FIGHT BUSH LIES!

I have been on a kind of a mission lately. Every time I read a letter to the editor in our local paper that is full of historical misinformation, I take it upon myself to correct the individual. I don’t do it in a nasty way; I try to be as gentle as possible.

My rationale for doing this is to not only educate the individual that is misinformed but hopefully to reach many other individuals that may be similarly misinformed.

I don’t consider myself an expert but I feel very confident with certain subjects and I also research and confirm my positions.

The amount of basic ignorance in this country is staggering and if more people would challenge this ignorance in public, maybe some will get a dose of enlightenment.

In the two (2) letters to the editor that I posted recently, the first letter has to do with the misinformation that still abounds about the Iraq war. Bush has done a great job of bamboozling Americans into believing his version of things which are NOT TRUE or NOT FULLY TRUE.

A good example was his most recent speech where he hammered at the need to fight al-Qaeda before they come here and kill us. He makes it seem like that is what the war is about. He forgets to tell us that Iraq had NO al-Qaeda terrorists before Bush’s invasion and that Saddam Hussein hated al-Qaeda and would never permit them to operate from Iraqi soil.

Bush went on to say that he wants Iraq to be able to repel al-Qaeda and deny them a home in Iraq and he will keep our troops there until that is possible. Well hell, all Bush had to do is NOT invade Iraq and al-Qaeda would NEVER have been able to enter Iraq,

To you this may seem like a minor point but to me it IS THE POINT, the jackass caused the problem in the first place and now uses it as a reason for the war in Iraq.

Some of my friends and relatives watch the FOX NEWS NETWORK exclusively and so do many people in this country and that is why there is so much misconception about the war in Iraq; they are fed bullshit by Bush and his lackeys at FOX.

So I will continue to challenge publicly (as in a letter to the editor) any letter writer that is misguided when it comes to the facts; let them know how naïve and wrong they are and maybe, just maybe, we can make a difference.

More on ignorance…

PETRAEUS REPORT MY ASS!

The long awaited report by general Petraeus is in. This is the report Bush said he would abide by and do whatever the general advised. Congress agreed to wait for the September report and in so doing fell for another Bush trick to buy himself MORE TIME IN IRAQ.

Did you really think Petraeus would report something that the president did not want to hear? He said we need to stay till next summer and then review the situation. Is this another trick for MORE TIME IN IRAQ? I think so and this will go on until Bush leaves office and the poor Democratic president that will replace him will be blamed for the disaster in Iraq after he has to pull the troops out because the situation has gotten worst.

I cannot believe we are having this absurd conversation.

Petraeus said that the “Surge” is working because “attacks” are down slightly. Shit, you can have a U.S. soldier in every house in Baghdad and the attacks will go to zero BUT WHAT IN THE HELL HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED WITH THAT? That is not a military victory; as soon as the U.S. soldier leaves the house, the attacks will resume – you have not solved a damn thing.

Petraeus was asked if all this action in Iraq is making the United States safer, he said he did not know; that is not his job to know. His job is to reduce the violence in Baghdad and he has done that but on the other hand, we are losing more American soldiers than we ever had, but his mission was not to reduce American casualties just the violence in Baghdad.

Congress wanted a troop withdrawal; Petraeus said he will order a troop withdrawal right away but it is a pittance and only involves the EXTRA troops called up for the “Surge”. By next summer he may be down to 130,000 from the current 160,000 but that is getting back to the original number of troops before the “Surge” so in fact, he has not reduced the number of troops at all; this is all spin or bullshit however you want to characterize this.

President Bush will speak to the nation tomorrow night and he will say that he is taking general Petraeus’ advice and gradually reducing troop levels to possibly pre-surge levels by next summer; see I am doing what I said I would do.

Since a military victory in Iraq is impossible, what about political progress, you know, making Iraq into a democratic and free country? U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker hemmed and hawed but had to admit that progress is ZERO and maybe things have gotten worst AFTER ALL THESE FUCKING YEARS AND ALL THOSE AMERICAN LIVES?

