The Sedition Act

The World Without the Bible

2011-12-31T00:38:00.003-06:00

Upon thinking in depth about an end of the year post, many topics came to mind: the violent Christmas season that just passed, the SOPA bill in Congress that could change the way we use and view the Internet (and who governs it), the end of a year that saw 'everyman' rise up in many oppressed countries and demand the most basic liberties, and a myriad of other topics. Yet of all the topics one could write on, and many are writing on, the one that preoccupies me, as this 400th year celebration of the King James Bible comes to a close, is the muted fanfare the celebration received, the half-hearted assignments of liberal and mostly unbelieving journalists who wrote on the topic, and the grave misunderstanding and even slanderous assault on the Book we call "The Word of God". Four hundred years ago, a handful of men, including Luther, Tyndale, and Reina and Valera with a few others, caused the world to turn around with a most unusual new edition of the Bible, in German, English and Spanish, instead of the austere and esoteric Latin of the Roman Church. One cannot help but be moved by why a small group of scholars would risk their lives in defying Rome and Governments, if their task were somehow trivial or 'other-worldly' and not at all essential to the world. What was the element in their feat that 'turned the world upside down'? What is it about the Bible they put into the hands of millions then and now, that so changed history, and caused them to be imprisoned, hated, burned at stake, banished or otherwise mistreated? And what would the world be like, if that Bible, (or any other version) were not in the world?

For years many liberal pundits and scholars have brashly posited that the world would be a better place without the Bible, or 'religion', although they usually are referring to the Christian religion. John Lennon wrote the anthem of unbelievers before his demise, and even now one hears strains of "Imagine there's no heaven". Would it? There is a fundamental but ill considered notion that it is somehow only mythology, or an "opium of the masses", and that all of the world's ills in their minds, hinge on the Bible, or 'religion' which they mention in the same breath without discernment.

The 'Four' Musketeers

In the early 1500s, Europe was already in turmoil. Henry VIII, had married Katherine of Aragon, Spanish royalty in order to cement loyalty between the two nations, but Katherine was baron, and when Henry fell in love with the younger Anne Boleyn, he sought a divorce from the marriage he had entered into only with special permission of the Vatican, since Katherine was a close family tie. The Vatican refused to rescind the special order granting the first marriage, and Henry sought independence from Papal authority, in a clash of royalty. Meanwhile, much of Europe had become disenchanted with the Holy See, as a great deal of corruption and false doctrine was eminent in the church, with priests selling indulgences and special favor with God, idolatry, and the exclusivity of clerical interpretation and study of the scriptures. Luther defied the Roman church with the cry of 'Sola Scriptura' or 'only Scripture' as the authority in faith, and the heart cry of 'Grace' against the hundreds of regulations and 'rules of ordination' that had replaced real faith. In Spain, the Inquisition was in full gear, initially administered in premiere cruelty by the Vatican in an effort to control property as well as souls, although the King of Spain, Philippe, at one point decided Spain could do a better job of the Inquisition, and so undermined the Catholic Inquisition in favor of a more Spanish one. Reina and Valera, the Spanish counterparts of Tyndale and Luther, translated a vernacular bible (called the 'bear' bible due to a front-plate illustration), based upon Erasmus' Greek and the Masoretic text, and the book was immediately placed on the Inquisitions forbidden book list, with the banishment of the translators. (who were given refuge in England, Antwerp and Germany). Lastly, Tyndale, expecting church help with his English translations, instead found himself at odds with the crown, the Anglican hierarchy and Rome, and spent his last days before imprisonment and death, hiding in Germany and Antwerp, secretly smuggling the newly translated texts back into England, hidden sometimes a page at a time, and re-collated in Britain. Germany, England and Spain were showing signs of a revival unparalleled in history, as the real Word of God was placed back into the hands of the people: common people, who had for centuries been spoon-fed only what the church hierarchy wished them to hear, with much of God's Word withheld. God's Word withheld, gave us the Inquisition and the Templar Marches, the Crusades, as religion replaced relationship with God, with the great 'sin of the Nicolaitans', the 'rule over the laity' and the light of the World remained unseen during the dark ages.

What was the unique feature,though, the thing so essential about that translation, that people all over Europe would come to stand up against slavery, against religious oppression, tyranny, and inhumanity? Indeed, the journey of that book would lead across the Atlantic to a new nation seeking religious freedom for all. What was the key element? Certainly one was the whole word in every hand, but the other, overlooked for so long by historians, was the direct translation of the Old Testament off the pure, traditional, unadulterated Masoretic Hebrew. It was also the reason the translation caused such a stir in political circles and Rome.

For centuries, the Roman Church which held a monopoly on worship in Europe and the Mediterranean,
had used for doctrine Jerome's Latin Vulgate, a latin translation even of the Hebrew. Even Wycliffe in the 1300s, with the first English translation, had translated the English off of the Latin Vulgate, making it a step-child. His persecution was even then significant: even after his death his remains were disinterred and burned, and his ashes thrown in the river. Even Jerome though, acknowledged in his notes that he was not adept at Hebrew, so his Latin translations were even farther removed from the carefully preserved Masoretic text than one would think. A common misperception is that Tyndale translated off of the Vulgate, but even his last letter from Vilvroode Prison, makes an urgent plea for his copy of the Hebrew bible. The pure, Masoretic text, was being translated from, for the first time in about 11-1200 years in Christendom, by four of the best and most gifted scholars, with the most sophisticated and complete collation of Greek manuscript evidence (Erasmus) which has ever been assembled. None of the four, nor their underground counterparts, would ever live a normal life again: their lives became tragic, endangered wherever they went, but their legacy was a new nation with the possibility at least for religious liberty, an end to the slave trade, an uprising of the populace for a more just society, and the beginning of the exodus out of the Inquisition and dark ages. While it may not be proveable to an unbelieving world, I hold that the reason for the awakening was not just the true and complete Word of God available in all hands, but the rightful oracles of God and the Word, the Jews through the Jewish text, put back in its perfect place.

What Would the World be Like without the Bible

While the great good of the Reformation would not stay forever, its impact changed the world. One might consider though what the world would have been like without God's Word (in the Torah, Tenach, and New Testament), or if we had never had it in a real form at all.

1. We would not have the legal systems we have now in the Western hemisphere: our legal system is based upon Moses' divisions of 10s,100s, 100s, etc and with Hammurabi's code, the 'Law' or 'Torah' forms much of our foundation of legal dealings, justice, and covenant or contract law.

2. We would not have a systematic approach to the 'goodness' or 'righteousness' we have: whether we attain to it or not, it is from the Word of God we learn to love God above all and our neighbors as ourselves, or even above ourselves. We learn of mercy, truth, tenderlovingkindness, grace and faith.

3. While slavery in many forms is again on the rise, the institution of slavery was at least denigrated to the vile practice it was, and outlawed in many places, on the basis of the abolitionists in England and US, e.g. Wilberforce and John Brown, both of whom based their arguments for the dignity and worth of all human beings on the Word of God. These and other men lobbied hard and with sacrifice, the latter even of his life, to bring about an end to slavery. While slavery is not gone, without the Word of God, in common hands, and the heart committment it brings, it is very likely it would have continued even till today.

4. The rehabilitation of mental hospitals in England and the US, at the hands of such persons as Phillipe Pinel and Dorothea Dix, had at their inception, the deep inspiration of the Word of God. While I would not sugar coat the condition of mental hospitals today, the excesses and abuses are held in check by principles of liberty and civil rights spelled out in the Bible.

5. The Civil Rights Movement was spearheaded by mostly bible believing people, including Dr. Martin Luther King, who took the principles of the Sermon on the Mount and applied them to non-violent civil disobedience. The result was a radical change in the disenfranchised minorities of this country being trully guaranteed at least the right by law to total equality.

6. While the women's movement in this country is usually far from biblical, the early suffragettes were people of faith fighting for the right treatment and civil rights of women, for basic human rights.

7. Ghandi, a Hindu, based his peaceful non-resistance methods on the Sermon on the Mount. While he did not profess all the tenets of Christianity, (he once said he loved Christ but not Christians), his very few possessions included a bowl and spoon, his spinning wheel, his glasses and a copy of the Sermon on the Mount. While it was not a bloodless coup, at the end of WWII, Indian Independence from Britain was obtained primarily by marches, boycotts, and steadfast strength, and though of a different religion, the principles of Christ, learned in the bible, saved millions of Indian and British lives.

8. The move to tear down the Iron Curtain, and the march on the docks in Poland, began in praying and bible reading churches. That was seldom reported.

9. The predominant source of rescuers in the Holocaust of Jewish refuges, were Bible believing Christians. While there were other rescuers, and unfortunately plenty of nominal christians who did not help and who even hurt, the most dedicated rescuers who put themselves at risk (e.g. the Ten Booms, the Hugenots at LeChambon, etc) were true believing Christians. Had the reformation never occurred, with only the partially known Vulgate extant by 1933, I truly believe even the course of the War would have been even worse. What little resistance came against the Nazis, came from either Jewish resistance groups with some political resistors thrown in, and from surrendered Bible believers, including Bonhoeffer, Neimoller, Barth etc who all affirmed the illegitimate 'fuhrership' (lordship) of Hitler over the true head of the Church.

10. Countless inventors and scientists have described finding solutions to unsolvable problems while reading the Word of God. For example, the man who discovered the Gulf Stream, thought to look for it after reading in Psalms of the 'paths in the sea'.

11. Bible based missions, decried by some, have been the one western outreach to other cultures and lands providing schools, money, food, clothing and support for indigenous peoples. The move for freedom even in Red China, while not a result of uni-causality, was greatly influenced by the selfless missionaries and nationals who planted churches throughout China, and Chinese believers are now in the millions, including a strong home/independent church movement, peacefully lobbying for human rights and religious freedom and practice not only for christians but for others.

12. The greatest popular support for the Jews, are evangelical and charismatic /pentecostal Christians, bible believers, the many pro-Israel Christians, are largely pro-Israel because of biblical teaching, particularly about the endtimes and in the book of Romans. Romans teaches that mercy and justice to the Jews are not only virtues but duties of the born again believer.

Those are just a few examples: so what would the world be like, without that Bible so carefully preserved 400 years ago by those fine men? Did they die in vain? We would have a world with more war, not less, as the inception of pacifist protests also rose out of biblical teaching. Extremely less of the poor would have been fed, clothed and housed, even with government programs, which often were begun also at the hands of those with biblical principles. Ghandi, a British trained lawyer might have used far more violent means: so might have Lech Walesa and others. Missions in Africa would have gone largely unattended; there would have been far fewer legal advocates for the poor worldwide. Where would you find ongoing soup kitchens? All but a few are church based. The Civil Rights movement would have been a blood bath with little accomplished. No one would have aided the Jews in the Shoah, or precious few.

Did you know that Harvard and the University of Florida would not have been founded? They were schools of Theology in the beginning. It might still be possible to use and abuse slaves, to run child labor camps in the US, and who would stand against Islamic and other forms of terrorism, save for the military. Who would have run the first hospitals? They are secular now, mostly but not in the beginning. Nursing schools in Germany were run by the church. Early 'public' education in the Dame Schools and community schools were run by Bible Believing Christians. While the Jews suffered persecution in the New World like the Old, the states guaranteeing them freedom of worship were founded by bible believing Christians.

Civil rights, human rights---by now there might have been some protestors, but the inception of these also were in the hearts of bible believers. One of the reasons is the belief in a reward after death, one is the love shed abroad in the heart of believers by the great covenants of God. Would the Jews be in Israel? Or safe at all in Israel? One can never know but massive worldwide support by believers keeps governments from getting a little too aggressive. I am not ignoring the terrible societal ills that still exist, in abortion, slavery, child soldiering, environmental woes, war etc, that would be sheer blindness, but how much worse would it all have been, if a few selfless men had not said, "We will stand". "We will take the Word of God back to its true base, to the God ordained Oracles, and put it in every willing hand". Tyndale could have gone back to his beautiful estate, enjoyed the company of his wife and children, and grown old drinking a pint on weekends with his friends. Would the message of Salvation by Grace have been preached by now? Would the Inquisition have stopped?

I suspect the Dark Ages would have only continued, growing darker. In WWII, when the Third Reich got ahold of the Masoretic text in the hands of Rudolf Kittel, they went backwards: they added faulty and unproven texts, dirtying up the waters, adding texts that all scholars, Jewish and Christian had for centuries and centuries omitted because of faulty content and origin. He added in the Samaritan Torah, whose origin was in the Northern Kingdom in the division of Israel, where a system of emulated but false worship was decried in the Bible as the 'sins of Jeroboam'. He and his son were primary Reich theologians, theological anti-Semities, who had no ordination from God to translate his Word. Even the Greek was altered by scholars from Tubingen in Bavaria, and the new Reich lexicon, now appearing as the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament on every American Pastor's shelf, includes oblique definitions and examples almost undetectable to those without knowledge of Nazi ideology, but engrained nonetheless. While history is replete with wars, hardly a time when there were none, the years since the reversal of the pure text, have seen over 65 different translations and and versions of translations, church division, dead churches, and massive sequential genocides. No doubt WWI and WWII played a part, but they too were on the cusp of the radical change of the Word of God in the introduction of Tischendorf's Septuagint (Sinaiticus) and a revision of the Bible by two Anglican bishops who dabbled in the occult and had no concept of biblical belief.

One may not ignore complexity and multiple-causality in the chaotic turmoil of the 20th and 21st century, but likewise one may not ignore that our traditional text which in the most beautiful language known, was literally 'cast to the wind', and we have indeed reaped the whirlwind. There is one true line of succession of the Scriptures: this has to be, or the whole thing falls apart and it becomes only another antiquity. There are not 150 versions of the truth. Only one.
One Lord, One Savior, One Word of God, a God breathed book of prophecy and the prophetic rendering of God's relationship and love for mankind. At the end of this 400th year of the Word which prevailed in so much good, in the wake of the chaotic and devastating 20th century following its 'dismissal', I cannot but echo the chilling words of our Lord and Savior:

"Luk 18:8 .... Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"

The High Cost of Homelessness

2011-10-24T12:21:00.000-05:00

In a southern city's newspaper, I read the other day an article and comments about an apartment complex which was being built for homeless families, 12 apartments with a variety of niceties to help get the displaced back into the workforce and on their feet again. The article mentioned an outcry against the high price tag of four million dollars for the facility, although that may also have included operating costs. Most of the comments reflected a generally negative opinion, relegating the project to over-priced and useless. As with so many societal ills and problems, the American public tends to see things as uni-dimensional, hearing only a summary of 4 million dollars for 12 families, but those figures are ridiculous, and do not portray the costs of helping vs. not helping. A few speculative figures, show the problem in a different light.

To begin with, 4 million dollars in the real estate market is not nearly so high a figure as it used to be: in larger cities, even nicer upper middle class homes can run 700,000 to a million or more, and apartment complexes can run in the range of four million even at 20 or 30 years old. The second issue is that the twelve families or other individuals, may be around 40-48 persons, and not all will stay the same length of time. Even if the average stay were only about 3 months, the figures would then quadruple to 160 to 200 over a year or so.

Consider then, let's estimate low, 160 people affected over a year for about 30 years a very reasonable lifespan of such a building which may last much longer. Four million dollars then becomes divided, even at raw cost, by 4800 persons, which leaves a cost of 833.33 per person. If each person stays 90 days, then 833.33 divided by 90 equals about 9.26 per person per day. Try to match that at even the most cost efficient shelter.

That does not include food though, although most will no doubt sign up initially for food stamps, but even if they do not, homeless industry contacts usually have enough contacts for donations that none will go hungry. That's three full months at the minimum for a family to get to work, and save enough to transition out to regular housing, saving for down payments on apartments which can be high with first and last month's rent often required, or to creative housing resources.
It is also likely during this time that the family can either choose government medical care options for the poor, or avail themselves of free clinics open only to those with housing needs.

So, for around 10 to 15 dollars a day, for a few months, we can provide the best of facilities to weary and stressed displaced families, most of whom need a break more than a social worker's opinion regarding their family function. Not too much to ask in 're-valuing' human life and well-being. That 'apartment' option also means a family stays together and begins again to function as a normal family. The time limits (which really should be longer for some families) assure that it does not become a permanent fixture but continues to provide motivation for further restoration. Even at the lowest salary, it provides refuge, and a way out with careful budgeting.

As I read the article though, and the terse comments, I thought how we have grown hard-hearted and brutal to persons under the rubric 'homeless', though it is now being driven home as upper middle class families lose mortgages on $300,000 homes which will not sell, and tearfully pack up a remnant of their hard earned belongings, packing them into vans and RVs and becoming a part of a never-imagined subculture of the yuppie homeless. These are not 'bums' who will not work: many had high paying corporate or medical jobs, double incomes, and stress was whether or not the neighborhood association would allow them to park their ten year old car in their driveway. They turn now to a life of finding somewhere to park on the street, and trying to avoid social agencies which will take away their kids, who used to worry about nothing more than being late to soccer practice or ballet. While these are not the only families who are homeless, and while no family is more worthy than another to receive help, they do portray the very 'help-able' homeless who with a place to live, can begin again.

I cannot help but think also that the cost of not helping is seldom considered beyond a cursory figure or two. So, again, let's speculate a little on what happens if those families are not helped and have no where to go. The first thing that happens, is that the remaining family resources are drained, bank accounts emptied, bonds cashed, etc. That starts the deficit column. Closed bank accounts do not make money for banks. Since it is so individual, one cannot calculate the exact amount of interest or investment money that is lost, but the figures of the 'noveau-homeless' are staggering. One might think that upon the sale of their houses they would be o.k. but there are no pending sales: they are foreclosed. A fox news article reports the following:

Banks have seized more than 816,000 homes through the first nine months of the year and had been on pace to seize 1.2 million by the end of 2010

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/14/record-number-foreclosures-face-challenge-court/#ixzz1biX74LnU

Let's say that the average price of those homes was 150,000 (many are far more). The amount is inflated of course by the fact that only a percent will end up homeless, but just those lost mortgages, on the low end are worth $122,400,000,000. That was in the first 9 months of 2010! Some one feel free to assess the lost interest to lending agencies.

Taxes are lost. If one of those families at the lowest level, below poverty level makes no more than 16,500, then the federal government, for that year off one family loses $1881 to $2060 per income for one year. Since we chose such a low figure lets use the higher of $2060 on 2011 tables for a head of household, and multiple it times the approximately 50 single 'incomes' that come through the 'expensive' shelter, and the government loses 103,000 over the year. Local government loses an undeterminable amount in sales tax. New car companies lose the families' buying power, as do clothes companies, grocery stores, etc. Take the $103,000 in lost income tax, and multiply it over 30 years of shelter operation for just this local shelter: the sum? $3,090,000 lost. A Huffington Post article cites the following:

The federal government has attempted to slow down the tide of families facing homelessness through the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which has provided more than 550,000 people aid since late 2009.

For a year, based on the lowest figure, that's 56,650,000,000 dollars lost, and over thirty years, about 1.7 trillion dollars lost just in Federal income tax.

Taxes on property are lost: For a year, if even half of those families had owned a house, 25 or so, and the average property tax was around $2000, then approximately $50,000 in tax revenue is lost to the local county. Since the article was about a shelter in Tennessee, the Tennessee government estimates an average of $350 per family a year in sales tax, meaning the loss per year of $17,500 in this one small shelter. (This could be smaller since it would be partial, but I have kept it at that point, since some will have more than one income, and many at a higher level.)

Medical costs for the state will soar, since stress invariably leads to more doctor visits (Parkes 1976) and treatment for a variety of stress related illnesses from flus all the way to cancer and ulcerative colitis. One can guess at about $2000 per family in government supplied medical expenses. Food costs for a family per year will cost the government @ $8016 a year. People in trouble often 'un-enfranchise' from certain societal organizations and conventions, so there is a loss in dues, tithes for churches and synagogues, education concerns, etc, which are impossible to accurately assess. Legal problems also often accompany homelessness, and since few can afford food, much less attorneys, there is a burden on the system for legal services for the poor. Often, even with legal aid societies etc, the client still has to pay filing fees, so the system is taxed.

We have already seen the increased burden on the provision of welfare, food stamps, credits for child care etc: this is an additional burden. If we are to estimate even in a broad 'ball park' figure then, the cost of this shelter per vs. the cost of no shelter, it would be very roughly, for one year, 12,426 in just government benefits, vs. the $10-15/day, @$3650 of providing this 'expensive' shelter. The figure in some ways is too low because there will be double-ups on government aid until the family is back on there feet, but that is just a comparison between cost of restoring a family vs. the cost of government aid and loss of revenues by refusing help. Four million dollars perhaps can be trimmed, but the cost of a property goes up in value over time, so by the end of the 30 years, the benefit has a real world dollar effect, benefiting the state, federal and local government and community.

Why are we without restorative apartments in every major city?

The Process of Dehumanization

2011-10-14T12:39:00.005-05:00

This column is in response to a question on Answers.com, "How does Dehumanization Work?"
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_dehumanization_work

We look at the atrocities in the Killing Centers and other areas in WWII, particularly against the Jews, and we wonder how could human beings could degenerate into that degree of hatred. Dehumanization of victims though is a process and does not occur all at once.
One of the first moves towards 'dehumanization' is the objectification of the person, particularly of the 'other'. Martin Buber refers to the I-Thou relationship first between God and man, and then between men and others. When we maintain empathy for others, seeing humanity in them, we treat them as we would be treated: we see their joy, their pain, their visions and hope. When we begin to objectify them, we see them as an object either for our purposes or in our way, for our own means. This move towards redefining the person as an object begins the process of dehumanization.

In WWII the most eminent example of dehumanization was was the segregation, redefinition, and eventual genocide of the Jewish people from German society and citizen, but also of the 'devaluing' of life in the Nazi Euthanasia program called T4. In the T4 program, a concept arose of "lebensunwerte leben" or 'life unworthy of life' in which Nazi physicians and racial scientists argued that life that was not 'productive' nor valuable to the state, or which caused a burden on the state economically was not on the same level as normal life, and could therefore be terminated. The definition became inclusive of the mentally retarded and later the mentally ill, epileptics, alcoholics, and even the chronically unemployed. Over 65,000 people were killed before public outcry, mostly from the churches demanded an end to the murders.

Regarding the Jews, the first process was in the realm of both philosophy and religion: before the Reich came into power, Rudolf Kittel wrote doctrinally of the modern Jews as separate from the "Israelites" of old, beloved in the Bible , and his son provided the doctrinal framework for the 'alien status' of the Jews by arguing 'blut und boden', that a nation's people belong to the 'soil' or land they are from, and hence the Jews could not rightfully be considered 'citizens' but only of 'alien status' since they belonged to Israel and not Germany. Nietszche developed the idea of a superior people vs. an 'inferior people' and Blavatsky and others developed the idea of a 'root race' and evolutionary process in which superior races replaced earlier inferior races, serving to further dehumanize and ostracize the Jews. Many regional paganistic groups tied the German Aryan race to the superior groups, and Racial scientists intensified the process by 'scientizing' the concept of superior vs. inferior racial types. So the first major process was in retraining German thinking into racial pride against 'untermenschen' or sub-humans.

One of the next processes of dehumanization was in making the lesser racial type evil and morally inferior. The Jews were portrayed as misers, as bringing in inferior government styles, as associated with the enemies of Germany, as robbing and plundering the nation, taking German jobs, etc, in effect as seditious and morally inferior, ready to 'infect' the high moral standards and intellect of German youth and society. In the Reich's eyes, their influence in the arts and education was degenerate and must be purged. Eventually even German bloodlines must be made pure from Semitic influence.

Segregation followed the 'reasoning' for separation, and initially Jewish children were restricted in public schools from full activities and congregating, and then expelled from public education. Jewish educators and artists were expelled respectively from their fields---University professors were ousted from academic positions for fear of influencing German students, artists were required to register with a Reichskammer or chamber which required their name, address and Aryan status. Those of non-Aryan status could not perform nor display.

Restrictions increased with propaganda about superior Aryan qualities: Jews could no longer go to Parks, use public transportation, employ maids , or used German hairdressers. The Jews could not teach their children Hebrew, though they could sing hebrew songs. Books by Jewish authors and others were burned and removed from libraries and bookstores. Jewish authors were required to turn copyrights over to the Reich, and were not allowed to use the legal system, or in some cases make police reports. Jews could only go to Jewish physicians, and many Jewish physicians could not practice in hospitals.

When the Jews were separated, dehumanized and despised, then arguments were broadly made for their ousting from Germany, save for a few essential workers in the armaments industries. They were seen as seditious and dangerous, though they had committed no crime. They were charged large fees to take money out of the Reich, sometimes 90% to expatriate, and they were required to be approved by local Reich police departments. The Madagascar Document proposed the large island off the eastern coatline of Africa for a homeland for the Jews but even that was rescinded.

How far can dehumanization go? Every effort was made to debase the race spoken of in the Scriptures as 'chosen'. Deportations were in cattle cars from product loading platforms. Conditions were unsanitary and overcrowded and food was limited. Former acts of bullying and humiliation were nothing compared to the treatment in their destination of the Concentration Camps, in which they were processed into 'product': gold pulled from teeth, hair cut for hemp rope, skeletons selected from living victims for anatomy labs, soap and oil and leather produced from fat and skin and slavery of the worst sort on the way into death. The cruelty and hatred was so criminal, that by the end, it would go down in the annals of cruelty as surpassing any historical antecedent.

Dehumanization can be thwarted early in the process, but probably not later. There appears to be a 'threshold' in which it can be turned back. Studies of dehumanization in Zimbardo's Prison experiments, Milgram's (and later Buss's) Aggression studies, have demonstrated that the process will proceed even in a controlled experiment even among normals. This is a great deal to consider when we attend to lesser events occurring today, far away and years away from the holocaust. We take as minor occurrences acts of cruel bullying, threats, injustice, and erasure of tolerance and civil rights, not realizing where they can lead. Processes of dehumanization are always characterized by entropy, and start with our inability to see one another as persons like ourselves. ekbest

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_dehumanization_work#ixzz1amMG2nYU

Where are the Jews in the Modern Bible Translations?

2011-10-01T18:33:00.002-05:00

Darwin, Racial Science, & the Beginning of Another School Year: Repeated Column 2006

2011-09-08T17:48:00.002-05:00

THE BATTLE FOR BELIEF IN GOD IN THE LATTER DAYS OF A NATION

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THE BATTLE FOR BELIEF IN GOD IN THE LATTER DAYS OF A NATION

The air has turned a little cooler here in Wisconsin, heralding a soon coming Autumn, and , school starts here and everywhere else: we live across from an old-fashioned red brick elementary school in an unremarkable neighborhood, and already the parking lot across the street has begun to fill again with teachers making preparations for their student's return, embellished by new computer labs, the latest curricula, modern agendas and the most recent techniques, amidst too-old textbooks, desks, blackboards and other instruments of learning which use to hallmark education instead of the modern rethinking of what it means to be educated and skillful. Indoctrination in public education is steady, skillful, fairly unobservable and very successful: we have moved in a generation from training our children to read, write, think and be creative, to teaching them that there are no rights or wrongs, only decisions (values clarification), that to fit in is better than to stand up, that to plaigerize and cheat is ok if you can get away with it, and that winning really is, well, everything.

We consider the above to be modern "values" which many believe are more 'real-world' than our old values of honesty, striving for excellence, love, respect and truth ---TRUTH (that ancient commodity), and many are now willing to teach their children brutal methods of dealing with life and others early, as are many public schools, all the while peppering in 'tolerance education', 'peace studies' and 'character education'.

The Origin of the 'Teachings'

While none of my hitherto ramblings may appear to be related to Darwinism at all, or certainly not it would seem to 'racial science' and the Third Reich, the impact of that great introduction of a new 'enlightenment' [or en-darken-ment] has been dramatic, overwhelming, and seldom considered in the degree of its impact on the one race God cares the most about: the human one. Darwinism, though, and its peculiar and dangerous spinoff: Social Darwinism, has influenced Western [and Eastern] society phenomenally, and has the very natural outcome and future of a brutal way of life which few us can imagine.

Before the early 1900s, (Darwin proposed his theories in the late 1800s), the prevailing teaching in Public and Private Schools was that of a created world, according to Biblical accounts, integrated with the values inherent in the Word of God and in many world religions: truth, justice, concern for others, a respect for the reasonable laws of men, care for the weak, the ill, the less fortunate and other values which in general, if kept in a society, make for a more peaceful society. One would have to admit however, given the violent past we all share, that even with those values we barely had a fighting chance. So to speak. Till the last century turned , God's Word held such sway, that most societies held to certain bounds of right and wrong, even though trangressed frequently.

A few enormous influences undulated onto the horizon in the early twentieth century after a couple of centuries of maturation. Even in the 1600s through the late 1700s, Descarte and others such as Spinoza, began to introduce the idea that we might not have to go to God first to determine morality or 'being', and the serpentile 'hath God said' raised its head in Edenic tones. Before that time, doctrinal considerations held the hand over scientific considerations or philosophical ones, and the result was a polite though often restrictive society [of course not always] in the practice of staid 'religion' and its great influence on human behavior. But Descarte, Nietzche, Voltaire and others overturned the mind of God for the mind of man, and while at first it was seen merely as radical nonsense, the roots grew deep and severed former considerations of God's sovereignty. As a people we rather liked the new 'scientific' [or scientistic] sounding theories, attributing rubrics such as 'rationalism' [how reasonable that sounds] 'Enlightenment', and ontological essenses of thinking leading to being instead of the other way around. It became us who made overtures to God instead of Him to us, and our theology changed. Our Science changed. Our business practices and ethics changed. Our hearts changed.
Curious, it is that our hearts swelled over time although the God of all on Golgotha found his pierced, bled and drained in the accomplishment of our Salvation and healing.

MORE INFLUENCES

There were other influences before and concurrent with Darwin though, such as the move to an urban and industrialized society, the scientizing of many disciplines including 'Behavioral & Social Sciences', and a willingness to consider all new theories equally in a neo-hellenization of western culture. Darwin's willingness to consider concepts beyond a six day creation and the breath of God causing life, came from what some call liberalization and others call degeneration.

Darwin and a Racial and Social Science

When Darwin threw out his original conjectures, he was as he admitted later in life 'thinking out loud' trying to find a non- or semi-theistic way of explaining man's origin without having to exercise the ancient faith in God that was beginning to wane by the end of the 19th century. While he may never have ended up as a 6 day creationist, by the end of his life, he was questioning his own theories, and decrying the fervor which with some had 'made a religion out of them'. [Darwin and the Occult]. He turned back to a reliance on the Word, a little shared fact by his biographers. As is often the case, others place just as great a faith in Darwin's theories as in God, and later, even greater and today, even large sectors of the Church via 'Gap' theory propose evolutionary-based sophistries to fit Scriptural interpretations of Creation into 'long-day' or long-age theories based upon a few verses and lengthy descriptions of word origins.

After the Scopes trial showed one really could teach the new notion of origins in school and succeed; Darwinism took root quickly and was within 40 years integrated in every known discipline in the academic venue. It fit neatly into reintroductions of occultic and archetypal reawakenings in Europe, particularly in Germany. Soon with other theories, growing more out of occultism than science, new schools of Racial Science took root even before the advent of the Third Reich, which took elements of fundamental theories of 'superior racial qualities' and superior races [mostly from occultism-See Root Race Theory] and as had been done in other disciplines began to 'scientize' the investigation of racial characteristics and possibilities with a look toward the future of a utopian race with supernatural qualities, but here on earth, not in heaven, and under man's creation. Eugenics became the thinly veiled title, and Darwin became the apologetics: only the brightest and best would survive, that was nature, and nature knew best. Natural selection would do away with the infirm, the weak, the ill, the vulnerable, and science could help if it could only get rid of those archaic ethical questions of right and wrong, good and evil, and other pesky troublings. This was the basis of the argument by Binding and other theorists which led to the T-4program in which the mentally ill and retarded were euthanized (murdered), and which led to the methods and manpower behind the Nazi Killing and Atrocity Centers.

With the favor of Hitler and Goebbels and the first major government funding in some time, Racial Science, and Darwinism took off: Hitler considered Darwin instrumental in a New World Order. But Racial Science did not stop at physical Darwinism which taught descent from apes and lower life forms, long age evolution, and transitional forms, survival of the fittest, along with natural selection, but the Reich began to apply the concepts to the Social order, or milieu in which the tough, the strong, the brutal who strove to get ahead, without regard for the weak and hurting were actually to be seen as the most 'fit' in human society. The racial scientists from Jena, and other German institutions found sincere comradeship not only in Germany but in the US and Britain, with Eugenics 'saints' such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, in whose journal¹ they published. Most do not know that the heralded Sanger deliberately placed her clinics in impoverished black areas not to increase wealth by promoting smaller families, but to decrease what she considered undesireable populations. That aside, though, it was the Social applications of Darwinism that allowed the dawning of a new era with two major principles:
THE PRINCIPLES OF DARWINISM

1. The Physical application of Darwinism allowed for a man created apart from God, not subject to God's Will and Law, and certainly not in need of redemption, and

2. The Social application changed the Prevailing Ethic of truth, honesty, love, benevolence, to 'means to an end' winning at all cost, and the valuing of brutal striving in a totally redefined morality.

By the end of WWII, the natural consequences of Social Darwinism which was allowed to fester became evident: it did not lead to Atlantis and utopia, but to Dresden and Auschwitz & the destruction of many European urban areas. It led to demoralization, despair, lives in vacuums without meaning, and despairing existentialists trying to make sense of how we could just be here without purpose or intent, and whether life was worth living at all. [note 1] Darwinism integrated our Psychology and Social Sciences: man was nothing without the group, all behavior had evolutionary purpose, nature vs nuture arguments replaced considerations of what God would have us do to be right with Him.
In history when science tries to integrate with doctrine, at first doctrine judges science, then the two waver, and eventually, the ship turns over with science judging doctrine. Such has been the case with the infiltration of the Darwinian concepts, which we ran with and applied in every field, when even Darwin would not have shared our confidence.

Battles of Belief

So ingrained is evolution in public school education, that it is taught without scrutiny ever any more: 'Intelligent Design' theorists who merely want a hearing in the classroom that God and His creative power might exist, are deemed laughable in the Press and in academia, to the modern mind, it is the 'flat earth' society. That is because it is never even considered, that the {un}holy grail of Darwinism might have a flaw, perhaps even a critical one which might demand scrutiny. The truth is, origins are NOT OBSERVABLE---they happened in the past, both the Creationist and the Evolutionist place FAITH in what they BELIEVE happened: and faith and belief in this life is the battleground. Most 'scientists' think it is a battle between faith and science, but it is not: it is a battle between faith in the spontaneous generation of mankind vs faith in the creation of God: was man self-created, or God-created? The belief in either has the consequences of life and meaning. The intelligent mind examines both, and both, oddly enough use the same evidences.

Social Darwinism & the Training of Children

It is my deeper concern however, that beyond what one chooses to believe, that beliefs have consequences, and those real consequences determine whether we can live at all in peace in human society. Even if you do not believe in God, most will admit that what you believe will if not determine, at least AFFECT what you do: I drive on the correct side of the road because I believe that if I drive on the wrong side, I am subject to a death on the highway. Why? Because there is power in belief in the truth. If I drive on the wrong side of the road believing nothing will happen, and it does, the consequences are devastating---a wrong belief can lead to destruction. Many wrong beliefs have already lead to our nearly destroying our world and several races of people as well [See Genocide. So our faith is not independent of an outcome.

