August 26, 2007
May the Wrath of Allah descend upon thy Mullet!
At last, some good new out of Iran!
It seems a fatwah of sorts has been declared on bad hairdos. For several years now, I have been writing the White House petitioning they do the same, providing detailed specifics on the monstrosities I have seen of late but they always reply with some goobledy-gook about "democracy" and all that. Go figure.
People are always complaining about the totalitarian nature of theocracies, but I ASK YOU, doesn't this make perfect social aesthetic sense?
From Breibart.com:
Iran has shut down barber shops offering unconventional Western hair styles amid a police crackdown on dress deemed un-Islamic, reports said.
"Over the past 15 days, 13 barbers' shops that had not respected the union's directives have been closed down," police commander Mohammad Ali Najafi said.
He told the Etemad daily that the barbers' union had banned eyebrow-plucking for men as well as "deviant Western styles".
...
Tehran's barbers' union said in April that police had issued a directive forbidding its members from giving men offbeat hairstyles. The directive also banned the use of cosmetics in male salons.
Shoulder-length, spiky or heavily gelled styles for men have long angered Iran's religious conservatives.
The Iranian Ministry of Hair has released the following photo as a guideline for divivnely acceptable hair-do's:
Posted by sdf at 11:31 AM | Comments (1)
December 19, 2006
Announcement: New Discussion Forum Unleashed!
Greetings Boy, Girls and Illuminati!
We're happy to announce the opening of a new Theology Discussion Forum. The prior forum has been completely cleaned out and we started from scratch. Our trained moderators are standing by to help with any discussions you may want to join or start.
You can find the New Discussion Forum Here!
Enjoy!
Posted by sdf at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2006
Presbyterians revisit the Trinity
From the Associated Press:BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The divine Trinity--"Father, Son and Holy Spirit"--could also be known as "Mother, Child and Womb" or "Rock, Redeemer and Friend" at some Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) services under an action Monday by the church's national assembly.
Delegates to the meeting voted to "receive" a policy paper on gender-inclusive language for the Trinity, a step short of approving it. That means church officials can propose experimental liturgies with alternative phrasings for the Trinity, but congregations won't be required to use them.
"This does not alter the church's theological position, but provides an educational resource to enhance the spiritual life of our membership," legislative committee chairwoman Nancy Olthoff, an Iowa laywoman, said during Monday's debate on the Trinity.
The assembly narrowly defeated a bid to refer the paper back for further study.
A panel that worked on the issue since 2000 said the classical language for the Trinity should still be used, but added that Presbyterians also should seek "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" to "expand the church's vocabulary of praise and wonder."
One reason is that language limited to the Father and Son "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women," the panel said.
Conservatives responded that the church should stick close to the way God is named in the Bible and noted that Jesus' most famous prayer was addressed to "Our Father."
Early in Monday's business session, the Presbyterian assembly sang a revised version of a familiar doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," that avoided male nouns and pronouns for God.
Youth delegate Dorothy Hill, a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, said she was uncomfortable with changing the Trinity wording. She said the paper "suggests viewpoints that seem to be in tension with what our church has always held to be true about our Trinitarian God."
Hill reminded delegates that the 10 Commandments say "the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."
Rev. Deborah Funke of Montana warned that the paper would be "theologically confusing and divisive" at a time when the denomination of 2.3 million members faces other issues.
On Tuesday, the assembly is to vote on a proposal to give local congregations and regional presbyteries some leeway on ordaining clergy and lay officers living in gay relationships.
Ten conservative Presbyterian groups have warned jointly that approval would "promote schism by permitting the disregard of clear standards of Scripture."
Posted by sdf at 10:33 AM | Comments (5)
New Episcopalian leader says homosexuality no sin
From Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.
Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.
Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.
"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.
"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."
Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening to break away.
Posted by sdf at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)
May 18, 2006
Pat Robertson: God Says Tsunami Possible For U.S. This Year
From the Associated Press:
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The Rev. Pat Robertson says God has told him that storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year.
The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network has told viewers of "The 700 Club" that the revelations came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.
"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8.
He added specifics in Wednesday's show.
"There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest," he said.
Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months for suggesting that U.S. agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip.
Let's wait and see if Robertson "heard the Lord right"...