Petraeus and Crocker were asked if after a year from now, there is no political progress; what will they do. They said that looking that far ahead is not wise or realistic – somebody slap these assholes – please!

Some of my friends expressed their desire to see a victory with honor for the U.S. in Iraq and not have another Vietnam. They believe that a victory was possible in Vietnam. I agree that a MILITARY victory was possible in Vietnam; we could have bombed the shit out of North Vietnam, napalmed the whole country, killed every Vietcong hiding in his underground tunnel and lost another 50,000 U.S. soldiers doing that BUT WE WOULD STILL NOT HAVE HAD A POLITICAL VICTORY.

We would still be in Vietnam today because you cannot be in the middle of a civil war and expect to somehow win because it is NOT OUR WAR!

The same applies to Iraq. We are in the middle of a civil war and therefore a MILITARY VICTORY IS IMPOSSIBLE as is painfully clear to anyone with half a brain.

A political victory as envisioned by Bush is also impossible as evidenced by a civil war in progress; one side has to win and dominate the other side, that is how civil wars work – look it up!

The only possible semblance of a “victory” is to split the country into sectors and let them govern themselves. Oil revenues would be distributed on a per capita basis by a central agency under our control.

In time, these sectors or new countries could reach a level of success as shown by Kurdistan in the north of Iraq. They have peace and are putting up shopping malls. Hey, these small countries may eventually become somewhat democratic; who knows.

Unfortunately, the U.S. would have to maintain a presence for quite some time there. Currently we are building a base on the Iran / Iraq border and the soldiers at that base would be charged with keeping any foreign power, Iran in particular, out of Iraq but hey, the killing would stop!

I am afraid that is as close to a “victory” as we can come. Part of our victory would be to undo the terrible damage we have already done to the people there. If we do for them what we did for Japan after WWII, we may have made up some for the grievous sin we committed by invading them in the first place.

If we want this whole nightmare to end well we better start making our voices heard. Bush is not going to hear them; he is deaf and dumb, but Democrats and Republicans that want our votes in 2008 should be made to listen to us!

Note: Senator McCain continue to make a total fool and jackass out of himself by supporting all the war bullshit coming out of the White House – get out of the race now, you are starting to be a pain in the collective ass of the American people and you are also embarrassing to even listen to.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUND IN MICHIGAN

To: The Canton Observer
Re: “Freedom the key”, Letter to the Editor, Sept. 9.


In the letter “Freedom is the key”, Sept. 9, the author believes that President Bush’s plan to democratize the Middle East and in so doing, stabilize the area, eliminate terrorism and finally bring freedom to all, is a plan we should all support. The goals of such a plan may be noble but to assume that democracy is for everyone is naïve and in the case of Iraq; deadly and without a chance of success.

As far as the American Civil War is concerned, to think that slavery was the only reason for the war is also naïve. Northern soldiers did not risk their lives to free Negroes from slavery; they did it to preserve the union and northern industrial prosperity. Confederate soldiers from the rural south risked their lives not to preserve slavery but to preserve their independence and their way of life from the ever dominating and encroaching north.

THE RESULT OF TERM LIMITS

To: Detroit Free Press
Re: “It’s time for leaders to step up and lead”, Ron Dzwonkowski, Sept. 8.

After reading Ron Dzwonkowski’s call for Michigan leaders to lead because the state is close to a government shutdown, I can only remind Michigan voters that they and only they created this leadership vacuum. Term Limit legislation made it impossible to maintain knowledgeable, savvy veteran legislators that knew how to get things done. We now have child-like legislators just learning how to walk and as soon as they learn; out the door. You made your bed Michigan, now sleep in it!

PAVAROTTI, CARUSO, MY DAD AND ME!

I was saddened to hear that Luciano Pavarotti had finally succumbed to his pancreatic cancer; he was 71.

I am a fan of the tenor voice especially in operatic arias. I became a fan because of my father. He was in the Italian campaign (Monte Cassino) during WWII. He loved Italy and totally fell in love with opera.