When we glibly and without examination teach young children from 5 or 6 on that man exists independently of God, that he is more of a physical creation that a divine one, and that the principles of GAS[General Adaptation Syndrome} and Natural Selection govern these machine-bodies of ours, we cannot fail to realize that we are simultaneously teaching a new ethic. O Brave New World, with such people in it². We are subterraneously teaching a form of social Darwinism, [it has not changed form or substance in those years since 1945] in which 'getting ahead' and being smart about winning are the supreme values. We started some years ago, lining up our schoolyard ethics with Social Darwinism: DARE programs teach what some call 'values clarification' in which drugs are not taught as bad, lowlife, dirty things to do that negatively alter your mind and destroy your life, but as 'choices' for which one must accept consequences: no right or wrong, only the teaching of calculated risks. Violence and rebellion used to be taught as totally unacceptable and the violent child ostracized until he or she could be brought back into the community, but now we seek to 'understand' the need for power over another, and we look the other way. Bullying is at an all time high in schools: it is no longer lunch money which is at stake, but behaviors which injure children for life. Teachers are bullied and assaulted, even stalked by students who didn't have it their way. The best and brightest and most tender teachers are resigning and choosing alternative careers, because our students are often taught at school and home, implicitly and explicitly, that it is a tough world and one has to be tough to survive.

The first thing to go is respect for the other person: others, (especially once God and His ways are dismissed) are objects: they are a means to an end: if they are not strong, and do not reciprocate brutality, they are beaten down with none to help, they fall prey, in short to the natural selection taking place in the school yard.
We fight over a moment of silent prayer in the morning, and open books which teach our children that it is natural to vie for top position. Weak children, we muse were never meant to have the top place. Creativity works against social order and causes children to be 'dysfunctional', and a whole ethic of caring for one another is replaced by an egotistical striving to win at all costs. The ethic which has replaced the old one, is social darwinism, reinforced in every field by every author.

Parents today, are even boasting about raising their children for the 'real world'. They are taught not to share, but to grab. Rationalizations are made 'roughing people up'. Intimidation is seen as a means to an end, and the intimidations out there today were unspeakable even 20 years ago. Kids 'humbling' other kids so that they have control over them takes cruel forms. While we used to take the brutal children aside recognizing their aberration, we now name their victims aberrant. The result in school and business is becoming a life hardly worth living, and the new romantic heroes of our day are mobsters and gangsters [e.g. The Sopranos, or hit men as leading men] or men in politics and entertainment who take what and who they want regardless of ruin and heartache. Children raised in this ethic, as they were in the 3rd Reich, are fit indeed: fit to be used by organized thieves, crime bosses and tyrants, living life in a slaughterhouse, and dying without meaning. The fact that in school the behaviors are less pronounced [most of the time] and controlled somewhat does not lessen the critical lesson that if those patterns are not redirected early, they are gone, and so is our way of life.

Losing a child to that--- what is the cost? Will it be conscience-less children in 20 years who decide our fate when we are old? Or perform surgery according to cost effectiveness and not care for the value of human life? Or who create a lawless environment where predators are constant threats and no one cares? This list is endless. Do we think psychology is the answer? It promotes the same values and ideas and in many ways fosters Social Darwinism as most of its theories are firmly based in evolutionary theory, and the concept of right and wrong and good and evil, most clinicians find laughable. In this school year, when we think of the teaching of Darwinism as a minor issue, which has small effect, we should instead consider the great cancer it has become, in our schools and even churches, metasticizing into the death of what most of us love and hold dear. If we do not, we will never in our lifetimes feel safe again, having to fight against a prevailing Machiavellianism which will not even allow us to rest in our own homes or feel secure in our possessions or own talents and efforts. This has been the effect of Evolutionism and Social Darwinism, not merely which charts appear on Biology classroom walls. We have a choice.
_______________________________________________
NOTES & REFERENCES
¹ The planned parenthood journal formerly called 'Birth Control Review', which is still available in archives in University libraries, in which Eugenicists from the US, England and Germany published, including Reich physicians involved in racial science research.
²William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream

[note 1] Even before the war, by 1939, Sigmund Freud who had posited the 'Life Principle' had readjusted his theories to include 'thanatos', a death principle, remarking that he was unable to reconcile the degree of death and worldwide destruction he saw in WWI and the beginning of the Reich. Dying in 1939, he was among those who had to flee Germany in the 30s as the Reich took hold, exiling or killing their own Jewish citizens and those who supported them.

Darwin, Racial Science, & the Beginning of Another School Year: Repeated Column 2006

2011-09-08T17:47:00.001-05:00

THE BATTLE FOR BELIEF IN GOD IN THE LATTER DAYS OF A NATION

The air has turned a little cooler here in Wisconsin, heralding a soon coming Autumn, and , school starts here and everywhere else: we live across from an old-fashioned red brick elementary school in an unremarkable neighborhood, and already the parking lot across the street has begun to fill again with teachers making preparations for their student's return, embellished by new computer labs, the latest curricula, modern agendas and the most recent techniques, amidst too-old textbooks, desks, blackboards and other instruments of learning which use to hallmark education instead of the modern rethinking of what it means to be educated and skillful. Indoctrination in public education is steady, skillful, fairly unobservable and very successful: we have moved in a generation from training our children to read, write, think and be creative, to teaching them that there are no rights or wrongs, only decisions (values clarification), that to fit in is better than to stand up, that to plaigerize and cheat is ok if you can get away with it, and that winning really is, well, everything.

We consider the above to be modern "values" which many believe are more 'real-world' than our old values of honesty, striving for excellence, love, respect and truth ---TRUTH (that ancient commodity), and many are now willing to teach their children brutal methods of dealing with life and others early, as are many public schools, all the while peppering in 'tolerance education', 'peace studies' and 'character education'.

The Origin of the 'Teachings'

While none of my hitherto ramblings may appear to be related to Darwinism at all, or certainly not it would seem to 'racial science' and the Third Reich, the impact of that great introduction of a new 'enlightenment' [or en-darken-ment] has been dramatic, overwhelming, and seldom considered in the degree of its impact on the one race God cares the most about: the human one. Darwinism, though, and its peculiar and dangerous spinoff: Social Darwinism, has influenced Western [and Eastern] society phenomenally, and has the very natural outcome and future of a brutal way of life which few us can imagine.

Before the early 1900s, (Darwin proposed his theories in the late 1800s), the prevailing teaching in Public and Private Schools was that of a created world, according to Biblical accounts, integrated with the values inherent in the Word of God and in many world religions: truth, justice, concern for others, a respect for the reasonable laws of men, care for the weak, the ill, the less fortunate and other values which in general, if kept in a society, make for a more peaceful society. One would have to admit however, given the violent past we all share, that even with those values we barely had a fighting chance. So to speak. Till the last century turned , God's Word held such sway, that most societies held to certain bounds of right and wrong, even though trangressed frequently.

A few enormous influences undulated onto the horizon in the early twentieth century after a couple of centuries of maturation. Even in the 1600s through the late 1700s, Descarte and others such as Spinoza, began to introduce the idea that we might not have to go to God first to determine morality or 'being', and the serpentile 'hath God said' raised its head in Edenic tones. Before that time, doctrinal considerations held the hand over scientific considerations or philosophical ones, and the result was a polite though often restrictive society [of course not always] in the practice of staid 'religion' and its great influence on human behavior. But Descarte, Nietzche, Voltaire and others overturned the mind of God for the mind of man, and while at first it was seen merely as radical nonsense, the roots grew deep and severed former considerations of God's sovereignty. As a people we rather liked the new 'scientific' [or scientistic] sounding theories, attributing rubrics such as 'rationalism' [how reasonable that sounds] 'Enlightenment', and ontological essenses of thinking leading to being instead of the other way around. It became us who made overtures to God instead of Him to us, and our theology changed. Our Science changed. Our business practices and ethics changed. Our hearts changed.
Curious, it is that our hearts swelled over time although the God of all on Golgotha found his pierced, bled and drained in the accomplishment of our Salvation and healing.

MORE INFLUENCES

There were other influences before and concurrent with Darwin though, such as the move to an urban and industrialized society, the scientizing of many disciplines including 'Behavioral & Social Sciences', and a willingness to consider all new theories equally in a neo-hellenization of western culture. Darwin's willingness to consider concepts beyond a six day creation and the breath of God causing life, came from what some call liberalization and others call degeneration.

Darwin and a Racial and Social Science

When Darwin threw out his original conjectures, he was as he admitted later in life 'thinking out loud' trying to find a non- or semi-theistic way of explaining man's origin without having to exercise the ancient faith in God that was beginning to wane by the end of the 19th century. While he may never have ended up as a 6 day creationist, by the end of his life, he was questioning his own theories, and decrying the fervor which with some had 'made a religion out of them'. [Darwin and the Occult]. He turned back to a reliance on the Word, a little shared fact by his biographers. As is often the case, others place just as great a faith in Darwin's theories as in God, and later, even greater and today, even large sectors of the Church via 'Gap' theory propose evolutionary-based sophistries to fit Scriptural interpretations of Creation into 'long-day' or long-age theories based upon a few verses and lengthy descriptions of word origins.

After the Scopes trial showed one really could teach the new notion of origins in school and succeed; Darwinism took root quickly and was within 40 years integrated in every known discipline in the academic venue. It fit neatly into reintroductions of occultic and archetypal reawakenings in Europe, particularly in Germany. Soon with other theories, growing more out of occultism than science, new schools of Racial Science took root even before the advent of the Third Reich, which took elements of fundamental theories of 'superior racial qualities' and superior races [mostly from occultism-See Root Race Theory] and as had been done in other disciplines began to 'scientize' the investigation of racial characteristics and possibilities with a look toward the future of a utopian race with supernatural qualities, but here on earth, not in heaven, and under man's creation. Eugenics became the thinly veiled title, and Darwin became the apologetics: only the brightest and best would survive, that was nature, and nature knew best. Natural selection would do away with the infirm, the weak, the ill, the vulnerable, and science could help if it could only get rid of those archaic ethical questions of right and wrong, good and evil, and other pesky troublings. This was the basis of the argument by Binding and other theorists which led to the T-4program in which the mentally ill and retarded were euthanized (murdered), and which led to the methods and manpower behind the Nazi Killing and Atrocity Centers.

With the favor of Hitler and Goebbels and the first major government funding in some time, Racial Science, and Darwinism took off: Hitler considered Darwin instrumental in a New World Order. But Racial Science did not stop at physical Darwinism which taught descent from apes and lower life forms, long age evolution, and transitional forms, survival of the fittest, along with natural selection, but the Reich began to apply the concepts to the Social order, or milieu in which the tough, the strong, the brutal who strove to get ahead, without regard for the weak and hurting were actually to be seen as the most 'fit' in human society. The racial scientists from Jena, and other German institutions found sincere comradeship not only in Germany but in the US and Britain, with Eugenics 'saints' such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, in whose journal¹ they published. Most do not know that the heralded Sanger deliberately placed her clinics in impoverished black areas not to increase wealth by promoting smaller families, but to decrease what she considered undesireable populations. That aside, though, it was the Social applications of Darwinism that allowed the dawning of a new era with two major principles:
THE PRINCIPLES OF DARWINISM

1. The Physical application of Darwinism allowed for a man created apart from God, not subject to God's Will and Law, and certainly not in need of redemption, and

2. The Social application changed the Prevailing Ethic of truth, honesty, love, benevolence, to 'means to an end' winning at all cost, and the valuing of brutal striving in a totally redefined morality.

By the end of WWII, the natural consequences of Social Darwinism which was allowed to fester became evident: it did not lead to Atlantis and utopia, but to Dresden and Auschwitz & the destruction of many European urban areas. It led to demoralization, despair, lives in vacuums without meaning, and despairing existentialists trying to make sense of how we could just be here without purpose or intent, and whether life was worth living at all. [note 1] Darwinism integrated our Psychology and Social Sciences: man was nothing without the group, all behavior had evolutionary purpose, nature vs nuture arguments replaced considerations of what God would have us do to be right with Him.
In history when science tries to integrate with doctrine, at first doctrine judges science, then the two waver, and eventually, the ship turns over with science judging doctrine. Such has been the case with the infiltration of the Darwinian concepts, which we ran with and applied in every field, when even Darwin would not have shared our confidence.

Battles of Belief

So ingrained is evolution in public school education, that it is taught without scrutiny ever any more: 'Intelligent Design' theorists who merely want a hearing in the classroom that God and His creative power might exist, are deemed laughable in the Press and in academia, to the modern mind, it is the 'flat earth' society. That is because it is never even considered, that the {un}holy grail of Darwinism might have a flaw, perhaps even a critical one which might demand scrutiny. The truth is, origins are NOT OBSERVABLE---they happened in the past, both the Creationist and the Evolutionist place FAITH in what they BELIEVE happened: and faith and belief in this life is the battleground. Most 'scientists' think it is a battle between faith and science, but it is not: it is a battle between faith in the spontaneous generation of mankind vs faith in the creation of God: was man self-created, or God-created? The belief in either has the consequences of life and meaning. The intelligent mind examines both, and both, oddly enough use the same evidences.

Social Darwinism & the Training of Children

It is my deeper concern however, that beyond what one chooses to believe, that beliefs have consequences, and those real consequences determine whether we can live at all in peace in human society. Even if you do not believe in God, most will admit that what you believe will if not determine, at least AFFECT what you do: I drive on the correct side of the road because I believe that if I drive on the wrong side, I am subject to a death on the highway. Why? Because there is power in belief in the truth. If I drive on the wrong side of the road believing nothing will happen, and it does, the consequences are devastating---a wrong belief can lead to destruction. Many wrong beliefs have already lead to our nearly destroying our world and several races of people as well [See Genocide. So our faith is not independent of an outcome.

When we glibly and without examination teach young children from 5 or 6 on that man exists independently of God, that he is more of a physical creation that a divine one, and that the principles of GAS[General Adaptation Syndrome} and Natural Selection govern these machine-bodies of ours, we cannot fail to realize that we are simultaneously teaching a new ethic. O Brave New World, with such people in it². We are subterraneously teaching a form of social Darwinism, [it has not changed form or substance in those years since 1945] in which 'getting ahead' and being smart about winning are the supreme values. We started some years ago, lining up our schoolyard ethics with Social Darwinism: DARE programs teach what some call 'values clarification' in which drugs are not taught as bad, lowlife, dirty things to do that negatively alter your mind and destroy your life, but as 'choices' for which one must accept consequences: no right or wrong, only the teaching of calculated risks. Violence and rebellion used to be taught as totally unacceptable and the violent child ostracized until he or she could be brought back into the community, but now we seek to 'understand' the need for power over another, and we look the other way. Bullying is at an all time high in schools: it is no longer lunch money which is at stake, but behaviors which injure children for life. Teachers are bullied and assaulted, even stalked by students who didn't have it their way. The best and brightest and most tender teachers are resigning and choosing alternative careers, because our students are often taught at school and home, implicitly and explicitly, that it is a tough world and one has to be tough to survive.

The first thing to go is respect for the other person: others, (especially once God and His ways are dismissed) are objects: they are a means to an end: if they are not strong, and do not reciprocate brutality, they are beaten down with none to help, they fall prey, in short to the natural selection taking place in the school yard.
We fight over a moment of silent prayer in the morning, and open books which teach our children that it is natural to vie for top position. Weak children, we muse were never meant to have the top place. Creativity works against social order and causes children to be 'dysfunctional', and a whole ethic of caring for one another is replaced by an egotistical striving to win at all costs. The ethic which has replaced the old one, is social darwinism, reinforced in every field by every author.

Parents today, are even boasting about raising their children for the 'real world'. They are taught not to share, but to grab. Rationalizations are made 'roughing people up'. Intimidation is seen as a means to an end, and the intimidations out there today were unspeakable even 20 years ago. Kids 'humbling' other kids so that they have control over them takes cruel forms. While we used to take the brutal children aside recognizing their aberration, we now name their victims aberrant. The result in school and business is becoming a life hardly worth living, and the new romantic heroes of our day are mobsters and gangsters [e.g. The Sopranos, or hit men as leading men] or men in politics and entertainment who take what and who they want regardless of ruin and heartache. Children raised in this ethic, as they were in the 3rd Reich, are fit indeed: fit to be used by organized thieves, crime bosses and tyrants, living life in a slaughterhouse, and dying without meaning. The fact that in school the behaviors are less pronounced [most of the time] and controlled somewhat does not lessen the critical lesson that if those patterns are not redirected early, they are gone, and so is our way of life.

Losing a child to that--- what is the cost? Will it be conscience-less children in 20 years who decide our fate when we are old? Or perform surgery according to cost effectiveness and not care for the value of human life? Or who create a lawless environment where predators are constant threats and no one cares? This list is endless. Do we think psychology is the answer? It promotes the same values and ideas and in many ways fosters Social Darwinism as most of its theories are firmly based in evolutionary theory, and the concept of right and wrong and good and evil, most clinicians find laughable. In this school year, when we think of the teaching of Darwinism as a minor issue, which has small effect, we should instead consider the great cancer it has become, in our schools and even churches, metasticizing into the death of what most of us love and hold dear. If we do not, we will never in our lifetimes feel safe again, having to fight against a prevailing Machiavellianism which will not even allow us to rest in our own homes or feel secure in our possessions or own talents and efforts. This has been the effect of Evolutionism and Social Darwinism, not merely which charts appear on Biology classroom walls. We have a choice.
_______________________________________________
NOTES & REFERENCES
¹ The planned parenthood journal formerly called 'Birth Control Review', which is still available in archives in University libraries, in which Eugenicists from the US, England and Germany published, including Reich physicians involved in racial science research.
²William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream

[note 1] Even before the war, by 1939, Sigmund Freud who had posited the 'Life Principle' had readjusted his theories to include 'thanatos', a death principle, remarking that he was unable to reconcile the degree of death and worldwide destruction he saw in WWI and the beginning of the Reich. Dying in 1939, he was among those who had to flee Germany in the 30s as the Reich took hold, exiling or killing their own Jewish citizens and those who supported them.

Rape is Still Rape

2011-09-01T22:53:00.001-05:00

In a small village in an Islamic nation, a woman, a young Islamic adult, came to believe in Jesus Christ and converted from Islam to Christianity. Warmly received, she read her bible daily, and was comforted in a faith of grace and mercy of which she had seen little. It is not that forms and imitations of Christianity cannot also be unloving at times, but those in Muslim countries who come to Christ face ostracism, beatings, imprisonment and worse: they do far more than sign a pledge card at church, they often leave all to follow the Lord. A quiet woman in her twenties, she was unassuming, going about her chores and routine until one day, because she would not stop attending Christian meetings and reading the Bible , she was gang raped, and left for dead. She recovered from her physical wounds, but the spiritual and emotional wounds were quite another, leaving her to ask God why? and challenging her faith to the breaking point.

Another woman about the same age some years ago in the US, volunteered to go into an inner city mission and teach youth, trusting in God for her protection, but also found herself in despair and doubt after a violent assault and rape. It just couldn't happen, she reasoned, God would not let that happen to a believer. Again, the horror and pain were almost secondary to the doubt and desolation of the spirit which were left. Still another young woman leaving a Christian homeschool family for the first time some years back, still a very pure person, was drugged and raped while listening to some non-Christian band members: her innocence had not prepared her for what some will do, often in a rage or violent reaction to men and women who have lived very stalwart and clean lives: their thinking is criminal: they have no boundaries, and they feel they best ways to get rid of feelings of a less perfect lifestyle, is to 'level the playing field' in a brutal assault. Conservative and religious women and men of all faiths are cruelly devastated by such horrors, but it is also horrific to all who encounter those who have no regard for the commission of the crime, rape.

Every day, in increasing numbers, both boys and girls and the young and old are physically beaten and raped/sodomized in crime after crime, that 50 years ago would have made headlines and sent the culprit to prison for years, but which now is brushed aside as though the attack were nothing more than verbal. Women and men both report the attacks daily across the country, expecting the police to take immediate action, and are frequently met with utter indifference or even excuses as if a crime had not been committed. Too frequently, it is suggested that the victim 'had it coming' in some bizarre and perverse reasoning. To be fair, the crime is hard to prosecute unless there is direct evidence, and violent men (and women) also tend to be exquisite liars, claiming consent to juries in front of devastated victims. It is as if the crime occurs twice, only the second time seems to carry consensual public cruelty.

Rape has been used in history as an act in war. It usually doesn't make the history books, as authors and teachers seek to protect delicate minds from the topic, but it is well known to those who have lived through it. When Nazis and Ukranians marched through areas outside of Kiev, rounnding up Jews for killings and mass graves, they wantonly selected victims of all ages to rape in public in broad daylight, as young ladies whom had never even gone out with a boy and knew nothing of that kind of behavior were visciously assaulted. The camps were full of rape: all kinds, towards men, women and children. It's high time that at least among adults, the knowledge of it comes out. Rape in the 20th century has become a weapon of war, worldwide.

Rape occurs regularly in prison, often directed toward the weakest link, making imprisonment far more than mere incarceration. People are left for a lifetime with unseen scars that work their way into the rest of their lives leading to substance abuse, reclusiveness , distrust, or conversely, acting out sexually, or even becoming brutal people in a psychological attempt to 'identify with the aggressor'. As particularly the American and Western cultures are immersed in pornography, gratification seeks new and more horrible levels, as merely observing sexual behavior ceases to satisfy, and the purient seek more and more intense pornograpihic stimulation, arriving finally at acts of bestiality, child porn, and sad-masochism and rape. If one dares to object or draw the comparison, one is accused of being anti-free speech, but the truth is, I and others are more concerned for the civil rights of raped women ,men, and children.

Rape is Still Rape

Though rape is growing common, we cannot allow the definitions to change: rape is still rape. Our bodies are still our bodies: if we do not want to be touched, we all hold that right: we have a right whether we be Christians, Islamics, Jews, Humanists or 'other' to entirely own the domain of our bodies. Rape is still rape. Some are coming to see rape as 'not rape' if no violence or weapon is involved: this 'adjustment' in thinking cannot be allowed to happen. Lately, and one can speculate on the reason, in some venues drugging victims and raping them is being considered a 'lesser crime' merely because the criminal act does not occur in a dark alley at knifepoint. In some cases, the former is even worse: the victim in drugged rapes is robbed of even a chance to run or fight back. The drugged rape is an act of two crimes: the perpertrator overrides the will of the victim, criminally enslaving them to a horrible act: one that is likely to result additionally in disease, undefined emotional reactions, unwanted pregnancies and even death, as rapists seldom hold a conscience about whether they carry AIDS or other STDs. More often than not, drugged rapes involve also an illegal entry, other lewd behavior, and intense beatings of the comatose victim. How can we reason this is less of a crime?

Only a few years ago, people who raped under any circumstance, were often given 8 to 10 years in prison with treatment. Too often now, they are merely put in Mental Health facilities where they are given a few days and then let out to repeatedly offend. There is not any real treatment in mental hospitals: they fill out paperwork, hand out thorazine or valium, feed three meals a day, meet with residents 5 minutes a day only if short term, later not at all, and even if one believes in psychological treatment often none takes place. The placement of rapista, child molesters and beaters in mental hospitals affords no solution. It is a second assault on their victims who must live in terror as the nightmares return to the community.

Rape is increasing on college campuses and in schools, often with onlookers. We recall the little girl gang raped at a prom or dance by a gang of boys outside while her friends looked on, horrified. It took video tapes and the national news to get justice.

Rape is likewise on the increase: I am overwhelmed at the numbers of husbands who are now reported for drugging and beating and raping wives in their sleep: what was once considered unheard of isolated incidents, are now rampant as men and women have both fallen prey to aberrant thinking about other people, and as empathy for the suffering and well being of others is going out the window. In the 60s to 80s there were marches to 'take back the night', but now spouses are fighting to take back their own bedrooms. Incest has increased, which is nothing more than child rape: who cares if it is by a family member? It is not ameliorated by that fact. Further, 'sexual imposition' or rape with objects or rape without all proof, is being let go as though it were somehow normal because of the numbers. Interrogations in other countries have included rape with foreign objects like hangars, knives or machetes, or even placing metal objects up in the abdomen to 'tell somebody off' is a violent and dangerous form of rape. And a frequent one.

Rape, though is still rape, and its increasing numbers are changing our society into something too cruel to live in. Sexual discrimination in the workplace often involved intimidation to perform sexual acts on those in headship in order to keep one's job or move ahead. Again, it used to occur occasionally; now for some it is accepted practice, particularly in some industries.

One of the most central issues, beyond the lack of prosecution and protection, is that as a society we are losing the concept of the individual, with unalienable civil rights, and a right to our own bodies. This in not about the abortion issue: I am a Christian, and pro life. This is about the bodies we live and breathe in being under our control, and our most basic right not to have another touch, destroy, harm, hurt, or even lean into too close if we prefer, if we choose not. In a day when even identities are being 'bartered' to the highest bidder, I fear with a great fear for our children and the generation to come, as rape becomes a weapon of war in the US in schools and neighborhoods, without much prosecution. I fear for those who live godly and clean cut lives, who will be met with assault and rape because other persons 'just can't stand it', and that reasoning is accepted over self control. We have a right not to be raped or beaten for any reason. We have a right not to be beaten, raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, even verbally, because we choose to believe in God, or hold to our own identity or work. How far in depravity have we, as a nation walked?

Criminal Dancing: "I hope you dance..."

2011-05-30T13:30:00.001-05:00

How Far into Tyranny have we already slipped?

Certain aspects of the Patriot Law have already been 're-approved'. I have always tried to keep a balanced position on the Patriot act: there is very real worldwide and deadly terrorism threatening bombings and aggression in major peaceful cities, so I acknowledge the need for certain 'dispensational' acts of minor restrictions of rights so that we do not only grant civil rights to terrorists. However, in the effort to curtail terrorism, the grandiose liberties afforded law enforcement these days has been grotesquely over extended, and the events in the Jefferson Memorial recently point to that.

On Saturday May 28th, 'protestors' showed up at the Jefferson Memorial, few in number, using the ever beloved 'flash dance' to express themselves. There was no loud music, no violent behavior, no raised voices, and the 'dangerous' leader of the event, Adam Kokesh, was far from a terrorist, but instead a talk show host, a former Marine and libertarian candidate for office. Whether or not one agrees with his perspective though is immaterial: by all appearances on camera, there was nothing calling for a violent arrest. (See video above).

One can understand the hyper-sensitivity of Park Police and other law enforcement officers today: terrorists and assassins may come disguised as quiet women or even children, and in many cities police are literally risking their lives every day they go to work, facing drug trafficking, gang violence, regular criminals, and increasing numbers of persons 'out of control'. Given that understanding though, there remains the critical need for discernment, and a containment of overly aggressive actions towards normal citizens exercising the most basic of civil rights, including free speech, free practice of religion, freedom from illegal search and seizure, privacy rights, and lawful assembly. I can attest to this first hand: illegal entries and burglaries take place without court orders, restraining orders are ignored, and people standing in one place too long can be arrested and charged. Videos are widely available showing abuses: beatings of people in wheelchairs, of women and children, tasering of people doing nothing but speaking, even drugging people whom 'might get violent', which is an abomination. Dancing at the Jefferson Memorial on Labor Day weekend though, even in protest, quietly and without any invasive or intrusive act, without an illegal act is wrong.

Was it an 'unlawful assembly'? It is not clear whether it was an organized protest or whether one needs a permit, but if that were the case, the resolution is a warning with instruction, or even if it were an outright 'civil disobedience' purposely breaking the law, one has only to make peaceful arrests or give warnings. Adam as an 'IRR' Marine has lead other anti-war or other protests,while remaining in the IRR, a sort of 'on-call' branch of the military for all branches, and has an honorable discharge, although this is being threatened because of his dancing. Must be pretty bad.

I have never heard of criminal dancing. Never. Well, there may be some in Times Square or at gay pride parades, but in normal, run of the mill, garden type variety dancing, flash or otherwise, the beauty of dance is that it is not an uncomely act. The phenomena of 'flash dancing' in which many persons planned or serendipitously show up at a public location and dance, usually a fun or beautiful dance, with or without reason, has not done the world too much harm at all. It makes observers smile and feel good, and even join in. The dances make busy, 'look-at-the-ground' people take a little time to smell the proverbial roses. Mostly, the dances have created a sense of peace and well being and even camaraderie in fast paced depersonalized cities, giving a sense of community and belonging, taking the edge off differences and intolerance: in deed, they work to create tolerance in a soothing way. Once in a while no doubt someone will note that for 10 minutes some mall patrons complained about getting in their favorite stores, but that is an unessential detriment to the good the dances have brought. One of my favorite was in Antwerp, where I cannot help but think of people having a little dignified contentment in the city where William Tyndale was burned at stake, for trying to publish a Bible in English. I love to watch by video the street dances in Israel celebrating 5000 years of a people returning to their homeland, often the children and grandchildren of holcaust survivors. Dance and Music, Art and Literature, Film and other art forms, is a powerful tool of peace in an aging world. Open air Worship joins the crowd: how about 'flash worship' or 'flash preaching'---some folks up in Canada and the UK held 'flash' healing services praying for people on the street. Let's take a vote: flash dancing and healing, or street fights? How about 'flash' feeding of the homeless or building shelters? Am I inciting riot? Never, although with what has gone on, I have no doubt I could be accused of treason in this day and hour, for suggesting people have the audacity to gracefully, and with dignity assert their first ammendment rights.

Adam and Crowd, I hope you dance (apologies to Ronan Keating and Lee Ann Womack). I hope you dance with feet on the street, or in the Memorial, or right in front of the White House and Senate, and maybe playing 'Hope you dance' or Arlo Guthrie's Soldier Makes it Home'. I hope you and even the Park Police find it in their hearts to truly dance in seeing each other's point of view, but still standing for what is right, no matter what any one does: handcuffs, nightsticks, sharp instruments, are hardly unexpected in the continuing struggle for civil rights in the US---ask some of the old 'glory road' survivors. They prevailed, and handed us the baton. Peace, the real peace of the Lord and Savior does not need earthly weapons: I hope you dance. The dance gets so hard in some places, you will find distinct points of unpeacefulness in your own soul at times, but the one who prevails, gets up off the floor and continues the dance.

We will 'dance' or we will die or become slaves to a very cruel lifestyle. An old Joan Baez rendering of a hymn says "before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave, and I'll go on home to meet my Lord". More than merely a form of protest, and though one cannot truly dance at all, dancing is a place in the spirit to continue to live as a free person. Go dance for Mr. Obama. Those who still can. Learn some victory dances.

I hope you dance.
ekbest

Guest Citizenship ("Alien Status) and the Doctrine of Gerhard Kittel

2011-04-04T22:56:00.005-05:00

In Robert Ericksen's book, Theologians Under Hitler, part of his delineation of Gerhard Kittel's role in the war and assessment of culpability in war crimes is his role in establishing the concept in National Socialist policy/law of the status of 'guest-citizenship' or 'alien-status'. While many in holocaust education are aware of the 'guest status' of the Jews in German Society from 1933 on, ,many are not aware of its doctrinal or theological underpinnings, nor that it was Gerhard Kittel, the editor of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, who founded doctrinal anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, who was primarily responsible for the theological basis of 'alien status' for the Jews.

The reason Kittel's role in the establishment of 'guest-citizenship' is important is

1. It establishes Kittel's primary role as a Nazi Theologian and not just a bystander.

2. It establishes Kittel's culpability in war crimes, in subterfuge and sedition against the German Church,

3. It establishes Kittel's ideological commitment to Nazism and not merely perfunctory party membership.

4. It demonstrates the extent of doctrinal anti-Semitism which was vital to Reich Policy, and

5. It establishes at least part of the war upon the Jews as clearly doctrinal and ideological.

That it is important to establish Kittel as a loyal Nazi and not merely among the thousands who joined the ranks to keep the peace or their employment, is critical to an accurate view of the man and his theology. The degree of his anti-Semitic bent can be seen in the role of Kittel during and following the war: his role was far from benign, ranging from attending the questioning of Grynspan regarding the shooting of Vom Rath, to the doctrinal foundation of separation and ostracization of the Jews. Though arrested at the end of the war and imprisoned for war crimes, Kittel's Dictionary of the New Testament and his father Rudolf's Biblia Hebraica, have established themselves as the primary ground for translation of all modern English bibles.To believe that translations of the Stuttgartensia Old Testament and the accompanying lexicon by ardent anti-Semites would not produce a tainted text, with at least underpinnings of a broad pattern of dejudification, would seem even less ludicrous than to take the stand of most modern bible translators, that Kittel either wasn't a Nazi, or that it had no affect on his scholarly work. That aside, though, one need consider the 'exegesis' of the platform of guest-citizenship which Kittel refers in his writing to as 'alien status' to understand that the war against the Jews was indeed a religious and ideological one and not merely a political one as many scholars would prefer to avoid being labeled 'reactionary'.

The Concept of Guest Citizenship (Alien Status).

Guest-Citizenship, or 'Alien Status' was a legal status assigned to the Jews during the Reich which defrauded them of German citizenship based upon their 'non-Aryan' heritage and bloodline. Since during the Reich, the Jews and several other groups were denied citizenship on the basis of racial status, the Reich government assigned a category of citizenship called 'guest citizenship' or 'alien status' in which certain persons could remain the in the nation for purposes of work or historical 'belonging' but could not attain to full legal citizenship rights or status. To understand why there would even be a question of 'guest citizenship' necessitates understanding the concept of the 'Volk', the concept of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' and the construct of national identities and a 'nation within a nation'.

The Volk was the German concept of the 'gestalt' or whole of the people, the german people, consisting of the conglomerate 'soul' of the people, their culture, religion, politics, society, etc as something that was a sum of the parts and yet greater than the parts. 'Volk' may be translated akin to 'folk' or people, and the concept was used throughout Nazi policy and thought.   It was not a group of individuals, but the 'Volk' that would rebuild Germany and lead it to a new day and age,; it was the 'volk' that would triumph victoriously over other nations which had left Germany desolate, it was the 'Volk' which would see a restored Germany, with they as her people.

The idea of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' was that a people to be a people belonged in a real and mystical sense to the land from which they hailed and in which their ancestors had lived. The tie between the German people and their land or soil was foundational in much of the thought that pervaded influential belief systems such as those of armarten society tying Germans to lineage and the land, or the 'oceanic' views of such as Gobineau and other racial scientists in which certain evolved peoples lived in certain regions: he posited that nations bordering the oceans had certain characteristics, while even Nietzsche in his formulations of the the 'Hyperboreans' posited that more evolved or racially superior peoples lived 'above Boreas' or rather in the winter climes. (Taha)   Kittel would use this theme of a people and a land prominently in several writings.

The third concept is that of a 'national identity' or a nation within a nation. This is somewhat more complex than merely the concept of the 'Volk' because it entails the nature of persons of multiple nationalities living together 'under one roof', so to speak. Today, that is not a great difficulty to many, especially in the US and Great Britain as many nations have become multicultural, with those of many nationalities living side by side. The National Socialists though saw the Jews, as a separate nation, living within their nation, although many Jews, especially more liberal Jews saw themselves as German citizens, and Jews.   This conflict was the issue that Kittel would take and make 'theologically acceptable' as he had with other aspects of anti-Semitism.

Kittel and 'Alien Status'

Kittel based his writings on a doctrinal treatise he had proposed even before the war. He saw the Jews as also a people characterized by 'blut und boden' and he built a biblical argument: since the Bible clearly shows God as designating the Jews as 'chosen' and 'Israel' as their promised homeland (there are a multitude of passages), the Jews, ergo, are tied to Israel.   They are a people with a land, and they are so 'identity-bound' to Israel that the two are inseparable, and remained inseparable in the various exiles (e.g. the Babylonian/Assyrian exile, or the dispersion in 70ad, with a minor reign of Babylon of 8 years in Judges).
Likewise, Kittel argues, the German people are 'bound' to the 'Deutschland' , the 'Fatherland' and are not entirely the same people without being there,   so that even in "Lebensraum" as Germans were sent out to 'colonize' occupied territories, they carried with them their music, culture, food, customs etc like soil in the coffin.