Posted by sdf at 07:48 AM | Comments (13)
April 18, 2006
Map of US Denominational/Religious Populations
The website American Ethnic Geography offers some interesting graphical maps depicting the religious and denominational breakdown of the USA. There are over 25 maps ranging from the general percentage of "religious adherents" per county (shown here in reduced size) to the the Amish distribution throughout the USA. They are quite informative and eye-opening.
Check it out: (click map to visit site)
Posted by sdf at 01:45 PM
December 28, 2005
Liberal Orthodoxy & Intelligent Design
An excellent article by Colorado University Law Professor Paul Campos in Rocky Mountain News
Orthodoxy of a liberal sortA sure sign that a belief system has triumphed over its opponents is that it stops thinking of itself as a belief system at all. Instead it becomes "what every rational person knows to be the case," or "simple common sense," or, more concisely still, "the truth." In other words, the truly orthodox never think of themselves as orthodox. This allows them to crush all dissent to their orthodoxy with a good conscience, since what reasonable objection could there be to sincere attempts to stamp out self-evident falsehoods? Thus we have just been treated to the remarkable spectacle of liberals shouting hosannas to the heavens in praise of a federal court ruling that makes it illegal to even mention the existence of a dissenting point of view in a public school classroom. The court held that a Dover, Pa., school board violated the Constitution when it mandated that a short statement be read at the beginning of the school year to ninth-grade science classes.
The statement noted that students are required to learn Darwin's theory of evolution; that there are gaps in the evidence for this theory; that an alternative theory called intelligent design exists; that the school library contains a book that students may consult if they wish to learn about this dissenting point of view; and that they are encouraged to keep an open mind about theories in general.
Judge John E. Jones ruled that reading this statement violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because doing so advances "a particular version of Christianity." Let's be clear about what this ruling means. According to Jones, it's against the law for a public school science teacher to mention that intelligent design theory exists, except, one supposes, for the purpose of immediately declaring it to be "not science, but religion."
Another interesting feature of orthodoxy is that it tends to cause a species of mental retardation in otherwise intelligent people. Consider some of the justifications put forward for the proposition that it's a great day for truth, justice and the American way when a federal court makes it illegal for teachers to mention the existence of a dissenting point of view to their students:
• Science has refuted theories such as intelligent design, because science is based on the postulate that theories such as intelligent design cannot be true. It says a great deal about the power of orthodox thought that many people of normal intelligence are apparently incapable of seeing what's wrong with this argument. To quote the philosopher Bertrand Russell: "The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages. They are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil."
• Intelligent design is not a scientific theory, because it cannot be refuted. This claim is true only in the trivial sense that no scientific theory can be refuted from within the theory itself. Consider the theory of naturalism, which undergirds the argument in the previous paragraph. Naturalism assumes that all events have natural causes. Is there any evidence that could refute this theory in the eyes of someone who adheres to it? Obviously not, since any evidence such a person examines will always and already be interpreted within a framework that excludes the possibility of a supernatural cause.
• Metaphysical orthodoxies about the origins of life, the universe, and everything become something other than a form of religious belief when you use the word "science" instead of the word "God." Even more preposterously, it's asserted that requiring one particular form of metaphysical orthodoxy to be presented in public schools as The Truth allows the government to maintain "neutrality" toward religion.
But, as has been noted in another context, no one ever expects the Spanish Inquistion
Posted by sdf at 01:40 AM | Comments (3)
December 15, 2005
And For His Grand Finale...
From the Sioux City Journal
Illusionist puts wine-from-water and other biblical accounts to the test
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Nashville illusionist Brock Gill never figured Jesus for a master magician.
As an evangelical Christian, Gill always accepted the biblical accounts of Jesus' miracles as just that -- miracles.
But when the BBC asked him to travel to the Holy Land to investigate whether Jesus could have used magic, hypnotism or some other trick to create the illusion of miracles, Gill couldn't refuse.
"I've always been fascinated by miracles, ever since I was a kid reading the Bible stories," says Gill, host of the three-hour special, "Miracles of Jesus," which will be shown on the Discovery Channel on Christmas Eve.
At the outset, the show makes clear he's a Christian. But Gill says he had to set aside his personal beliefs and approach such stories as the raising of the dead and walking on water with an open mind.
