slaughtering and enslaving their neighbors, especially women, wholesale. Talk about the war that never ends. Shia vs. Sunni violence has been going on for centuries and, by the looks of Iraq, will continue for centuries more.

The irony is if our President, who clearly feels his #1 job is reaching out to the Muslim world, had half a brain in his communist head, he would be out there speaking forcefully against Sharia law and educating his fellow Islamists to the dangers of a literal interpretation of the Koran."

Not that I thought that Obama stood a good chance at re-election before this latest display of political ineptitude, I think that he completely destoyed his chances at another term with his position on this particular matter. Time will tell, of course, but I think that all attention would wisely be focused on the upcoming Republican primary to gauge who will be the next US president. Thats IF of course, the Lizard Queen doesn't smell blood in the water and attempt to dethrone the usurper-in-chief herself.

Doubting the Gospel of Thomas Part II

Pardon me for taking so long. I've gotten a little sidetracked by a project and I haven't had much the time to comment lately, but I can squeeze in a quick entry here. Tristan Vick has posted a response to my earlier entry titled Doubting the Gospel of Thomas in which I took issue with both the dating and authenticity of the Gospel attributed to Thomas. You can read TV's entire criticism here.

In order to move the discussion along, I have decided to concentrate a just a few of the points raised in the rebuttal by Vick. I don't wish to become bogged down, debating every jot and tittle and it really doesn't make for very interesting conversation when a debate becomes like that. Should we make progress on these points we can move on to others. However, I think we could all agree that the points I wish to raise to Vick's rebuttal are quite germane to the discussion of the authenticity of the Gospel of Thomas. They cut right to the heart of the matter and if either Vick's or my points cannot be reconciled with the vast majority of those who are/were qualified to write extensively on the subject, then the arguments begin to break down and it can be clearly shown that one of us is not on the side of the clear majority of serious scholarship on the matter. First, TV mentions that...

"I don’t quite see how using GTh (if truly an independent source pre-dating the Gospels) to establish that Jesus was a real historical figure, is in anyway a canard. In fact one would have to question the agenda of any Christian who’d deny the GTh as evidence which supports the claim that Jesus of the Bible may have actually been a real historical person—even as such a claim is on shaky ground."

I didnt state that the document proported to be from Thomas did not support the historical existance of Jesus. I merely raised doubts concerning it's authorship and any early dating assigned to it.

"Although the authenticity of the Jesus sayings of GTh may be in dispute, it should not go overlooked that so are the Jesus attributed sayings in all of the Gospels."

In this quote of yours, you cite Robert M. Price as your source. I specifically requested that "that we take off the table any so-called "expert" that is even loosely affiliated with the highly dicredited "Jesus Seminar"" whose work "is so quirky and so severely criticized by non-Seminar members-probably 90 percent of Gospel scholars around the world."[1]

Even the secular publication The Atlantic stated that the Jesus Seminar "draw[s] on the liberal wing of the New Testament academy." [2]

"As many as 200 scholars participated in the JS over the years, but the final group dwindled to 74. People dropped out for various reasons. Some expressed discomfort with how the most radical fringes of New Testament scholarship were disproportionately represented on the JS. Others voiced disagreement with Funk’s propagandistic purposes of popularizing scholarship in a way designed explicitly to undermine conservative Christian credibility." [3]

"Of the remainder, eighteen had no published papers on the subject at all. Thirty-six of the scholars came from Vanderbilt, Harvard, and Claremont Universities, which were criticised for having the most-liberal New Testament study programs in any university." [4]

One former (JS) Fellow stated that "Although its founding ethos stressed the importance of open, public debate among professional participants, publicity prior to and during meetings often set up findings well in advance of discussion, with results that distorted, not only the conduct of the Seminar, but the way in which its findings were reported. For example, Fellows were known to deny to the press that Jesus had ever prayed; he was portrayed as a Cynic philosopher despite evidence to the contrary that was always overwhelming; and Galilee has been treated as an urban, non-Jewish environment despite archaeologists’ findings to the contrary. Added to all these factors, the drive for results sometimes led to a retaking of votes, both within a given meeting, and from meeting to meeting, producing the effect of a push-poll in an election campaign." [5]

I think that these above statements speak for themselves and there is no shortage of others should anyone wish to look it up.. Either the Jesus Seminar is well accepted as representative of scholarship on the subject of the New Testament, or they are far outside the mainstream of the vast majority of scholars. I will now leave it to you to demonstrate if the latter is true or not.