Kittel also argued though, that the 'Volk' and the 'Jews' could never share the same citizenship, so bound up was citizenship in their thinking with 'native land'.    Kittel attempted to place the Jews as bound to Israel, and claimed later that it was a tolerant attitude, but the application was clear that it was a clever but sinister exegetical foundation for the Jews having 'alien-status' which would rob them of their German Citizenship, allowing deportation, denial of the court system, education, benefits, and even already paid retirement funds and pensions.   They were argued as a 'nation' within a nation, and an 'alien' one at that. While the argument bore some biblical foundation, i.e. the Jews with Israel as their homeland,   it was cleverly used to create a doctrinal reason tied to other Reich philosophies which allowed the segregation, robbery, deportation and later mass killing of the Jews.   It also indicates Kittel's eminent role.

Martin Buber the foremost Jewish theologian of the Shoah years, took his colleague to task over his vile rendering of the policy of 'alien status' for the Jews. The following letter shows Buber's rebuke of Kittel:

An Open Letter to Gerhard Kittel
Martin Buber

You have sent me your essay on the Jewish question, werser Herr Kollege. From the accompanying letter and from the text itself I conclude that you believe yourself to be in agreement with me; not to be sure, on your specific judgments about Judaism and your suggestions on how to treat it but on the essential issue: our basic religious commitment.
     Since your statements were made publicly, I must contradict them publicly.
     I need say nothing of your judgments an demands; they are the prevailing ones. I learned from your essay that which I neither knew nor suspected: that they are yours as well: that you maintain that “a member of a foreign people” has “no business in German literature.” That “if he wants to be a writer,” he should “work in a literature which is clearly marked as Jewish and which is intended for his coreligionists and Volksgenossen:” that “if his book is of general literary value and transcends that particular Volkstum,” there would be “nothing to prevent its being read by Germans in the same way that Swedish and French literature is translated and read by us.” You and the public will, I hope, understand that I have nothing to say to this or to anything of this sort in your essay: especially since you make your intention of “lending a Christian meaning to the struggle against Judaism” clear in your introduction.

Yet   it is incumbent upon me to object, especially since you welcome in this lending the participation of Jews, namely those Jews who, as I, look forward to a religious renewal of Judaism. According to you the problem is whether it will be possible to arouse a living religion in that part of Jewry which says yes to alien status” The “authentic alien status”. But what you understand by “alien status” is clarified by the answer to the question of what should happen to Jewry. There you have stated that one should “resolutely and consciously preserve the historical fact” of “alien status” among nations. You explained your understanding of this in this fashion: the “right of the guest” must be sharply set off from that of the citizen; the Jew must give up “all claims to civil equality.” If he proves a “decent guest, “ “there may then come a time” when he appears only “relatively unequal” and no longer “absolutely inferior.” You take “obedience under alien status,” which according to you belongs to a pious Jewish attitude to mean that discrimination against and defamation of Judaism must be accepted in faith; that it must therefore be viewed as God’s just dispensation and as the just action of men. Hence you presuppose the identity of that which you mean by alien status with that which God, to whom we owe obedience, means by alien status with that which God, to whom we owe obedience, means by alien status, But this is not so.
     That which the God of the Bible means by alien status, more correctly guest status (a ger is one who is a guest in a land), can be learned from the Pentateuch. In an extraordinary appeal, the community is admonished (Num. 15:16; Lev 24:22) “Congregation”! There shall be one law for you and for the resident guest; it shall be a law for all times throughout the generations. You and the guest shall be alike before YHVH (the LORD); the same instruction and the same rule shall apply to you and to the guest who resides among you.” Thus no discrimination! But it is not only a question of law; it is a question of love. “When a guest resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The guest who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens. You shall love him as yourself for you were guests in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19.33f.). In Deuteronomy, with even greater emphasis, love is not only found with the dative [showing love to him] but with the accusative [loving him] in a way at once holy and paradoxical. “For YHVH your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, who loves the guest and gives him food and clothing. You too must love the guest for you were guests in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:17ff.). Love of the guest is an aspect of biblical imitation Dei: As God loves the unprotected, so must you love him! The acceptance of this stance has consequences which extend to redemption and a mystery that unties all. It is said of the peace-offering which is offered by the community because of an error (Num. 15:26): “The whole Israelite community and the guest residing among them shall be forgiven for it happened to the entire people through error.”
     Yet, Herr Kollege, although you quote a passage from Deuteronomy in which we read that one may not subvert the rights of the alien [Deut. 24:17] , you quote none of those passages in which we read that this right of the alien is not separate from that of the natives of the land but that both rights are the “same right.” Only if you start from this Magna Carta of biblical faith, which should be binding not only upon Israel but upon all nations among whom guests reside (or is it your belief that God no longer asks this justice and love from nations), and only if you believe that this was not abrogated by the New Testament (for how could the gospel intend a diminishing of justice and love between nation and nation?). , only then is it possible to talk in an attitude of faith of an “alien status” and of an “obedience under alien status.” However, if one does this in the seriousness of faith as a believer among the nations, then surely one must first of all inquire into the obedience of the nations.
     However, an obedience under alien status as you understand it (but as God does not understand it) God does not order us to give. It does not become us to rebel against it but it does not become us either to yield to the will of a Volk as if it were the will of God.    Psalm after psalm of our Book, adopted by the Church, utters an appeal to the liberator from oppression. Psalm after psalm would be blasphemy if God not only demanded of us that we should endure, but also that we resign ourselves without appeal to whatever He has ordained. We pray today as well,. The “enemy” against which the psalmist inveighs means, as we utter the psalm in prayer, not men of human powers but the original tempter, who hinders redemption in history.
     “Authentic Jewry,” as you say, “remains faithful to the symbol of the restless and homeless alien who wanders the earth.” Judaism does not know of any such symbol. The “wandering Jew” is a figure of Christian legend, not a Jewish figure. Authentic Jewry is ever aware that in the very next moment the promise may be fulfilled and its wandering may end.    It does not believe that is its ordered to affirm the dispersion but believes that it must prepare itself in the dispersion for the ingathering. It knows of no “tragedy willed by God” which it must needs recognize but knows only the mercy which calls man to His work.
     History is no throne speech of God but His dialogue with humanity. He who does not wish to miss everything must be mindful to discern the voice of the Partner. The “historical fact” of “alien status,” the reinstatement of which you, Herr Kollege, hold to be the “solution of the Jewish question,”* is partly the question itself---God’s question to the nations and to Israel which He poses in history; partly it is the lack of an answer. TO be sure, emancipation as it took place was not the true answer either. But it does not follow from this that one must go back to that lack.

July 1933
_______________________________________________-
Of the other three “attempts at solution” which you mention, extermination, assimilation and Zionism, we wish to touch upon the last only.   The arguments which you put forward against Zionism are partly exaggerated. (As one who has constantly fought for a more serious consideration of Arab claims. I have the right to say that there is no ground for speaking of a “frightful violation of the fellahin) Partly they are false. I am hardly able to understand how you can hold “unemployment and need” to be prevalent in Palestine of today or how you can see in residential and agricultural cooperatives----a witnessing to collectivity and sacrifice---communistic tendencies which reflect back into “lands of culture and which wish to penetrate and poison those countries.” Finally, the the growing reality of faith within Zionism is totally unknown to you. [MARTIN BUBER]
1.       In a later reply to Kittel, Buber observed that the failure of emancipations was that Jews were emancipated individually but not collectively (F.E.T.)

From:   Talmadge, F.E. Disputations and Dialogue: readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter, (1978) KTAV Publishing House,

The grave rebuke by Buber is both poignant and ironical, in that he rebukes Kittel based upon the tenets of Christ and Christianity: he holds that it is a sinister twisting of the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testament. Buber could see from the outset the path the reasoning of Kittel would follow, and hence targeted Kittel as the 'theologian that made anti-Semitism theologically acceptable'.

The doctrinal argument for the Jews tied to Israel not Germany, the Jews with a different God (Marcionism), the Jewish OT scriptures as foreign and unnecessary for Christian study and practice, gave the Nazis inroads into the church on the back of one of their most notable theology professors. Kittel was clearly guilty of the subterfuge of both the citizenship rights of the Jews and of Church doctrine using it as servant to the expulsion of the Jews and denial of their civil rights. His role as a doctrinal juggernaut in the exegesis of Nazi policy cannot be denied-it lay dormant for many years as many of Kittel's writings remained unavailable and in German while his lexicon and his fathers Hebrew Bible sold worldwide.

Guest Citizenship and the Jews

While this discussion and others seems rather 'theological' or philosophical, the effect of the status 'guest citizen' had very real consequences for the German citizens who were Jews. A narrative of one account is of a retired man and his wife who had juvenile delinquents damage portions of his property during the Reich. The man was a war veteran of WWI in Germany, and had retired from university teaching. After changes were made, he called the local police who would do nothing about the incident and was bewildered. The police informed him that since he was no longer considered 'of aryan descent', he had no citizenship rights, and therefore they did not have to respond to his call at all. When he sought remedy in the courts, he found that the courts had the right to refuse the case, and that after years of work and loyalty to Germany, his mortgage and property ownership were also in question, as only aryans could own property. They were forced to flee the Berlin area. But 'guest-citizen' or 'alien-status' had other dire consequences: soon no Jewish child could attend an aryan school. No Jewish attorneys or physicians could treat any but Jewish clients. Geographical restrictions were levied and soon no Jewish person could sit on park benches or even frequent public parks. Bus riding became prohibited for all but those employed in the armaments industry, and pet ownership, and the hiring of maids and cooks was forbidden. As time wore on, there were even odd restrictions such as not allowing women to attend hairdressing salons partly in an effort to increase the separation between Jew and gentile, and partly to keep the Jews from appearing groomed and therefore appealing to their counterparts. If Jews wished to leave Germany, they had to receive permission from police departments now largely staffed by Gestapo and National Socialist party members. Church congregates who had converted to Catholicism and Protestantism from Judaism were not allowed to receive communion at the same time, and large 'tarriffs' were levied allowing the Jews to carry out of the country only about 10-15% of earnings and savings, the rest going to the Reich. In short, the 'doctrinal' base for the Reich policy turned into civil rights violations for the Jews, and untold suffering and humiliation, even before deporation to work and death camps. This is why Kittel was found guilty of war crimes, in that he had aided in the 'production' and strategy of war as well as undermining of the institution not only of the church but of the courts, universities, theological schools and other mainstays of German life.

Kittel would go on later to defend other social/political platforms of the Nazis with a doctrinal base. His integration of racial science with biblical and theological concepts would eventually come forefront. His dismissal with others of a requirement in theological education for Hebrew, placing it instead with other ancient languages, undergirds his lack of regard for anything Jewish. While Kittel argued that his was a 'non-vulgar' anti-Semitism (he held himself distinct from the type of Rosenberg and Spreicher) (Eriksen), he nonetheless provided an intellectual platform for the 'judenrein' of Germany. The arguments that Kittel was not an ideological Nazi should fall on deaf ears, as any lay person, much less any scholar upon reading Kittel, will eventually find him to be anything but objective where the Jews are concerned.

Till next time. EkBest

__________________________________
References

Kittel, G. Jesus und die Juden; Berlin: Furche, 1926
Kittel, G. Die Judenfrage, 1933

Modern Bible Publishers, The Word of God and a Brave New World with such people in'it

2011-03-25T03:28:00.005-05:00

What if we lived in a world without a real Bible. Not one of those namby pamby sorts with the b
aby-easy English, that say things like "Be real happy, God's in charge" instead of "Be ye of good cheer, I have overcome the World". Those paraphrases if foisted upon Shakespeare would raise up arms, but I refer here to the true Word of God, passed through 4 or 5000 years, in a true line of succession weaving down through history and affecting all people, believers and non-believers.

Liberal thinkers may immediately relish the thought that the Bible out of the way would mean that everyone could have their way in the world: drink as much as they wish without condemnation, dope up as much as they might without fear, or attend to every carnal endeavor in a 'brave new world' where moral relativism abounds and no one could tell another what to do: everything would be merely up to , well, whoever and whatever, if it felt good. Many persons conceive of a world without the Word of God as a sort of carnal Disney World, a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of pleasure where all join hands and sing "imagine there's no heaven": they better hope not.

The World though without the true line of Scripture would have a few other characteristics: we would not have had the same organized legal system based upon fairness and justice. Most of the feeding of the poor and clothing/housing of orphans abandoned abroad would have gone undone or been done rather horribly by State agencies, since no missionaries would have attempted such life threatening endeavors as saving children from Temple prostitution in India, or relieving Chinese women of footbinding practices. Ghandi who based his non violent marches and protests on the Sermon on the Mount would have had to find some other way, and Martin Luther King might have been a novelist: much of our Civil Rights law might have never occurred. Slavery might never have been legally ended as most of the abolitionists of the day were God fearing men, basing their premises on the Bible.

The fall of the Iron Curtain might never have occurred, for most do not know that the march on the docks and stand for fairness in labor began in prayer in Polish churches. The Red Cross and its subsidiaries would not be meeting the wounded in war or the devastated in disasters worldwide, for Clara Barton might have done nothing more than Girl Scouts, or wait, that might not have existed either. Salvation Army would not have fed millions of starving folk and Habitat for Humanity wouldn't be building affordable housing. Prisoners would have gone uncared for, and so would their families, and perhaps Chuck Colson would still be in jail or hiding from the press.

Terminally ill children would die without hope, and Mel Gibson would have stopped making movies, and at best Christmas would have been the winter solstice. Hitler would have continued without much opposition since most of the outcry against him came from 'christianized' nations, and many more Jews would have perished without rescuers. One could go on for hours about all the things undone and all the things that would have been foisted upon the world had it not been for the Holy Scriptures and their conviction of hearts.

This of course is neglecting the great gift of Salvation and Love made known through the Word, the Logos, living and written. This is the Word so essential to mankind, sometimes loved , sometimes grotesquely abused, that must continue.

Modern Bible Publishers

Why then, do modern Bible publishers so desire to change the Word of God into something more 'saleable', 'less confrontational' avoiding becoming, well, a stumbling block or such? Why are they trying so hard to use the 400th anniversary of the preserved Word, the KJV as a massive marketing effort for anything but the KJV? Their motives, like their translations leave alot to be desired.

When William Tyndale, Reina and Valera and Martin Luther retranslated from the original Hebrew, and complete Greek (Textus Receptus), it started a revolution in Europe and thousands clamoured for the bibles and a revival like none other began: it was the first time in centuries that the true Hebrew was the base of the Old Testament instead of Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Jerome himself centuries prior admitted to having an insufficient acquaintance with Hebrew. The Word, intact and excellent, translated by the best scholars of the day who laid down their lives for it, took such hold that it held the attention of even the crown of England: Elizabeth I loved and promoted it, King Henry had Tyndale arrested, King James didn't think it could be rendered correctly in English (and Prince Charles, in the dignity of the crown recently read it out loud on Youtube).

Modern publishers with all their new translations and 70 times 70 'styles'like to claim that Tyndale is a hero to us all and was in the line of people bringing the dumbed down versions into the public's hands, but nothing could be further from the truth. Tyndale would have hated the new versions: he was a scholar's scholar and linguist, proficient in several languages and utterly passionate about the Word. His last letter from Vilvrooden Prison showed that like Paul, all he cared about was some warm leggings and his copy of the Hebrew bible: he translated as near to death as they would let him, dying a martyr for his love of the Word. He chose every word with consideration and care, vying for accuracy. He was not comfortable with:

John 3:16 [KJV] 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish , but have everlasting life.

John 3:16 [The Message] "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

Tyndale understood the difference between belief and trust and the thousands of other differences, between 'blood' and 'death', for example. While he died to put the Word into the hands of 'every plowboy', it was not with the thought that it would ever be done in imperfection or in lazy and inconsistent scholarship. His carefulness in keeping the Word accurate, resulted in a volume that lasted 400 years with only minor mechanical changes (f to 's')

Yet Modern Bible publishers are clearly deceiving the American public about some very important issues. Their motives are beginning to show though, money and distribution, for accurate scholarship has given way to marketability. In the Words of a member of the NIV committee from Wheaton:

Moo disagrees. He says the new version of the NIV is accurate. But he also admits that the committee did some research to see what words evangelical Christians, who are most likely to buy the new NIV, prefer. So far most of the critics of the last version have remained silent about the new one.·

Read more: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/news/29588-niv-bible-changes-gender-inclusive-language#ixzz179eOp3yB

What are these issues that are being concealed?

1. The New Bibles(post WWII) are not based upon the same unadulterated Greek and Hebrew as the KJV and older texts, but upon those 'versions' with additions and deletions devised in the past 120 years.

2. The men involved in the re-make of the ages old Hebrew text [Masoretic] , were Nazi Party members, Rudolf and Gerhard Kittel, a father and son, the son who is noted by Buber for the doctrinal argument for Christian acceptance of anti-Semitisma The father produced the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the son the Worterbuch, or Dictionary of the New Testament, with several eminent Nazi theologians on the board of interpreters. (e.g. Grundman, et al)

3. The seemingly unrelated new Greek, which began when Tischendorf 'discovered' the Sinaiticus and Westcott and Hort using the Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus produced the RV. The 'new Greek text" used for the RV, also travelled through Bavaria in the hands of Tubingen educated Nestle, and later progenitors of the new Greek, the Alands, for the modern Nestle-Aland Greek upon which ALL modern bibles, even the NKJV are based upon. (The new Greek left out a majority of the historical manuscript evidence which Erasmus had collated, and chose instead as their base the 'new finds' of the three questionable codices.
4. The 'modern' text based largely on the three codices has been severely criticized: Kenyon changed his support for the authenticity of the Alexandrinus, Mauro noted that the too-many corrections of the Sinaiticus were in line with correcting the faulty manuscript to the KJV's received text, and the manuscripts were all in 'too good' a shape for a used manuscript from the 4th century. Indeed Constantine Simonides, another antiquities scholar with expertise in restoring palimpsests who was at Mt. Athos in the years preceding Tischendorf's visit, claimed he had forged it, and the controversy raged at the time in the Guardian. He died shortly afterwards.

5. The Modern translators have become somewhat overly aggressive, changing and using deceptive practices in search engines when problems with certain words are found. (See wherearethejews.blogspot.com)

6. The Modern Translators are using this 400 year celebration of the KJV, the book that changed the world forever, as an excuse to cash in on the anniversary celebration, not to honor the KJV but to set it as an archaic text, and promote the superiority of their modern translations, which waver like water. KJV is being touted as a sort of 'good ole girl' of yesteryear, totally un-useful to our superior modern thinking, never addressing the 36,000 changes and errors in modern texts.

7. The sophistry being used argues that the new Greek and Hebrew are basically the same only updated and that the KJV people are ignorant nightmares who can't let go of grandaddy's bible saying 'if it was good enough for the apostle Paul it is good enough for me'. Well, quite frankly, it was good enough for the apostle Paul who set much of it in writing in a manner far more in line with the KJV than 'The Message' or other spoon-feeding horrors. The new Greek and Hebrew though are greatly modified and tainted with 'opinion' and texts dismissed by scholars for centuries such as the Samaritan text. How much cyanide did it take in three bottles of Tylenol to take all of them, millions, off the market years ago? One could apply the same argument: well, most were untainted, and even though the few changes were deadly, you stood a chance they would not be. It is serpentine sophism.

8. The Modern Bibles show thousands of passages changing the meaning of verses to do with the doctrines of the blood, the resurrection, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, etc, and eminently, hundreds of changes in verses dealing with Jewish terms, suggesting an effect of the handling of the Word in the Shoah by Nazi theologians who as mentioned

1) re-collated a new Hebrew volume, shortly before dismissing the study of Hebrew in German theological schools;
2.)Developing a new Dictionary of the New Testament to go with the new Hebrew and Greek which shows strains of Nazi ideology such as Greek classicism and mythology, and archetypes of 'kampf' or odd renderings of Jesus' superman characteristics or Aryan typology.
3.) Reintroduced strains of Arianism (not Arianism) and the heresy of marcionism,
4.) the promulgation of the Greek Nestle Aland by scholars from the same school and region, and
5.) the erasure of the idea of a preserved text, vs. one that could change with time to fit modern thinking.

The changes

The changes are already being to show in these 'segue' bibles. They include the substitution of a teacher with an honorable death instead of a lamb with a blood atonement, the Arian idea of Jesus the man with a divine spark in him, instead of God Made Man, a move towards homosexuality being all right or not mentioned, though the KJV in Leviticus spells it out as 'confusion' and forbidden, the virgin birth as merely the birth of a regular child by a 'young maid', an 'either or' term, or the dissension of Jewish terms on at least 58 words in all modern texts.

The move is towards a new text, integrated with other beliefs and holy books, with no bounds or borders. On the surface to many non believers that sounds just fine, but to believers, the danger of it rings out.

God has declared his Word as holy, pure, perfect and true, and 'lasting forever'. That's a pretty big ticket: we may either stand for the preserved Word lasting forever, or end up with a mythical religious books for all people of all nations which will cause division and lead into an easily controllable state religion.

To the Bible publishers, if I could, I would implore them to think of the Word as it has always been respected: as the very fine line of apostolic succession of the Holy Bible, critical to the salvation, healing and love of the next generation and those to follow. No translation should ever be based upon saleability, but only upon accuracy. No real translation rids the Word of terms like "Children of Israel" of "daughter of my people". Modern ideas of dynamic equivalence are by far the most archaic: they date back to the Garden of Eden when Satan , the first bible translator, asks, "hath God said.".

We want and need the KJV, the true plumbline and standard for belief, doctrine, practice and belief.

Free Speech and Shoaheducation.com

2011-03-08T06:33:00.000-06:00

For 14 years I have labored for almost nothing to keep a number of educational/ministry sites online all of which became at least moderately successful. The reason I believe for their success, was that they have met real needs of people in the church and around the world. They have met the needs also of suffering people and so I gave little thought to myself in terms of striving to keep the work online.

I am taking the sites down though, for a period of time because it is becoming impossible where we live to work and write freely without major harrassment and at times treating my sites on grief, holocaust education and Christian studies and ethics as though they were online poker sites. The community in which we live has no regard for free speech or free practice of one's religious faith: they can spin it all they want: they have made our lives a living hell.

So have a number of others though: while one thinks it might be revisionists and holocaust deniers we have had to fight, they have actually been in the minority: it has been school children, greedy local people who think they will find fame and fortune if they takeover our sites, big money ministries who grab at ANYTHING to flip a buck, former pastors, former colleagues whose lives were in the doldrums and just felt they needed a little 'something extra'. A few have been politicians, or former politicians, some well known, and a few are from out Hollywood way. One fellow claimed he won shoaheducation.com, a site for the Church, in a poker contest. Some of this would be humorous, but a number of these folks have taken to destroying our lives, and no one will stop them.

How can we criticize oppressive regimes who censor bloggers who criticize the government, and then do the same or worse here in the US? The truth is, much of the harassment, that has caused me not to even be able to work on the sites in the past 3 months hardly at all, and to lose a hosting company, has been from people who do not like the way I believe or the way I express myself, even though the site is quite reasonable basic, accurate, and useful. Some critics have been of similar beliefs, some opposite. A few have even been well known Jewish organizations, I am ashamed to say, who just didn't want anything outside of status quo. A few have been very powerful people on and off the internet, who have made life impossible. I will not for the moment name names, because it would be met with ruin.

In this atmosphere, for the first time in 14 years, shoaheducation.com and my other sites, including one on grief which ministers to families experiencing stillbirth, will be down for awhile. I have not decided whether a website is worth dying for yet: although I do believe freedom is, and especially the right to believe in and worship God is.

Shoaheducation.com has cost several thousand dollars to produce, all at our expense, and we have taken in no donations, even turning them down and redirecting them to the large holocaust museums and organizations. They have not helped us likewise, but often hindered the work so necessary for the church because they just couldn't be certain of a christian work on their side. It is therefore with great sorrow, that at least for a short period of time, I will keep the sites offline rather than see them in the worst of hands.

I began shoaheducation.com with the aim of teaching the Church what really happened, confronting antisemitic doctrine, showing why repentance was and is necessary still, and teaching a right relationship of Christians to the Jews. We have been decidedly pro-Israel, and inspired the work of others who went to even greater heights. But greed and pride, violence, theft and racial or creed related hatred and intolerance is not peculiar only to the remnants of the National Socialists, but can be found replete in the Church, and even in 'tolerance' museums and organizations. Content won't prevent another Shoah. A change in heart might.

In the meantime, my first pick would be toward Jewish Virtual Library for questions regarding the shoah. They are more detailed but one can find most questions answered their. I hope it will not be long before we can be afforded the same freedoms everyone else in Wisconsin and the US have.

Elizabeth Kirkley Best PhD
Director

Protest in Green Bay

2011-02-16T23:19:00.001-06:00

Video by Brendan J. Best, Portitude.com 2011

Google and Governments: The Internet Changes International Policy

2011-02-14T22:40:00.005-06:00

Neat-o Technology Without Ethical Consideration

We know it must be the 21st century, because one of the first major political overthrows, the protests in Egypt, started on the Internet. We have had for some time a 'boiling frog' attitude toward the internet and emerging technology, marveling at each new invention, implementing it without much forethought, and rarely thinking beyond a 5 year range what may become of any particular new technology, or its societal consequences. While there are schools and think tanks on the horizon (a few already exist for social policy and the internet), the 'ethics' of the internet and emerging technology seems to be always one of small predictions, current observations and backward glances. The 'morality' of emerging technology and the inherent politics of it assumes without thought an amoral stance,’utilitarianism’ in which if something works and is cost-effective, it is 'good'.

I am not writing to propose that the entire Internet is 'bad' or 'immoral' though it certainly contains the propensity and sectors which could define it that way. While we wring our hands over Internet porn, crime, bullying, stalking ,fraud, and even murders, the Internet and all search engines, of which Google currently remains the most eminent, has also had some very good effects: free speech , freedom of assembly in a worldwide community, religious freedom and thought, 'guerilla journalism' in which stories the mass media glosses over can be covered, ease of scholarship, research, and the sharing of documents and information aid in a more democratic world and a sense of camaraderie unsurpassed in history. What used to take a year in research, I can do in weeks from my home, including data collection, analysis and even preparation for publication.

The Global Backyard Fence, and the Bad vs. Good the Net Does

We essentially have a 'backyard fence' around the world in social networking, which has tended both to the very good and the very bad: it has lent to criminal enticement, but also has provided a refuge for children with weak social skills not to feel so alone. The net teaches technology, allows online learning and even degrees from standard universities, allows shut-ins to attend church services and synagogues, and raises funds worldwide for the best of causes. Internet 'entities' have lobbied for humane treatment of dissidents, even freeing some torture victims in oppressive governments, and causing some very real political solutions directly or by indirect influence in places like Dar Fur, Red China, and Pakistan.

There are very many benefits as well to all of us plebeian sorts who can learn skills through YouTube, find recipes, make travel and conference plans, etc, etc, sitting at home with our cup of tea or coffee at hand, however long we wish. The influence of the net has resulted in impoverished or failing communities springing back with jobs and healthy lifestyles here and abroad (e.g. Dublin). Recently, I discovered an orphanage in Africa that needed help establishing an Internet cafe which would train homeless children in Tanzania in cyber skills, and provide an income for the orphanage. Sure beats child-soldiering or the sex-trade industry! One suspects that if everyone wrote in and showed what the positive influence of the net was in their lives it would be great. The enormous criminal intent on the net though cannot be ignored, nor its negative influences. For now, it is a neutral technology (at least partially) that can be used for good or evil, though I highly suspect as the years go on, Google's motto of "Don't be evil" will be modified.

Egyptian Protests, Riots & the Net

Recently though, I am given to a serious concern over where the Internet's power and influence SHOULD be limited, or 'if', especially in International politics and events. The Egyptian riots bring up this concern: the ability in a repressive nation to network labor unions, individuals, students, clerics and the others, came about in large part because of the ability to utilize Facebook and similar sites, and Google and other search engines, and the ease of egalitarian self-publishing without much money. The net has at least temporarily held out the standard of 'laissez-fair', and what becomes successful on the net is based upon quality, interest, audience, or some sort of 'Je ne sais quoi' for which all are searching.

In the past, we have discussed the idea of Google and government and what happens when a search engine might end up in the wrong hands, particularly the government's. The Egyptian protests though for the good or bad have brought up the most serious issue of recent times regarding the Net, as to what the place of the Internet is in foreign affairs and world politics. It is highly unlikely that the extent of the crowd would have been gathered or sustained without the wisdom of a former Google employee, or the facility of Facebook. And yet, those who run either are not really responsible in one sense, though they are still mightily influential.

The difficulties are many :

1. Google, Hotbot, Baidu(China), Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace and the myriad others are PRIVATE companies with an international outreach. Governments are governments with national borders and concerns. Further, save for Baidu and a couple others, most influential web organizations/businesses are not run by people who are savvy in foreign relations: there is a distinction between international business savvy and tech savvy, and the savvy for international affairs.

2. In the case of Egypt, neither Facebook nor Google was an instigator, per se, but 'morphed' into the role of negotiator as did ISPs and others, once the protest was underway. I am not denigrating the truly Egyptian nature and cause of the protest, but one cannot simultaneously dismiss their role. And yet they are not 'sent' by the United States, nor are they bound since Google operates in all nations.

3. When can a government 'shut down' the Internet? Red China has tried for years to censor major portions, but to any who know even a little about the net, censored IPs or keywords are almost always able to be circumvented. Censorship on the net is not really more than an attempt at repression. Egypt though, did shut down ISPs [Internet Service Providers], shutting down far more than email and Facebook: Egyptian business sites, foreign trade, stocks, negotiations, publications, and the vast array of human endeavor was off the plate for 18 days. If the loss of life had not come into play I suppose we could tease at how many people ran out into the street angry when the internet shut down! The problem though is serious and divisive and almost irresolvable: no one government INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES has ultimate authority over the Internet. They cannot. If litigation is enacted today, the problem becomes paramount: the 'standards' organization for the net is W3c, an international organization, but they do not handle blockades of service, and do not have authority over ISPs or private sites. The FCC is American, but cannot really regulate all of the internet or international organizations abroad even if they reside in the US; the FBI is American and their cybercrime sectors usually handle spam, fraud, marketing issues, etc, but do not govern whether any nation can be online. ICANN, which governs IPs and similar issues, does not litigate more than that. I know firsthand of the problems trying to protect a given work on the Internet, when there are attempts to shut a site down, a legal nightmare ensues for all, and that is within the bounds of the US. Further, ICANN is umbrella-ed by us, the US, and should they rule uncomfortably, where can it end, but ultimately in world court.

4. Did Mubarak's government act illegally in an Egyptian crisis? The answer is neither as easy nor clear cut as one assumes: can any government shut down access to the Internet in a national emergency, for the good or bad? Who Decides? This is not a question of whether his government was good or bad, democratic or repressive, but of authority.

5. Did those from Facebook, Google, ISPs etc have a right to INTERVENE or conversely, to WITHHOLD INTERVENTION in a shutting down of access to the Web? What law currently governs any of it? Google and Facebook and almost all ISPs are PRIVATE: they do not govern the Internet though they are often outspoken in governments over Internet Policy.)

These are only a few skeletal issues regarding the problems of the Net and International affairs. Some are asking whether the net concerns were the impetus for the overthrow of a government. Problems have brewed in Egypt for decades, so the notion that it was due in large part to the net would be erroneous. The protests have been fueled by rumors of corruptions, lowered standards of living, unfair labor practices, and issues of free speech: bloggers criticizing Egyptian policy were imprisoned, raising international concern, and the unrest in a society of more diversity than the media portrays, in Africa where diversity is often ignored, was bound to happen in whole or part. On the other hand, one cannot say that the Internet did not play an important role, and the intensity of all of our relationships to the net is seen in the effectiveness of shutting down the Internet and cell phone service in reaction to any event.

Since no governments 'own' the Internet can any government shut down its own citizens' access to the net? Since no entity on the net has governing power, who represents net interests in an uneasy world. On the one hand, we do not want to establish a 'world police' to govern the net, and on the other hand, that is what we really need, or the net becomes (as it has somewhat been) the Wild Wild West. It is not that Microsoft, Google, Sun, Facebook etc and their fine bevy of lawyers have not thought this out, but the issue at hand is coming forward, regarding who owns and operates the net, and who is responsible for the way it is used.

If Google and Facebook, Microsoft, Sun, and all those I have not mentioned must necessarily intervene, then where does power rest in the world? Could a major Internet company shut down all or a portion of Internet service and business and communication to a nation if they deny, for example free speech? Could Northern Sudan be blockaded if they do not stop the assault of the Janjaweed? For now it seems we should just let sleeping dogs lie, because although they do not make decisions we think they should, the people who head these organizations now are not as megalomaniacal as some may be in near future. The net can influence political elections by careful optimization and rank of websites for candidates, or worse for the slander of candidates. The net can feed certain kinds of stories at the top. Most people in a search do not go beyond the third page, so the companies are not really guilty of suppressing information when it falls at #100,000, but it may seldom be found in a search.

Conversely, search engine optimization, which as my son has remarked can be 'snake oil sales' can boost an unworthy or faulty site to the top, bumping out a significant site. I saw this once when frivolous sites mentioning the word 'holocaust' were high above the listing of traditional sites like Wiesenthal.org or even at times USHMM. The ease of having massive amounts of information at one's fingertips is met and confounded with a process that only brings the tip of the iceberg of searches under our perusal.

There are no easy answers right now, but these issues have to ethically and legally set in stone before the generation changes. Where power raises its head, all go after it: governments will seek to control search engines, search engines and social networking (or engineering) will control or influence nations. When Bryn and Page and Schmidt are gone, when Zuckerberg is 85, when the exuberance of the pioneers at Sun and Silicon Valley are gone, when Steve Jobs leaves us, I fear the ones who take their place: I do not believe they will keep the concept of liberty that a lot of us have fought with our lives for.

I suspect they will be businessmen, 'corporate clones' as some call them, or persons with vested interests in a world with organized crime, militant Islam, militant fascism and communism, massive religious cults and foreign government operatives. To some this may sound 'conspiratorial', but to those who have sailed the high seas of the internet for awhile it will not. We are already seeing the troublesome position of Internet concerns on International policy and affairs.

Google and Governments: The Internet Changes International Policy

2011-02-14T22:04:00.000-06:00

We know it must be the 21st century, because one of the first major political overthrows, the protests in Egypt, started on the Internet. We have had for some time a 'boiling frog' attitude toward the internet and emerging technology, marveling at each new invention, implementing it without much forethought, and rarely thinking beyond a 5 year range what may become of any particular new technology, or its societal consequences. While there are schools and think tanks on the horizon (a few already exist for social policy and the internet), the 'ethics' of the internet and emerging technology seems to be always one of small predictions, current observations and backward glances. The 'morality' of emerging technology and the inherent politics of it assumes without thought an amoral stance, a 'utilitarianism' in which if something works and is cost-effective, it is 'good'.