"Before I got into really doing the investigation, I did research on some of the skeptics' views and there were some quite convincing ideas. It rattled me a little bit," says Gill, a 30-year-old with a religion degree from East Texas Baptist University. "I thought, 'I really want to find the truth here."'
Producer Jean-Claude Bragard says Gill, who could be mistaken for a surfer with his soul patch beard and long blond hair, was a natural choice for host. Gill's act includes levitation, escaping from a sealed coffin filled with water and making coins multiply.
"We realized we didn't need an academic to lead the program, but we needed somebody who was interested and knowledgeable about Scripture and particularly interested in the miracles," Bragard says.
The show uses interviews with scholars and dramatizations of Bible stories to examine seven miracles, including the multiplication of bread and fish, the conversion of water into wine, the raising of the dead and walking on water.
One segment questions whether Jesus could have hypnotized a large crowd to convince them he had multiplied bread and fish to feed everyone. In another, Gill sloshes across sandbars in the Sea of Galilee to see if Jesus could have appeared to walk on water by staying in the shallows.
In each case, the conclusion is that Jesus probably couldn't have tricked people into believing they had witnessed a miracle.
"Is it possible? Yes, it's possible that there was some type of trick because I was able to do it," says Gill, who turned water into wine during the show. "But most of those things used technology that he wouldn't have had. We re-created walking on water, but it took three 18-wheelers full of equipment to pull it off."
Bragard says the subject of miracles has "embarrassed" modern scholars of Jesus, adding: "The fact is, he was famous because of his miracles. The people then believed he was a miracle-worker, even his enemies."
For Gill, who mostly performs for churches and other religious groups, delving into Jesus' miracles only strengthened his faith.
"Before this year my beliefs were based just on the Bible and what my parents and pastors had told me," he says. "Now, I'm really convinced that what I'm believing is the truth."
Kudos to Gill for accepting this interesting project. We just hope they don't ask him to attempt to recreate Jesus' most climactic miracle -- at least not without a major life insurance policy.
Posted by sdf at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)
December 07, 2005
Early Christian Church Unearthed In Israeli Prison
This story has certainly impressed the archaeological world. Although originally appearing in Reuters, it has not quite made an impact in the mainstream media. (Go figure.) Here's the summary by Christian Today.
Archeaologists are excited over a find in an Israeli maximum-security prison of what they believe to be the earliest Christian church to ever be discovered in the Holy Land
A maximum-security jail just down the road from the site of the biblical Battle of Armageddon is the unlikely site of what archaeologists believe to be the oldest Christian churches discovered in the Holy Land.
The site was discovered by prisoners who were digging for possible artifacts in preparation for the construction of a new security wing.
The ruins include mosaic floors with inscriptions in ancient Greek referring to “The God Jesus Christ” and one featuring the early Christian image of two fish, with archaeologists estimating the date of the site to be somewhere in the mid-third to fourth century.
This is one of the most important finds of early Christianity,” archaeologist Yardena Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities told journalists on a tour of the excavation on Sunday, reports Reuters.
Yotam Tepper, who heads the excavation, told journalists: “This is, in Israel for sure, the earliest church.”
Mr Tepper told Israel’s Channel Two television that the discovery could help shed new light on an important period of Christianity, which was banned by the Romans until the fourth century, reports the BBC.
“Normally we have from this period in our region historical evidence from literature, not archaeological evidence,” he said. “There is no structure you can compare it to; it is a very unique find.”
One inscription on the floor makes reference to a Roman soldier who helped to pay for the mosaics, while another dedicates a table to Jesus Christ. Archaeologists suspect the Megiddo church was built to serve a local Christian community during a quiet period in the persecution often meted out to Christians in the Roman Empire.
"What is important about this find (at Megiddo) is it is in a transitional period. It is the very beginning of churches. There was not standard plan of a church,” said Yardena Alexandre.
According to Reuters, no decision has been made by the prison on what to do with the site.
Posted by sdf at 07:57 PM | Comments (1)
December 06, 2005
U.S. Jewish Leaders Agree: Christian Evangelical Right Is Dangerous
Here we go! The tide turneth on every front.
I guess the name of this game is simply: He who yells the most outrageous claim gets the most recognition.
NEW YORK, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. Jewish leaders met in New York Monday to develop a strategy for coping with the Christian conservative movement, which they see as a threat.
Led by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the men will assess what Foxman claims is Christians' goal to "Christianize America," The Washington Times reported.