My father was a tenor and sang all the time. I grew up listening to records by Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gili and of course Mario Lanza. I too had a tenor voice and sang in high school choirs and shows.

I still remember our favorite popular Italian song called “Return to Sorrento” which my father sang in Polish many, many times and which Pavarotti sang very, very well in Italian.

I remember my father-in-law, who worked for Ford buying tickets for me and my wife to attend a Ford sponsored evening featuring Luciano Pavarotti. Tickets were ~ $500 and that was and is a lot! We also had to dress up in evening wear; what a night!

I am not really a fan of opera per se just the arias but when a favorite aria is sung right – I get Goosebumps. Have you heard “Nessum Dorma”? If you have, you know what I mean.

They say that the first great tenor was Enrico Caruso and the last was Pavarotti. Really no one has come close to matching their natural vocal talents and may never.

I guess I associate opera and opera arias with my father and it brings happy memories of him when he was alive and I will always think of my dad whenever I hear an aria sang by a great tenor.

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE?

I stumbled upon some information I have been looking for while doing something else. I was watching a lecture by Bart Ehrman on the Gospel of Thomas. If you know your Gospels, this was the one found in Egypt as part of the Nag Hammadi cache in ~ 1946.

The Gospel, not part of the New Testament canon but originally written in Greek and translated into Coptic (Egyptian – Greek dialect) during the formative years of Christianity, was a collection of Jesus sayings. The Gospel is partly Gnostic. Gnostic Christianity is a heretical form of Christianity that was popular at the time the Gospel of Thomas was written.

One saying was especially interesting. Actually it is the very last saying of the book: number 114. Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life”. Jesus answered, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

You must admit that this is a strange one. Using the historical-critical method of reading ancient texts, Professor Ehrman tried to explain the perplexing Jesus saying.

For you who don’t know about the “historical – critical” method of reading and understanding ancient texts, it has to do with who the author was, when was he writing, to whom he was writing, why was he writing (his purpose) and what his words would actually mean to the people living in that era; not to us in 2007.

This “historical – critical” method has been endorsed by mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism. Opponents of this method are fundamentalists that believe the Bible literally; every word written by god or inspired by god with literal meaning for all ages, including ours.

This is an indefensible position bordering on the absurd. It refuses to deal with the reality of historical knowledge and is best avoided because sensible dialogue is not possible with these people.

Anyway, Professor Ehrman tried to explain the different way that ancient man looked at gender. Today, we see the human being (part of the animal kingdom) as either male or female; two kinds of human being.

In ancient times, including the time the Bible stories were written which included all the non-canonical Christian texts, gender was looked on as two (2) degrees of a human being; not two (2) kinds. The female was just not a developed male.

I know this is a little hard to grasp so hold on. They looked at nature in a straight line. On the left you had rocks, soil or dead stuff. Further on you came upon plants, then animals, humans and eventually ended up in the realm of the gods.

The male was closest to the gods and the female came before the male. Simply put, the female was an unformed male in the continuum of nature. This imperfect male had no penis (inverted penis = vagina), was soft (no muscles), no body hair, high voice, weaker; a human being that just did not make it far enough to become a male.

So going back to the Gospel of Thomas, for women to enter the kingdom of heaven (gods) they first had to become males since that was the order of things – kapish? And that is what Jesus meant with that saying – at least it is one explanation.

This way of thinking is described as the “Ideology of Dominance” and was the prevalent mode of looking at life throughout the ancient world.

Basically, it was OK for the strong and powerful to dominate the weak. For this reason slavery is tolerated and accepted as normal. St. Paul even cautions slaves to obey their masters in the New Testament.

Women were of course weaker and therefore dominated by the stronger males. We have seen this throughout history and even to this day in some of the more primitive Islamic societies. Well maybe even in the more civilized (Saudi Arabia) societies; they still subscribe to the ideology of dominance as did their forbearers.

On a sexual level (ancient sexual ethics) the men were the “penetrators” and the women were the “penetrated”- the dominator and the dominated.