I am not writing to propose that all of the internet is 'bad' or 'immoral' though it certainly contains the propensity and sectors which could define it that way. While we wring our hands over internet porn, crime, bullying,stalking ,fraud, and even murders, the internet and all search engines, of which Google currently remains the most eminent, has also had some very good effects: free speech , freedom of assembly in a worldwide community, religious freedom and thought, 'guerilla journalism' in which stories the mass media glosses over can be covered, ease of scholarship, research, and the sharing of documents and information aid in a more democratic world and a sense of camaraderie unsurpassed in history. What used to take a year in research, I can do in weeks from my home, including data collection, analysis and even preparation for publication. We essentially have a 'backyard fence' around the world in social networking, which has tended both to the very good and the very bad: it has lent to criminal enticement, but also has provided a refuge for children with weak social skills not to feel so alone. The net teaches technology, allows online learning and even degrees from standard universities, allows shut-ins to attend church services and synagogues, and raises funds worldwide for the best of causes. Internet 'entities' have lobbied for humane treatment of dissidents, even freeing some torture victims in oppressive governments, and I believe even causing some very real political solutions directly or by indirect influence in places like Dar Fur, Red China, and even Pakistan, and there are very many benefits to all of us plebeian sorts who can learn skills through Youtube, find recipes, make travel and conference plans, etc, etc, sitting at home with our cup of tea or coffee at hand, however long we wish as long as the neighborhood nightmares aren't busy hacking. The influence of the net has resulted in impoverished or failing communities springing back with jobs and healthy lifestyles here and abroad (e.g. Dublin) and recently, as I looked into possible mission trips abroad, I found an orphanage that needed help establishing an internet cafe which would train homeless children in Tanzania in cyberskills, and provide an income for the orphanage. Sure beats child-soldiering or the sex-trade industry!

Egyptian Protests, Riots & the Net

Recently though, I am given to a serious concern over where the Internet's power and influence SHOULD be limited, or 'if'. The Egyptian riots bring up this concern: the ability in a repressive nation to network labor unions, individuals, students, clerics and the others, came about in large part because of the ability to utilize Facebook and similar sites, and Google and other search engines, and the ease of egalitarian self-publishing without much money. The net has at least temporarily held out the standard of 'laissez-fair', and what becomes successful on the net is based upon quality, interest, audience, or some sort of 'Je ne sais quoi' for which all are searching. In the past, we have discussed the idea of Google and government and what happens when a search engine might end up in the wrong hands, particularly the government's. The Egyptian protests though for the good or bad have brought up the most serious issue of recent times regarding the Net, as to what the place of the Internet is in foreign affairs and world politics. It is highly unlikely that the extent of the crowd would have been gathered or sustained without the wisdom of a former Google employee, or the facility of Facebook. And yet, those who run either, are not really responsible in one sense, though they are still mightily influential.

The difficulties are many:

1. Google, Hotbot, Baidu(China), Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace and the myriad others are PRIVATE companies with an international outreach. Governments are governments with national borders and concerns. Further, save for Baidu and a couple others, most influential web organizations/businesses are not run by people who are savvy in foreign relations: there is a distinction between international business savvy and tech savvy, and the savvy for international affairs.

2. In the case of Egypt, Neither Facebook nor Google was an instigator, per se, but 'morphed' into the role of negotiator as did ISPs and others, once the protest was underway. I am not denigrating the truly Egyptian nature and cause of the protest, but one cannot at the same time not dismiss their role. And yet they are not 'sent' by the United States, nor are they bound since Google operates in all nations.

3. When can a government 'shut down' the internet? Red China has tried for years to censor major portions, but to any who know even a little about the net, censored IPs or keywords are almost always able to be circumvented. Censorship on the net is not really more than an attempt at repression. Egypt though, did shut down ISPs [Internet Service Providers], shutting down far more than email and facebook: Egyptian business sites, foreign trade, stocks, negotiations, publications, and the vast array of human endeavor was off the plate for 18 days. If the loss of life had not come into play I suppose we could tease at how many people ran out into the street angry when the internet shut down! The problem though is serious and divisive and almost unresolvable: no one government INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES has ultimate authority over the Internet. They cannot. If litigation is enacted today, the problem becomes paramount: the 'standards' organization for the net is W3c, an international organization, but they do not handle blockades of service, and do not have authority over ISPs or private sites. The FCC is American, but cannot really regulate all of the internet or international organizations abroad even if they reside in the US; the FBI is American and their cybercrime sectors usually handle spam, fraud, marketing issues, etc, but do not govern whether any nation can be online. ICANN, which governs IPs and similar issues, does not litigate more than that. I know first hand of the problems trying to protect a given work on the internet, when there are attempts to shut a site down, a legal nightmare ensues for all, and that is within the bounds of the US. Further, ICANN is umbrella-ed by us, the US, and should they rule uncomfortably, where can it end, but ultimately in world court.

4. Did Mubarak's government act illegally in an Egyptian crisis? The answer is not as easy nor clear cut as one assumes: can any government shut down access to the internet in a national emergency, for the good or bad? Who Decides? This is not a question of whether his government was good or bad, democratic or repressive, but of authority.

5. Did those from Facebook, Google, ISPs etc have a right to INTERVENE or conversely, to WITHHOLD INTERVENTION in a shutting down of access to the Web? What law currently governs any of it? Google and Facebook and almost all ISPs are PRIVATE: they do not govern the internet though they are often outspoken in governments over Internet Policy.) )

These are only a few skeletal issues regarding the problems of the Net and International affairs. Some are asking whether the net concerns were the impetus for the overthrow of a government. Problems have brewed in Egypt for decades, so the notion that it was due in large part to the net would be erroneous. The protests have been fueled by rumors of corruptions, lowered standards of living, unfair labor practices, and issues of free speech: bloggers criticizing Egyptian policy were imprisoned, raising international concern, and the unrest in a society of more diversity than the media portrays, in Africa where diversity is often ignored, was bound to happen in whole or part. On the other hand, one can not say that the Internet did not play an important role, and the intensity of all of our relationships to the net is seen in the effectiveness of shutting down the internet and cell phone service in reaction to any event.

Since no governments 'own' the Internet can any government shut down its own citizens' access to the net? Since no entity on the net has governing power, who represents net interests in an uneasy world. On the one hand, we do not want to establish a 'world police' to govern the net, and on the other hand, that is what we really need, or the net becomes (as it has somewhat been) the Wild Wild West. It is not that Microsoft, Google, Sun, Facebook etc and their fine bevy of lawyers have not thought this out, but the issue at hand is coming forward, regarding who owns and operates the net, and who is responsible for the way it is used.

If Google and Facebook, Microsoft, Sun, and all those I have not mentioned must necessarily intervene, then where does power rest in the world? Could a major internet company shut down all or a portion of internet service and business and communication to a nation if they deny, for example free speech? Could Northern Sudan be blockaded if they do not stop the assault of the Janjaweed? For now it seems we should just let sleeping dogs lie, because although they do not make decision we think they should, the people who head these organizations now are not as meglomanical as some may be in near future. The net can influence political elections by careful optimization and rank of websites for candidates, or worse for the slander of candidates. The net can feed certain kinds of stories at the top. Most people in a search do not go beyond the third page, so the companies are not really guilty of suppressing information when it falls at #100,000, but it may seldom be found in a search. Conversely, search engine optimization, which as my son has remarked can be 'snake oil sales' can boost an unworthy or faulty site to the top, bumping out a significant site. I saw this once when frivolous sites mentioning the word 'holocaust' were high above the listing of traditional sites like Wiesenthal.org or even at times USHMM. The ease of having massive amounts of information at one's fingertips is met and confounded with a process that only brings the tip of the iceberg of searches under our perusal.

There are no easy answers right now, but these issues have to ethically and legally set in stone before the generation changes. Where power raises its head, all go after it: governments will seek to control search engines, search engines and social networking (or engineering) will control or influence nations. When Bryn and Page and Schmidt are gone, when Zuckerberg is 85, when the exuberance of the pioneers at Sun and silicon valley are gone, when Steve Jobs leaves us, I fear the ones who take their place: I do not believe they will keep the concept of liberty that alot of us have fought with our lives for. I suspect they will be businessmen, 'corporate clones' as some call them, or persons with vested interests in a world with organized crime, militant Islam, militant fascism and communism, massive religious cults and foreign government operatives. To some this may sound 'conspiratorial', but to those who have sailed the high seas of the internet for awhile it will not. We are already seeing the troublesome position of Internet concerns on International policy and affairs.

1611-2011 : 400th Year of the King James Bible

2010-12-31T22:59:00.006-06:00

In six hours, the parties in full swing, the clock on Time Square ticking, the New Year of 2011 takes hold. Some will declare it the 'green' year, others will call for peace. Some will call for human rights, and in truth all of us should be declaring each of those. Not to withstand though, what some will see as a long history of eccentricity, I will stand in utter honor of 400 years of the King James Bible. Next week, I will declare it the year for women and children everywhere in the world to stand up in a God given right to value and worth. Yet even ahead of that premiere and worthy cause, I hold to the Year of the KJV, or the Received Text, the preserved Word of God, in English (with multiple derivatives), in the hands of the common man, without prejudice, in love, and without the vail of any other interpreter or mediator, save the Lord himself.

The Martyr's Bible

In some ways, I would have preferred we celebrate the 400th year of the Tyndale Bible, the Bible upon which the KJV was almost entirely based, all but finished a few years earlier, when Tyndale, after months of agony, darkness, torture and mistreatment was led from Vilvroode Prison in Antwerp and killed on a Martyr's stake. It is Tyndale's spirit replete throughout the translation of the pages of the KJV, the legal version of the text with slight changes, that the King put Tyndale to death.   Tyndale gave the Word of God to the common man (every plow boy...) in English speaking Europe and the world, as Luther gave the Word to Germans in the vernacular. The radical and explosive event of merely putting ink to paper, was the primary cause of theReformation in Europe, and the cry of Sola Scriptura was heard in more than Germany.

A Tale of Espionage

The history of translating the Bible into English was akin to a tale of intrigue and espionage: Tyndale was chased from England where one of his printers was caught attempting to publish his copy of the New Testament. He fled as far as is known to Germany where the task was not illegal, but still had to work under aliases such as 'Daltyn' (a rearrangement of Tyndall) or humorously 'youknowwho', etc. Even then, the process was arduous and the clandestine effort involved shipping pages back to England, hidden within other legally printed books, and reassembled upon arrival.    At the same time, it was a complex battle for the Word: for centuries the Roman Catholic Church had held an iron grip on the world, disallowing the Word of God in 'common' hands, and insisting only trained priests, proficient in Latin, greek and Hebrew could interpret or teach the Word. Jerome's Latin Vulgate had formed the base for Catholic work and translation, and even an earlier attempt of Wycliffe in the 1300s to translate the Word into English had been based primarily on the Vulgate. Even then, Wycliffe was put to death, and later exhumed and burned so that his ashes could be cast on the waters. This reaction typified Rome's feeling regarding those who had the audacity to trust mere readers with God's Word.

Rome was not at all uninterested in the process around Tyndale's time: all the men involved were persecuted and/or killed. The father of all 'mavericks' was probably Erasmus, a Catholic monk and a foremost scholar of his day, who noting differences between scriptures and fragments from Valdes, and the Vulgate, set about to collate every piece of manuscript evidence still extant. He collected and translated the Greek into what is now called the 'Textus Receptus' or 'Received text', and it formed the basis for Tyndale's New Testament. Erasmus though was constantly on the outs with the Vatican, at one point threatened with excommunication, but the worst that occurred was the confiscation of his works by Great Britain,and the banning of his work by Pope Paul IV, a few years after his death.   Erasmus claimed he was a scholar and that his parodies and satire of the Roman church were only that. He declined to join Luther, and basically became a critic of all.   Tyndale was persecuted both by Rome and by England though Rome and England were at war with one another regarding Henry VIII's marriages and divorces.   Luther was excommunicated as were countless others who participated in the process, his life often threatened.   Further, during the years of the KJV committee, there was a bombing in parliament, and Rome rushed the Douay Rheims into print in 1610, a new english translation of the Vulgate, a year before the KJV in an effort to circumvent the effect of the KJV on the growing Protestant Reformation, in the revival of modern times to bring back the faith, the Gospel, once delivered and to confront Rome openly regarding the bondage of human religion vs. relation with God. Most of the members of the KJV committee died of extraordinary circumstances not long after the release in quiet martyrdoms including poisonings and strangulation.   The bloody atmosphere and war which produced the KJV (and the Geneva, Coverdale, Stephanus, and Tyndale contributions) ended , as Tyndale had desired to his dying breath, with the King's eyes opened, and 'every plowboy knowing more scripture' than the corrupt clerics.

Rome & the KJV

Rome's beef with the KJV then, began really long before the advent of the KJV, and has always been rooted in whether the ordinary believer should have full access to the word of God. The Bible though fundamentally speaks to a heresy of the 'nicolaitans' meaning literally a rule nico over the laity. While churches have 'bishops' and deacons, the head of the Church is to be Christ alone, the only mediator. The heresy was essentially replete in Roman Catholicism along with several other crimes such as selling indulgences, purgatory, limbo and other non-canonical doctrines, often rooted in paganism. The Bible in plebian hands to Rome spelled overthrow: one of the ways Rome kept control over its laity was by teaching certain passages but not others. With the advent of a true Bible in the vernacular, Rome was proven quite correct: with the Holy Scriptures as guide instead of a corrupt priesthood, the believers at large set about separating from Rome, living by the whole of the Word, and developing and planting new biblical churches. The inception of this war between Rome and its dissenters, which had started with Constantine's Arians and wandered through those inside and outside the Roman church such as Francis of Assissi, Wycliffe, Erasmus, Tyndale, Luther, the Waldenses and Albigenses and many others through history, but Tyndale, more than any other, sliced through the 'Scarlet Curtain' declaring from then until now that God's perfect Word, was meant for all who could encounter God and his Messiah without human intervention (inteference).

The Received Text above All Other Texts

I would not belabor what countless others have done on why the KJV is superior to other texts, but the issue is more than just what translation one wishes to read. There are a few characteristics though of the KJV that are responsible for its excellence and longetivity, and great effect. They are hard to ignore. Inherent in the following issues is the modern controversy called by many the 'KJV Only Controversy' and whether or not Modern bibles are exact renderings of the Word. In truth they are not: in 1889, Westcott and Hort, two Anglican bishops put out what many thought was to be only an updated KJV: instead it was based on faulty Greek from recent finds under disputation, and it dismissed 80% of available manuscript evidence in favor of the 'progressive' move to Tischendorf's find of the Sinaiticus, and the other less used Vaticanus and Alexandrinus. Dean Burgon, a scholar around the time of the RV, counted 36,000 differences in translation, a significant figure. Later, by the early 1900s, Rudolf Kittel began his formidable work on the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, a 'new' Hebrew Old Testament. Kittel veered away from the traditional Masoretic text in favor of inclusion of and leaning toward peshitta/ Samaritan text, considered with rabbinical skepticism.   Kittel and his son Gerhard were both NSDAP members (Nazis) and through their work, a new hebrew Old Testament was written with an accompanying lexicon.   They are both used as the standard for translating ALL modern Bible translations with the Nestle Aland Greek (the dissensioned Westcott and Hort text). The new bibles based upon the modern more problematic finds include NASV, NIV, Good News, New Living, Holman, NRIV, TNIV, TEV and many others. The excellence of the KJV includes the following:

1. It is the ONLY generally available bible that has retained the traditional Hebrew base, called the Masoretic or Ben Chayim text. All other hebrew bases of the new bibles are the production of nazi theologians.

2. The language is superior and equally readable to modern translations.    The language in the KJV is a little harder than paraphrases, but paraphrases are wrought with opinion and restatements and are not the true bible.

3. The KJV has no real errors: checked through centuries, the most that one could debate is a spelling or two, which are not imperfections, but conventions.

4. The KJV in a representative study by verse counts, OVERALL, compared with all other bibles both before and after the shoah, shows a higher mention of Jewish terms such as Jew, Jews, Jewry, Israel, Children of Israel, and many others.   Pre-shoah bibles before Kittel's text, show a superiority OVERALL to post shoah bibles, although the patterns of change for each word differ widely. (Kirkley Best, 2007)

5. KJV maintains in tact, the thousands of years old doctrinal consistency on the exaltation and sovereignty of God, the Diety of Christ, the Messiah, the blood atonement, the eternal covenant, the virgin birth etc, whereas modern bible translations are fraught with omissions and changes.

6. The KJV is actually the 'best and oldest' matching ancient manuscripts and pieces of papyrii such as the Bodmer #66 a portion of the Gospel of John.   The PR for modern bibles may say they are, but the evidence confirms KJV.   The crossouts and corrections in the Sinaiticus were to bring it in line with the traditional text, showing it was known as an errored text. (Maury) Its 'good' condition spoke to its disuse because of that.

7. The KJV has changed in type and a few minor words since 1611, but hardly at all: young people understand 'blesseth' as well as 'blessed'.

8. The KJV (essentially the Tyndale) came from the finest scholar(s) in history. We have no modern scholars even near them.

9. The KJV has for 4 centuries influenced our language, our legal system, education, the arts, and even farming and technology.    The whole of the KJV in the hands of ordinary folks, has resulted in LESS anti-Semitism, teaching the book of Romans and the 'mystery of the Jews', responsibility and mercy to the Jews, and the headship in God's plan of the Jews.   While one can find examples where it was used otherwise, Catholic readings in Masses and missals often dismissed these passages.

10. The whole of theWord in the KJV teaches tolerance, and beyond tolerance, LOVE towards God and man.

11. More have come to salvation via the KJV than any other bible. The KJV is the Word, the others 'contain' the word.

So many other things could be said regarding the KJV on this 400th year past the toil and sacrifice that brought it about, that it would require volumes.   The move to 'modern' bibles though, with 'gender inclusiveness', easy english, and pseudo-tolerant views are dangerous, divisive, and lead readily to false doctrine and church splits. Many bible publishers do not even used as a foundation accuracy any more but 'reader preference'. Consider the following from the publishers of the NIV:

Moo disagrees. He says the new version of the NIV is accurate. But he also admits that the committee did some research to see what words evangelical Christians, who are most likely to buy the new NIV, prefer. So far most of the critics of the last version have remained silent about the new one.·

Read more: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/news/29588-niv-bible-changes-gender-inclusive-language#ixzz179eOp3yB

Marketability has taken rise over accuracy and holiness and consistency of the Word of God. Ad campaigns, deceptive sales tactics and lists and outright lies about the quality and history of the modern bibles have deceived two generations: the result is a divided church, the introduction of moral relativism, and the dismissal of sovereign authority.

No true Love exists in this world outside of God and his Word. Love in the world outside the Word of God invariably is reduced to carnality: even the highest humanistic altruism can be attributed to selfish or self-serving motives. The movie, "the Book of Eli" may have well predicted the future of the KJV but to those who understand the concept of divine and eternal Love in its purest form, the unaltered, historical Received text is the one which cannot be done away with, if we wish to continue in a human society. That is the Love of Tyndale who died praying for the King who had him executed. That is the Love of God. That, dear friends is Love, the everlasting Song of Salvation and eternal life. 400 Years: much to celebrate.

Happy New Year to All.
ekbest

Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T13:01:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas from SeditionAct.blogspot.com. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, to the homeless, this season, in the United States, to the mother, in a shelter with two or more children, who remembers warm Christmases at home, and not the clinking and clanging of a dirty lunchroom with stale Christmas cookies and anonymous presents for the children. Merry Christmas to her husband and older son of 12, who had to stay down the street at a men's shelter, amidst the crimes and problems she sheltered him from all these years. Merry Christmas to the growing, countless families, who lost their homes not through neglect, nor laziness, but through job loss and the mortgage crunch, or through graft and reconveyances, who this year will not hang lights and set out snowmen, mangers or the like, but instead packed up what little they owned in an SUV or minvan having to leave the possessions of a lifetime behind, in an empty house or with friends and families. Here, in the United States of America, where hard work was supposed to build a life and love and a future, and not despair in a tent, or on a bench, or in a shelter.

Merry Christmas also, to the men in the shelter, whom no one wants to walk or sit near, much less have a conversation with. Some have fallen prey to alcohol and drug abuse, they are the stereotyped hobos wandering the streets of every city, trying to stay warm with whatever works.   No one sees the origin of the pain that ended there: the limb that would not heal from the veteran who gave his life to defend the country that sits around the sparkling trees, fighting over Wii's and Kindle's and video toys. They do not see the father whose infant child died: he turned to drinking, his wife broke down, and one day he just walked away from pain and never returned. No one sees the former Miss America nor the former CEO (not an exaggeration), who experienced the very real effect of laissez faire , 'winner take all' and the winners keep the losers from ever rising to the top again. Only those who have been through the process can tell, to unbelieving stares of those who are always sure it was some other reason that led them to life on the streets.

Merry Christmas to the hookers on the streets of Reno and Las Vegas, or New York, Los Angeles or Houston, Orlando, Chattanooga, Toledo or Manitowoc Wisconsin. Some were abused as children, and a few had pastors or missionaries as fathers or mothers. The criminal cruelties that left them there are unspeakable. They 'checkout' as children, dying somewhere inside and living the rest of their frightening time on earth as someone's property for the vilest purposes, saucy, arrogant, and claiming to appease their conscience that they really like the lifestyle while the child inside cries at every piercing.

Merry Christmas to the mourning parents of the world. Some are mourning this season for the first time, some mourning the children described above: they ran away from home because of abuse, or because they just sought thrill and adventure, and their parents stare across ornaments on a front lawn, wondering where they are. Merry Christmas to the parents whose child just died, a stillbirth: instead of joyful expectations of a Christmas baby, they were forced by time to call relatives regarding the death of the little one, then select a burial outfit and not a teddy bear, or stand at the edge of a grave watching a small styrofoam coffin lowered into the earth: they hope to sleep at Christmas, or be somewhere else in heart and mind and soul, avoiding the little asps of biting remarks about how they are 'better off'.

Merry Christmas to the parents who after years of battling juvenile diabetes, or cancer, or multiple sclerosis or the myriad of diseases which prey on children, must visit a hospital bed, or worse, a graveside to say goodbye to the noblest and most loving of children.   Merry Christmas to the ones whose children 'disappeared' off the suburban streets of some city somewhere, and months or years later are still not found. They may never in the loyal love of a mother or father give up hope, but they may likewise never believe all will be well. They may never think upon what might have happened.

Merry Christmas to the many men and women of the world, who this year will live the first Christmas alone with a spouse of 50, 60 years or more: they are not whole, they cannot comprehend a life where their friend and lover will not be home, carving the turkey, opening a present, or telling the grandchildren or great grandchildren they can now, at 5:00am, come down the stairs at grandmom's house and see what gifts await. He or she is somehow still there: they hear the door click at 5 in the afternoon, they thought they saw the car pull up. They cannot look at the age old ornaments they saw as a child.

Merry Christmas to the abused women and children of the world. They will spend the day being very quiet, trying to water down the liquor so that they will not have bruises and welts the morning after. The women and children of this world have much to ponder in a world that no longer considers rape a crime, especially if the victim is first drugged.

Merry Christmas to the despairing who are thinking about taking their own lives this season, the season when so many do, they stare out the window of mental hospitals, or sit in the park feeding pigeons, or wander through brightly lit malls and shops unable to see faith, future or purpose. They are comtemplating taking the gift of life from themselves: they cannot see an end to pain and despair, nor fathom a whole life of loss.

Merry Christmas to the mothers in Afghanistan who cannot understand a foreign army kicking down their quiet door to look for insurgents: they left the town months ago. Merry Christmas to the soldiers who kick down the door because they cannot disobey orders without a serious consequence, though they never feel right to do it. Merry Christmas to the officers who sent them there, who see no other alternative to fighting terrorists who left unchecked, will blow up half the world.

Merry Christmas to terrorists everywhere, who in rage, picked up their weapons to fight against the named enemy, whichever will do, who left his mother or children maimed and bleeding, his brother dead and filled with shrapnel, his father without a limb. This is no one set of terrorists, but all who choose rage unending as a way to please their god.

Merry Christmas to Reno, Los Angeles and Casinoland: your cities and our Christmases now look and act alot alike.

Merry Christmas to the street Children of New York City: left out in the cold , some before 5 years old, they learn a guile and cleverness few have known, but turn in a seared conscience to a sinister survival. They are burned out candles without light, and love escapes them: they live with murder and mayhem and can no longer comprehend a storybook with milk and cookies, but know all the hookers on the block, and how to shoot heroin.   If we could only see the few offering them warmth, or what the cost becomes.

Merry Christmas to Policemen and their victims everywhere: the police daily place their lives on the live for only average pay: we do not know what they walk into in our violent streets, or what chutzpah it takes to stay. Merry Christmas to the victims of police abuse, who are beaten without cause by overwrought policemen who are overtaken by a need for control which they have lost, and sadly overreact to the non-violent.

Merry Christmas to the Jews. Yes, the Jews. It has been 65 years, and we still cannot find a real apology in our hearts: we hope you were not offended by the shoah. We are glad you lived, but many wish you were not here, always harping on such things as humanity, love and civil rights in a society which has decided to live for the moment without bothering with the niceties. Merry Christmas on this day we leave you out without any regard for where our faith or Savior came from: from where the Word of God we came to love came from. Merry Christmas, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, the cities of our Lord and Savior, where priests battle in front of legendary tombs. Merry Christmas, (and a belated Happy Chanukah) Siderot: we hope the bombs and missiles cease, so that you will have to remember the world in a different way, than doves made of direct hits.

Merry Christmas to the Martyrs who have suffered during this holiday season, both Jews and Gentiles across the centuries: there will no doubt be more as martyrdoms are geometrically increasing, even above the first century as the disciples left Jerusalem. Merry Christmas to the exiled.   Blessings and peace to those who wished this day to be a celebration of the birth of the Light of the World, bringing hope, peace, joy and Salvation into our dark lives: it was really only the Winter Solstice, a pagan holiday which we overlaid with Christian terms to please ourselves and participate in the festivities. Jesus Christ, Yshua HaMeschiach, was not born on December25th when sleeping outside would have been impossible and lambing flocks would most likely not have been out at night. Merry Christmas to the FBI who will consider the truth 'social change' and seek to stop it on every hand.

I will observe Christmas this year mostly in silence. I am not a JW nor any of the other faiths which do not celebrate the day for whatever reason, but a former college professor, a mother, a believer in the Lord Jesus (Yshua) who has loved Christmas at times in my life, the scent of candles, the packages, the good food, and family, but very little of the Christ we claim to 'welcome'. It has become a season of carnal lusts and greed, when everything including the soul is merchandised, and by the end of the day, only a few children are happy. Merry Christmas to those who have sought to violently overthrow me in my faith: I am still standing, and still love you and my Lord. I just need some time to be quiet with the Word of God, and pray for those in despair this year, at what the world has become, and what the world is yet to become: for the martyrs who will lose their lives one year at Christmas, because of those who have missed the mark on His birth, as well as what the Love of God was all about.

Merry Christmas.

How Life Has Changed

2010-11-05T20:53:00.001-05:00

Number crunching goes on daily behind the scenes of any News Organization. Statistics bear the weight of truth when rightly used, and bear the fault of misinformation when wrongfully used, and either can be done with facility by someone who understands the power of the way statistics are reported. Rightfully used, however, they can cut through confusion to show what is going on in a society, when overlaid with the entire landscape of a major social change.

It is into that framework, that one can venture a rather ambitious look in a short blog, regarding what has happened in the United States and the World since the advent of the Internet, and the Obama administration, the great hope of nations, that was supposed to right all wrongs. The changes over the past 5 to 10 years, when placed in juxtaposition with one another, are astounding.

The Internet, most of us over thirty can observe, has made such radical changes in society, in its 15 or so years of its present form, that only recently have the intense implications been examined, in the industry and legislature, noting the very real problems which have yet to be carefully controlled. "Net Neutrality" is an example of the complex political ramifications that have come about, in issues such as whether there can be tiered services by Internet Service Providers. More threatening are issues of which no one ever dreamed: security issues closing down major businesses or sites, bogus pages walking away with purchase money, or in the extreme, foreign governments marketing routers and security devices which do just the opposite: supply the adversary with the contents of the computer the router is supposed to protect, including government and military computers.

The Net has a comparatively short history in the scheme of things. The earliest 'models' and systems in the 1950s, had less memory than an old floppy disk. By the late seventies and eighties, we had a form of the net, with green screens connecting mostly academic, government and research organizations, in text only applications 'sharing' information, and the insidious web began to grow. By the early 80s there was email, and I recall at a college of Medicine where I taught, while we did not yet have "inter-"net, we did have "intra-net" and with all the joy of playing pong, could daily get the thought of the day from IT (it wasn't called that then, and it was only one guy) which usually read something like, "you can't kill time without injuring eternity". And we could type: want to go out to lunch?---but it was little more than that. From 1985 to 1995, though, great strides took place, and as early as late 94 and 95 we could actually use graphics online, opening up a whole new world. Accounts, and free web pages came on the scene, but so did issues like 'bandwidth': what was it, would it become a commodity, and might it possibly have any detrimental environment effects? We still could not imagine that the web might become the primary place of doing business or having social communication. The beginnings were seen even back then, though we could not have imagined 'Vonage or Skype', until they appeared short after.
I recall the most amazing entry, of the broadcast of the Rabbi of Jerusalem via streaming, though choppy video, and the first slide shows online (we had one on what became shoaheducation.com back then)and we speculated where it might all go, before YOUTUBE, or HULU, or online Conference Meetings were generally available. By 2000, search engines such as Altavista, Webcrawler, Excite and Hotbot were replaced by the Great White Hope of GOOGLE, which when I first saw the colorful logo, I thought, well maybe for kids and newbies, but not for business and academics: how wrong first impressions can be.

GOOGLE

Google has changed life in so many ways, it is indescribable and probably can rightly or wrongfully congratulate itself on more societal change in a ten year period than almost anything else that has happened, outside, perhaps of Moses and the Red Sea, or the birth of Jesus. (I am not making a comparison.) Google Scholar has begun to change the way I and many scholars do research: they no longer have to be in a university library or archive to retrieve in hours what now takes minutes, including source documents and classics, journal articles and a way too easy reading list, even for doctorates and master's theses. Google books has given me and others a massive at-home library: what's a card catalog---I forget. I cannot yet get everything I need at home, but I can get so much, and references to the rest, that I rarely have to go to the libraries I used to have to live in back in the 80s.
Google ad sense has made some people rich overnight, and others have been arrested for click fraud and scheming. A new class of people became very valuable in the past 10 years: those who could optimize sites for search engines to make otherwise average sites and their businesses/philosophies to go the the top of a search engine listing, promoting good and bad causes, businesses and shopping. Google documents isn't there yet, but provides a 'poor man's' alternative to MS Word, free gmail with every gadget and whiz-gig available, making correspondence quick and paperless, and sometimes far less secure with phishing scams, spam, and and false users. More people of all sorts are now able to read your mail as well. I check far fewer newspapers since the advent of Google: my daily news is not at the breakfast table on paper, but online, scrolling through Google link news. Ease and expediency has replaced careful assessment. The changes Google has made are phenomenal, and only briefly alluded to here, in the years 2000 to 2010.

Bush, Obama and the Past Ten Years

At the same time the internet has changed life so drastically, politics has turned dramatic as well. In the year 2000, George Bush was in office, and even staid politicians discovered the power of an 'Oil' Machine in the highest office. by 2001, in September, the first major act of terrorism and the generation of war occurred, providing Bush a buffer against the polls for several years, until the death toll in Iraq and clandestine politics left the media subdued. The media turned more to entertainment and less to objective news coverage, declaring the fulfillment of the 'prophecy' of Edward R. Murrow about what would become of TV Journalism. By the end of the Bush administration, we had firmly in place the Patriot Act, an initially exigent act to counter terrorism which developed into a modified form of Marshall law, with major escape clauses for law enforcement to circumvent civil liberties by assessing what was or was not a threat of terrorism. So incensed was the American public, that the cry 'anything but Bush' became forefront, and the horizon provide Barak Hussein Obama by 2006, elected president by 2008, with the general misconception of who and what he was: the liberals saw him as the answer to all their prayers, a president "of colors" who would meet every need and right every wrong, and they were very mistaken, as health care became 'The Great Division', a costly error, with a new political party, the Tea Party forming in reaction,and this week, within 2 years, changing the face of Congress by a grassroots effort. Politics also has changed with the internet: Google Obama, McCain, Jerry Brown or any other, and you will find them on Facebook, and in Wikipedia, and on a thousand blogs and online newspapers. Politics has changed forever.

The Great American Metamorphosis
During these massive changes though, which most daily users and citizens see as rather innocuous and just a little different than any other time in history, what has become of daily life, in the past 10 years? I was perusing some statistics recently just out of curiosity, prompting this blog, and consider what was found:

1. Library Closures and Change of USE:
this statistic was among the most difficult to research: there are hundreds of data points regarding # of Libraries, type, kind, per capita visits and circulation, but I could not find the raw figure of permanent closures for public libraries and yet there are dozens of articles scholarly and otherwise declaring the massive closure of libraries during the years 1999 to 2010. One resource ¹ cites a 90% increase of internet terminals between the years of 2000 and 2007 in libraries which have probably served to keep libraries alive. According to the US Census Bureau,and the Institute for Library and Museum Services, the per capita vist to libraries in 199 was 4.27 to 5.1 in 2008, but the dramatic change in library computer usage explains why: in 1999, 1.8 PCs per 5000 people changed to 3.75 per 5000 in 2008 (the latest 2010 stats). The use of PCs per capita changed from 1.16 in 2006 per to 1.21 in 2008, a two year difference.

Print materials went down, from 2850 to approximately 2760 between 1999 and 2008 which further suggests the computer use in libraries as a reason for a lesser change. While the actual # visits to public libraries increased, other statistics suggest that it is because of closings of lesser libraries, driving patrons to the larger metro or county libraries, and because of an increase in computer use. Here is a very sad comment though: between 1999 and 2008, reference transactions decreased from 1.12 per, to 1.0-1.02 in '07 to 08. While that may seem small, the degree of change is dramatic showing a change in a significant traditional use of library services. Reference requests per 1000 visits dropped from about 270 to 200 during those 9 years. While the internet and political/social changes in society bear a large influence, funding, staff cuts, operating cost increases and the nebulous number of closings have an effect also.

The raw number of Public Libraries is reported as 9137 in 1999, with an increase to 9221 in 2008 in 50 states. That is a deceptive number with so many closings because while it is an increase of '84' libraries, the percent is only .009 indicating that the hard to come by number of closures in at work behind the scenes. Said one journalist

As you can imagine from a data standpoint, the number of closed libraries is a swiftly moving target. Even the announcements of potential closures in Charlotte, Philadelphia, Reno and Boston sometimes change from week to week as many library advocates stand up for keeping their branches open – often ultimately leading to reduced hours rather than complete closures. Karen Muller, American Libraries Magazine 06/15/2010

Of libraries of all kinds, we see that the total estimated in 1999 was approximately 123,000 [ILMS] and in 2008 drops to 122,101. If these figures are accurate, then just under 1000 closings of all kinds of libraries have occurred including Public [9221-(2008), Academic[3827], Schools[99180], Special[8476],Armed Forces [284]and Government [1113] libraries. (Statistics from the Institute of Library and Museum Services)

The problem of closures due to internet usage is hard to pull apart from other factors on the one hand, since computer usage in libraries skew the figure, but it is only reasonable that with online libraries and even journal availability, the advent of kindle and The Nook, free books online, etc, that trips to the library for 'on paper' services would decrease, as would reference requests. One does not have to get in a car during a cold winter day to even use library services anymore, as one can get them online, which decreases the 'per capita' figures of in person library use.