In a Nov. 3 speech at an ADL function in New York, Foxman said the biggest enemies to civil liberties were the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Focus on the Family; the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund; the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association; and the Family Research Council, based in Washington.
"It's absolutely an issue," said Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia.
"They aren't using outright violence themselves," he said of the religious right. "But they are one step down from people who are ready to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their own religious outlook."
For more of Rabbi Eric Yoffie's offensive propoganda just look here
Posted by sdf at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2005
Don’t Fear the Designer: Competing philosophies and beliefs.
(By Tom Bethell)
PLEASE read this in full. This is an excellent analysis of the Intelligent Design versus Evolution argument. From National Review Online (NRO):
My new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, addresses many topics, ranging from endangered species to the alleged warfare of religion and science. But two in particular have repeatedly come up in radio interviews: global warming and intelligent design (I have chapters on both).
Most on the Right are agreed on global warming: It's mostly politics dressed up as science. But what about intelligent design?
On this, conservatives are divided. Many — dare I call them the rank and file? — are skeptical about evolution and, I sense, are willing to throw it overboard. Others — I'll call them the chattering class — think things have gone too far, and that when it comes to evolution we should show Harvard and Yale a little more respect.
George Will recently said that the Kansas Board of Education (which on Election Day voted to amend science standards in favor of intelligent design) is controlled "by the kind of conservatives who make conservatism repulsive to temperate people." Charles Krauthammer, too, wants to read evolution skeptics out of polite society.
But more than snobbish disdain will be needed to deal with the facts and arguments put forward by the proponents of intelligent design.
George Will tells us that evolution is a fact. Is it? It depends on what you mean by evolution. Add an antibiotic to a dish of bacteria, so that some die and some survive, and bacterial resistance may be seen. This is said to illustrate natural selection — Charles Darwin's great discovery and claim to fame — and, therefore, evolution in action. Charles Krauthammer is pleased to tell us that the advocates of intelligent design "admit" that natural selection "explains such things as the development of drug resistance."
Petri Politics
But what actually happens in the Petri dish? Some of the bacteria are naturally equipped with enzymes that give them immunity to the antibiotic. So they survive, while most of the bacteria die. Nutrients remain in the dish, and the resistant strain now has an ample food supply and multiplies. Before, it could hardly compete with the far more abundant strain, now wiped out. So the (pre-existing) resistant strain becomes more numerous. There is a multiplication of something that already existed. But as the famous geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan said about 100 years ago — he spent years studying fruit flies at Columbia University and was rewarded with the Nobel Prize — evolution means making new things, not more of what already exists.Nonetheless, if you define evolution as a change of gene ratios, well, yes, there has been such a change of ratios in the population of bacteria. So, if your definition of evolution is sufficiently modest, then you can call evolution a fact. Others define evolution as "change over time." That's a fact, too.
But we know perfectly well that, to its devotees, evolution means something much more than that.
We are expected to believe — and I do mean believe — that evolution answers the important question: How did life, in all its abundance, appear on Earth? By the slow, successive modification of pre-existing forms, Darwin said. Go back far enough, to one of those warm little ponds Darwinians assume must have existed, and we would find that life started of its own accord from nothing in particular. Over the eons, atoms and molecules whirled themselves into ever more complicated structures. Eventually the best and brightest acquired consciousness, and started to ask: "How did we get here?" The usual answer was: "We seem to have been intelligently designed." Then others replied: "Oh, no, no, no, we all started in a warm little pond, way back."
Just the Facts
Whom to believe? Or maybe we should approach it more scientifically: What are the facts?If we discount trivial examples like bacterial resistance or "change over time" or small changes in beak size among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, we don't know very much about evolution at all. We don't see it happening around us, or in the rocks.
In my book, I quote Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, telling a professional audience at the American Museum in New York that there was "not one thing" he knew about evolution. He had asked the evolutionary-morphology seminar at the University of Chicago if there was anything they knew about it, and, he said: "The only answer I got was silence."
Patterson, who died a few years ago, was an atheist and once told me that he regarded the Bible as "a pack of lies." There was no way he could be accused of Biblical primitivism. People would ask him, with a note of alarm, "Well, you do believe in evolution, don't you?" He would respond that science wasn't supposed to be a system of belief.