"...due to the fact that The Gospel of Thomas is at least as old as the Synoptic tradition, perhaps earlier (as we’ll discuss below), then Christians need to account for the similarity in over half of the 114 of the sayings of Jesus which Thomas shares with the Gospels and Johannine sayings."

Tristan, either you are arguing on a whole other level than me and thus leaving me behind in the dust of my own confusion, or you are demonstrating that you fail to understand this entire subject on a very fundamental level. The vast majority of Bible scholars date the Gospel of John around the year 90 A.D., which of course was a few years after Mark, Matthew and Luke are believed to have been written. The dating of John really isn't disputed in any meaningful way and if it is, it's only by a couple of years. [6] Could you please explain to me how Thomas could possibly predate the synoptic Gospels when it contains material from the Gospel of John which unquestionably was written later? I admit, I'm a bit perplexed here by your method of argumentation along with your unique dating technique and a bit of clarity on the matter would be greatly appreciated in order to move the discussion along.



[1] Strobel, Lee; The Case for the Real Jesus, pg. 31, 2007, Zondervan

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96dec/jesus/jesus.htm

[3] http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t017.html

[4] http://www.conservapedia.com/Jesus_Seminar

[5] http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/chilton1.shtml

[6] http://www.carm.org/apologetics/evidence-and-answers/when-were-gospels-written-and-whom

Faith of the Fatherless

It's Father's Day again and a hearty Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. I think we can all agree that fathers have a very powerful effect on the upbringing of children. As my pastor noted this morning, imagine if you walked outside and you saw a giant man, 20 feet tall that can pick up up with one hand. You would be in awe of such a person. Dads are like giants in that way to their young children, so the sway that they have over them during their formative years is considerable.

In the book Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, author, psychology professor and former atheist Paul Vitz researches the influence of the father figure upon the most influential atheists of the past several centuries. The results are quite interesting...

"When one looks at famous atheists and their families, a grim picture emerges. Vitz looks at what he calls the “dead father” syndrome. Friedrich “God is Dead” Nietzsche, for example, lost his father at a very young age. Sadly, so too did many evangelical atheists. David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre (above), Albert Camus and Arthur Schopenhaeur could be added to that list. The biographical evidence is frightening. Is this just a mere coincidence?


Obviously, there were prominent atheist thinkers who didn’t loose their fathers at an early age. Thomas Hobbs, Jean Meslier, Voltaire, Jean d’Alembert, Baron d’Holbach, Ludwig Feuerbach, Samuel Butler, Sigmund Freud and H.G. Wells all spring to the author’s mind. Still, when one takes a closer look at the biographical evidence, as Vitz does, we find more disturbing patterns. All of these renowned secularists came from homes with weak or abusive fathers. Again, is this just purely coincidental?


As the reader ploughs through the defective father hypothesis, one wonders how famous Jewish and Christian intellectuals were raised. Do they have any family secrets? Surprise, surprise: we find that 21 of the prominent theistic thinkers came from relatively healthy backgrounds! Blaise Pascal, for instance, was home-schooled by a dedicated father and flourished as an outstanding mathematician and erudite religious writer. Similarly, Moses Mendelssohn, the renowned Jewish scholar, spoke against materialism and fought successfully against punitive German legal traditions and customs. His father was instrumental in nurturing a strong sense of justice within him. Alexis de Tocqueville, Soren Kierkegarrd, G.K. Chesterton and Abraham Heschel are also recognised for their rich lives and contributions, which stemmed from their father-son relationships."

While checking out some of the reviews out there on the internet for this book, I came across this particular review that sheds light on some of the specifics that Vitz mentions when describing the biographical histories of the atheists that he profiles....

"Vitz warns about over-simplification, and recognises that there are a multitude of factors that explain or determine how we develop. However, the fact that so many atheists have similar background does make for an intriguing hypothesis. And the details Vitz provides are quite revealing. Consider but a few examples.

• H.G.Wells was contemptuous of both his father and God. He wrote this in his autobiography: “My father was always at cricket, and I think [mum] realized more and more acutely as the years dragged on without material alleviation, that Our Father and Our Lord, on whom to begin with she had perhaps counted unduly, were also away: playing perhaps at their own sort of cricket in some remote quarter of the starry universe”.
  
  
  
• Jean-Paul Sartre’s father died when he was just 15 months old. Throughout much of his adult life he mentions fathers, and denigrates fatherhood. His philosophy promotes the idea that man can become God, that we are self-made men. More than one biographer has noted his obsession about fathers and his atheism may well tie in to his own absent father.
  