Publications
The ability to publish has changed dramatically in the past five much less ten years. In the past if a new author finished a book and looked for a publisher he would either have to send in multiple copies to 'readers' at publishing houses, or self publish which was expensive and required upfront investments with no guarantees. Now, a new author can work through 'CreateSpace' or blog2print or other formats and self-publish for under $100 per work. Web publishing is a frontier of publishing, as many go first to the web and only secondly to books. The impact on the industry has yet to be adequately addressed.

Newspaper Readership
As libraries close or reduce services, other than digital ones, one of the greatest impacts of the web has been a decline in hard copy newspapers, and the way people read a newspaper. Online, people tend to read more articles, though with less attention. Below is a Google map with newspaper closings noted:

Hard copy newspapers one may argue are merely going online, but this is not the case: many traditional journalists and designers do not have the internet savvy or skills to compete online, a cutthroat environment. Moreover, many are well beyond college years, and while life long learning is a value to be held, many in their 50s do not see the investment of time as productive. The hard copy papers affect local advertisement also more than online papers: local ads are less frequent and often more expensive online, with any eminence of the ad. One of the costs of losing paper readership to net readership, is a change in the way we read: the net due to its assault on the eyes after some time, has contributed to light cursory readings, which while gaining a breadth of articles read, decreases the depth of understanding.

The Postal Service

In my fifties I far prefer hard mail for records, but likewise, like many, I have turned almost completely to doing business and correspondence on the web. There really has been a downward turn in hard copy mail for the post office "snail mail" which cannot compete with letters online which when sent arrive in the recipient's hand immediately. The amount of mail handled since 2002 until 2010 has decreased dramatically as email accounts have increased dramatically:

The effect on our mail is enormous: less privacy, more 'fakery', more fraudulent claims, and if we complained about ads before email, we had no idea what 'spam' really was. The Post Office currently boasts of 'trimming' measures trying to hide losses in revenue and jobs: to the Post Office, there was a three billion dollar cut in spending and a reduction of 200,000 positions: to those who lost their jobs and post offices it reads quite differently.

Pornography

Any Anthropologist can tell you that pornography has been around since the beginning, found in most cultures. It has however usually been segregated to a peripheral part of a town or city, or until recently hidden, considered taboo, and unrespectable. With the barrage pornography freely available on the internet to all ages, for many parents do not even consider restricting viewing, the result has been rampant. Child abductions and murders have increased greatly, most of which involve a sex crime. Underage sex crimes have increased. [US Census Bureau] Rapes have increased, but even worse, have come to be seen as a lesser crime, even when violence is attendant and the losers are women and children. The Porn industry screams and cries under any threat of regulation though, and refuses to acknowledge any connection with the increase in crimes, but any rational person can understand the tie. Connections though cannot be discounted: more and more older persons with perversions court younger persons and even children on chat rooms unknown to parents, skillfully playing on naivete, and often luring them across country without parental knowledge. Media portrayals of the problem such as John Stoessel's 'sting' operations horrify viewers at the ease of attracting older men to commit crimes against young women or children. Related are cases of cyberbullying, and cyberstalking, a new form of voyeurism and entertainment, which has driven a number of young people to suicide.

Social Relations
Ten years ago, before the net and political changes, dating was only occasionally computer based. Now, via Facebook and Myspace, and other online 'friend' services, people regularly meet people online, and the young think nothing of dating people they have not met after a discussion or two online. This has also proven disastrous and internet companies are running to build in safeguards. The experiences reported are often horrifying: a young man or woman converses online for even months or years with someone they are told looks a certain way and is of a certain age, and arrives to a first meeting to find, for example a much older person, married with children. It is not a matter of mere disappointment or embarrassment, it can cause real damage.
In 2001

Age	Raw Number	Total Pop.
10-14	272	20,910,440
15-19	1611	20.271,312
20-24	2390	19,711,423

Source: Teen Suicide

The current figures on suicide rates differ according to the source. Some even show a drop between 1995 and 2005 from about 11/100k to 7.6 per 100k but other show an increase. Part of the problem in these statistics is that they are based upon coroner reports, and the actual number of deaths vs. the willingness to report a young person's death as suicide makes the figure hard to derive. One could actually argue in reverse, that for some the net provides a 'safe' route to friendship, though the problems facing law enforcement because of online crimes would undercut that explanation. These numbers do not reflect attempted suicides but only completed suicides.

Television and Television News

This category might well include movies as well. The net, once tried to imitate TV, but the opposite has occurred: TV and even the movies now imitate the look and feel of the net. They are becoming more interactive, and more entertainment oriented and lighter weight in news coverage. Media websites have become a standard part of programming, and provide an immediate archiving often of programs just aired allowing greater longevity for airings but the requirement for an enormous amount of expertise, graphics, and a whole new class of Media personnel schooled in internet technology and graphics.

The above are distinct and formidable 'hits' on American life and culture, changing it so dramatically, that life today is radically different than even 10 or 15 years ago. These though are only a few examples. We now have online churches, preaching and ministry; we have real estate agents showing houses online; travel is arranged online without even having to talk to a travel agent. Craig's List has become the largest worldwide flea market and rental source ever imagined. Arguments about fees on music and movies are becoming passe with HULU and YOUTUBE, and the christian 'Godtube'. One only has to leave the net to eat meals: oh, wait, one can now order pizza, chinese, etc by ordering online!

My greatest fear with the radical changes is that they are all going greatly unattended to by ethicists and those who study social change, while they are changing the way we think and obtain and process information and the way we interact with the world and each other. While those questions are bandied about, they are not being answered. The price is great as we enter into a socio-political arena where only about 10% of the population has the necessary level of expertise to understand what is going on. Right now, Google and some of the other large net organizations have reasonable people running them, at least somewhat protecting the general right to use the net in a reasonable fashion. What about the next generation though? In the wrong hands, a search engine can be used to waylay elections, change the way we think about anything, make or break businesses or even governments. If we think life has changed already, can we possibly picture what is on the rapidly arriving horizon? The best hope, I believe is for some real 'think tanks' not just about what we can do with technology, but far more critical what we should do or even what we should not do, even if we have the technology. Outside of that, prayer. ekbest

Binding One's Soul with a Bond: The Problem of Loyalty Oaths and National Governments

2010-10-11T22:43:00.003-05:00

The Problem of Loyalty Oaths and National Governments Comes to Israel

Before the Knesset is a very troubling bill, which is hardly without precedent in causing division in Israel. The bill would require a Loyalty Oath or pledge, for citizenship in the modern State, requiring one to vow an oath to uphold the Israeli State as a Jewish one, and a Democratic one.

The bill has been met with consternation on both sides of the aisle. Those favoring the oath, no doubt , see it as a good thing, promoting the public perception and helping to solidify the definition of the Jewish homeland in the Israeli State. One can hardly think that it would be a bad thing to declare the Jewish nature of the State, nor to declare that Israel should remain forever free, guided by the principles of democracy, civil liberties and an established justice.
The problem then, is not the content of the bill, nor the goal, but the vehicle of an oath. The idea of taking an oath, though, is extremely problematic especially for Jews, but also for several other groups: civil libertarians, orthodox and Hasidic Jews, and many groups of fundamental Christians.
The reasoning is both biblical and historical. The biblical reasons, affecting the Orthodox far more than Zionist factions, are found in the command not to foreswear oaths in Levitical Law and other passages: it brings God's wrath. Consider the following passages:

Old Testament or Torah

Lev 5:4 Or if a soul swear, pronouncing with [his] lips to do evil, or to do good, whatsoever [it be] that a man shall pronounce with an oath, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth [of it], then he shall be guilty in one of these.
Lev 19:12 And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I [am] the LORD.

Num 30:2 If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall

New Testament
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Jam 5:12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and [your] nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Consider a few concerns in the above. The word in the Old Testament for 'Swear' is 'shaba', and connotes the swearing of an oath, but on the order of almost worship, and implying contract. The word oath in the OT is 'shebuwa' indicative of a covenant. One cannot break an oath. In the OT example of Jephthah, the most serious nature of an oath before God is noted as Jephthah promises God the first thing to come out of his door as he returns home from victory: it is his daughter, and Jephthah and his daughter both comprehend the serious nature of an oath before God.

While oaths, covenants and contracts are made in the Old Testament, between man and man, and between man and God, it is the serious nature of swearing an oath which is so set and determined in the Israeli mind, that by the time of the New Testament, both James in his epistle, and Matthew describing the words of Jesus in his Gospel note that one should really not swear at all, because basically, man is finite and cannot see the future: swearing an oath, even one fully means to keep it, is presumption on God, for one cannot tell what might occur. The oath sworn on the thigh of Jacob was so serious, it is commemorated throughout history, even in the Passover.

For those of both Christian and Jewish faiths who hold to the inerrant truth of the Word of God, the clear teaching is best not to take an oath at all, and if critical to realize its gravity.

Oaths and Government
Throughout history, many monarchs, and even republics have required loyalty oaths. Some ancient and modern governments require pledges of loyalty and allegiance to work in certain vocations or state offices. Ancient Rome required emperor worship: burning incense to Emperors or declaring their divinity. Around the time of Christ, a contingent of Jewish representatives confronted Caligula about this requirement, and while they were assured all would be well, they were killed afterward. One may think of this as only an ancient concern, but even today, North Korea requires bowing when passing a statue of Kim Jong Il. The United States along with most nations require a 'pledge' of allegiance, a form of an oath, and I recall during the 70s and 80s various controversies on college campuses regarding the requirement of loyalty oaths to work at the respective universities. University of Florida and other state offices required a loyalty oath during that time, fought by civil liberties organizations, and the oaths were dismissed, only to resurface a couple of decades later. Many feel the swearing of an oath (in court, in taking office, in employment, etc) is a good thing, defining the state and nature of it, and calling for a commitment from its citizenry. Others feel it is an unnecessary infringement on rights of 'creed' or religion.

The premiere fear, though is that Oaths, quite rightfully feared, have always been a stepping stone to despotic control in nations where they are used.

The Nazis and the Loyalty Oath

In a column a couple years ago, this idea was brought forth in the death of Professor Librescu, the Virginia Tech professor and synagogue teacher, who stopped many students from being killed, by holding the door of a classroom against an enraged campus shooter. Librescu, a holocaust survivor as a young man, had also already shown a form of heroism in refusing to sign a loyalty oath under Ceausescu, in Romania, resulting in demotion then ousting from a University position. Librescu understood firsthand, the power of a required federal oath.

The National Socialists when gaining power in Germany, were quick to institute a national oath of loyalty. (See I Swear: Taking an Oath Coercion quickly sank in and soon, there remained no choice about the oath: one pledged complete allegiance to the Fuhrer and to the Reich or one did not work first in government and later anywhere: oaths were required at Opera houses and performance centers, travel agencies, police departments etc, and eventually for the Hitlerjugend.
The issue of the loyalty oath exploded though when it reached the doors of the Church: both Catholic and Protestant and the remnant of other churches vocally confronted the requirement of a loyalty oath, a pledge of allegiance to the Fuhrer, the term literally denoting 'Lord' and cries of 'No Führer but Christ', as horrific as it sounds today, were the rallying cry. The Church in general had already made many concessions:

1. It had allowed separate communions for Jewish converts
2. It had allowed the placement of the Nazi Flag on the altar
3. It had turned over certain aspects of religious education to the State
4.It had allowed several Reich committees and institutes to govern doctrine, liturgy and theological training
5. It had allowed censorship of sermons and pulpit speech
6. It had allowed the consolidation of Protestant church issues under a Reichminister (Kerrl) and the appointment of a Reichbishop (Müller) to oversee church affairs
7. It had taken over the finance committee of the Deutsche Christen
8. The Catholic church had made political 'concordats' or treaties with several regions of Germany culminating in the Berlin-Vatican Concordat of 1933, promising cooperation in efforts against communism.

The Pastor's Emergency League of Niemöller and Bonhoeffer, in league with the renown theologian Karl Barth, had already begun to separate from the main body of Protestant Lutherans, but the oath was the last straw. The oath required first allegiance not to Christ as head of the church, but to the Führer. The reaction was strong and swift: the exiled Barth with a group of others instituted the Barmen Declaration which declared in no uncertain term, that Jesus Christ was the head of the church, and that no mere man could depose him as such. They had their own form of loyalty oath though at the conference to confirm the Barmen, as they required a statement of their own to attend the conference.

The conference back in Germany though to ratify the Nazi loyalty oath for all pastors of the KDC, never took place: the synod displaced by wartime events. While the church did not ultimately succumb to the institution of the federal oath, it was a Pyrrhic victory: the compromises were already so great as to severely damage the integrity of what remained.

The Problem of a National Oath in General

Those who are not of a religious ilk, are most likely to wonder why some ancient teaching against oaths should prohibit a loyalty oath in Israel or any other country. The most obvious has already been stated: it is almost always in the line of tyrannical rule. A man made state, though ordained of God (Romans 13) is not God, and may not require utmost allegiance to a believer.
Other problems exist though that are so profound as to speak against the use of an oath:
1. Reform, Liberal, Humanistic Jews, and others are unlikely to take an oath seriously. "It's just an oath" will be the cry. For those who do not see the biblical essence of an oath, it is merely words. The question then of whether the bad outweighs the good, as even 'pledges of allegiance' become mundane and worn over time, ritualized,meaning little. The risk of the genesis of despotism is too great to mark that important pillar.
2. The oath may have legal ramifications too serious too bear: most would readily agree who wish to be citizens in Israel that it is a Jewish state, and that democracy and all its freedoms should prevail: but what of those who do not agree based upon religious or civil liberty reasonings? Is citizenship to be denied?
3. The oath accomplished little outside of a small amount of nationalistic feeling.
4. Terrorists or those forging documents in order to enter Israel, are not going to balk at feigning the oath: they will say it gleefully with their hand-grenades crossed behind their backs.

In considering the problem of a national oath in Israel, I thought perhaps the escape route we often take in the US would be appropriate: an 'affirmation' instead of an oath, agreeing rather than swearing. It is the 'institution' though, the 'office' of establishing an oath that is troublesome.It seems it will do far lesser good than evil, and could lead to great division, so critically not needed in Israel at this time. Perhaps a few rousing anthems could do far more....

Shalom Aleichem

The Free Pulpit: A Lesson from the Confessing Church in the Holocaust

2010-09-24T10:05:00.001-05:00

By the mid 1930s, in Germany, a great deal had already occurred in the House of God. Even in the years before the Reich took office, a concerted effort against the Church in Germany had begun. Catholic Churches which both ran religious education in Public Schools and private education in Parochial Schools, had been pressured to shut down schools they had total control over, and were restricted in what could be taught in Religious Instruction in Public schools. The 'pressure' would later become outright censorship, and following, legal mandates against the church. Protestant Churches also which were an odd combination of free-standing and yet government run, funded and sponsored congregations and pastorates, were likewise 'overseen' and later overthrown.
The Pulpit in Germany from 1930-1940 and beyond was also no place for freedom loving pastors. In the early days of the Reich and as it came to power, concessions were made with the Church to aid the progressive Reich in an effort to fight communism,a common goal. If the Churches would make certain concessions such as placement of the Nazi flag on the altar, and agreeing not to criticize the Reich too extensively, then they would enjoy certain perks, such as payment of Pastor's pension funds, and relative freedom. By 1933, the restrictions tightened,though, and by the end of 1935, sermons were censored, liturgy was 'overseen', a Reichbishop (State Bishop that oversaw the 'private' protestant church) and a Reichminister had been appointed for the purpose of coordinating Reich goals and church practice, doctrine and liturgy (as well as education and benevolence issues). By 1935, pastors noting serious problems in the way Hitler's regime was handling the church, or objecting to the intensive state control, persecution,or enforced 'doctrine' were persecuted, beat up, shot at, imprisoned, interrogated, and a few killed. There was a silent war against the real church.

The Deutsche Christen Kirche vs. The Confessing Church

In a relatively free 20th century society which loved its Church, how did the Reich manage in so sort a time to take complete control of a private church? The process of 'Gleichschaltung' or the 'Great Coordination' which occurred in Germany on all levels of Society, was the planned process for bringing all of Germany under Reich control and government to enable a radical 'social engineering' of the Fatherland which involved not only government sanctions and legislation, but restrictions on traditional teaching, doctrine and ways of thinking about basic civil rights. In Hitler's first year in office, the 1933 Enabling Act was enforced suspending normal civil rights in favor of uniform executive sovereignty, effective giving Hitler monarchical rights.

In the legislature, this allowed the dismissal and arrest of political foes, most notably communist factions, which gave Hitler complete control, and allowed consolidation of the Chancellorship and Presidency, effectively erasing all working opposition. In Music and the Arts, a Reichkammer was enforced: a registry of artists with a requirement of Aryan background and German citizenship, excluding Jews and political dissidents. Key figures in the Arts in government were removed and replaced with loyal party members, who had a nodding acquaintance with the discipline, but whose main qualification was adherence to party lines and goals. Mediocre artists were placed in State appointments such as the Berlin Opera House, and all Jews and their fiercest supporters were removed.

In the church, the process of 'slow warming' became less slow: Kerrl the Reichminister immediately began to seek cooperation of the church with Nazi agendas, but so did Reichbishop Müller, who held a 'go-between' function between the government and the German Christian Church. Most Protestants in Germany were of Lutheran background, and the Synod governing the Church before the war, while diverse still counted itself as one body, with one leadership, duly elected. As Hitler took office and persecutions and demands increased, a powerful minority formed due to the leadership of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and American trained pastor and theologian, Karl Barth, a Swiss born theologian, and Martin Neimoeller, a popular theologian and church leader, under the auspices deemed the "Pastor's Emergency League", the 'emergency' being whether the traditional Church with a reasonably traditional theology and Gospel would prevail over the new doctrine called 'Positive Christianity', one of the most serious misnomers of the 20th century. The apex of the division was freedom in the pulpit, church school and theological seminary, and centered around the emerging mandate that any pastor appointed to any pulpit in Germany during the Shoah would meet the requirement of a Loyalty Oath, which demanded first allegiance to Hitler and the Reich. A meeting of the Synod was drawn up, but never took place. In response to the 'last straw' the Pastor's Emergency League' and the Church which grew from it called the 'Confessing or Confessional Church'
[Bekennende Kirche], with Karl Barth who was exiled in Switzerland, drew up what has come to be known as the Barmen Declaration which declared God's Sovereignty, not Hitler's, and Christ as Lord and Head of the Church. Though sounding odd today, the war-cry of the confessing Church was "No Führer but Christ", for the essential meaning of the word 'Führer' was 'Lord' and the question arising from the oath was exactly who was in headship over the Church of Jesus Christ.

Pastoral Attempts at Resistance

Initially, there was a great deal of protest over the Reich's intervention in the Church and its persecution of the Church and those normally protected by the church such as the weak, infirm, blind, deaf, etc. One of the most effective measures used by the Catholic Church was the ordered reading of Edicts or Encyclicals/bulls from the Holy See discussing Catholic positions on such issues as the so-called 'euthanasia' of the T4 Program En Masse, priests or deacons read the same edict from the pulpit on the same morning, making it impossible to arrest all involved. Strict admonitions were issued though, and perfunctory 'symbolic' arrests were made, and the Nazis more than the church had no respect for persons though in a very horrible way.

One Easter Morning, following the Nazi takeover of German Church by replacing members of the nominating committee and the committee which governed funding and workings of the churches with Party members, a most effective protest was mounted nationwide, as all Pastors en masse, resigned from their positions. One has to marvel at the God given cleverness in such an act in fighting the takeover of the Church by the State: if in an emergency it is the invasion of a 'foreign' or worldly power into the Church, one need only remember the true nature of the Church as a body of believers and not merely buildings and grounds. When almost the entirety of those holding pastorates stepped down in protest, for the time the Nazis had to back off: they did not have enough replacements, there was a resounding show of power, and even if the church was to lose its financial arrangements and grounds, it was clear that the teaching of the Gospel and body of believers would continue without compromise. Unfortunately most of the time massive unified resistance did not occur, leaving the dissident church under Bonhoeffer and Neimöller chased, wiretapped, assaulted, imprisoned and confiscated. Save for a few bold men willing to lay down their lives for the Church, it risked disappearing forever,replaced by a dejudified, heretical and corrupt semblance. Bonhoeffer was put to death at Flössenberg months before the end of the war, though the charges stemmed from collusion in a failed assasination, since he had posed questions regarding whether the taking of a dangerous person's life was ever justified.

By the end of the war, the Church in essence resembled its bombed out remains in Nuremberg and Dresden: there was little left. In the two years following the end of the war, Niemoller and others met in Stuttgart and Darmstadt calling for the very serious consideration of repentance for the Church, which had allowed the division and compromise, and death of so many Jews and others, and was met with a mixed response: even at the end of the war with so many dead, pastors argued that Germany should not have to repent alone, and even whether repentance was required. Such was the beginning of what would become the WCC.

Then and Now: 100 Pastors in the Pulpit This Sunday

This morning's news carried the story of 100 US Pastors who plan to defy the IRS ban on Political Speech from the Pulpit. This is not exactly the same issue, and yet at the same time it bears on the basic issue: freedom in the Pulpit. The modern US Church has severely compromised with the state in a way they never considered in depth might lead to a divorce from normal freedoms: in the 1950s, the accepted the State mandate to incorporate Churches as business corporations under the 5013c Tax exempt status, making the church a legal corporation, answering to the state, and forced to pay taxes. The mandate further redefined churches in the same venue as United Way or Big Brothers Big Sisters, or thousands of other non-profits. Without realizing it, the State, or Federal Government, and IRS were given headship roles in church decision making. The IRS could now censure political speech from the pulpit, could define what a church was as a non-profit entity, could require membership lists and financial records, and demanded a legally mandated bound coporate report. It also did the very sinister task of setting up a system of authority different from what the Scriptures commanded: instead of deacons and bishops, there are now CEOs and board members: the churches, without thought, and 2000 years away from Jerusalem and Antioch readily complied to avoid trouble.

The issue regarding the stand for free speech in the pulpit is two fold: when a church receives a 5013c status, it agrees to the restrictions and tenets of definition as a nonprofit organization: one of those is no endorsement of a candidate from the pulpit. Technically then, to gain tax exempt status, the churches which incorporated agreed not to speak too politically from the pulpit, so while the stand for freedom in the pulpit is always right, it sort of comes with some consternation regarding whether you can have your cake and eat it too.

A further issue is whether politics of any era belongs in the pulpit at all, and frankly I do not believe it does. However, I also believe that the State may not make, and has no right to make any legal restriction on the pulpit, for if we are to 'render unto Caesar the things that are Caeasar's' we are also to 'render unto God, the things that be God's'. The pulpit is of a different kingdom, and belongs to the Lord and Savior. We should have never signed the damnable registrations in the first place, since the clear teaching of the Scriptures, is that even in the one true Theocracy of Israel, the King never had a right to enter into the task of a priest or priestly function.

It is good to know that even a 100 or more pastors though, will stand up for the right things of God, including freedom of speech from the pulpit and making the intervention of the Government anathema. I think, it is time to clarify some boundaries: as Bonhoeffer ripped the Nazi flag off the altar, we should move the symbol of government sovereignty gracefully into a lobby or other place, removing it from our altars, and take back the church, in this late hour, anyway we can.
I also believe and history has taught the lesson, that real persecution may follow, but in the words of Niemoller:

I ask myself over and over again, what would have happened if 14,000 evangelical ministers and the evangelical communities all over Germany, had defended the truth with their very lives in the year 1933 or 1934, when there must have been a possibility.

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References

1 Nazi Master Plan for the Church: Donovan Collection, 2001-3; Investigation and legal brief for charges at Nuremberg
2. Neimoller, M. The Stuttgart Confession [http://shoahrose.com/stuttgart.html]
3. Barth, K et al The Barmen Declaration [http://shoahrose.com/barmen.html]
4. Herschel, The Aryan Christ,
5. .....

A Hollow Voice

2010-08-26T18:00:00.004-05:00

"A Man speaks with a hollow voice from across the border..." Ossietzky

How to Ensure the End of Free Speech in the United States

I had thought to write a different blog this afternoon, about how the Internet had impacted our society. (And it has: since the upturn of online resources, we have see a dramatic downturn in number of libraries, number of newspapers, amount of mail sent, and a decline in other measures and pillars of free information and thought. Since Obama came into office, the effect has been even greater than in the past 10 years.)
With that brief mention, though, I have no doubt that a dozen other authors or bloggers will write the article before I do, as it has become impossible online where I live to even finish a first draft without interference and other close encounters of the 3rd kind.

'Fun and games' most consider it, to pull little mind games on the computer, or even outright theft, because in the eyes of moronic men and women, web authors don't do 'real work', and all authors seem to exist in their eyes only to make the plagiarists look as though they are functionally literate. The amount of hacking, tampering with manuscripts, and even tampering with research and data has become so great, that it has finally dawned on me, that my work is not only being compromised, but I am being ruined and silenced.

The word 'paranoia' no doubt, will come up, but that is a vestige of those hiding their crimes too often these days, and a means of silencing dissidents in every country. We have had in the past, I thought, some grace in the US with our very adequate Bill of Rights and first Amendment freedoms, but one finds that laws are only as good as their enforcement. When laws that protect writing and free speech are not enforced, or selectively enforced, it has the devastating effect of:

1. Silencing dissidents and creative authors
2. Destroying the concept of Free Speech
3. Destroying the concept of Privacy
4. Diminishing creativity and expression in a society
5. Increasing government and special interest control over which ideas and authors and artist may participate in and shape a free society.

I am neither the best nor worst author in the world, standing in that expansive middle gap which includes most writers and bloggers. I write from what may be best understood as a 'Christian worldview', and I am not apologetic about it, (well,perhaps somewhat 'apologetic'). My worldview affects my topic choice, my position, my expression, and even vocabulary and my ability to influence both the world and the Church, at all levels of society. I began to write on the net, because I did not see my point of view well expressed in the church nor out, and I have enjoyed a moderate amount of success, and some surprising degree of influence in the molding of opinion. I consider my point of view important. I am astonished, though when I find not mere disagreement, but outright attacks and even hatred of mildly expressed opinions. Just as surprising is the assault on writing in general today, and the over-willingness or even zealotry of some to shut down certain perspectives and views expressed online and off.

Who Wants Certain Authors Silenced?

There are many persons who seek for a variety of reasons to silence certain authors. Targeted authors may be wildly different in background and views, even expressing opposite opinions, but we are called in a 'free' society to consider the rights of others as a supreme , and not to collectively 'run off the road' those whose positions we find distasteful. We were supposed to be granted the right to express even controversial ideas without being physically harmed, or facing career or societal ruin. Progressively, that is simply not the case. What cannot be halted legally, may be stopped in far less scrupulous ways, as powerful people and corporations, and even religious organizations vie for power by silencing those they perceive as 'too convincing' or influential. One becomes an unwitting foe to those who are dedicated to a nightmarish quest for social engineering when one stands in their way. In the past, a writer's biggest foes were poverty and publication; all that has changed to the extent that some have left the country, facing such persecution and roadblocks to their work as to shut it down, and others either for long seasons or altogether, cease writing.

Why would an author cease writing? It is a question well asked since more than most professions, an author is so ego-integrated with his work, that he or she is essentially not the same person without their craft. There is a sort of death that goes along with a writer or artist who cannot continue to create. One is forced into a sad exile whether they remain in their home country or not. Ossietzky, a Nobel Prize winning novelist and pacifist in 1935, stood up against Hitler's regime in the midst of a fervor for the 'New Germany'. While the rest of the world honored his stand and his prophetic view, the Reich reacted with the imprisonment of the author in Esterwegen, where he eventually died of an illness contracted there. He could have escaped, but he wrote once, "A man speaks with a hollow voice from across the border". He discovered as many American authors are discovering (yes, American) that hollow voices occur on both sides of the border: we have reached a point in US society where to truly question the policies of this administration or others, may bring about ostracism or even more dire consequences, more than threatening life, liberty(?) and the pursuit of happiness. We are not free when we cannot speak freely.

Who wants to silence authors?

versa, but often it is factions within one's own faith. In the 13 years I have been online with shoaheducation.com and shoahrose.com, two websites on the holocaust, in which I attempted to bring forward process and dynamics to the church and general public, in those 13 years, now crossing into the 14th, I have encountered every opposition from denominational and doctrinal objections, to persons of other faiths who do not want a holocaust program from a Christian worldview. Rather than register their own site and offer their point of view, they are not content, and seek to destroy the timbre quality and progress of the work. I also privately write Bible Studies, and have ceased almost completely for awhile, since everything I put on line is ruined, the methods for which are sinister and sometimes brilliant but deadly to an author.

There is also a rise in political circles at the highest levels to circumvent in an obsidian way some points of view. The past three administrations have been in my opinion far too observant regarding whether or not any particular author is influential. They want to control influence, a dangerous first step in shutting down free speech. There are also criminal elements in society who require a cut of author's rights and monies, or they can ensure that an author or artist will not continue. I used to think that perseverance would prevail over these folks, in a quiet dignity, but they are as tenacious as the best of authors.

One may no doubt suggest that all that is needed is an attorney, but the world is not that simple. Far outside the arena of legal rights, there are ways to shut down free speech and authorship. Let's consider a few strategies that I have seen in trying to keep one of the last individual-based online sites and other blogs and studies online:

Methods Opponents Use to Silence or Shut down Authors

1. Rewriting- Let's say one gets finished a truly nice web page, succinctly organized and written, well-researched, carefully designed 'adorned', and uploads the page. One would think that the finished product would speak for itself, and that the author, excellent or horrible would rest on their own laurels and succeed or fail on the basis of their own work. However too often today, a page is posted, and the author moves on to other things, and finds weeks later that the 'perfect' page has been tampered with: I found this morning for the umpteenth time, that some unknown and unwanted 'editor' had removed details and references, significant sections, etc. How clever does their deceit get? They keep the excellent copy for themselves, thinking they will never have to prove they wrote it, and will even go to authorities claiming you wrote the moronic version of your own work, and that the other was theirs. No problem, one thinks, one has a backup. Thieves are so clever today, that even backups are ruined, erased, or even replaced. One clue to look for is certain dates in your file lists, which bear all the same date and time seconds apart, with far more files than any author could do in a short period of time. Since an author's reputation and opportunities rest on the quality of their work, or on their ideas and concepts, when they are faced with online 'ruiners', they are forced into either continuously re-doing a work with constant vigilance, or taking it down. This effectively ruins their right to work and create. Most authors cannot attend to one page or a few non-stop, with constant comparative checks of backups. They are essentially silenced.

2. Fraudulent Copyrights

Most persons in the US do not understand copyright law. They think that if one fills out the paperwork first on a work, then they own the copyright. That point of view is why our universal copyright laws were revamped about 30 years ago: to protect an author's rights. IF YOU DID NOT CREATE THE WORK, YOU DO NOT OWN THE COPYRIGHT, unless you have contracted with the creator of the work differently. THE COPYRIGHT OF A WORK BELONGS TO ITS CREATOR. Registration of a copyright, is not 'ownership', but more accurately a 'notification' of authorship-ownership. However, some nightmarish folk think that an author's works are equivalent to a shopping mall: they believe if they pay their $20 or so dollars and fill out a form, that the author's rights to their own thoughts, time, research and talent are made void. Most of the time, the real author will win in court. However, the truth remains that an author may be effectively silenced by groups of people all claiming credit for their work, by the impossibility of financing litigation even if they would win. The author too often would still be shut down even if they could afford case after case, by the sheer life-interference of so many court cases.

3. Career and Life Ruin

Can one picture how far some will go to get at a really interesting work? I had the unfortunate experience of encountering a few individuals who just knew they had to be the author of MY work for any number of bizarre reasons. They dressed better, felt they were social moguls, were infinitely more ____________. Their motive might be greed, or some neurotic need, but in some cases it has been doctrinal in my work. I have heard "we just can't afford to let 'that kind of Christianity' take hold. (They like the kind where one acts religious then stabs everyone else in the back.) Even large ministries taking in millions of dollars a year, will send people 'in the shadows' to have a little 'look-see' at what certain people are working on, and they cut off an author at the pass by taking the idea back to a large corporate 'ministry' (I don't call them that) where they put 10 commercial authors to work and have it out overnight. The poor author of the original work, slaving away for months, finds dozens of versions of their work all over the net and media. The real author loses their right to their work by having it hid in a proverbial haystack. It creates life and career ruin, because the real author becomes seen as the emulator instead of the thieves who have 'infinitely' more credibility in their own eyes.

I have had this happen. A few years ago, I wrote a bible study on "The Lion of Judah". When I wrote it, I researched online and off, and while the term had been frequently used, almost no full bible studies on the topic appeared. I put half the study on, and returned to it a few months later to complete the study. In the interim, dozens if not hundreds of bible studies on that topic appeared online. Too 'coincidental' I looked into who those authors were: 9 out of 10 traced back to a small southern Christian school known for its attacks on other Christians. Many large ministries will 'gang up' to ruin an author who will not go along with status quo. Hardly christian in their attitude or tactics, some will use even mob-like tactics to wrestle a work out of an authors hands. Some do it for funds, and some because they do not want a credible critique of 'the way things are'. In the past 5 years, I have had major works scattered to the wind, causing not only heartache and ruin in my life but now in my grown children's lives.

Some who wish to silence an author will go much further: they will physically harm, place slanderous phone calls, ruin interviews and book offers. Some will rush with rumors---"O, that poor dear, she is in her final days, and me and my husband will be taking over the work..." : it gets that unholy. Some will do even worse: they will interfere with finances, mortgages, reputation, some will lie to family members to get them on their side, some will even attend funerals clothed in greed and pride. No kidding. I have stood more than most, but when the ploy turns not to your own ruin but to that of those you love, the effect is that of being silenced.

Other methods

Among the more sinister methods out there now, are the RUIN OF MANUSCRIPTS. One gets their nice clean copy of a 4-500 page manuscript done, sends it in only to discover that the manuscript is ruined by repeated pages, missing pages, rewritten pages, or sections that say the opposite of what was originally written, or even totally rewritten material. An author is known by their work: a first submission to a publisher that looks idiotic ruins that author in a competitive market.

Recently, I put out a preview copy of a book with documents for a reader. I had to upload a pdf format file. When I checked back after getting perfunctory comments, the file was not the same I uploaded. One woman went into one of my sites, and 'dumbed down' a source document, saying she didn't think anyone could understand it: take that Emile Zola! When it becomes so pervasive, an author cannot even write.

The internet is also a horrid source of 'mirror tricks' for the enlightened in cyberspace. One site I own, 'warsofisrael.com' has been attacked at least 10 times with some fellow running ftps over and over and exhausting the bandwidth so that no one can see it. They also removed all but 8 footnotes referring to Jesus Christ. A well known Chicago based religious school was discovered to have used an indexing virus on shoaheducation.com. No wonder Jesus asked if there would be any faith left when he returns. Some Islamic children (of all ages) bellied up to the page rank, and have harassed the site for years. Another little fellow loves to put tiny diamond shaped question marks peppered throughout my script. He claims he cannot 'verify' facts such as my copyright dates and research- he is committing felony after felony and no one will do anything about it. Two or more Jehovah's Witnesses have tried to link themselves to the work, knowing it would ruin my credibility with other believers. Lest one believe though it is mostly those of opposite faiths, some of the most severe have been among my own.

One lady wrote her life story on my guest page, not in the given box, but in the coding which showed: it was deeply embarrassing. I can no longer freely edit my major websites where we live because I have to fight keyloggers, ruinous conduct, partial ftps, interference with business with hosting and dns' and even page switching. In 5 years I have gone through 5 drives, ruined equipment, and somethings that no one would believe if I wrote them. Serious stuff. People will destroy your hair, mar your complexion or facial features, ruin clothing, force feed extra calories, dope people up, and physically assault them, all over authorship, websites, and a point of view.