So let's look at the evidence adduced for evolution. The fossil record is sparse. Bats, for example — the only mammals capable of powered flight — appear suddenly in the fossil record, with their sonar systems already fully developed. "There are no half bats," as a world expert on bats once said. The experts have no idea what animal gave rise to the first bat.
The creatures that evolution purports to explain are fantastically complex. The cell, thought at the time of Darwin to be a "simple little lump of protoplasm," is as complicated as a high-tech factory. We have no actual evidence that it evolved — and yet we are asked, indeed obliged, to believe that it did.
In the human body, there are 300 trillion cells, and each "knows" what part it must play in the growing organism. To this day, embryologists have no idea how this happens — even though they have been trying to figure it out for 150 years.
Imagine an automobile company that came out with a new model that could do the remarkable things that living creatures do. How amazed we would be! The car would be able to repair itself, if not damaged too badly. Dent it and, in a few days, the dent is gone. It needs to rest for a few hours every day but it can keep going for 80 years on bread and water, with perhaps vegetables thrown in. And it can hook up with another version of the same automobile, and produce in a few months' time new, tiny versions of itself, which will then grow up to full-size autos with the ability to reproduce in turn.
We have been unable to do anything remotely like this in the lab. Yet we are surrounded by lowly creatures that do these things every day — and we express no amazement. We have been trained to be blasé about the marvels of creation. "Oh, evolution did that," we say. "It was just a matter of random mutation; nothing surprising there." "These things arose by accident and were selected for."
That phrase — "it was selected for" — is regarded as a sufficient explanation for . . . everything. The same mundane phrase is given as the explanation for everything under the sun. How did the bats get sonar? "It arose by an accidental mutation of the genes and was selected for. Next question?" How did the eye develop? "Piecemeal. There was a random mutation and it conferred an advantage so it was selected for. Then the same thing happened over and over again. Next question?" How did the camel get its hump? "Random mutations conferred some advantage and so they were selected for. Next question?"
This is the science before which all knees must bend? These explanations are no better than "Just-So stories" (as one or two Harvard professors have rightly said). No actual digging in the dirt is needed: The theorist merely contemplates the trait in question and makes up a plausible story as to how it might have been advantageous.
We fear questioning the evolutionist dogma. Someone might call us fanatical. "Intemperate" was the word George Will used. So we go along with the dogmas of materialism, lest we be considered ignorant or uneducated or driven by a religious agenda.
Charles Krauthammer tells us that Isaac Newton was religious and if he saw no conflict between science and religion, why can't we take our thin gruel of evolutionary science like good children and be satisfied, without dragging a Designer into the picture?
Because it isn't real science, Charles. Newton, in fact, thought that the "most beautiful system" of sun, planets, and comets could "only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." But the laws of physics that govern these motions are simplicity itself compared with the immense complexity of the biological machinery that governs the development, proliferation, growth, and aging of millions of reproductive species. These mechanisms have yet to be discovered or described. To believe that the feeble tautology of natural selection — laissez-faire political economy from the 1830s imported into biology — constitutes a sufficient explanation of the marvels of nature is to display a credulity that makes our fundamentalists seem sagacious by comparison.
George Will has made one accurate criticism of the idea he so dislikes: "The problem with intelligent design is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis." This is true; but he should have added that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is not falsifiable either. Darwin's claim to fame was his discovery of a mechanism of evolution; he accepted "survival of the fittest" as a good summary of his natural-selection theory. But which ones are the fittest? The ones that survive. There is no criterion of fitness that is independent of survival. Whatever happens, it is the "fittest" that survive — by definition. This, just like intelligent design, is not a testable hypothesis. As the eminent philosopher of science Karl Popper said, after discussing this problem that natural selection cannot escape: "There is hardly any possibility of testing a theory as feeble as this." Popper was the first to propose falsification as the line of demarcation between theories that are scientific and those that are not; both intelligent design and natural selection fall by this standard.
The underlying problem, rarely discussed, is that the conclusions of evolutionism are based not on science, but on a philosophy: the philosophy of materialism, or naturalism. Living creatures, including human beings, are here on Earth, and we got here somehow. If atoms and molecules in motion are all that exist, then their random interactions must account for everything that exists, including us. That is the true underpinning of Darwinism. What needs to be examined in detail is not so much the religion behind intelligent design as the philosophy behind evolution.