Taking this further into ancient Greece and the accepted homosexuality in their social model (this is the information I was looking for) the adult male could have sexual relations with a “boy” an unformed adult male, but could not have sexual relations with another adult male (at least it was considered taboo).

An adult male could have sex with an adult male slave due to the domination principle.

After a military victory the male winners raped the male losers as the ultimate humiliation.

I am taking this long route to make a point about homosexuality and the Bible. We know that today right wing Christians condemn homosexuality because it is condemned in the Bible.

My point is that homosexuality as we know it today, did not exist in the days of the Bible. Homosexual acts obviously existed and were practiced by the Greeks as well as Romans in perfectly accepted pederasty. Who was condemned was the adult male that allowed himself to be penetrated by another adult male; the penetrating adult male was not condemned.

I know this is a little hard to grasp but I posit that Bible translators who knew about our concept of homosexuality but not about ancient sexual ethics translated parts of the Bible incorrectly, i.e. if homosexuality as we know it did not exist in the ancient world, how can the ancient Biblical text condemn it – plain and simple.

DEMOCRATS - DON'T BE JACKASSES!

In the upcoming election, the Democrats have the upper hand since most Americans cannot stomach Republicans anymore BUT the Democrats could still blow it!

I am talking about “primaries”, the way they were and the way they should be.

All these years, candidates spent millions on Iowa and New Hampshire; the two earliest primaries. Iowa doesn’t really have a primary only a caucus or straw poll.

Historically, candidates who did badly in either or both states usually dropped out of the race which gave voters in Iowa and New Hampshire the extremely important role of picking the candidates for the rest of the country to vote for.

Michigan and Florida said bullshit, we don’t want some hicks in Iowa or stuck up Easterners in New Hampshire picking our candidates for us; so they moved their primaries up to compete with the historically first and second primary states.

Well upsetting the apple cart is not sitting well with the National Democratic Party; they like things the way they were but Michigan and Florida do not and want change – period.

I have to note here that money is involved. Candidates spend millions to win primaries, especially the first few primaries – keep that in mind.

The National Democratic Party is threatening to disqualify primary votes from states that do not follow their rules, maybe even not seating their delegates at the national convention. Candidates also said they were NOT going to campaign in those rebellious states.

And it is here that the Democrats can blow their national edge.

I absolutely agree that the way we conduct primaries needs to change. I think larger states with diverse populations need a voice in deciding what candidates appear on the November ballot and not a bunch of farmers in Iowa or independents in New Hampshire; let’s make the early primaries statistically significant since only the welfare of the country is at stake!

Michigan is sticking to its guns, Florida will probably follow suit and dare the Democrats to invalidate their votes or the candidates to skip campaigning there. I would suggest that the Democrats not piss these people off.

BUSH CHANGES IRAQ STRATEGY?

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the U.S. strategy in Iraq is finally changing while the GAO (Government Accounting Office) released a totally dismal report on progress or the lack of, in Iraq.

How is the U.S. strategy changing? Well, remember when I and many others were screaming that the only possible end to our horrendous involvement in Iraq was to divide the country into sectarian areas? Bush is starting to finally see the light or at least his generals are.

It appears that commanders on the ground have been supporting and encouraging LOCAL sector leaders and by-passing the Iraqi government in Baghdad which they view as worthless.

Imagine, the commanders on the ground in Iraq know what needs to be done but the dip-shits in Washington don’t have a clue. Bush famously stuck to his guns, supporting a plan that many said would NEVER work but now, at the end of his presidential term, the twit is willing to listen to reason.

Bush now is ready to allow his commanders to conduct the war in Iraq. That is all well and good but it does not abate my raging anger at him, the Republicans that support him and all the Americans that continue to support him.

Look at the pictures I have posted above. Those are dead Americans that should be alive and enjoying Labor Day with their families. We cannot FORGET or FORGIVE those that started this senseless war, those that supported it after it was clear we were lied to and those that support it even today.