Where does all of this lead? For me, it leads either off the internet, or to yet another location, which serves the same purpose. Having to relocate to write and do business normally too often can also shut a work down. Coupled with large business concerns who call themselves Christian but are far from it, ruining and stealing the work , ruining my life and my children's lives, causing division and harm to others, leave this author in the position of either permanently leaving the country, or ceasing any creative or ministerial work. I suppose I can watch TV, save for a few programs where my material is rewritten, or where my life has been made a characterization.

Hollow Voices. I wonder how many of them are on the horizon. I am not sure real Christianity can return to the US in the near future. I am not sure any can really stand up for what they believe if they oppose status quo. Even my poetry is being rewritten and 'farmed out'. (and up). What if there end up only hollow voices on both sides of the border? Do we understand life without a creative edge? In Germany in WWII, authors were coerced to turn copyrights over to the State and/or their writings/art were confiscated and banned. At least the Reich was forthright.

The Future of the Word of God, and its Sad History in Our Hands

2010-08-05T15:15:00.000-05:00

Last week, I spoke with a radio interviewer in Dallas about Modern Bible Translations and the division they have wrought in the Church. Different Bibles, different translations, have created a plethora of armchair doctrinal arguments and infighting, as congregates use everything from the KJV to the New Living Paraphrase to defend their positions. Preachers quote passages from their versions, and church members try to follow with their versions, and the result has been a 'values clarification' or moral relativism, if not a scriptural relativism which has taken a very horrible hold in an already divided and troubled church.

Many years ago, I attended a rather liberal seminary for a very short time. I had been a university professor, but went to retrain. Working in bereavement, I wanted to be able to answer bereaved families' spiritual needs. I expected rigorous bible training, with church history, and theology, some Greek and Hebrew, etc, but what I found was a socio-political forum and even faculty members who did not believe in God. Not really sure what to do, I recall sitting out on the beautiful lawns of the campus one evening with some other seminarians, and the question came up of why they chose ministry as a vocation. To this day, I was taken with one woman's response, as she spoke about the 'Word of God'. It was that living, breathing thing, that had so changed her, heart and soul, that she and her husband decided to go into the ministry. I wondered to myself if they were as seriously disappointed as I was in the modern approach towards the Word, as something akin to Shakespeare that you use to defend your philosophical position. I have never forgotten though, the very genuine love she spoke of, when the words "Word of God" rolled off her lips.

In contemporary society, when one mentions the Bible, one finds a plumbline: those who believe it love it, and those who don't have almost a hatred of it, a disdain, and see it as some liar's scrawl written by ignorant men which started in their eyes every war, famine and atrocity in the history of mankind. They cannot conceive that God would ever write down on paper through men, His thoughts and words to the generations, nor that perhaps there even is a God, who would know our 'downsitting and uprising' or the number of hairs on our head or days of our lives. They argue as I used to, that it is only a book, written by mere men. And there are any number who consider it an 'opiate' that needs to be done away with: and many have tried.

The Word of God, though, describes itself as exactly that: given by the prophets, and written down at the time, it was no oral tradition wrought with error that was recorded hundreds of years later. Its 66 Books (Bible means 'books') bear a most unusual characteristic: written by some 40 authors, from different places, times and walks of life, it carries the same consistent narrative of the history of God and man, and of creation. Brilliant men have believed in it and refused to live without it such as Pascal, Newton and C.S. Lewis, and brilliant men have derided it with contempt such as Voltaire and Nietzsche and Asimov. The issue of belief in the Word of God then, is not merely an intellectual one, nor one of human logic, but on the higher plane, and less tangible plane of 'faith' and belief, where faith is the 'substance of things not seen'. The Word of God well used has been responsible for most of the true good in the world, such as order in society, the legal system, good works, feeding the hungry, hiding the Jews in WII, etc, and wrongfully used has occasionally been used even for murder and slaughter such as in the Crusades. The Word of God though, is set out as a light(Ps 119) and men indeed choose then to walk in it, not walk in it, or even pervert it.

The Word of God 'disappeared' from common view at a few points in history and was forced underground, such as in the first 3 centuries when believers, Jewish and Christian were exiled, tortured and exterminated for owning and teaching it. The Word of God disappeared from common hands and such monstrous feats as the Inquisition and Dark Ages took hold when only a few persons, an elite clergy, were allowed access to a distorted version in Latin (Jerome's Vulgate). In Israel, in ancient times, the Word of God, part of it anyway, disappeared for years, until Jeremiah describes it found in a wall and brought to King Josiah. The 'lost years' were years of division and the ruin of Israel and Judah, replete with false religion, war, and slavery. The Word of God was denigrated to less than it was in Scholasticism, and in the Cartesian Enlightenment. By the late 1800s, the Word of God was defamed as ancient and inadequate, and 'new' texts replaced thousands of manuscript evidence on the Old, discovered by the Royalty-groveling Tischendorf an retranslated by two Anglican Bishops, Westcott and Hort who were any thing but the oracles of God, who were liberal and fascinated by the paranormal, who travelled in circles of Theosophy, Eugenics, and other religions. Hort wrote a text called 'Judaistic Christianity' which though surfacely sounding like a traditional approach to the Jewish roots of Christianity, took on a far more serious departure from doctrine in decrying the infusion of Jewish 'taint' to Christianity. Their 'bent' on the Word, including changing 36,000 words a full 4.5% of the text, was noted by a scholar at the time, Dean Burgon who wrote a scathing critique called "Unholy Hands on the Bible".

The Bible in the Shoah

I have written before in part about what became of the Bible in the Shoah, but as with other dark points in History, the effect of the Bible in that generation disappeared, and the manifestation was clearly felt. Theologians such as Von Harnack reintroduced prior to the Shoah, Arianism (not aryanism), an ancient heresy, The Kittels authored a new Hebrew text leaning on Samaritan texts far more than the historically accepted Masoretic. Goebbels argued against the use of the Old testament for the German Christian in a reintroduction of the heresy of Marcionism. A new Bible was translated during the war for the nazified Church, leaving out the utter Sovereignty of Christ to make way for the sovereignty of the Fuhrer. Grundman removed Hebrew training as a standard in seminaries, relegating it to one of the 'ancient languages'. Gerhard Kittel who headed the committee or Reich Institute to govern ecclesiastical and theological issues, was declared by Buber to have made "anti-Semitism theologically acceptable", as he argued and proposed a status of 'Guest Citizen' for the Jews, an ancient concept which had never been enacted because it was considered a hate crime in the lingo of the day. Kittel's companion lexicon to his father's Biblia Hebraica was replete with references to classicism an Greek myth, a favored position of Hitler, and among the authors/interpreters of over 600 key words were formidable Nazi Party Members and movers and shakers of the German Faith Movement such as himself and Grundman.
The French were well aware of the nature of the 'war crime' perpetrated by these men and higher officials such as Streicher and Frank, and the intended eventual overthrow of the Christian Church post war, and arrested Kittel at the end of the war.

The Word of God and Modern Bibles

Buffy Ste Marie once wrote a song called "God is Alive, Magic is Afoot" which will certainly raise hairs on the back of most fundamentalists necks, but there is a line in that song,

"they came to God in secret, and though He left them nourished, they would not tell who healed, though mountains danced before them, they said that God was dead..."

which adequately states the status of 20th and 21st century believers. Despite the end of the war knowledge about what the above men had done, and others including Hirsch, Althaus, and surprisingly Jung, and Bultmann (not all were avowed anti-Semites but lent their doctrine and endorsement to National Socialism), the Nazi affiliation and past of these men were buried by bible publishers and Seminaries, both in Europe and the US, as the Biblia Hebraica and Worterbuch of the Kittels became the standard fare for all modern Bible translations from the RSV and beyond, finding their way onto every Pastors shelf here and abroad.

The true line and historical line of text, the 'Byzantine' was cast away as 'archaic' and flawed, unreadable, and lacking modern evidence, while the Modern Bibles, critics claimed were written off the "Best and Oldest" manuscripts, including the Sinaiticus (once declared a forgery), Vaticanus and the Alexandrinus. In the past 100 years knowledge of these dynamics were 'quieted' as premiere scholars such as Metzger promoted the NASV and later others promoted the NIV, NKJV, New Living, Good News Bible, Holman, and a myriad of others with multiple further versions of the original modern bibles. When someone happened on the information, Kittel's ties were pronounced as 'marginal' or something all had to do during the years of the Reich, but it was the understatement of the century.

A few years ago, R. Ericksen wrote a book called "Theologians Under Hitler" and the knowledge of these men began to resurface. More and more researchers are even currently are uncovering silenced information during those years and following. The picture that is developing is one of deliberate attempts to overthrow the Holy Scriptures during the Reich, replacing it first with a completely Nazified Bible a copy of which surfaced in 2006 for the DC, or Compromised Church, which the Nazis intended later to become something altogether different reflecting Reich ideology instead of Christian doctrine. By the end of the war, while the Church was not completely repentant, they did act quickly to remove the influence of the DC and ReichInstitute for the Study of the Jewish Question, and pastors such as the above were reprimanded, removed from positions and effectively shunned for their dealings with the Nazis during the war years.

Modern Bibles
Presumably without knowledge of the extent of what the Kittels, Grundman and others had done, and with massive backing of Bible publishers and the theological community of scholars, translators went at bigger and assumed better 'translations' like attack dogs, and numerous versions and paraphrases resulted. There was very little assessment past the turn of the 20th century of the Westcott and Hort texts which came to be known as Nestle-Aland Greek, or of the Kittel's Biblia Hebraica, as they 'went without saying' as the definitive texts to use. While some early scholars like Mauro also decried their errors and problems, few listened, and post WWII, there became essentially no other base for translation in the main stream.
Riplinger in New Age Versions in 1993, reinstated the controversy on a broad basis in the context of the King James Controversy, noting the various changes in verses which created doctrinal problems for the new bibles on doctrines such as salvation, the blood of Christ, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth and others, conducting extensive verse by verse comparisons, just as Burgon had done decades prior. Her book mentioned the controversy briefly about Kittel, but did not focus in depth on it. Around the time Metzger died, whether it be coincidence or not, greater amounts of information regarding the National Socialist dissension of the texts began to emerge including new evidence regarding the possible forgery of the Sinaiticus, and arguments about whether the very good condition of the so called 'Best and Oldest" texts could really be used to consider them best, since Mauro had noted that even their corrections show that the users were trying to bring them in line with the Majority text. Further, their good condition spoke to disuse over the centuries, at a time when manuscripts were not written and put away for posterity: vellum was too precious for extra unused copies.

The King James Bible or Authorized Version was called 'hard to read' and 'not based upon modern finds'. Readability studies showed it at a higher level than Good News for Modern Manbut paraphrases which 'dumbed down' the Bible were not the real thing, and often declared outright opinion rather than translation in some areas. In any event, readability level for any of the versions was basically between 6th grade and 8th grade, and on many levels, KJV was considered more readable by tests such as Kuder Richardson than for example the NASV, a modern, post WWII Bible which while a word by word translation often has more complex sentences and more detailed syntax than the KJV making it less understandable despite its leaving off of the 'eths and iths'.

The Future of the Bible

The Publishing industry in general is cut throat. Until one has an introduction to it, one cannot really imagine what some will do to beat each other out of portions of the market: authors today of any kind of material are finding it hard to hold on to original manuscripts, and some have even gone offline all together just to finish a book to submit. Bible publishing also is lucrative and cutthroat. Modern versions sell like hotcakes with the right marketing schemes, so anything that attempts to bring up concerns about the veracity of modern texts becomes very challenging to Bible Publishers: errors noted mean that publishers might have to withdraw a version and correct it, costing millions of dollars and credibility, so attempts to deal with real errors for the sake of the integrity of the Bible can become, well even deadly.

Decades ago, Irving Wallace wrote a Book called "The Word", completely fictional about a new Gospel of Thomas which supposedly had been found, and about the racy intrigue of objections to it, and when it was discovered to have been a forgery, people died who got in its path. While some say 'art imitates life', it seems lately art has been prophesying life, and I have personally seen attempts to disparage reputations and statistical studies which find serious errors or patterns of bible translations, because it is easier to ruin a reputation of an author or researcher than to correct bible versions in error. The truth is, the modern public wants an easy, comfortable Bible more than it wants a genuine one.

That is the problem, then of what will become of the bible in the future. I highly suspect that one version will become illegal: the Authorized, Majority text, found in the KJV, Luther's Bible, the Spanish Bible, the Geneva Bible and a few others.

Modern Bibles in addition to being faulty and based upon faulty texts, are additionally being geared to a hyper-ecumenism: gender inclusiveness is being introduced which shows an ignorance of language and doctrine, not a misogyny,
bible texts are being mixed with secular quotes and alignment with other faiths,such as Eastern mysticism etc, and while many find these moves positive, those who study doctrine can easily detect the potential erasure of the genuine apostolic line of the Bible, or the true line of the Hebrew text. Genesis notes the serpent in the Garden asking "Hath God Said..." and the poor serpentile fellow has reintroduced the question magnificently in the modern age to translators.

While it may seem a radical thought to those who cannot see the problem currently, I am suggesting that it may be very wise for those who still hold to the genuine line of text in the KJV to save a copy for posterity, or even hide a copy or more for posterity, for a time when it may be outlawed, for the troublesome book it will come to be seen as, as it denounces sins such as adultery, homosexuality and perversion, greed and pride which have all been 'rewritten' in the modern era. It will no doubt come to be seen as 'sexist' though it is not, or ancient and in error though it is the opposite. Those who believe will know it to be the true text. The movie "The Book of Eli" portrays a fantasy? about a man in the future, who protects the last extant copy of the KJV, carrying it to safety across a violent and vile terrain, but knowing it necessary to start a new world peacefully. How close to prophecy will it come? How close to the fate of the Word in our hands?

The Word of God itself is perfect, pure and true. It is infallible, another concept so difficult for contemporary minds. It's History, though in our hands has been violent and sad. The Word of God is not Republican or Democrat: it is not male nor female, it is not for one race or nation, it is for all people and all time: it is the Way, the Truth and the Life, so it is no surprise to find him declared in John 1, the Word who was with God and was God. When it has been forced underground in history, through subterfuge, outlawing it or banning it, there were dark ages indeed. Our hope only, is the preservation of the Word, the keeping of it in more ways than one, according to the true line. Hiding the Word in our hearts may not be enough.
_________________________________________
Holocaust and Church Struggle: Religion, Power and the Politics of Resistance (Studies in the Shoah)

The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition (Moral Traditions & Moral Arguments)

Life

2010-07-15T06:38:00.012-05:00

There have been a number of famous, benevolent 'saintlike' people over the course of human history,that even worldy men embrace as the 'good guys'. Regardless of their doctrine or religion, when they fed the poor,stood up for the oppressed, clothed the naked and so on, they were left alone in public opinion, as many see them as 'apolitical'. One topic however, fells all: abortion. For example, Mother Teresa, was seen as benevolent and loving and even the Vatican cowed down to her on occasion, as well as nations, members of other faiths etc, but when it came to her stand on abortion, many fled her side, and women's groups started a defamation campaign against her, rather laughable considering the unequal levels of 'holiness'of the accusing fingers. While I do not share Mother Teresa's doctrine, even fundamentalist Christians can't help but admire the benevolent work, of filling the commands of the sermon on the Mount, at least. Yet when it came to abortion, the firing began.

Teresa of Calcutta though, understood abortion first hand: she regularly collected from trash bins the living infants and pre term infants thrown away by an unbelieving society, bringing them to an orphanage to be fed, loved, warmed and cuddled, and taught mercy and forgiveness in lives that would otherwise have never found their course and path. The value of life, was described by many fundamentalists and Catholics as a "seamless garment" referring to the robe Christ last wore, without rip or tear, and a continuous whole.

People who ascribe to seeing life, as coming from God, and having intrinsic and meaningful value take a singular position outside of secular views: they oppose the death penalty often, trusting life and the terminating of it to God. They value the lame, deaf and blind, the developmentally delayed and the mentally 'encumbered' and stand opposed to Euthanasia. They can be a noisy lot sometimes, opposing the right of anyone to starve or thirst someone to death, even those in what medicine refers to as a 'permanent vegetative condition' which some even recently have recovered from after years. They oppose tampering with DNA and the genetic building blocks of the person to create a 'Brave New World' because they recognize we do not have the wisdom. And they oppose abortion.

We have so anesthetized our views of tiny lives, that we have over the past 50 years come to the conclusion in the west, that even the death of babies does not matter very much, next to the convenience of an adult. We call it 'choice' on the part of the mother to allow her child to live or die: we call it a medical procedure so that the abortionist can get 3rd party payments. We conveniently obscure any right to life the child may enjoy, any constitutional protection and we paint our logic in terms of an infant without a voice, or the size of the body. Yesterday in the news, I saw the power of language used in a sinister manner referring to those who defend life across the board as 'anti-choicers'.This is a seriously inaccurate and politically charged slander. No one is opposed to any righteous choice in the 'pro life' movement: they are opposed to the willful, wrongful and torturous act of slaying infants by choice. They are opposed to ripping limbs off living preborn infants, in a D and C: they are opposed to burning and suffocating tender lives in the womb, and they are opposed to crushing skulls of infants too large for other methods. How could we not be opposed to that?

We live in a schizoid society, in which after 30 years in the field I was in, working with perinatal bereavement when stillborns die, we finally saw legislators agree to give stillborn babies both a birth and death certificate, which most did with kindness, until some enraged feminists began to insist that they could not even give parents whose babies died of natural causes, death certificates. They were afraid that necessary kindness would mean that we might come to see the slain infants in the same way and that one day aborted babies might require a death certificate also. The nerve.

Feminists, at least radical ones are always thinking that they are about the good of women: I have stood for the rights of women for years, but the life of a child is not a choice that any parent may make, and abortion is merely a form of age discrimination. I am not blind to the issues: I have intervened for many years when working with bereaved families also occasionally with those who had an abortion only to find out they would mourn that child, and find many years later that they would be haunted with certain aspects of the death and procedure. One young woman I spoke to was suicidal, for at 22, a college student, she had at the insistence of a boyfriend crossed state lines to obtain a last trimester abortion, and before going under anesthetics heard the doctor say, 'no more big babies today, I thought I told you no more big babies', and then hearing the ripping of flesh before falling asleep. That stays with a person who thought they were making a 'choice' for merely a medical procedure.

I have also seen therapeutic abortions, so called, where but for the grace of God go I or any other, grateful never having had to make the choice, where an infant in utero develops a condition which all but guarantees stillbirth, and has to decide to carry to term, or in one case when a mother developed uterine cancer, which if untreated would cause metastasis, and if treated would cause the baby's death: no one would wish to trade places in that decision making process. They also go through a painful life long grieving process.

We are now in the midst of an interview for a placement on the Supreme Court. The candidate, Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, U.S. Solicitor General (under President Obama), is decidedly pro-choice, no matter how it is framed. The former Law Professor and has quite a history in insisting that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists frame their language in a certain way, allowing "Partial Birth Abortions". As if our moronic logic was not insane and cruel enough, the move was to lift the ban on physicians killing babies during the birth process, not even in the birth canal, but when all but the head was delivered, in a hellish technicality. The ban was to prevent a cruel death to innocent infants. The ACOGYN statement, greatly influenced by Kagan, and protesting the ban read:

For Release: April 18, 2007
Contact: ACOG Office of Communications
(202) 484-3321
communications@acog.org

ACOG Statement on the US Supreme Court Decision Upholding the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

Washington, DC -- Despite the fact that the safety advantages of intact dilatation and evacuation (intact D&E) procedures are widely recognized—in medical texts, peer-reviewed studies, clinical practice, and in mainstream, medical care in the United States—the US Supreme Court today upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' (ACOG) amicus brief opposing the Ban, the Act will chill doctors from providing a wide range of procedures used to perform induced abortions or to treat cases of miscarriage and will gravely endanger the health of women in this country.

"Today's decision to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 is shameful and incomprehensible to those of us who have dedicated our lives to caring for women," said Douglas W. Laube, MD, MEd, ACOG president. "It leaves no doubt that women's health in America is perceived as being of little consequence.

"We have seen a steady erosion of women's reproductive rights in this country. The Supreme Court's action today, though stunning, in many ways isn't surprising given the current culture in which scientific knowledge frequently takes a back seat to subjective opinion," he added.

This decision discounts and disregards the medical consensus that intact D&E is safest and offers significant benefits for women suffering from certain conditions that make the potential complications of non-intact D&E especially dangerous. Moreover, it diminishes the doctor-patient relationship by preventing physicians from using their clinical experience and judgment.

"On behalf of the 51,000 ACOG members who strive to provide the very best possible medical care to the women we serve, I can only hope that in the future, science will again be at the core of decision-making that affects the life and well-being of all of us," said Dr. Laube.

Kagan wanted concessions, allowing the barbaric killings. To those still unfamiliar with the procedure, the baby is delivered up to the neck, and held in the hand of the doctor performing the delivery. Before the head comes out, the baby is turned so the back is facing up, and with surgical scissors, at the base of the neck, the spinal cord is clipped: i.e. a stabbing followed by a complete severing of the spinal cord. If the baby still shows life, in the incision, a suction tube is placed which sucks the child's brain matter out, and the skull is crushed, thus delivering a dead infant. They call that 'tissue'. We cannot possibly be that inhuman. We cannot possibly appoint a woman favoring that procedure on the Supreme court, and expect rational decisions regarding life.

Live Abortion Births May not be Revived

In the course of my work with families grieving a stillborn, I have when I worked in the field, taken very little babies, wrapped in a receiving blanket, for a last viewing to families. It is sad, but often necessary to give closure to the death and keep mothers and fathers from being uncertain about the death. They need a chance to say good bye, and be parents for that one sad moment. I have held babies who have just died, as young as 16 to 20 weeks, wee little ones, perfectly formed, and we took extreme care to make sure that the deceased body was tenderly cared for with dignity. Down the hall, another baby, of say 25 weeks, was being aborted, and the remains sent to pathology for 'disposal'. Are we that insane? Are we that illogical? Really? Both parents will grieve, but only one openly.

When Obama became a senator in Illinois, they dealt with a law which refused resuscitation of infants born alive in an abortion procedure. That law is still an issue nation wide: in other words, if a woman has an abortion, and the baby is born alive, they are to place it aside, allow no medical treatment or resuscitation and to let it die. One nurse described the process as taking anywhere from an hour to a full eight hour shift. Down the hall or even in the same NICU, they are 24/7 fighting to save babies of the same age. That is just too schizophrenic. Nurses can lose their jobs for trying to resuscitate infants.

Life
Here's the jist of the matter: we have to decide, here and now, what kind of people we are in this country. Is it that I do not understand what mothers go through? I was one who had to make that choice: I chose life. I have a dean's list, talented 27 year old son instead of a wound and a memory. Roe vs. Wade, the war cry of the pro-infanticide group, has born this fruit at least: both mother and daughter who was born to "Roe" are now pro-life activists. They know better than any the cost.
In ancient times, they used to just bury a firstborn in the walls of a city for good luck. We look at that in retrospect and are appalled at the barbarous people who would do such a thing. How do we look at ourselves?

Camus an existential author used the statement "Choose Life". It is really an ancient thought, appearing first in the Bible:

Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Hard as it is, uncomfortable as it can become, can we at least not make that 'choice' for our infants and next generation. Since Roe vs. Wade we have slaughtered over 40,000,000 infants, calling them fetuses to allay guilt or thought of wrongdoing. We will feel the natural cause shortly when that many taxpayers are absent, and the generation that was so liberal understands what that does to Social Security and care for the elderly. During that time we have also turned cruel and violent in general. I believe in God, and I believe He will judge the nation for what it has become. Choose Life.

Tolerance, Violence, the Mexican Border and the Flotilla: Only Shades of Gray

2010-07-07T05:58:00.006-05:00

Tolerance is a rather ethereal word: most people are for it, whatever it is, and one thinks ill of those who oppose it. Mostly today, it is used to indicate racial tolerance, or perhaps religious or ethnic tolerance, and the word hardly is ever used regarding political tolerance. We have erected monuments to Tolerance, built museums for tolerance, and at least one major institution will post photos on a 'wall of shame' if one does not live up to their measure and definition of tolerance, which almost always demands a liberal political stance.

Genuine 'intolerance' though, in the forms of hatred and bigotry abound, and those holding that stance rarely are concerned with who sees them as tolerant or not. Two eminent world events raise the conundrum of conflicts between humanistic concern for tolerance vs. public safety in the face of violent acts. While on the one hand, the Mexican border issues and the IDF raid on the Flotilla in Gaza seem unrelated, both bear the distinction of being politically charged violent incidents, which confront and challenge traditional notions of across the board tolerance.

Pro-Palestinianism, Ashdod, Flotillas and Blockades
Tolerance first found a challenge widespread in the socio-political climate called 'pro-palestinianism'. Due to a very effective campaign of describing the horrors of IDF violence against the residents of Gaza and the West Bank, many of more liberal leanings began to apply the tenets of tolerance to its natural end, rather than considering where tolerance becomes an agent of violence. On the outset, that notion sounds contradictory, but consider: one cannot expect that tolerance of kind or view will always extend when a group of any nature turns and becomes wantonly violent towards another. For example, the Janjaweed are hardly extended broad overtures of tolerance based upon descent or religious belief, while they slaughter the innocents of Dar Fur. Since most in the world see the aggression of the Janjaweed as unwaranted and genocidal, issues of tolerance toward the violent are swept aside: in other words, tolerance prevails as an issue with regard to a people
until they grossly violate basic civilities, and then it becomes reasonable to hold at least their actions in disdain, and no effort is made to divorce their actions from their membership in any particular group or kind.

When Pro-Palestinianism hit college campuses though, we had an almost opposite concern: the violence of the Palestinians toward Israel, including mass raids, suicide bombings, bus bombings, Sderot bombings, wars and border clashes since 1948, the continuance of 'endlosung' or the final solution into Palestine, worldwide boycotts etc, were quickly swept aside at the viewing of horribly mutilated children's bodies, victims of Israeli retailiation and defense in Gaza. That there be no misunderstanding, neither I nor any rational person would condone or approve such acts on either side, but when the question of Tolerance comes up in armed conflict, who is being denied tolerance, and who is being afforded it?

The recent issue of the Flotilla in the Gaza Port is a case in point. Consider that pro-Palestinian activists, are trying to break through a blockade which Israel has established to prevent unregulated commerce to an area haunted by Hamas, who are not known for any concept of tolerance. The flotilla boats/ships supposedly are manned by peaceful humanitarian activists bringing 'illegal' domestic supplies of need to the area. On the surface, the blockade looks wrongful, the IDF seems violent in their boarding and raid on the ship of peaceful protestors. The truth is, IDF officers were assaulted with metal pipes, guns and beatings once on board:

Is this really an accurate picture though? The truth is, the 'peaceful' flotillas are violating not just Israeli blockades, but international law. Is Gaza cut off from food and normal supplies? No, they just have to go through other avenues to get them, while the port is regulated. Israeli has a right to the blockade. When the ship refused to obey IDF representatives, they had a right to come aside and board the boat, and detain it. Many terrorist organizations have the standard procedure of bringing in hidden arms and weapons under the guise of humanitarian aid. Bombs and missiles are fired by Hamas from schools, hospitals and orphanages, which is a particularly insane and cruel thing to do, jeopardizing even their own, and designed to make any defense look cruel when Israel has to for example secure a hospital from which firings were launched. In armed conflict, which side bears the first right to considerations of tolerance? Definitions dissolve, and public safety and survival has to momentarily become the greater issue, regardless of world opinion. Ashdod has been giving Israel trouble for, oh, about 2500 years or more.

The Mexican Border and Questionable Detainment

The weave and waft of practicing Tolerance is seen in a related vein, as the Federal Government in the US tries to push against strong measures to identify illegal aliens in Arizona. Many who sit at ease in the rest of the nation, see the frequent carding of 'suspicious' persons as racial profiling. Racial profiling is indeed serious and deadly, hurting innocent people. One possible group most desperately affected may be the homeless, who for various reasons may not have all their ID in a row at any given time, since the obtaining of such things as birth and death certificates, driver's licenses, etc cost money, and require addresses which they do not have. Frequent detainment and imprisonment for those folks, or those Mexican citizens of the US who are racially profiled, would be too serious a betrayal of the Constitution under normal circumstances.

But consider what life is getting like in several border states North and South: in addition to those wishing to come to the US albeit illegally just for better job opportunities or housing or education,for whom many can empathize, there is an influx of major criminal and deadly trafficking. Crime gangs and drug lords from Central America pouring in to a lucrative market, with little regard for children or life. Human trafficking for the pornography and garment industries don't take the time to go through legal channels. Border officials are regularly killed, police forces can no longer handle the geometric increase in crimes, and their are related problems no one is seeing: massive reconveyance of mortgages, driving long term residents out of home they have lived in for years, drugs and violence in schools, tax burdens too great due to expenditures not meeting intake, and a rapid increase in population of many who would laugh merely at the mention of 'tolerance'.

In desperation, the Governor of Arizona and others seek restrictive measures to send the worst fellows back over the border, pleading with Washington, and Obama's response? Signs posted 80 miles over the border reminding the kind travellers through Mexico, that illegal entry is wrong. There. That ought to put an end to drug cartels.

So where is the issue of tolerance? Do we bend over backwards to afford our fine standard of freedom to illegal aliens bringing in the destruction of the State and nation? I wish I was afforded such concern having been born in Texas 55 years ago. My rights are regularly trampled, even more than most since many law enforcement officers decide who should have access to the Bill of Rights and who should not. I am not even suggesting that I know where the balance is---I don't want wanton daily searches of cars , houses or personal effects without a court order because I have seen the horror of that sort of thing: on the other hand, I don't want to see a free country turned over to an unrestricted shooting gallery, winner take all. Issues of tolerance are lost, when affording a right too far could end in only the innocent being harmed, but when holding a constitutional standard, could end life as we know it.

Gray Areas
The greatest problem is finding a workable solution, without being hampered by naive concepts of illegal immigration and humanistic feeling and thinking. The aim of Civil and Human Rights advocates, is to keep all people living free and safe from assault and tyrannical acts. Tolerance though extends also to victims of crimes and ruin: tolerance cannot work when only one side of the conflict even has the concept. One has to sometimes admit to working in gray areas, without giving oneself over to moral relativism. To merely find a solution, the first surrender has to be of polarized, nonsense on both conservative and liberal sides, and turn to human and not just political resolution. We have a right to be safe, and a right to be free. That is both quest and conundrum.

Christian Environmentalism: Laying Politics Aside

2010-06-23T16:55:00.004-05:00

I can't help but feel deeply saddened over the month and a half of streaming video from the Gulf, even to the point of mourning. The country seems to count it as yet another natural, though unnatural disaster; certain that in time it will pass. Day after day goes by though, and tens of thousands of barrels of oil leak out into the gulf, as though it was nothing. The drama of the capping of it availed almost nothing: live video cams show billowing blood red-brown blackish oil pouring out of some abyss destroying everything in its path.

I am not a complete stranger to the Gulf of Mexico. I grew up in Florida many years ago, when most that lived there were not native Floridians. Florida then was for families and tourism primarily, and the standard avocation of many Floridians was weekends at either the Atlantic beaches, or Gulf beaches. The gulf was a little different,and we went far less often, but it had gritty beaches of crushed shells and sand, and far more gentle waves: I recall one could wade out farther in shallow water.

The Gulf back then was fresh and beautiful: one could see dolphins/porpoises in the distance jumping, and watch lazy pelicans floating on the water: gulls and small birds, and great fishing under a wide blue sky, and it just felt good to be there.

I remember divers at Tarpon Springs, or later when I was in college at the University of Florida in Gainesville, we would occasionally sneak over to the Gulf at Cedar Key, an old Florida favorite, kind of artsy, with a pier, pelicans, sandpipers, and restaurants that sat out on the water offering fresh catch seafood with scenic windows overlooking the water. I remember watching a storm roll in.

The first days, seeing crude oil pouring into those sea-green blue waters, all I could think of were those gentler days, and watching the sea birds, fish, porpoises,etc, covered in the suffocating mire, my only thoughts were, "What have we done to God's gift of this earth?" What have we done to the largest encompassed body of water in this nation? To fisherman, and their families, to citizens of Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and even Texas, to the creatures that live there, changing that mini paradise into a dying sewer. Do we think we will not be held accountable? Do those of you who are not believers, think that there will not be severe natural consequences brought on by a small 'accident' in offshore drilling, so that we can do what? Run our air conditioners at a lower temperature, keep gas prices down? Buy electric instead of gas ranges and heaters, and other commodities? Were we willing to chip in the Gulf of Mexico with our monthly bills?

Natural consequences

Most biologists will be quick to point out, that a 'habitat' like the Gulf, is an 'ecosystem': no part of that system is isolated. When oil suffocates and kills the wildlife and fish, then there is no fishing. That much we can see, apart from moral concerns. What we do not see underneath the streams and rivers of black blood is the oil that becomes mixed with matter, from the remains of animals and other sealife/vegetation, to particles and dirt, and sinks to the bottom of the sea: oil doesn't float forever. Coating the bottom of the sea, even microscopic life is killed : plankton like organisms die, which means that even if we could clean up the spill, years after, the fish will not be returning, because their habitat is ruined and there is no food. Touch the smallest rung on the food chain, and the rest of the chain dies or tries to move on.

Some are hoping for a hurricane to pick up oily waters and disperse them, carrying the ungodly mess out to sea: simple logic tells us that a dispersed problem is still a problem, and the Atlantic is already suffering from massive pollution observed as long ago as when Thor Heyerdahl pioneered his reed boat across the ocean.Even then, there is no guarantee how any particular hurricane will disperse the expansive spill: do the math: from 60-80,000 barrels a day over 50 days: and what is the oil emptying out of? Oil deposits under the Gulf are from ancient rivers and lakes decaying: it is why they are called 'fossil fuels'. When oil is gone, what becomes of the cavernous pockets underneath? This is just one spill.

Christians and Environmentalism
In the past 45 years or more, I have found that many person who call themselves Christians, especially Gospel believing Christians, have tended to blindly equate efforts to save the environment with a liberal point of view to be shunned. In other words, because many in the environmental movement came from back in the 'hippie' generation, and since some equate Earth Day with the New World Order, many conservative Christians have had little to do with Environmental issues, fearing it to be a seduction into secularism. The truth is, there really are many paganistic or agnostic beliefs that foster an interest in environmental topics and actions, but I fear, while watching the Gulf die, that we are throwing the baby out with the bath water, and neglecting the scriptural command to care and tend for the earth, the great gift of God. Our responsibility goes far beyond separating glass and aluminum for recycling: Christians who are genuine, should be at the front of environmental concerns, not sitting back snidely and trying to determine who is behind every effort and organization, which while they may not believe as we believe, are doing the job we were assigned.

Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof
Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken

The tending of and caring for the earth that God gave, should be among first concerns in our lives: some look at the earth and claim that because we know the end of all things, that our care of the planet is secondary: that is like saying that we should not keep up our houses because after a hundred years or so they will fall into rubble. We cannot think, as Christians that we do not have a premiere responsibility to continue tending the garden God gave us, though we be far from Eden. Our pre-eminent duty is faith and love, above all else, including love of God first, and souls second, but the health of our world determines the future of our children, and the well being of the Church in future generations. If we are not satisfied with current secular efforts to 'save the earth', then we should immediately begin to form our own and in the power of God, show them a thing or two. The care of the earth is not relegated to one political view: ultra-conservative republicans should be just as future minded and environmentally oriented as the most liberal constituent of Green Peace. My own beliefs are what some would call 'separationist': I personally do not hold to blind ecumenism, but that in no way negates our love and responsibility to others of different beliefs, nor to the earth we all live in. We should set the standard, not relegate it to others.