But that is a sermon for another day.
Posted by sdf at 10:16 PM | Comments (4)
Theologians to ask Pope to suspend limbo
Holy Purgatory!!
Here's Reuters:
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Limbo -- the place where the Catholic Church teaches that babies go if they die before being baptized -- may have its days numbered.
According to Italian media reports on Tuesday, an international theological commission will advise Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.
The Catholic Church teaches that babies who die before they can be baptized go to limbo, whose name comes from the Latin for "border" or "edge," because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.
Last October, seven months before he died, Pope John Paul asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocents.
It was then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected Pope in April. It is now headed by his successor at the Vatican's doctrinal department, Archbishop William Levada, an American from San Francisco.
The commission, which has been meeting behind closed doors, may make its recommendation soon.
In his Divine Comedy, Dante passes limbo on his way into hell and writes: "Great grief seized on my own heart when this I heard, because some people of much worthiness I knew, who in limbo were suspended."
Posted by sdf at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2005
The Nation's First Arabic Christian TV Channel
This story caught my eye. Its an excellent example of contemporary outreach strategy. If you are interested in supporting an effective ministry aimed at Muslims living in the United States, this may be an excellent opportunity. From the Washington Times:
Arabic Christian TV channel getting attention
The founder of the nation's first Arabic Christian TV channel says the programming is attracting phone inquiries from curious Muslims.
The Southern California-based channel Alkarma, whose name means "the vineyard" in Arabic, premiered Oct. 17. It is the brainchild of Samuel Estefanos, an Egyptian-born businessman. The channel gets 10 to 15 calls a day from Arabic speakers with Muslim surnames who are intrigued that Alkarma would give away a movie known as the "Jesus Film" and other materials.
"Some of them call and say they are Muslims and need to know more about Christ," Mr. Estefanos said. "Other people are Christians but say they don't know anything about Christ. In the Middle East, even though if your religion says 'Christian' on your identity card, that does not mean that you know Christ."
Mr. Estefanos invested about $200,000, much of it his own money, to purchase airtime and equipment for the 24-hour channel. The station still needs about $40,000 a month to operate. Total contributions so far total about $10,000 a month. "I know this is a great station," he said, "and we are doing more productions. We are seeking to build a good foundation so we can grow more. I believe God will provide and we'll keep on going."
He estimates there are 35 Arabic-language TV channels airing nationally, but none of them were Christian until Alkarma began. The channel, which reaches about a million Arabic speakers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is slowly attracting advertisers. "It's great," he said. "Some people call us and cry on the phone. They say, 'We knew Christ through this channel.' People send us e-mails and leave phone messages."
The channel is one of 25 Arabic-language channels on the GlobeCast World TV satellite, which has 130 radio and TV channels in more than 30 languages. Alkarma, based in Seal Beach, Calif., is part of the nonprofit Media Dream. Its Web site is www.alkarmatv.com.
Mr. Estefanos, who emigrated here seven years ago, said he began dreaming of such a station 15 years ago after he graduated from college in Egypt in 1990. Beginning in 2002, he said, God began directing him to start Alkarma. He has had to produce seven original programs in Arabic. One is named "Virtuous Women"; another is called "The Healing Touch"; a third is called "God and Christianity"; and an interview show is called "Where is the Truth?"
"There are no debates between religions," he said. "Our goals are focused on two things: providing solid biblical teaching and programs for the family." Its Arabic programs are in various Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Egyptian dialects. The channel also airs some English programming for children plus portions of "The 700 Club" from the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Posted by sdf at 05:42 PM | Comments (6)
November 19, 2005
Jewish Leader Blasts 'Religious Right'
Here's one of the leading Jewish leaders in America complaining that the evangelical Church is akin to Hitler and are "zealots claiming a monopoly on God". Yes, you heard that right. A Jew is claiming that conservative Christianity is conspiring to steal the Judeo-Christian God away from him in a Nazi-esque way. What next?
Associated Press HOUSTON - The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God" while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."
"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday.
The audience of 5,000 responded to the speech with enthusiastic applause.
Yoffie did not mention evangelical Christians directly, using the term "religious right" instead. In a separate interview, he said the phrase encompassed conservative activists of all faiths, including within the Jewish community.He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children.
"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."