I am not a Democrat; far from it, but I strongly feel we need to kick some ass in this country to send a strong message to future politicians that this can NEVER happen again. In fact, I am all for impeaching Bush; he did a lot more damage than Clinton did having his yazooski sucked – no one died!

Should be an interesting election...more on that later.

FAMILY VALUES MY ASS!

I am sorry but I still feel the need to point out the hypocrisy of some Republicans who spout about how holy and perfect they are and how Jesus is their personal guide through life so they really deserve your vote.

I need to keep doing this to show those voters that actually bought into the Karl Rove Republican Christian family values nonsense exactly what they bought into: hypocrisy!

It is no secret that televangelists have been raking in big bucks pleading in the name of Jesus while screwing their secretary and building mighty zillion dollar mansions - that’s to be expected and if you are stupid enough to give them your money more power to them.

Politicians I hold to higher standards strangely enough. I relish not in catching them in a lie but in pointing the lie out to the voter that voted for him or her because of that lie.

Senator David Vitter (R- Louisiana) is an old story. He was the clean-cut Senator that was oh so Christian it hurt. He was also the Senator whose phone number was published by a Washington, D.C. madam as a favorite and long time customer. I felt bad for his wife and kids.

The latest is Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) staunch defender of the moral way of life and against sinners such as gays, etc.: caught in a Minneapolis Airport bathroom looking for some quickie sex with his next stall mate. I feel bad for his wife and kids also.

These guys are part of a long list of Republicans caught violating their own moral precepts. I am not saying Democrats are any better but at least they don’t pass themselves off as holier-than-thou.

I hope the American voter considers this a lesson learned but I am quite sure they will fall for the same line again and again and again.

MOTHER TERESA - WHO KNEW!

Today, I have a new sense of respect for Mother Teresa. Today, letters she wanted destroyed after her death were revealed.

The letters disclose that she doubted her faith, apparently till the day she died. She worried she was a hypocrite. She stopped praying.

She worked in the bowels of this world with the dregs of humanity, the unwanted, the unloved, the diseased, and the poor. She looked into the children’s bleak and tortured eyes and kept telling them God loves you.

Yet she could not feel this loving God or his love, she could only feel emptiness, darkness and silence.

Christians will say that having a crisis of faith is normal; we all get it but we get over it. Well, too bad you get over it because the voice that was trying to get out was your voice of reason and you squelched it.

There is a philosophy movement called SECULAR HUMANISM that upholds reason, ethics and justice but without supernaturalism. It stresses the need to work towards a better world for ourselves, our children, our fellow man and the earth we inhabit. Mother Teresa would have made a great secular humanist.

She obviously wanted to help the least of her fellow humans because she thought God wanted her to. As a humanist, she would help her fellow man because it was the right thing to do; no heavenly rewards, no sainthood.

I can understand why the light of her faith grew dark and then was gone. The idea of a personal God is appealing. The idea that a good God listens to all prayers is appealing but oh so dumb. We still don’t understand that the reason this God is so appealing is because WE created him. This is what we want in a god; we would not create a god we didn’t like!

Religious brains have been trying for centuries to reconcile the all good God with the very bad evil that plagues us; how can he allow it!

Reminds me of the recent story about a bus full of Polish pilgrims who were returning from a holy pilgrimage to a shrine somewhere in the Swiss Alps. They spend days praying their asses off. On their way back, the bus fell over a mountain side and all the pilgrims were killed.

Their families rushed to the site to offer more prayers. I thought shouldn’t you be cursing god for the terrible trick he played on them; what type of scoundrel is he. No god keeps poking us in the eye and we keep thanking him for it.

Mother Teresa had noble religious intentions but it appears that she also had a brain. I think she realized that this personal god we created did not exist because he resided only in our imaginations and in the stories our religious clerics spun. If there was some kind – any kind of superior power out there, he was not responding to her prayers.

I feel sad for Mother Teresa not because she realized her god did not exist but because she couldn’t see or feel that the good she was doing was so humanistic with its own rewards but maybe I am on to another quest to find what we really need as a reward for doing the right thing – interesting?