Towards a New Environmentalism
The future, folks, is not promising. Offshore drilling is too hazardous. This time, it appears an accident, but the cost was too dear. What happens in the future? Where are offshore rigs to be placed? Within coastal water boundaries? They are disputed, and the possibility of terrorism and piracy of rigs looms in the distance. How many instances will there be, especially as oil grows scarce, and oil poor nations become desperate, since oil spells power.

What will be the consequence as caverns and pockets are emptied along undersea faultlines? We are not hearing from seismologists and geologists save for a few 'acceptable' ones, often employees of the government or oil companies. I am not advocating merciless protests, or uncalled for alarm, but a carefully reasons and stable approach to the fragile nature of the earth as a responsibility with the intent of saving and prolonging life and health.

The modern environmental movement started in the early years of the Third Reich, as a man named Darre developed innovative concepts and systems for the best use of land and its preservation. He eventually came under such scrutiny and disfavor with Hitler's regime, than he ceased in his office overseeing agriculture. Even then one can see the difference in Environmental cause and political cause; just as it has been in Sports and the Arts. A Christian Environmentalism is possible, and some efforts already are in the works: it must though, be divorced from the liberal-conservative continuum, to a human effort instead, in belief.

As we watch the Gulf bleed, we should keep in mind, that we are to be held accountable for every gift dying there.

Self Flagellation or Insincere Repentance: Shoah Cult vs. Critical lessons

2010-06-15T12:40:00.001-05:00

A Reply to the Article: The Holocaust as Religious Dogma

There appears to be a new wave of marginal protest regarding an overemphasis or wrongful emphasis on the Shoah or Holocaust, so it is not without consternation that I read your article casting Shoah interests as a form of 'religious dogma' and in turn suggesting it might have the scandalous role of causing favor towards Israel. In some sense you are both correct and incorrect: having dealt with issues of the Shoah and religion for some time, I would posit that one cannot entirely separate religious concerns from the Shoah, for it was a battle of ideologies and faith as well as politics and armaments.

The Jews, have and always will be, an ensign of sorts to the nations, both politically and 'religiously' as in terms of faith, in Judaeo-Christian thought, they bear the presence of God and his history to the nations. While this may rankle the sensibilities of self-serving agnostics, one can nevertheless not deny that the Jews are a people who have survived 2000 years in dispersion, with a return to a homeland unprecedented in history, while most other dispersed peoples were assimilated after a generation or two into other cultures and peoples. One cannot help but take note then, and serious note, when a 20th century process to erase 2/3 of their European population by Inquisition like terrorism takes place, and it is with some degree of perverse amusement that you consider it odd in any way for the nations or the Church, however defined, would be called to repentance, as your refer to it as "self-flagellation" and worry that we might regard them as a people worthy of protection.
The 'Shoah cult' is a gross exaggeration of what has taken place over the past 20 or 30 years, or the entire post shoah era. Yes, there has been a mostly healthy interest and move towards 'repentance' in some denominations and international groups, but please do not fret, it is mostly momentary and on paper and in ceremony. At least it has raised the consciousness of many, and educated children in a very brutal world, that the fullness of our sins in the Shoah fell not only on the Jews, nor even on other persecuted peoples, but on the world itself: nations changed, rising out of puppet governments formed by the Third Reich; warfare changed: the last semblance of boundaries to what was allowed in modern warfare were erased, with no bounds between 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' societies.

For all the 'over emphasis' on the Shoah you worry about, Anti-Semitism has not changed nearly enough, as Western nations see regularly massive anti-Israel marches, and even in the US, we find White Aryan groups healthy and thriving with marches on State capitals, and the intrusion of rank Third Reich,Deutsche Christen doctrine into modern American churches, liberal and conservative. Would you like to see even our 'nod' in Israel's direction erased?

Numbers, the proverbial conundrum, are debated since 1945, but considered the hidden human cost: almost no wars before the Shoah, and WWI, involved massive kills in a few years, and the genocides since the Shoah have all taken the same pattern and monstrous unconcern for civilian life, coupled with a new hunger for atrocity. Bangladesh, Cambodia, Uganda, Croatia, the Karens of Burma, Sudan, and all the others, were tainted with the same process and precision of the Shoah, including a new attitude toward human life: means to an end.

The marriage between the State and Corporations with the new amoral sense is also a product of the Shoah: as we watch the Gulf Oil Spill, or issues of criminal enslavement, or any other issue regarding the profit margin, the concept of ethics has degenerated totally into whether or not it accomplishes an agenda, and whether or not they can get away with it.

The concept of Law has changed: laws are no longer the glue and fabric of society and civilized living, Law is merely a contrived set of wavering siderails, used as ploys to accomplish amoral causes.

In addition to seditioning our concept of the person, the Gleichschaltung of the National Socialists found its way to the US in the first years after the war, as 10,000 Nazi party members were willingly received into our ranks officially, bringing with them a way of life, and infecting the nature of our society and culture, including the mass produced modern Bible translations, based newly upon the Kittels' Biblia Hebraica and Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, on almost every American Pastors's shelf, which has caused confusion and division in churches, and subtly introduced moribund concepts of 'belief'.

Our western culture psychology and psychiatry emanates from concepts in Racial Science, with our entire tests and Measurements area based historically upon Racial scientists and Eugenicists efforts at 'weeding out' defectives to produce a 'super type', a Herrenvolk, developed initially by central Eugenicists such as Pearson, Burt, based upon the work of Darwin and Galton. We 'spin' the effort now and refer to 'optimal functioning' or 'actualization' but the clear meaning is a superior type, which has so worked its way out in the American psyche that parents of any means are trying to produce 'super babies' both genetically and educationally, though without moral sense and with a new social Darwinism which has replaced any form of character training in schools.

The effects of the Shoah not only on the Jews but the rest of the world are so intense, and pervasive, that it was essentially the modern pivot on which history and the concept of personhood changed. So did our thoughts of God. While I have mentioned only a few above, it is inconceivable to me, that we ever now or in the future reach a point of trivializing the Shoah, or seek to make it merely another war, with debatable numbers.

The fatalities, as always, were first the Jews, then civilization, and I do not see that we will return. So please forgive those of us who find nothing wrong with what you describe as 'self flagellation' but what I choose to see as insufficient repentance.

shoaheducation.com

'Witnessing vs. Overthrowing the Will": A Critical Factor in Laws Regarding Proselytizing

2010-06-04T04:47:00.005-05:00

A man comes up to you on the street, and hands you a religious tract. You did not ask for the tract, and it is not from a faith you were brought up in. He engages you in conversation, you do not initiate the contact. Is the man proselytizing? Is he conducting a free expression of his faith, or a violation of yours? Almost every nation today is running into difficult borders of legislation regarding the sharing of faith as free speech and free exercise of religion, vs. the more sinister trend of some faiths to all but club people over the head, antagonize, intimidate, and even 'de-program' and 'reprogram' persons into a faith different than the one they started with, or none at all. Freedom of Speech and Religious practice is critical and to be valued above most things in society, but the boundaries of what some call 'witnessing' are tempored with the Civil Rights of all of us of different faiths, not to be 'overthrown' in our will and belief by oppressive tactics. The balance must be obtained and achieved in order to avoid conflict and horrendous values and the devaluing of basic civil liberties.

Witnessing

In the Christian faith, Gospel Christianity is often known for endeavors it refers to as 'witnessing' which is a sharing of the faith and tenets of the Lord Jesus Christ, or Yshua HaMeschiach, the revealing of the Salvation covenanted on Golgotha. The word 'witness' comes from the Greek word 'Martyria' from whence we derive our word 'martyr': the clear intent for Christians from the first century, is that that testify to the things they had seen and heard, and lift up the Lord that all might see his work on the Cross and victory over death. It is no small thing that Christians in free nations value their ability to carry out the 'Great Commission' that eventually, the Gospel would be brought to the whole world.

On the other hand, most of us who are Christian, do not want Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormon's or cultists coming to our door on a regular basis to try and change our faith, or try to win our children to their perspectives: yet all on both sides see the need or even the call to do so. So where is the balance? Can there be a balance?

In Israel, the tiny nation has 'proselytizing laws' and they are not unique to other nations. A Messianic Rabbi, Jamie Cowen not long ago was detained in Israel for a violation of these laws. In Israel, attempting to win an underage minor to a different faith, is unacceptable. Many countries have enacted laws where attempts to convert a child to another faith is considered illegal. Christians have been accosted for teaching the Gospel to unsaved children, but one woman in the UK not long ago was arrested to dressing up a teddy bear like Mohammed. We want to share our faith openly without reprisal, even win souls, but at the same time we all would like to be protected from having those with more sinister motives gravely change the faith of our children and loved ones such that they feel no affiliation with their families, friends, co-workers and support system any longer. The Issue is one of sharing faith in a free environment, vs. overthrowing the will of another person, or even invading privacy and going to extreme efforts such as mass deception, or deprogramming. The principle of 'overthrowing the will' or volition of a person, is posited here as the main vortex for writing national laws on proselytizing.

Jesus and Proselytizing

Did you know that in the first century, Jesus even preached on the topic! Jesus, the Messsiah, the Savior, who went all over Israel and multitudes followed, preached against a wrongful form of proselytizing!

Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Was Jesus Christ against bringing Gentile believers to Judaism? Not real Judaism, the faith of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob. He had the wisdom though to know the difference between lifting up the Lord God, the Gospel, and the Kingdom of God, vs. forcible conversion. That is a difference all of us, within our respective faiths and outside, need to learn. Bringing someone to the Lord, is not a process of convincing with human logic. It is not a matter of merely finding the better argument. It is a matter of having a faith so compelling, that when it is lifted up through preaching or telling, it 'compels' people to come to it. That is not forcible conversion, and the need to discern and respect the difference is so critical, that it will lead either to peaceful coexistence of many opposing faiths in an already troubled world, with stable families, or it will lead to war after war.

Israel today is an excellent microcosm of the dilemma. While Tom Lehrer may sing "Everybody hates the Jews" the truth is, division regarding faith and proselytizing lies even among the Jews, as hasidic, Orthodox, and Reform and Zionists (some overlap) vie for the nation and the law their way. To some degree, it is not resolvable. Orthodox believers and Hasidic believers both know the toll that can be taken on a nation under wrath because they have compromised the ways of God. Modernists such as Zionists, see only the pragmatic, secular needs of a society, and seek secular solutions based solely on human reasoning without regard for the ways of God most often. The division comes from an issue of belief vs. unbelief, so for example the 'civil right' of a Messianic rabbi to perform a marriage or be buried on sacred ground conflicts with an Orthodox view of the ground as sacred and not to be marred with what some see (although I disagree) as a dissensioned form of the faith, a 'hellenized' imperfection.

How then can one approach proselytizing for either side? The first step, is to know that there are realms of the problem that will remain unsolvable by law. The Great Commission of Messiah, for example commands us to

"Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

Martyrs have died for centuries refusing to let go of that calling, though many laws have been written and enforced. John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress went to jail for 12 years because he would not stop winning souls through the preaching of the Gospel, though the law declared no one but licensed Anglican clergy could. Tyndale died unwilling to give up his quest for the inerrant Word, and while respectful, unwilling to give King Henry any authority over belief. Mere laws will not stop the most zealous of any faith.

We do not though have to outlaw preaching, distribution of literature in a non oppressive way (and why should we be?), freedom to meet and worship, or even open air preaching, telling, sharing etc. However, for all religions, we also have to protect the rights of all to be 'unassaulted' by those of another faith. Preaching the Bible is not forcing it down someone's throat as many accuse. One can walk away, say 'no thanks', or refuse a pamphlet, invitation, or even ask some one out proselytizing to leave our property. That does not violate their civil rights: we have a right to refuse a belief system different than our own.

Further, in Christian love and liberty (where the Spirit of the Lord is their is liberty), we should be attentive to the desire of some not to receive. We are not selling a product. We are telling about the Lord and his salvation, and what we have experienced, we are reporting an account of what we have seen. Neither Jesus, paul nor the disciples EVER forced someone to receive the Gospel or read the 4 spiritual laws, and they did not yell "you're going to hell" save for once when Jesus got so fed up with the Pharisees that he said

Mat 23:33 [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

One other time he said
Luk 10:15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.

So he had it out with serpents, vipers and his hometown, but given what they did to him, even the Lord and Savior got a bit ruffled.

It should be noted,though, that he actually has that ability unlike the rest of us who merely want to shout out in rage at injustice and cruelty.

The point though, is that Jesus and the disciples NEVER OVERTHREW THE WILL or volition of anyone to bring them to belief. That is the crux of the matter. Jesus healed: multitudes followed. Jesus Preached: thousands listened: of their own free will. No techniques, no advertising, no gimmicks, and no methods. No holy laughter, treasure hunts, shepherding classes, etc.etc.etc. Just the Word, just the"way, the truth and the Life".

Overthrowing the Will and "De-Programmers"

Some will no doubt think that this is a minor point,but it is not. The real culprits in society who are ruining lives and civil liberties for us all,are those who go to extreme measures to literally brainwash or seduce a person into a religion or cult, or who bring on the 'deprogrammers' once a person has succumbed. Some cults prey on 'strays' and lonely college students: they offer friendships, a place to stay, provision,etc, and have precise techniques for 'warming the frog' until it does not realized it is 'cooked' in hot water. Satanic cults operate similarly. Some groups will have 'sessions' in which a person is asked to repeat phrases or ideas over and over, such as "I am not a whole person unless I ____________(fill in the blank". In the beginning these exercises are seen as lightweight and frivolous, so one does not comprehend the cognitive seduction. Some groups target the family: they convince the young or ostracized that their families were not good for them,that they were a different kind of person, that they were not raised right, and that they will never be whole,healthy or happy until they divest themselves of all tenets of their support system. Some impaired psychologists and counselors will try techniques like that to satisfy their own need for personal control over the life of another, but even laws and policies governing psychology and psychotherapy have seen the need to police such aberrations.

What is occurring in all of these again, are deliberate attempts WITHOUT CONSENT to overthrow the WILL of another person. It is deceptive, ruinous, and almost always results in the overthrow of a person's self confidence, finances, decision making etc. That is a 'proselytizing technique' that needs to be governed by law and enforced. A person should always be free to choose to believe, and free to walk away without persons following after, interfering with life or work or affecting relationships of that person.

Deprogramming
One troubling aspect of religions or groups which overthrow the will rather than share or witness to their beliefs, is that of 'deprogramming'. Many persons who come to Christ from a different religious background, face family ostracism, disinheritance and other serious consequences. Families will often try extreme methods of bringing them back from their new found faith by the use of deprogrammers.

The idea of deprogramming did not start out as the more sinister thing it has become. In the 60s and 70s any number of cults sprang up using the seductive and deceptive tactics to overthrow the will of converts to do their bidding. Early deprogramming efforts were to bring persons taken over by cults to the point of destruction back into a stance of logical reasoning, although even from its inception deprogrammers sought to overthrow the effect of cults, by overthrowing the will of the person, even for a good purpose.

Some religions employing deprogrammers will coerce family members into lengthy sessions or even cruel and illegal incarcerations for the crime of belief, and the deprogrammers will have conduct session using sensory deprivation, picking difficult or hard to explain portions of scriptures and assaulting the belief of a person over and over until they break. They will convince them to say horrible things in order to be let go, and then extort them with it. They will convince a christian for example that he has blasphemed the Holy Spirit, the one unforgiveable sin, and that since he or she is damned, they might as well give up on trying to live for the Lord. They will used counselors or therapists with constant references to peer influence, stating over and over that "no body believes that way today---nobody" and make the person feel that they are the only one who feels that way, indicating a mental issue (no one wishes to be seen as mentally ill). Some will use drugs or implements, and some even torture techniques to elicit nothing short of unbelief. They will appeal to carnal pleasure, showing that the believer will miss out on all the good in life, never have a spouse, live without riches, etc etc. Sleep deprivation is often used: even Freud noted that a process occurs when one is very tired which he called 'ego disintegration' when a person is sort of 'fragmented', not operating to full capacity. Sinister psychological 'suggestion' can be very effective under conditions of sleep deprivation or great weariness.

All of the above examples though, again point to the truly illegal process of OVERTHROWING or undermining the FREE WILL of a person. That can be outlawed. No group of people should be allowed to 'work' a person regarding their beliefs or faith. No group should be allowed to extort an individual to give up a belief or practice, or lose a job, a grade status, housing, or peaceful enjoyment in a community.

We cannot and should not make laws regarding the speaking and telling or publishing/broadcasting of faith, we should make laws wherein the critical factor is that the free will and volition of a person is not overthrown.

Repeat Column from 2005: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

2010-05-24T02:22:00.005-05:00

Support for a Mexican Border Fence: 8 Billion dollar Wall

Today, whenever an issue involves a 'racial' or ethnic group, it is very difficult to discuss: all become defensive--- questions of civil liberties arise, charges of intolerance are raised, and people polarize quickly. One of the more volatile issues is that of illegal Mexican Immigration and the problems which are being made manifest in the US. [The issues have risen again in reference to the new Arizona Laws making Illegal Immigration the venue of the State as well as the Federal Government, and fears of racial profiling arise. Note 05-24-2010]

Recently, a group called 'www.weneedawall.com' is promoting the construction of a wall of steel and barbed wire across the Mexican border. The issues of illegal Mexican Immigration are serious, increasing and changing the demographics and public safety and welfare of the US. While some in hopes of compassion compare all forms of immigration including illegal immigration to the events in the Shoah, the events of the Shoah were different: it is important to understand both the similarities and differences in order to come up with a cogent policy as well as a compassionate one.

The Problem:

http://standeyo.com/NEWS/08_Immigration/08_Immigration_pics/081013.Illegal.populaton.gif

The Morphing of America

There are a few issues at the outset which need clarifying:

I. The first is that most reasonable persons are in no way opposed to LEGAL MEXICAN IMMIGRATION.
As a whole, legal Mexican immigrants are hard working, family-oriented, dedicated and education oriented: many are religious and focused on 'good works'. LEGAL Mexican immigrants go through years of obeying laws and policies which gain them passage into our country, they study to become citizens, and appreciate that right, take oaths of loyalty and become responsible citizens who respect the rights of others. They work to earn the right to live in the US, with privileges, and when it is granted, they do not take it for granted. While there may be exceptions, in general, those who have lived in an oppressive culture, either politically, economically or both, value the freedom in the US more than most of us who are born here, and often become better citizens than nationals.

II. The second issue is the question of opening the borders, the issue is not one of human compassion: there are compassionate folks on both sides of the issue: and conversely there are persons who are bigoted on both sides: the issues must be kept separate. The opening of a border or closing of a border, is not an issue of racial preferences, but an issue of National Safety: nations have borders and protect them worldwide so that they can reserve and protect their own citizens and allegate resources: monies spent on education, welfare, medical care, etc are the legal right of a nation’s citizenry, and few countries allow anyone without citizenship to use ‘entitlements’.

III. A third and critical issue is that of whether it is an issue of oppressed people fleeing a tyrannical form of government or economic condition, making it a human rights issue, as was the case in the Shoah, or whether it is one of allowing lawlessness, and a disregard for national borders which keep order in equilibrium. In the Shoah, for example, while Jews were fleeing the Third Reich, it was not much of a choice: the choice was to flee across borders or be arrested, deported or killed. Even then, some Jews had difficulty with nations they fled to due to unusual numbers crossing the border: in the Flemish area, even some native Jews objected, fearing reprisals of anti-Semitism and an overburden in the employment sector. The Shoah, though was clearly a human rights issue, and not merely massive numbers crossing borders illegally or ‘semi-legally’ for a better lifestyle and opportunities, or even for political or more sinister reasons.

The Numbers

In 1996, about 5 million illegal immigrants were in America give or take .5 million plus or minus. California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Arizona account of 83% of illegals. Fifty four percent of illegals were Mexican. 1
Further, both legal and illegal Mexican immigrants statistically are more likely to live in poverty, go without health insurance, and seek welfare and other entitlement programs. (See Table)
In calculating the 'cost' of Mexican immigration, where a complex formula takes into account contributions via taxes, labor, etc, balanced against cost to the American public, the determined costs are about $55,200 per immigrant. This does not include additional education costs to either institute bilingual education or teach English as a second language, or other issues such as college grants and training. Given the addition of the estimated 500,000 people per year pouring over the border, the annual cost comes to $27 ,600 000, 000. That is just the yearly additional costs to our system and does not include the burden already on the system. Multiply that figure by 10 years, and the nature of the economic effect becomes evident.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: WHO IS COMING OVER

Previously, we explored these and other issues related to Mexican Illegal immigration, but the issue of Who is coming over is alarming and is changing the face of the US in an unhelpful way. For fear of being tagged 'prejudiced' many do not speak as openly as necessary about the issue, or why the Mexican-American border is such a hot battle point. 'Poor' is not the issue: after a generation, most immigrants 'catch up' to where most other groups are. 'Race' is not the issue either: legal Hispanics are stable populations who quickly become self-sufficient, and cause no more problems than any one else.

'Ethnic' or cultural differences, though are remarkable, because at least at this point, most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal come from an 'old-world' Catholic country and do not share the views of most Americans, often not even American Catholics. As mentioned in a previous article, many have been brought up with archaic ideas about certain groups such as the Jews, and anti-Semitism finds a religious definition long ingrained which in LEGAL immigration has time to be addressed and adapted, but is neither addressed nor adapted in ILLEGAL immigration. Tolerance across racial and ethnic groups has to maintain an equilibrium.
.
The increase is estimated by the government as follows:

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimates that in January of 2000 there were 7 million illegal aliens living in the United States, a number that is growing by half a million a year. Thus, the illegal-alien population in 2003 stands at least 8 million.-[Current estimates are 12 million in 2010-http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8G6U2ko8]

Since 1970, the size of the Mexican immigrant population has increased 10-fold, from less than 800,000 to nearly eight million today. The number of immigrants from countries other than Mexico has increased less dramatically, from 8.9 million in 1970 to 20.5 million in 2000. Overall, the growth in the Mexican immigrant population accounts for 37.8 percent of the total increase in the number of immigrants living in the United States. [Center for Immigration Studies] A map of the degree of the problem may be found at http://www.aztlan.net/newaztlan.gif.

The numbers have abounded so much that many politicians called for amnesty, allowing an open border; others such as former Gov. Davis in California sought to allow driver's licenses and other citizen privileges to illegals. As the numbers have increased, so have identity crimes in mammoth proportions. When illegal immigration increases from any direction, crimes to do with identity theft increase: legal identities mean access to banking, jobs, welfare, education, health care and credit cards.

Filing of frivolous lawsuits increase as well as millions of persons used to a different kind of legal system attempt to circumvent the American legal system, or use it for personal gain. LEGAL immigrants go through rigorous training, to adapt to differences and learn the basics of civil rights and litigation/court procedure, and contractually agree to ‘our way’. Illegal immigrants may not even be aware of how different the systems are, and when immigrants from nations who have very corrupt systems arrive, they may seek to operate as though the systems were the same.

Crime rates are associated with illegal immigration over the Mexican border according to the Federal Reserve. (See Falling Crime and Rising Border Enforcement: Is There a Connection? in The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas). They find that when border enforcement increases, property crimes drop.

According to a Center for Death Penalty Information, in 2004, the states mentioned above with the highest number of illegal aliens have a murder rate of 5.75 per 1000, while the other states stand at 4.5. (This is partialing out Nevada which has radically increased in illegals: these ‘averages’ do not involve a controlled assessment for statistical significance.). Border Patrol Authorities and Southern California Law Enforcement agencies report overwhelming law enforcement issues with growing populations of illegals. One article reported the reason for dramatic increases in violent crime is that more open borders allow for drug trafficking, human trafficking (0n the very serious increase) and violent prison gangs, from Mexico and Central America pouring over the border and gaining strongholds in certain areas, creating a battleground instead of normal expectations for police work. While the media does not often report such occurrences, several cities have been so beset by certain groups of illegals with legal counterparts that longstanding residents have moved. For the most part, legal immigrants do not participate in ‘crowding out’ activities, but illegals may. When cities change radically within 10 years in demographics such that previous groups in a small minority take over the majority, it is often not by natural attrition.

Burden on Health, Education and Welfare
Without going into detail [this section of the earlier article has been removed], there is a phenomenal burden of unknown and unexpected immigrants on welfare systems. A legal immigrant is entitled to all the welfare, medical and education benefits an illegal is: an illegal immigrant is not. I cannot visit France or Canada, and expect them to foot the bill for my medical care or my son's education if I am a US citizen. That's not prejudice, that is the way all governments and immigration works, and the notion that illegals should be allowed education, health and welfare benefits so that they can 'move on with their lives' may sound humane but isn't practical: it would literally open up the exhaustion of the budgets for the systems already overtaxed. A nation could end up funding its political overthrow. As an immigrant, Mexican, Hmong,Russian, Chinese or otherwise enters the nation illegally, they cannot get a job, even at day labor without socialsecurity numbers, so without a sponsoring family, they must rely either on funds they bring, or on gray area support. Many do not want to go for green cards, or driver's licenses or other ID which would immediately peg them as illegals. Welfare fraud, using another person's ID, becomes the easiest way of staying in the country until legal methods can be found. To speak of these things, many cry that one is characterizing all illegals this way: the unfortunate truth, though, is that an illegal immigrant without funds, often has no where else to go, unless falling prey to slave labor [the garment industry and farming industry are springboards for this], or illegal methods of raising money. It has to be discussed. I stood behind a young couple in Nevada years ago applying for a driver's license, arguing the point of no paperwork or social security numbers: the idea of citizenship itself is becoming vague. Aside from these issues though, as welfare fraud and ID fraud increases, it costs a lower-level state about 550.00 a month per person, with another 200/month for foodstamps, so that a marginal estimate would be $750/month. (In CA, it is more like 1000/month). If we say $800 a month, and count even half of illegals, we get a price tag of 4,800,000,000 not counting health care, additional costs in highway maintenance, law enforcement, etc. No one has an accurate figure.
This is not a function of any race: it is a function of knowing who is in the country, and being able to plan and provide for them decently and in order.

The Holocaust and the Mexican Border

In discussions of Mexican immigration invariably someone will compare the plight of the Jews in WWII or make references to those seeking political asylum in despotism.
The open border which George Bush suggested with amnesty though is not the same situation and poses increases in crime, homicide, exhausting of government entitlement programs, inexorable burdens on medical care, an increased burden on the overtaxed legal system, increased anti-Semitism coupled with a lessening in focus on tolerance, and a change not only in demographics but in voting patterns and cultural approaches. Over 10 million illegals are estimated in the US now and some estimates are as high as 20 million. Since one cannot get benefits, jobs, etc without proper ID, SSNs etc, it is no surprise to find dramatic problems with identity fraud, credit card fraud, social security fraud, as mentioned, as desperate persons seek desperate measures to stay here.

Postal problems have increased as well. One cannot attribute the total cause of the above to illegal immigration, but one can point to the correlation. Statistical assessments are becoming frightening, as we have moved from 7 million illegals in 1996 to as high as 20, with an estimate of 19 million legal Hispanics (including non-Mexicans), and some cities, such as LA now with an Hispanic Mayor, showing up to 40 or 50% of the population non-native Hispanics. Further, many, even illegals have taken positions in jobs such as Civil Rights offices such as EOC in which favoritism is sported, causing not only an iniquity in the way cases are heard but prejudice against multi-racial nationals. A nation has been taken over by less. Hispanics have in the past few years replaced Afro-Americans as the first minority.

Why is the escape to freedom and economic opportunity not like the holocaust? There are many reasons. First, in the Shoah, the Jews of Germany, Poland and later the rest of Europe were fleeing not for economic or political causes per se, but to save their lives from a despot who demonstrated beyond belief he had their genocide in mind.

Secondly, wherever the Jews emigrated, they immediately became self-sufficient, and began to build up the society they were in. It was not that there were not economic factors; Polish Jews seeking asylum in France, were blocked not by the French alone but by French Jews who did not want Jewish unemployment in France to rise.

Thirdly, crime did not rise except perhaps minor crimes with Jewish emigration. There was an impending or ongoing war: being Jewish had been made a crime: they were a disenfranchised people seeking to have access to a legal system they could live under and education and self-determination: they were not bringing economic burdens and rising crime rates just to overtake a host country. In most cases, even with the impending genocide, they still sought legal means of immigration.

This important distinction needs to be made because there really is a place for political asylum for persons fleeing political oppression in this country. It is part of our heritage: almost all of us came from ancestors which fled political or religious oppression. It is our burden and responsibility; the country was founded on that. We do not do enough for political asylum, and one constructive thing we could do is increase those efforts especially in the Southwest. But nothing in the realm of being humane requires us to let down national borders to allow the unchecked influx of crime and economic burden, not by persons who want to share in the American way of life in diversity, but by groups which seek overall control, and who would by violent and unethical means erase diversity for the rest us. A blind tolerance could lead to horrible intolerance and an erasure of equal opportunities: we need balanced and controlled immigration.

Controlled Immigration

A wall may be expensive and will not stop illegal immigration but it will slow it down, forcing persons to try legal means. Businesses such as large retail, factories, and so forth which employ large number of illegals rather than allowing blank amnesty could locate manufacturing where they outsource and supply as part of employment housing and benefits while still benefitting from low wage payouts. When legal Mexican immigrants come to the US, they learn they cannot harm nationals already here without fear of losing their citizenship privileges: illegals have almost the opposite: they do not fear losing what they do not have so they often target nationals, using false ids and without consequence: even murderers are often sent only back across the border. The people who suffer from illegal immigration, are not the far-right bigots who simply do not want more Mexicans in the US, but people who have worked in the Civil Rights movement for years in a variety of ways, trying to teach and litigate conscience and tolerance. Great influxes of persons not willing to acclimate to our way of life poses a threat as real as any threat of war, and it is often the way coups come about and nations are overthrown. Legal Mexicans, without hesitation, Illegal Mexicans, no longer. Amnesty and looking the other way spits in the face of every border officer, INS agent and police officer who has ever died trying to keep safe borders in the only country in the world which ever for so long offered consistent Civil Rights. Massive illegal amnesty can overthrow that. Gang members are not Jews fleeing the Third Reich.
posted by EKBest @ 10:53 PM 1 comments
Thursday, November 10, 2005

A National Day of Prayer-Yes: A State Church: No

2010-04-16T20:44:00.002-05:00

Judge Repeals National Day of Prayer

At first glance, this looks like an 'anti-religion', anti-prayer ruling, but before shooting from the hip, those who want a healthy church and synagogue in this nation need to realize what the Judge is saying. It sounds bad to rule a National Day of prayer 'unconstitutional' but the ruling is in no way outlawing or even coming against a National Day of Prayer: rather it is coming against a government sponsored and intiated National Day of Prayer. It is indeed unconstitutional for the government to establish a point of religion or religious practice: we do not want a State Church, not now nor ever. The ruling does not oust the National Day of Prayer, but throws it back to the private sector where it belongs.
Rather than 'establish' a National Day of Prayer by an act of Congress, it would be better for Congress to 'recognize' and 'endorse' a National Day of Prayer like they commend great acts of valor and stand on the side of laws which facilitate a National Day of Prayer.

We are not a Monarchy, well, not really yet. When Nineveh called for prayers of repentance from the King on down, it was directed by a prophet, and it was for national sins. I have both studied and written on National Repentance and prayer, and believe it is essential, but I also hold to a righteous separation of Church and State. The lessons of the Shoah point to the overthrow of the Church and Church freedom and autonomy, when the State begins to involve itself in Ecclesiastical matters.
The first thing that happened, seemed great: concessions to the Church to be let off the hook, and government funding for Church programs such as orphanages, schools, and nursing which were suffering. That concession to the Reich government though, brought requirements: Nazi flags on the altar, reviews of sermons with restricted preaching, pensions governed by the state, the closing of seminaries and churches not favorable to the Reich, and the call for loyalty oaths to the Reich for Church positions. As the Reich gained a foot in the door, there were government positions of 'Reichbishop' and other positions in Hitler's administration governing religion, particularly Christianity, and a fusing of historical Lutheranism with Reich doctrine, which overthrew basic Scriptural doctrine. By the end of the war, there were seminaries who would not teach Hebrew, the Old Testament was cut out of study, the book of Romans could not be fully taught except for Rms 13, but certainly not Rms 11, Jesus became an aryan superman and Paul became a neurotic introverted self-effacing rabbi bad for the German war effort.A council was set up under Gerhard Kittel by Streicher and others to ensure that church history, the Bible and bible translation and interpretation, seminary training, and liturgy met Reich not Christian standards. The rest, how shall one say, 'is history'.

It was wrong to appoint the 'faith based initiative' group as a government entity, and it is wrong to establish a national day of prayer that is government initiated. It is wholly right and necessary to establish a real National Day of Prayer, the bigger the better, and the more sincere the better, with Congress graciously in admiration endorsing the effort, privately attending services etc.

The state of the nation today though quite frankly requires daily prayer, not just a yearly token. That is what the churches and synagogues should commit themselves to teaching and promoting.

Who Will Write History and Run the Museums?

2010-04-06T20:13:00.000-05:00

I had a question 14 years ago, that begged an answer. I read Eli Wiesel's "A Jew Today", and one of the entries was a dialogue between a younger sister and older brother, in a concentration camp. The little girl, among other questions, said, "Will you say that I loved Shabbat?" The brother says, "I will say that it made you glow." She wanted to make sure the older brother would not forget her. One question though has stuck with me all these years in the writing and research of shoaheducation.com: the little girl asks why all had happened---the older brother said, "I will find out, and I will tell".¹

When I began to write about the Shoah, I thought that one could find out and tell, but of all the lessons I have learned, it is, that with enough research, and the leading of the Lord, one can find out, but one cannot always tell. So many people, even researchers begin by thinking they can line up columns with facts and figures and answer questions such as "Who started the war?" or "Who was most responsible for the deaths?", but the more one studies, the less one can possibly answer that question without lengthy explanations.

IN the beginning, I was certain as were most, that it was clearly Germany, and while one can never deny that Germany provided the henchman and facilities for mass destruction, as scholars weave through the complexities of events, one finds that the answer 'Germany' alone will not suffice. For a period of time, I suspected it was the Vatican, or at least a system within the Vatican, due to a complex matrix of concordats, encyclicals, the marionette-ing of apostolic delegates, and a very sophisticated and sinister waltz of fervent letters mixed with silence, efforts to aid converted Jews, promises to the Jews which were never kept, and the consistent worldwide lobbying against statehood for Israel within the Roman Church and toward the governments of residence. I then researched the role of Wall Street and their connections to the Ruhr Industrialists and the filling of Hitler's coffers, with American Corporate greed supplying most of the war effort, and using slave labor. The Oil companies, I next thought were the most culpable, and maybe US Steel, helping to build maintain and operate the Killing Centers, while we stood back, deciding whether to stay out of the war, or on which side we should enter. I realized IBM, through its German affiliate DeHomag was responsible for the swift, production line deaths of millions due to its efficient Hollerith tabulator.