The Union for Reform Judaism represents about 900 synagogues in North America with an estimated membership of 1.5 million people. Of the three major streams of U.S. Judaism _ Orthodox and Conservative are the others _ it is the only one that sanctions gay ordination and supports civil marriage for same-gender couples.
Yoffie said liberals and conservatives share some concerns, such as the potential damage to children from violent or highly sexual TV shows and other popular media. But he said, overall, conservatives too narrowly define family values, making a "frozen embryo in a fertility clinic" more important than a child, and ignoring poverty and other social ills.
One attendee, Judy Weinman of Troy, N.Y., said she thought Yoffie was "right on target."
"He reminded us of where we have things in common and where we're different," she said.
Yoffie also urged lawmakers to model themselves on presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, who famously told a Houston clergy group in 1960 that a president should not make policy based on his religion.
On other topics, Yoffie asked Reform synagogues to do more to hold onto members, who often leave after their children go to college. He also said the Reform movement, which is among the most accepting of non-Jewish spouses, should make a greater effort to invite spouses to convert.
Does this guy even hear himself talking? He's guffawing during at speech at an American institution suggesting our religious tradition is comparable to the Nazi mentality. WHAT?? You can find his jovial expression and the entire transcript here.
Posted by sdf at 11:24 PM | Comments (8)
November 18, 2005
Ancient Relics Evoke Noah's Flood
This story dates back to September 2000 and appeared on ABC News at that time. I use the original articles in my Biblical Studies classes when discussing the historicity of Genesis. I hadn't thought of posting this until the recent "Goliath" discovery. But it is well worth knowing if you haven't heard of it yet.
Just to clarify, "7500 years ago" amounts to 5500 years before the birth of Christ and approximately 3500 years prior to the traditional date of Abraham's existence.
Does that sound about right for the age of Noah's Flood? You bet!
This is from the San Fransisco Chronicle (Sep 2000).
Ancient Relics Evoke Noah's Flood : 7,500-year-old house found under 300 feet of water in Black Sea
American archaeologists have found the remains of a 7,500-year-old building -- probably a house -- more than 300 feet below the surface of the Black Sea, the strongest evidence yet of a catastrophic deluge that may have been the inspiration for the Biblical account of Noah's flood.
In November, explorer Robert Ballard, famed as the discoverer of the Titanic, reported evidence of a submerged shoreline several miles from the current edge of the Black Sea and hundreds of feet below the surface.
The newly found building appears to have been on that beach.
"Now we know that people were living on that surface when (the flood) took place, because we are finding evidence of human habitation," Ballard said yesterday in a telephone interview from his ship 12 miles off the Turkish coast.
"This is amazing. It's going to rewrite the history of ancient civilizations, because it shows unequivocally that the Black Sea flood took place and that the ancient shores of the Black Sea were occupied by humans," said marine geologist William B.F. Ryan of Columbia University.
Ryan and his colleague Walter Pittman III have argued that rising waters in the Earth's oceans caused the Mediterranean Sea to crash through a natural earthen dam blocking what is now the Bosporus Strait near Istanbul.
For as long as two years, sea water from the Mediterranean poured into the Black Sea basin at 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls, eventually inundating an area the size of Florida. The heavier saltwater went to the bottom of the existing freshwater lake and began to fill the basin like a bathtub.
The scientists contended that residents who fled the area carried stories that eventually were incorporated into flood accounts that seem to permeate cultures across the globe -- such as the biblical story of Noah and the flood tale in the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh.
Ballard's team found the rectangular structure 311 feet below the sea's surface, about 12 miles east of the Turkish city of Sinop.
The material of the 39-by-13-foot structure was identified as traditional Black Sea "wattle and daub" construction: wood branches and sticks embedded in a clay matrix.
"This struck a bell, because it was familiar to me from (ancient buildings on) land," said archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania, part of Ballard's team. "Literally, my jaw dropped."
The team made the finding three days ago, in the second week of a planned five-week expedition. The expedition also found old tree branches, pieces of wood and a trash heap with polished stones and other debris indicating human habitation, Ballard said.
The team took pictures of the structure and recovered some artifacts from the site using a remote- controlled submersible called Argus that is not much bigger than a washing machine.
The artifacts were extremely well preserved for their age because the depths of the Black Sea have a very low oxygen level -- too low to support the marine worms and bacteria that would normally destroy wood, sails and other materials.