  
  
• According to her son (who later became a Christian), Madalyn Murray O’Hair intensely hated her father. In his memoirs, he records an ugly fight in which she tried to kill her father with a ten-inch butcher knife. She failed but screamed, “I’ll see you dead. I’ll get you yet. I’ll walk on your grave!” Her son says he does not understand why she so hated her father. "
  

Might some of the skeptics that peruse these pages please take the time this Father's Day to try to become closer to the Father?He is waiting to hear from you and your experience with him would be like another son who sought out his father after a long period of estrangement..."So he went at once to his father. While he was still at a distance, his father saw him and felt sorry for him. He ran to his son, put his arms around him, and kissed him. Then his son said to him, 'Father, I've sinned against heaven and you. I don't deserve to be called your son anymore.' "The father said to his servants, 'Hurry! Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let's celebrate with a feast. My son was dead and has come back to life. He was lost but has been found.' Luke, Chapter 15

Just Who is Uri Brodsky?

In a letter to the Irish newspaper The Independent, Pat Malone of Dublin sounds off after repeatedly hearing the loud chants of "free, free Palestine" while living just a few doors down from the Isreali embassy...

"I am concerned that those protesting are unclear on certain facts and the overall picture. In 1922, after World War One, a legal document known as the British Mandate for Palestine was drawn up by the League of Nations. This agreement came into effect on September 26, 1923. It formalised British rule in Palestine (1923 -- 1948) and required the British to set up a "Jewish homeland" there.

After World War Two, Jewish survivors of the death camps were not given back the property that had been appropriated by others in their absence. Neither were all survivors taken in as refugees by the allied states. Instead they were encouraged to return to their "homeland", Zion.

Subsequently, in 1948, Britain chose to withdraw from Palestine and the aforementioned mandate was taken over by the United Nations Trust Territories. The result was civil war between the new state of Israel and its Arab neighbours.

When I hear protesters and European media sources stating Israel is a "rogue terrorist state" I find this appalling. For me it seems that the Jewish people were handed a poisoned chalice and that Europe and America have a lot to answer for in the ongoing atrocities in Israel and Palestine.

To stick a traumatised race in the middle of the Islamic world, in a territory that wasn't really ours to give, and then wag our collective finger at them when they act nervous and trigger-happy, is a travesty."

One can debate whether or not that area was "really ours to give" until the cows come home. It doesnt really change the reality of the situation on the ground one little bit. Fresh on the heels of last week's flotilla incident comes news out of Poland of the arrest of a man identified as 'Uri Brodsky' whom Germany is seeking the extradiction of on preliminary charges of "espionage" and "forgery". It is being reported that Brodsky was allegedly involved in a plot by the Isreali Secret Service, (the Mossad) involving the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founding member of the so-called "Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades" which comprise the military wing of the terrorist organization Hamas, in a Dubai hotel room last January. According to the US State department "The armed element [of Hamas], called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, conducts anti-Israeli attacks, including suicide bombings against civilian targets inside Israel."

In an editorial in today's New York Sun, the following history lesson is laid out regarding the background of the German government in these type of matters...

"Robert Dean Stethem is the first person we thought of when news came over the wires of the arrest in Poland of a man the Associated Press characterizes as an alleged Mossad spy, who is sought by Germany in the case of the terrorist who allegedly was murdered in a hotel room in Dubai. Stethem is the heroic United States Navy petty officer who, 25 years ago on Monday, was seized by terrorists of Hezbollah aboard a hijacked TWA aircraft, beaten, tortured, and then pushed out a door onto the Beirut airport tarmac, where he perished. Stethem is a hero because he gave his own life to save others. One of Stethem’s killer’s, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, was eventually captured in Germany. President Reagan sought his extradition to America, but the Germans refused.

Instead, the Germans themselves put Hamadi on trial and convicted him of, among other crimes, Stethem’s murder. They gave him what was supposed to be a life sentence. But, after holding him less than 20 years, they all too characteristically released the killer, an agent of the Iranian backed terrorist organization Hezbollah, and actually escorted him back freedom at the scene of the crime....


The man being held by the Poles — his name, according to the Associated Press, is Uri Brodsky — is wanted in connection with the alleged murder of a leader of the military wing of Hamas, a terrorist organization backed by the same Iranian regime that backed the organization for which Hamadi worked. Why would the Germans want to help prosecute that case? Do the Germans regret the assassination that is alleged to have taken place against the leader of Hamas? Why did they refuse to hand Hamadi over to America? Why did they let Hamadi go after less than 20 years in prison? And escort him to go back to Lebanon? Where do they stand?