Then though, I suspected it was instead, sadly, even the American government, with FDR sending his best friend, Myron Taylor to officiate at the Evian Conference for the relief and refuge effort for world Jewry, with hardly a solution, too bad. Myron though, did arrange for an honorary citizenship in Rome for FDR, not long after the Jews of Italy were betrayed by the Vatican who had promised a ransom. Myron Taylor had once been the CEO of US STEEL. Then, though, I found that even the Reich's enemies were both enemies and friends: the Duke of Windsor who abdicated the throne of England, enjoyed the friendship of the Fuhrer and was a staunch supporter. British fascists were not at all unkind to the Germans, and the British Crown and German/Prussian royalty were intermarried over centuries. It could have been also the massive efforts of Islam in the Palestinian area of the Mideast who willingly raised massive troops for Hitler's Waffen SS, studying out of Mein Kampf.

I also suspected it may have been a great movement of the Occult, which saw a renaissance in Europe, especially Germany, with 'blut und boden' strains running through the many cults and organizations for German youth. Perhaps it was because of the division and struggle, the 'kulturkampf' between and within Protestantism and the Roman Church. Fascism could have been an extreme over-reaction to Bolshevism, and well, anti-Semitism has never been unknown in Europe or Germany, and both were rampant in politics in Europe and the US, as well as the Vatican. A sinister and covert group of 'related persons' may have been causal but no one can believe that quite yet. The economy was so bad, that a war was necessary to rejuvenate the nation, and there is surely no doubt, that many of these factions and reasons exacerbated the desire to see the Jews gone from Europe, out of nations, and 'cleansed' from the bloodlines.

So, if one really wishes to 'find out and tell' they would certainly have a lot of telling to do, and even if one were willing and knowledgeable, one finds, to one's great surprise as one ages, that there are many people and organizations in the world who do not take the telling of the truth lightly, and prefer to the point of death to keep certain stray pieces of information silent, even years after an event.It is one of the reasons I highly suspect that we are only this year seeing the opening of essential German and Vatican archives, after 65 years of waiting.

Who Will Write History?

We spend a great deal of time scrutinizing, quite rightly the revisionist accounts of the Holocaust, horrified to think that their account may prevail. We do not even give a modicum of attention though, to who is writing the History of the Holocaust WITHIN traditional veins. USHMM had Catholic scholars writing the history of the Church in the Shoah, which makes any scholar who has studied the shoah in detail in that area shudder, though they may not say so. Recently, their statement on the Pius XII canonization leaves alot to be desired,

December 21, 2009
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM STATEMENT ON POPE PIUS XII

At this time, as the possible canonization of Pope Pius XII moves forward, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum repeats its call for the opening of all wartime material from the Vatican archives, so that scholars can finally begin the important work of examining and evaluating this crucial aspect of history.

The response of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) to the policies of the National Socialist regime - notably his failure to condemn publicly the genocide of the European Jews - has long been the topic of debate and controversy. At the time of the Holocaust, questions about Pius XII’s public silence were raised by Myron Taylor, the U.S. representative to the Vatican, and Taylor’s assistant Harold Tittman, who requested that the Holy See speak out on the issue.

The debate about Pius XII concerns both historical facts and larger moral questions. An understanding of his response to the murder of Europe’s Jews and the moral evaluation of his actions depend upon solid historical research. Such research will be possible only when all Vatican archival material from 1933 - 1945 is completely open and available to scholars of all disciplines. While the Museum has copies of some Vatican records prior to 1939 and there are other relevant archives, the opening of the post-1939 archival material is essential to a proper assessment of Pius XII. Only then will a sound and accurate portrait of his moral leadership during the Holocaust be possible.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was created to inspire leaders and citizens to confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity and strengthen democracy. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanence, and donors nationwide make possible its educational activities and global outreach. For more information, visit www.ushmm.org.

More and more museums and Holocaust education program desire to abandon teaching traditional information about the Shoah and turn instead solely or mostly to talk about genocide, the plight of children in war, ethics, empathy and tolerance, all essential topics, but not to the exclusion of basic Holocaust education. As what happened to the Jews during the Shoah drifts farther to the background, the rewriting of history becomes more likely, and easier.

Many special interest groups wish to rewrite history to promote their own goals: Jehovah's Witness focus far less on the millions of Jews who died and far more on the fewer JWs who were interred or died. Homosexuals clamor for more emphasis on what became of gay people during the Shoah. Catholics are so very clever with their wording that things they first deny, upon disclosure, they rewrite to their benefit. The 'hidden encyclical' which disappeared the day Pius XI died was 'mythologized' at first, but now is touted as the fine efforts of the Ratti administration to promote racial equality, lost unfortunately to war time concerns. The horrid record of Pius XII is being sanitized to the general public to allow for canonization in the hopes the truth does not come to light. (See an earlier column, "Grading Pacelli") Youtube used to be filled with somewhat conspiratorial clips of the jesuits after world domination, but now there are glowing idolatrizing inspirationals of the wondrous things Pacelli did for the Jews right up to when he abandoned them to their deaths.

Some German groups, not necessarily revisionists per se, would like to write the history of the Shoah because they think that Germans are misunderstood and given short shrift and made into villains: some would go so far as to hold the Jews accountable for what happened to them. Afro-Americans would like comparisons drawn to slavery and civil rights, as would many others, and secular museums and Learning systems have adopted the point of view that a synthesis of views should be incorporated. The trouble is, as all get 'on board' for shoah education, the ship topples and sways, and over time there is a lessening of focus on the Jews. Recall, folks, it was the Jews who were ghettoized, deported and slaughtered out of fear and delusion, and the world still turns on the Jews enough to understand this point.

For now we sympathize with the great plight of the Jews in the Shoah, weep to consider their mothers and children, sons and husbands going to the gas chambers or criminally enslaved. Will our sympathy change when they become a more formidable nation? Pro-Palestinianism is already rewriting the news: will we not expect that ideology to rewrite history as well? The question becomes will their be strong Jewish leadership and control and pro-Jewish leadership and control of Holocaust education and Museums in the next 100 years?

Eyewitnesses are dying. The youngest possible eyewitness would be around 70, if they were 5 at the end of the war. Within 10 years, our best eyewitnesses are gone; within 20 years, those who were teens will be gone, and by 30, all will be lost to hard copy accounts. As long as there is a living eyewitness, not just survivors, but workers, liberators, press etc, Revisionism cannot stand. They can always correct false information and direct seekers to data which supports their eyewitness testimony. When they are gone, it is version vs. version.

Last week a news article appeared noting that documentation was found that the Vatican helped Eichmann escape through the 'ratline'. They aided many en route to South America and other locations. The US allowed the immigration of 10.000 nazi party members to the US in the first years following the war. The US was lobbied by Apostolic delegate: Amataeo Giovanni Cicognani with the support of Maglione in Pacelli's shadow against statehood for Israel: should the Catholic Church write the history of the Shoah? Should corporate sponsorship dictate the history of the holocaust when there would be most certainly an effort to omit past corporate sins? A special interest group who would focus on anything but the Jews and their bearing in the world?

Years later, I have never removed myself far from that question in Wiesel's book: I wanted to find out and tell. The consequence though for telling comes with a price. He should have written "I will find out, and I will tell, and nobody will believe." They will say someone else should have told. They will say you must be mistaken. And if they believe, I am now sure, it will change very little. ekbest

LIGHTS OUT TONIGHT AT 8:30PM---Earth Hour 2010

2010-03-27T02:23:00.003-05:00

HAPPY PASSOVER WORLD WIDE: HAPPY PASSOVER SIDEROT!!!!

Buy Israeli, Buy Palestinian, Buy Timbuktu: Keeping Politics out of Academics and Grocery Stores

2010-03-26T02:25:00.002-05:00

Israel has had a long history of unpopularity over the past 62 years: wars, turmoil, massacres, bombings, constant difficulties in the West Bank , the Gaza Strip and lately, over the past 5 to 10 years, an increasing number of boycotts of everything from products to academics worldwide. The reason for the boycotts are always couched in terms of justice and non-violence, but almost all the boycotts have one common underthread: Pro-Palestinianism, a thinly veiled anti-Semitic position.

One of the first boycotts was that by WCC (World Council of Churches) who proposed a ban or boycott on businesses, corporations or services doing business in and/or with Israel in areas where the WCC perceived Israelis had no right to be: usually in resettlement issues where people dwelt or had built illegally across lines governed by Jerusalem. This presented a rather desperate irony since the WCC grew out of an organization of Churches in the post-Shoah days, which met to consider repentance for the Church's lack of response in defense of the Jews during WWII. Still, the WCC, the World council which has representatives from the 'High' Liturgical Churches such as United Methodists, Presbyterian USA, Congregationalists, UCC etc, has become 'Pro-Palestinian' with only lip service to Justice for the Jews in the world.

Following the WCC boycott, mostly liberal Church and university groups with a pro-Palestinian stance, advised boycotts and protests against the building of the Wall in Israel, as though they had no right to make national decisions on their own. The 'great cruelty' was in blocking unchecked crossings of arms and illegals in for the sake of peacekeeping, and placing the undying burden of having to drive further through checkpoints.

Emerging quickly beyond that point, anyone opposing pro-Palestinian on US Campuses found themselves, "political incorrect" and campuses became a more uncomfortable place for many Jewish students and professors and their supporters. While pro-Israeli groups are not forbidden or openly censored, presenting the Israeli point of view is less frequent, and fraught with unreasonable controversy.

Recently even other protests and boycotts have appeared in the entertainment industry, such as calls for Leonard Cohen not to appear in Israel. Dear Lord, help us.

Among the first to boycott Israeli academics, was a British boycott in the Education system petitioned by the SPME ( Scholars for Peace in the Middle East):

We, the undersigned faculty members from around the world, urge the Members and Board of the British National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education to oppose any resolution coming to the floor for a vote and/or defeat all resolutions that should be voted upon that would boycott scholars and faculty from Israeli academic institutions at the annual meeting of NATHFE, May 27-29, 2006

By 2008, several other boycotts against Israeli academics had taken place, including the May 28,2008 boycott proposed by the UK Professors Union, met also by SPME petitions and others.
In February of 2008, McMasters University was commended for its stand against the on campus "Israeli Apartheid Week", which paralleled Israeli actions with that of Nazis or South African Apartheid.

In early 2009, there was a move in Canada by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, CUPE to boycott Israeli academics from the Ontario area. June 2009 saw a silent boycott in the UK of Israeli academics by the University and College Union. Recently, there has been a call to boycott Israeli academics/inventors from the "Solar Decathalon", particularly those from Ariel University, to ban attendance/participation in competitions regarding solar energy innovations, a particular travesty due to Israeli advancements in the area.

These and other boycotts have worked to keep out professors from Israel from world involvement and participation in journals, conferences, public addresses and other academic pursuits that bring to light academic excellence. Israeli participation, one can suspect is feared because it might have the dire consequence of pacifying division and establishing respect of Israeli statehood and endeavors, although the reason for the boycotts are almost always the objection to Israeli academics failure to oppose their military's actions or policies regarding settlements and resettlements, or police actions. No one yet has censured Palestinian efforts or refused to hear Hamas scholars for the nonstop bombing of innocents in Sderot, nor the use of Palestinian schools , orphanages and hospitals for caching firearms and launching missiles. Hamas constantly use even their own as security shields, for they know that Israelis will hesitate to return the attack for the sake of human life, and if in self defense they do not, and return fire, they are publicized world wide as brutal tyrants making attacks on children.

I do not proclaim in either case the 'rightness' of violent actions, but every nation in the world is allowed to defend itself. It is paradoxical that the Jews, as a group have been most responsible in the world for Civil Rights legislation and Human Rights Advocacy, and yet receive as little of its benefit as possible.

Israel, Palestine, and the Grocery Store

As little as six months ago (and continuing) a recent form of boycotting has been not in the area of academics, or in other political fronts, but in the Grocery stores of the world, particularly the US in which pro-Palestinian groups, often campus based are targeting Grocery stores which carry Israeli products. They seem to feel they have the right to remove products from the shelf and destroy them or make them unavailable, or to place politically charged 'stickers' on food containers announcing their boycott: one such sticker shows a lemon that is half fruit, half hand grenade, urging a boycott of Israel while the terrible Zionists won't allow Arabs back in their homes in the Gaza strip, in areas where both sides are being killed.

One group, targeted such stores as Trader Joes, one of my favorite sort of leftover hippie grocery stores with cool food that make one remember college with stoneware mugs, fishnets on the ceiling, lava lamps and Joan Baez , Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton playing in the background. A group in CA went in and held an open protest, waving fingers with placards at the manager for having Israeli Cilantro on his shelves. Another group went in and loaded shopping carts in another store with Israel based products and took them out to the lobby, dumped them at the entrance and poured ketchup all over them. This is simply, how shall we say, 'not ok'.

The Grocery Store as a Political Forum: It Can't Happen

I am not opposed to good healthy wholesome dignified protest. It is the soul and conscience left in the world and peacefully can have a great effect. Healthy protest has brought about Civil Rights in the US, South Africa and other nations, and even freedom from British rule in India. When protest turns violent, though, the opposite may occur. Beyond those basic truths, though, my greatest concern is that protests not involve theft, vandalism, arrogant assaults on free speech of all sides, and the ruin of persons' lives and businesses.

Even more particularly, there should be a widespread alarm at protests entering the Grocery Store, where products become a political filibuster, and where the possibility exists of real damage to all of us, involved in any protest or not, with clean healthy food as the ultimate victim affecting all who eat food.

To some degree, this has already begun to happen, although heretofore it has been isolated incidents far apart. Years ago there was a Tylenol scare for tablets of cyanide had been found in one container, yet tens of thousands had to be removed from store shelves.This is straying a little but not much. Terrorism has been aimed at food and even water supplies, although usually it is during wartime, but the least that can happen is disturbing inconvenience, the most that can happen (as did near Kaunas in WWII), a whole village was wiped out by the poison of water systems.

The protest currently though against Israeli products because their government does not proceed as US pro-Palestinian groups would hope, is rather ridiculous. It only makes people mad. I am pro-Israeli : I do not like Iranian policies regarding the holocaust, but I do not check the label on tea to see if it is Iranian and then cease to buy it, because Ahmadinejab thinks there wasn't a holocaust: I know, more likely than not, that the grower is independent, and may or may not agree with his leader, but more than that, I know that a grocery product should be judged on health and quality and price, not on whether the President of the nation where it was grown has an offensive point of view.

When groups protest, we have always as a society had certain moral bounds: we used to leave out the Olympics and Sports, entertainment, and sometimes Education although that is in the past. The Arts, Sports, Music, and Education though, inevitably are tangled in politics as is Religion, for the free practice of such things is always bound up in the political milieu. Food though, outside of war time was always considered somewhat sacred, in a way : because all need food, and all need to be healthy, our wars have stayed outside grocery store doors. We have seen protests in the past, sometime regarding nothing more than price or location, or whether WalMart is robbing jobs or supporting slavery, but the ruining and spoiling of products from Israel is not even thinly veiled Anti-Semitism. It just is.

I thought to write an entry called , "Buy Israeli", thinking we could counter the boycott of Israeli products (I may myself, pick up a thing or two), but that is not the most essential solution. We need to "Buy Israeli", "Buy Palestinian", "Buy Timbuktu" or wherever: assigning value on a fine product, and letting the public make decisions regarding what they buy, from whom, and whether a boycott might be effective. One manager stated that at Trader Joes they trust their customers to make their own decisions: boycotts are by choice: we must never be forced into another's position by the removal or ruin of foodstuffs.

Whether there are Pro-Palestinian boycotts of Academics, or Inventors, or 'Walls', or Grocery Products, one basic principle should guide us all: free speech and belief as the possession of individuals, is eminent, and any given person should not be perversely held accountable for what their government does or does not do. Protest all you want, loudly even, but don't hold every US professor responsible for e.g. Obama's health care package, or policy in Afghanistan : that would be ludicrous. If it is ludicrous here, why is it not ludicrous to hold Academics and Grocers responsible for whatever policies Israel holds? Why do we condemn those policies without even hearing the other side? Professors or Parsley, the issue is the same, only in the case of groceries and food supplies, all sides must hold tight to markets being set apart, for the health and well being of all.

ekbest

The following is satire: listen carefully:

Writing on the Internet, in the 21st Century: Will we be the author of our own work?

2010-03-17T02:36:00.000-05:00

My blog is not always timely these days: we live in a small town (under 30,000) and the idea of writing on the internet is not exactly a respected endeavor. If I operated a crane, or ran the ferry, or maybe even taught, then perhaps I would be more respected. Instead, I have to wait sometimes days beyond a deadline for writing until I can actually access my own accounts without some nightmare daily hacking accounts, keylogging passwords, ruining hours of writing etc, with law enforcement doing very little to stop it. When three of our drives were fried, nothing was done, though over 160 gigs of files were lost. The line goes in and out here, and it is difficult to use the laptop without a tiny rectangular arrowed box appearing letting me know I am not alone

the world. Lately, even hundreds of files disappeared off my current drives, representing thousands of hours of work, and nothing is done. I have to constantly correspond more than is usual with my hosting companies on sites not because I do not know how to manage a reseller account but because some clever child or older hacker has gotten ahold of passwords and changed them. Paragraphs have been erased, articles of speech, lengthy fluid sentences have been rewritten to be short, moronic and choppy, artwork ruined, blurred, pixelated, and occasionally much older versions of my recently updated pages have replaced the better ones.

Among other ruinous activity, I have had columns changed to the opposite point of view, and one blog I write on textual issues on Jewish terms in Modern Bible translations, which is dependent on use of the KJV, had the scripture references changed to a modern, much poorer 'paraphrase', the TEV.

Some one has set up some software bypass, and circumvents my first save on files I construct or write, so that to be sure I must save multiple copies. In the process of designing webpages, my HTML and CSS has been erased or badly tampered with. Recently some dear one went through my pages on shoaheducation.com, and changed all links to an unreadable font variant. Recent style updates have been erased or deleted and replaced by some from 1999!

A week or two ago, someone hacked my email and wrote as though they were me to try and illegally gain a password, and invite people to my work, whom I would never remotely work with (I only found out by the date and time, when I was not even awake). One pastor whom I never had as a pastor but met over 20 years ago claimed he had written everything on my sites! One dear fellow so massively exhausted bandwidth on warsofisrael.com, that it went off the net for awhile. As director of shoaheducation.com, I used to run a forum for questions, answers and issues on the Holocaust, including a section on obituaries and memorials for holocaust survivors who had recently died. That section was so bombarded with casino, viagra and even soft porn ads, that I had to close down the forum because I could not block enough IPs.

A well known 'Ministry' (quotes are quite intentional) in the Chicago area was the source of an indexing virus a few years ago, diagnosed by a well known site-diagnostics site. Members of that fine organization as well as a couple of church members we had met in the past and a few others, decided they could show up in the vicinity, and 'finagle' (their word) recently researched and written files, i.e. steal my hard work, because in their minds, they were 'better people' to represent the work, as though it was some church quilting bee. One nightmare went through several of my sites erasing copyright notices, I suppose so they could fabricate others.

When I began having difficulties with my writing staying the same as I had left it upon publication, I began making audio and pdf downloads of the first writings, the authentic copies, but one very clever devil found out where they were stored, and made pdf copies of the dissensioned copies, and overwrote my authentic copies. One dear soul went around telling everyone my sites were 'open source' and that anyone could work on them and the result was the utter ruin of one of the sites.

A group of ill behaved children, and some housewives we met, took my blogs, made copies, whited out my name of already published materials, and then sold them as their own, and then hacked and erased the online copy. A few years ago, a criminal, in my view, went through my section on concentration camps and removed every last '0' in statistics and figures. Despite all of the above, and much more if one can believe it, the sites and blogs have grown and become useful, with the main site now #1 under the key terms "shoah education" on Google for several years. And what happened as the sites soared in popularity? People from all points in my life: former colleagues (who do not believe as I do) claimed they should be the director, former pastors and church members, persons from a homeless shelter (kid you not) and even family members and vague acquaintances, along with a few 'celebrities' and well known ministries all decided that the 20,000 hours , time and money, and research were of no account next to their 'ego' and desire to takeover the work in an untimely and unfriendly way.

Writing on the Internet :Hazards fo Keeping one's own work
Now before this column is seen as a self-serving 'pity party' one should realize that while not all experience quite the assault on free speech that we have, the examples of attacks above are repeated daily, over and over , but particularly to people and organizations that are a)controversial, and b)worth the war.

I write clearly and reasonably, but I am not among the best writers in the world today: what some very well known writers are experiencing has caused a number of them (who will remain nameless) to either give up writing for awhile or do a 'slow code' and lose their original passion for their craft. The lady who wrote the Harry Potter series, I understand, has to keep manuscripts locked in a vault, as do many of the most successful writers. Theft of manuscripts, hard copies, is not new in Publishing: Tolkien, in order to keep his stories intact before publication, wrote in long hand in runes before having them typed, and C.S. Lewis wrote out such wonders as 'Chronicles of Narnia' long hand on legal pads. If they had continued today on the net, they probably would have found every 5th page missing, or paragraphs skewed to another's beliefs. Computer thieves today have become so clever, that they can sedition and download material from a remote location even in safe mode, offline, depending on the degree of the 'cyber-espionage'.

The internet though, particularly blogging and websites are in a few ways very good places to put a first draft if one can keep an autosave function going, because the minute a fixed work is established, such as a blog published, the exact time down to the second or beyond is established, which is extremely helpful in establishing copyright. The trouble is, one needs to backup and support of a good hosting company or server, many of who are overtaxed with picayune requests for restoring blog entries, earlier versions which were before tampering, password resets etc, and yet to prove a work is yours, one may need that cooperation very badly.

If a work is really good, or establishes, e.g. a 'template' for alot of later works, then an even more serious event comes into play, and those of us who have had some of those 'very good ideas' become plankton for the cyber-whales floating around the net, who see everything as their 'imminent domain', even intellectual property. Writing is becoming so hazardous on the net, that there are noticeably smaller attempts at publishing creative works or inventive works. The truth is, one must be cautious because without vigilance, what is a direct result of an individual author's hard work, can be taken over without even a court hearing. Why? Because most people do not know the law governing their work, and because most courts even today have only a vague sense of internet law.

Many authors can hold on to their work, by remembering this one suggestion: local courts: municipal, county, and even circuit may not be able to hear cases involving websites since they rest on the "world wide web" across state and national boundaries, so even if a lower court finds against you because of the 'mirror tricks' some may play with your work, a higher court may be the only legal territory for hearing cases that involve internet accounts, intellectual property, bandwidth leasing, emails and statistics, all of which may generate from a different state or nation.

Will we be the author of our own work?

The frightening truth is, though, and I wish I had known back in 1997, that when the largest of corporations do not want your site on the net for whatever reason, resting on the idyllic notion of 'fair play' is moronic. Only Google has the motto "Don't be Evil"---the rest don't have mottos, and as Google becomes bigger and bigger, with no real competition, and when its founders no longer guide the company, the 'don't' may fade with Page and Brin.

Some of the larger groups that swallow others are WordPress, Microsoft, Disney, former universities and school systems, educational publishers such as Pearson and Gale and McGraw Hill, large search engines, TV Channels, and other elements of media, and one of the worst are groups involved in organized crime. They know how to take a marginally successful website and market it to make thousands of dollars. ( One fellow a few years ago wanted to sell my site to a Casino for the basis of a gambling game. )

I have mentioned only a few methods that were used against my writing, that effectually kept me from exercising basic first ammendment rights for lengthy portions of time. I did not include, viruses, malware, software, sedition of hardware, erasure of seemingly permanant disks, overwriting original files moronically with the same 20 or so files to make it look like that is all an author wrote, etc. Or calls to your publisher, or hosting company, or Search engines, or Domain Name registrars to try and pirate sites. Or massive FTP ing to make it look like someone was regularly on your site with your knowledge when you were trying to keep them off.

The Solution

One solution exists, and law and the enforcement of internet law is at its foundation: THE DOMAIN NAME REGISTRANT must ALWAYS be seen as the creator and copyright holder FIRST unless otherwise noted or proved in a court of law, with the registrant present, the billing agent present (usually the same), the hosting company if used, present, and possibly ICANN representation and/or a federal or other expert who can uncover date changes, erased files, identify transfers of data, switched motherboards or routers etc. It has to be. Has to, or we all can capriciously lose our work at the whim of anyone. Copyright registrations are less reliable than DNS Registrations online, because the domain name is a form of guarantee that the domain name Registrant is legally reponsible for whatever is published at his address on his space. The DNS REGISTRANT governs the work, not the hosting company, or a search engine, or any mega- internet corporation, and if he or she claims the work is his or hers, as long as it has not been of a length on the net before at another well known location, then the REGISTRANT has to be seen as the creator of the work if so stated until proven elsewise in court. Anyone can turn in a copyright form and forge a creator's signature or leave it out. A copyright registration is ONLY a notice to the US Fed. Gov. Copyright office that one owns the copyright: actual copyright is established by the creator of a work making the work 'fixed'. A DNS Registrant with dated and timed uploads of their material has a far greater likelihood of being the copyright holder, than one who fraudulently sends in paperwork which is useless when walking into court. One has to be able to and given the right to prove the work is theirs if questioned, or else we will have corporate giants huffing up our lesser sites, as though we had worked for them without pay sometimes for as many as 13 years.

If writers are forced off the net because of unpopular views, or because they cannot access their work half the time, or because Google or Yahoo might be court ordered to turn over their whereabouts endanging life and family, then the first ammendment is gone. Being 'slow coded' or harassed online to the point that the work which appears does not reflect the high quality of an author's work, is no different than just flat out denying freedom of speech and freedom of the practice of religion. Will there be writers willing to speak out in the next generation?

ekb

We Support ADL's STAND UP FOR ISRAEL PROJECT

2010-03-05T16:30:00.000-06:00

The SeditionAct.blogspot.com and Shoaheducation.com supports "Stand Up For Israel " program on college campuses, this week and last from March 1-14, 2010.

Without knowledge, many campuses are succumbing to veiled anti-Semitic ovetones in pro-Palestinian protests portraying Israel as anything from the new Nazis to a new Apartheid against palestinians, and the movement has included boycott of Israeli businesses, suppliers, and even academics. Most of the the campaign is successful due to a lack of knowledge about Israeli and World History since 1948. Israelis were not imperialists pushing Palestinians off their homeland of centuries: they were given the land as a spoil of war, by the United Nations, with a majority of nations in agreement, by vote. The regions were governed not by palestinians at the time, but by Turks, the French, the British and others, and the consolidation of land grants and borders were worked out legally by international treaty.

Even during the Holocaust, both Jews and Palestinians lived in the area and have for centuries. While immigration all but ceased for a few years, both legal and illegal immigration continued pre-,during and post-Shoah. The conflicts between Jews and Palestinians has dated back across the millennium, as even the name 'Palestine' and 'Palestinian' comes from the root of the word 'Philistine'.

It is critical to see the conflict as a reinstitution of justice and workable international borders, instead of 'Israeli imperialism' which is a serious misnomer, since at the end of WWII and the time of Israeli Independence in '48, there was not yet even an established Israeli army and Israeli still faced conflict even with allied nations in immigration in the return.

Join with us and others around the world in supporting true historical accounts and integrity in journalistic reports regarding the true circumstances in Israel. Conflict and tragedy lay on both sides, and college campuses seem an unlikely place to begin a new pogrom of intolerance.

Elizabeth Kirkley Best, PhD
Director, Shoaheducation.com
author: Seditionact.blogspot.com

Esther, Mordecai and Purim: A Thought on Jewish Self Defense

2010-02-27T01:26:00.002-06:00

The feast of Purim (meaning 'lots) is celebrated as one of the more joyous holidays of the Jewish calendar. The feast stems from the book of Esther, placed in Babylon under King Ahasuerus, who after banishing his former wife Vashti because she refuses to dance before some rather drunken and lewd royal pals, is exiled, which in those days was a great mercy, since she could have been killed. Ahasuerus in Shushan, decides to hold an extended beauty pageant for the next queen, hopefully, I suppose looking for the kind of quality in a woman which would enable him to stay King, even at home.

The story of Purim and Esther, began back in Jerusalem during the siege by Nebuchadnezzar which would carry the Jews into exile in Babylon, killing many, and ransacking even the Temple of Solomon, melting the gold within the mortar of the walls of the city. While a number of priests and others are mentioned in the return, it is primarily children, mostly children of nobles which are mentioned as heroic while in captivity, including Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego, and Esther who was young as well.

Esther had lost her parents in the siege, but lived at the time with her Uncle Mordecai, a stalwart believer who would not bow down by knee or heart to the pagans, though keeping a firm respect for the ordained office of the King. When Ahasuerus banished Vashti and the call went out to find the most beautiful women in the kingdom and bring them to the palace at Shushan, no one suspected any Jewish girl in exile would become queen of the most powerful kingdom on earth. The young Hadassah, living with Mordecai, had little choice in the matter and was taken to live in the Palace for a year of ‘preparation’ to be offered before the King as a potential queen.

Living as a young Jewish woman in the midst of a pagan culture was no small feat, but she found great favor among those who attended the contenders for the crown. Finding great favor at the hands of Ahasuerus, the beautiful Esther was chosen as Queen.

In the courts, one of the richest men was a fellow named Haman, who had no love for anyone other than himself much less the Jews. Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman at one point, infuriating the wealthy and imminent courtier. The stage was set for the second round of a very old conflict: Haman was and Agagite, and Mordecai was from the line of Benjamin,

Esther 2:5 (Whole Chapter)
Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite

After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him.3:1

To summarize the story rather quickly, Esther does not in the beginning reveal that her people are the Jews. Haman becomes incensed at Mordecai, because he will not bow down, and Mordecai, because he saves the King from a conspiracy of assassination, gains favor in the palace, further infuriating Haman. Haman plots to do away with Mordecai and the Jews, and begins to fashion a noose for Mordecai, and pays an enormous sum to the King if he will allow Haman’s proposed declaration to kill the Jews for a set time.

8And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them.

9If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries.

The God of Israel however has quite different plans for his people and has already moved his people into position, so that the Jews might be saved from the slaughter. Without knowing it, Ahasuerus’ favored queen is a Jew; his rescuer is a ‘certain Jew’; and the people of Israel in exile are ready to pray a warfare the likes of which Babylon has never seen.

The declaration is announced:

3:13And the letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.

When the Jews and most of Shushan hear, they are ‘perplexed’ and Mordecai comes to Esther in the palace pleading with her to intervene with the King, who still does not know she was Jewish. Terrified, for approaching the King without permission can mean death, the nation of Jews sets to pray, and Esther intercedes for her people, inviting the King and Haman to a banquet. Esther reveals that she is one of the people Haman is seeking to destroy, and in the end it is Haman hanged on his own gallows, and while the King according to the laws of Persia cannot undo a decree, he offers an equal edict, that the Jews may arm themselves and defend themselves.

There is not nearly the battle expected, but still over 75,000 were slaughtered in self defense and in the end the Jews won. Joy and feasting follow, and the commemoration is set forever, on the heels of the return from Exile.

On Jews Defending Themselves

Now, the reason for the rambling synopsis of the Book of Esther, and the feast of Purim which is upon us, is to note a few very important things which still affect us today. The Hamans of history have not ceased, and since the time in which Esther was written, the Jews have confronted one demonized leader after another who have sought to destroy them, just because they are the Jews.

No sooner had the Jews returned to Israel, then Sanballat, Gesham and Tobiah tried to slander them, ruin their work, destroy them and take over from within. A few years down the line, the Maccabees would be fighting again those who would try and destroy them, and the worship of the God of Israel. Both times, the Jews fought back, all the while building Israel, a sword in one hand, a stone in the other.

By the first century a.d., Rome was occupying Israel, and killing many, eventually overthrowing Jerusalem in 70 a.d. The Jews were dispersed to history, remaining a people, but time after time facing tyrants, pogroms, destructions and boycotts, anti-Semitism never far in the distance. In 313 ad the emperor Constantine banished Jews from the kingdom in the Edict of Milan, but instituting tolerance for everyone else.

Down through the years, the Jews suffered violence, accused of blood libel, victims of Luther’s call to burn their synagogues, barred from professions, villages burned and pillaged, and continuing on until the advent of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich. However, since the days of the Maccabees, or perhaps as late as Bar Kochba in 135, the world has had some sort of bizarre expectation that the Jews, because they are the Jews, should just take destruction after destruction with a grain of salt, and look the other way, failing to attribute to themselves any right whatsoever to defend themselves in a pagan world.

In the Shoah, the circumstances were a bit different, because to raise arms against the Nazis meant the further death of their own innocents. That tragic dilemma was couple by the Nazi’s coupe of ‘unbelieveability’ ; they could not fathom that the Killing Centers and cruelties of literally ‘farming’ human beings could have existed in the 20^th century in a Western culture. Nonetheless, the few attempts at ‘fighting back’ such as the Bielski brothers or the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising did little more than bloody the battle further, although they stand as noble attempts to refuse to die without cause.

As the Jews returned to Israel after the war, there was no less opposition: even those siding with the Jews for a Jewish homeland had a wink in their eye and fingers crossed behind their back, and as soon as they were in the Land, kissing the ground for the long awaited fulfillment of the covenant, they were besieged by surrounding arab nations with 27 million persons willing to continue the Final Solution, and nations around the world lining up on both sides, as the wars of Israel in the 20^th century began.

Here in the year 2010, as we enter the time of Purim, as Synagogues all over the world stage Purim plays with noisemakers, booing Haman, and cheering Mordecai, it is important to consider how we approach the whole idea of Israel ‘fighting back’.

When other nations are persecuted, we may not like their defensive efforts but we certainly understand them. When Israel is persecuted, the media worldwide goes into a feeding frenzy, and college campuses, one of the major seats of Pro-Palestinianism, cry for boycotts and hurl epithets at Israeli police and military for their brutal conduct in self defense. This nation, of a few million, recovering from the loss of 1/3^rd of its people worldwide in horrific deaths, surrounded by hostile nations, regularly bombed in Siderot and elsewhere, cannot be imagined by many to have any right to defend itself.

The US stands currently in defense of Israel publicly at least, but our interest is oil and strategy: Israel is key in the Mideast. We are not as much defending Israel as we are safeguarding our own interests. When Israel’s interests and ours do not coincide, the

will fail to be any more conciliatory to them than any other.

In the past few years, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) has stood as watchdogs to defend Israeli scholars who are being boycotted for not being more verbal in opposition to Israeli military and police actions. No other country though is ever confronted with the boycotting of their scholars because of what national leaders or the army decides. Can one imagine if that happened in the US? “I’m sorry, University of Florida, U of Wisconsin, Harvard, Wheaton, or wherever, but you cannot attend our conferences and present your papers or publish in our journals because Obama is continuing the war in Afghanistan.”

Such a position would be seen as ludicrous. Yet boycotts of scholars and Israeli companies and services are occurring with uncomfortable frequency because, bottom line, they are daring to defend themselves.

There will be no doubt the occasional officer or soldier who as in every nation, does something atrocious. In other nations though, we do not use broadstrokes against an entire country or ‘estate’ because of the action of a single or a few incidents.

Fair press coverage is essential to protect the lives of this country desiring peace. Affording Israel the same benefit of the doubt we give other nations is also essential to preventing conflict. Israel is not imperialistic in the same way any number of other nations are. Since the setting of their borders by the UN, they have been more than conciliatory in making accommodations with Palestinians, but the land is legally theirs: it was not ‘confiscated’ as their property was in Europe, it was not annexed, it was not gained by slaughter, it was legally given them by members of the United Nations. Legally.

As Mordecai could not change the King’s edict that Haman paid for, neither can we change Anti-Semitism in the world today. We can, however, allow them the grace to defend themselves that we allow everyone else, on this feast of Purim.