Posted by sdf at 06:11 AM | Comments (1)
Pottery says Goliath did exist
If this isn't cool, what is?
I first saw this story in the Chicago Tribune two weeks ago. Here's a similar article from News.com.au:
AN Israeli researcher said he has found the first archaeological evidence suggesting the biblical story of David slaying the Philistine giant actually took place.
A shard of pottery unearthed in a decade-old dig in southern Israel carried an inscription in early Semitic style spelling "Alwat and "Wlt", likely Philistine renderings of the name Goliath, said Aren Maeir, who directed the excavation. "This is a groundbreaking find," he said of the rust-coloured ceramic. "Here we have very nice evidence of the name Goliath appearing in the Bible in the context of the story of David and Goliath ... is not some later literary creation."
Mr Maeir, head of the archaeology department at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said his excavators found the shard, possibly part of a bowl, about 2 metres underground at Tell es-Shafi.
The mound where the dig took place is widely believed to be the site of the ancient city of Gath, which the Bible calls Goliath's home.
The biblical story of the epic Philistine giant's defeat at the hands of a much smaller David, who went on to become king of Israel, has long been a popular metaphor for the triumph of good over evil against all odds.
The specimen, from about 900 BC, isn't old enough to have belonged to Goliath, himself, who is believed to have lived around 1,000 BC, Mr Maeir said. But he added: "It is the first time in the land of Israel that we have (found) the name Goliath, or a name like Goliath".
"I haven't found Goliath's skeleton with the hole in the centre of his forehead, but it's the first archaeological evidence form a Philistine site which lends strong credibility" to the story, the US-born researcher said.
The First Book of Samuel chapter 17 verses 4 to 10 (I Sam 17:4-10) spoke of "a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath", a heavily armed giant who challenged an Israelite soldier to a duel.
David, at the time a shepherd, took up Goliath's challenge and "prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone" (Samuel I 17:50).
Mr Maeir said the shard is also the oldest Philistine inscription ever found in Israel.
"Up until now, most of what we know about the Philistines is from the Bible's point of view. ... We get a very, very subjective view. They're the bad people, the barbarians, we don't get anything nice about them," he said.
"When we look at the Philistines from an archaeological point of view we get evidence of a very rich, dynamic, fascinating and advanced culture."
Mr Maier said he spent several months verifying his find with other experts and planned to discuss it at a conference in the United States later this month.
Posted by sdf at 05:50 AM | Comments (1)
October 05, 2005
Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible
That got your attention didn't it?
In a new teaching document released by the Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland and aimed at both laity and clergy, the Catholic Church has further officially reiterated that portions of Scripture are to be taken "symbolically" rather than "literally".
“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.
In particular the document insists that the first 11 chapters of Genesis cannot be considered "historical" though they may contain "historical traces".
From the London Times Online:
In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.
The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”
They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.
The article suggests an example of such "fundamentalist" thinking and the contrasting perspective laid out in the new doctrinal document:
The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US.
Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.
Note the characterization of "Intelligent Design".
You can read the entire article here.
Posted by sdf at 08:52 AM | Comments (1)
September 26, 2005
FYI: Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission (LHTB)
If you or your family members regularly attend a Catholic Church belonging to one of the Midwest Diocese, you may want to read this.
This week Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George joined several other urban diocese in expelling a decade old "Bible Study Group/Movement" from holding meetings or proselytizing on Church grounds. This move is due to increasing reports of "cult-like" tactics and possibly erroneous theology.
The group entitled Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission (LHTB) has eager intentions of becoming the newest Catholic "order" (akin to the Franciscan or Jesuit orders) according to its website http://www.lhtbm.com and newsletters. The movement is led by Agnes Kyo McDonald and is headquartered at 7011 W. Diversey Ave, Chicago. LHTB currently holds weekly prayer meetings in nearly 100 Catholic churches in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin.
I am not personally familiar with LHTB or the allegations against the group, and thus I do not profess to know the accuracy of the accusations against LHTB. I only intend to relate the fact that this week the primary diocese overseeing the geographic location of the movement have formally disclaimed any relation or support of the group and has prohibited any formal contact with LHTB by local Catholic congregations.
Core resources on this matter include the following:
Posted by sdf at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)