Anyway, I am told this revelation about her will only enhance her quest for sainthood – huh? I guess the struggle with one’s faith is somehow seen as good but I thought only if you conquered and squelched your voice of reason and she did not – at all – she died in doubt. Go figure…

BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY CONTINUES...

Continuing my exploration of early Christianity, the hot topic in religious academia today, I may have been a little too eager to accept the reason for the split between Pauline Christianity and Jewish Christianity (Jesus and his Apostles) or maybe not.

The initial indication of why the two Christianities split pointed to the insistence by the Jewish Church that people wanting to join the Jesus or shall I say, the Jesus the Christ movement needed to first become Jewish in all aspects including circumcision; something Paul’s Gentiles just were not going to do.

This turns out to be maybe only partially true. After the death of Jesus, his followers were spreading throughout Israel (as instructed), trying to turn their fellow Jews into Jewish Christians by getting them to buy into Jesus being the Messiah and about to bring into being the new Kingdom – prepare!

The question of gentiles joining the movement did not come up at first because the Apostles were not addressing non-Jews. St. Paul, the non-Apostle, brought up the question of gentiles joining the movement to the Jerusalem Church; the group Paul considered as the official Jesus Apostle group.

A quick reminder that the word “Christianity” does not mean the Christianity of today but a belief that Jesus was the Messiah and about to come back – that’s all!

In listening to a lecture by James Tabor, professor of Christian Origins and Ancient Judaism at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, I was reminded that yes, the Jerusalem group insisted on the gentiles becoming Jewish but only at the beginning. Actually, some in the group never relented from that stance but were eventually overridden by James, the leader of the group according to the account in the New Testament Book of ACTS by Luke.

The justification in ACTS for allowing Gentiles to join the Christian movement without becoming Jews first was the NOAHIDE LAWS or sometimes called the SEVEN LAWS OF NOAH.

I first became aware of these laws when a friend pointed out to me that the U.S. Congress has officially recognized these laws as “…the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization…”

I wondered how come I never heard of them. Well I guess there are many important facts about our world’s history that I am totally ignorant of and that happens to be one of them.

Anyway, these laws are found in the Jewish Talmud in the story about Noah. We all know the story and we agree that according to the story we are all Noah’s children or better yet, the children of Noah refers to all of mankind since all others were destroyed by God in the flood; only Noah, his family and the animals survived and repopulated the earth.

According to this story, God then gave Noah a list of seven moral imperatives which applied to all of mankind (the Jews later had their own set of laws from God). According to Judaism, non-Jews that abide by these moral precepts are held to be “Righteous Gentiles”, right with God and afforded salvation after death or at least a good place in the afterlife.

The laws basically forbid:

Idolatry
Murder
Theft
Adultery
Blasphemy
Cruelty to animals
The last one is a requirement to set up a form of government that will police adherents to keep the above laws.

The way ACTS 15 tells it, the Council in Jerusalem (James the Just) the leader of Jewish Christianity, issued a directive that if gentiles follow the Noahide Laws, they can join the Jewish Christian movement without having to become Jews and observing all Jewish laws.

We know that the purpose of ACTS was to give Paul legitimization to convert people to Christianity as a “true” apostle of Jesus even though he never met Jesus (just in his dreams). Luke had to connect Paul to Jesus through the Apostles or make Paul appear as an Apostle appointed by Jesus himself; the new, risen Jesus and not the old Jesus. Luke’s purpose is quite clear and therefore problematic from a historical standpoint; he probably made some things up to fit his end purpose.

Even though there was a documented way to accept Gentiles into the movement without having them become Jews (Apostolic Decree) I feel if it did happen it was under duress. Paul was bribing the Jerusalem Council with money, lots of money. Since Jesus told his followers to sell everything for the Kingdom is at hand, many were probably poor and in need; remember one name for the group was the Ebionites (the poor).

I think the split between the two Christianities still had something to do with being Jewish but also about the divinity of Jesus, etc.