We don’t know whether Uri Brodsky is an agent of Massad or did or didn’t play a role in helping the Mossad in the assassination, if it was an assassination, in Dubai. But we do know that there is a broad war on against Israel and the rest of the Free World. And if Uri Brodsky is a partisan in that fight on the Free World’s side, the right thing for Poland to do would be to get him to where he can get back into the fight. If he needs transportation out of Poland, we know of a vessel that might be able to give him a lift — the guided missile destroyer of the Arleigh Burke class that sails under the name United States Ship Stethem" (pictured above).

So indeed friends, we are left asking 'Just who is Uri Brodsky?'. To those who support the efforts of those who would aim Katusha rockets in the area of a children's playground, then perhaps the person known as Uri Brodsky is someone who should be arrested and face the stiffest punishment possible.



For those who stand against such reckless acts of violence and it turns out that Brodsky was was a bit player in the removal of a certain terrorist leader known for this type of indiscriminate destruction, the question is, what type of punishment, if any, should he receive? Maybe he can expect the same spirit of leniency from the Germans that was extended to Mohammed Ali Hamadi? Perhaps, but I'm not holding my breath people.

What Does Sarah Palin Read Her Daughter From the Bible?

Let me start off by saying that I'm not exactly a huge Sarah Palin fan. She's "OK" in my book. A more accurate idea of who I believe, among the leading candidates out there, is best able to lead this nation (US) can be determined by clicking on Mitt Romney's Free and Strong America emblem on the left margin.

That being said, I generally like Palin. I do not doubt at all that she would stand up for the sovereignty of the United States if she were ever in a position of leadership on the national level. I cannot say the same about our current president.

The above title is from an article by Benyamin Korn who has this to say about Governor Palin...

"When Governor Sarah Palin spoke to 16,000 Christian evangelical women in Louisville, Kentucky on April 16, guess which book she mentioned as the one she reads to her daughter at bedtime?

Try the biblical Book of Esther.

That’s right — Sarah Palin, mocked and pilloried by Jewish liberals as a danger to world Jewry because of her Christian beliefs, reads to her 8 year-old from a book that most Jews should probably spend a little more time with....

..to Sarah Palin, the well being of Israel and the Jewish people is an integral part of her worldview. Israel is not just another cold run-of-the-mill foreign policy matter, like trade with Mexico or aid to Sri Lanka. What happens to Israel matters to her as a Christian. Threats to America’s moral fiber and threats to Israel’s national security are all part of the same challenge that she wants Americans to address.

Governor Palin takes her Bible seriously. Not in the sense of someone who wants to impose her beliefs on anyone else, but simply as someone who believes that both the Hebrew Bible an the New Testament provide moral guideposts for our lives. She reads the Book of Esther to Piper because she wants her daughters to emulate Jewish history’s most famous heroine.

In her speech to the Women of Joy, Palin included a few quotes from the New Testament. But Jewish scripture figured much more prominently. She quoted twice from Psalms, as well from Proverbs and Malachi. She spoke to Piper about how Esther, an orphan, overcame steep odds and difficulties in order to save the Jewish people. And she took issue with President Obama’s policy of “poking our ally Israel in the eye.”

Fear-mongers with political agendas want to drive a wedge between Governor Palin and American Jewry. Sometimes they do it with quotations that leave out key sentences. Sometimes they do it with distorted depictions of her religious beliefs.

Jews have nothing to fear from Sarah’s Palin religion. But we have plenty to fear from those political leaders who not only have no interest in Esther or Proverbs, or Sarah, but who think that poking Israel in the eye makes for good foreign policy."

I find it odd that America, for all of it's talk about freedom, does not do more to support the best example of democracy and women's rights in the Middle East by more vocally supporting Isreal. It's Arab neighbors could learn a thing or two from Isreal's success, however it seems the Obama administration couldnt possibly care less.

Regarding Isreal, the Bible tells us, "cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee" (Genesis 27:29), and this has been the hallmark of America's relationship with Isreal since it's founding in the modern era. Certain past president's have seen the existance of Isreal and the the well being of United States as being linked to one another. If one wishes to discuss weening Isreal off of subsidies that it receives from the United States, then fine, let's talk about it. However the nation that is by far our closest ally in that part of the world should be supported, no matter what the chorus of hate of those nations that surround it are braying in only the latest edition of their unhinged and hate filled anti-Jewish rantings.