This concentration on the “true” birth of Christianity is absolutely fascinating to me but it is hard to keep up with all the material being published on the subject; I will try.

CHRISTIANITY: WHAT IF...

After having shown that today’s Christianity, the Christianity that survived the “Christianity wars” between Pauline Christianity (Paul) and Jewish Christianity (apostles of Jesus), I am intrigued by the question what if Pauline/Roman Christianity lost and the Christianity of the apostles of Jesus won.

My favorite writer and professor of religion Bart D. Ehrman, chair of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, stimulates that kind of thinking in his book LOST CHRISTIANITIES; The Battles for Scripture and Faiths We Never Knew (2003).

We all know that Christianity eventually developed into the dominant religious, political, economic, social and cultural institution of the West. Historians will tell you that Christianity formed and forms the basis for Western Civilization as we know it to this very day. So if things didn’t work out the way they did, we would have a different world right now but how different.

Jewish Christianity, the one headed by James, the brother of Jesus and Peter and the other apostles who followed Jesus during his ministry, maintained that since they knew Jesus personally and were privy to his teachings, only they knew what Jesus wanted to happen after his death.

This group called the Ebionites (poor ones) or Nazarenes (from Nazareth) strictly maintained their Jewishness just like Jesus did and followed all the Jewish religious laws just like Jesus did. In fact, to join the group you had to become a Jew, circumcision and all.

They believed that Jesus was a human but he was also picked by God to be the long awaited Messiah that would free Israel from its oppressors and bring peace and justice to the whole world. They believed that this would happen rather quickly because Jesus told them it would, so they waited.

It is important to understand that they were observant Jews and because they believed Jesus was “the” Messiah, they were a “sect” within Judaism. Since in Judaism, Jews have always and continue to wait for a Messiah, the Jewish Christians were not in opposition to formal Judaism because of their belief. Jews who did not share the Christians belief basically gave them the benefit of a doubt; if Jesus comes back – you were right, if he does not – you were deluded.

St. Paul, according to his own writings and the Book of Acts in the New Testament wanted to be part of this group (The Jerusalem Church) even though he never met Jesus.
He brought them money and hung out with them but from the accounts we have, the relationship was not an amicable one.

The apostles stuck to their story; got to be a Jew and observe all things Jewish.

St. Paul was ministering to the gentiles (non Jews) and they were not about to become Jews, especially the men who would have to submit to circumcision. Paul also preached that Jesus was the Messiah and was coming back soon and for everyone to prepare but he just could not push through the idea that everyone needs to become a Jew to be right with Jesus and on this issue the two camps split.

As we all know Paul went on to establish his version of Christianity and the rest is history. But could things have turned out differently?

The Apostle group in Jerusalem was marginalized when in fact Jesus did not appear; they could not adapt or adjust their beliefs to somehow deal with a non-appearing Jesus. For this reason they vanished from the scene.

Paul also preached about the coming of Jesus and the Kingdom of God but he or his converts were able to adjust and change from the beginning apocalyptical stance to something longer lasting; they moved Jesus’ coming to way into the future without providing a date but talking about “signs” that will signal His coming.

Looking at both Christianities at this early stage of their development, I feel the Jewish Christianity, the one directly linked to Jesus, did not stand a chance of surviving given that they could not grow since they could not get gentiles to convert to Judaism and because they could not even talk their fellow Jews into joining.

Paul’s Christianity would have also fizzled out if it was not for the Roman Emperor Constantine.

Some may argue that this was all God’s plan anyway and they may be right but which God, not the God of Jesus, He vanished with the apostles.

STILL CONFUSED ABOUT THE WAR ON TERROR AND IRAQ?

Friday, August 10, 2007

To: Canton Observer
Re: “War on Terror is real”, Letter to the Editor, August 9.

In reading the letter “War on Terror is real”, August 9, I was disappointed to see that the confusion about the War on terror, Iraq and al-Qaeda still persist. The misinformation and outright lies spread by our president and vice president about those issues persist even though facts have exposed them for what they are; untruths.

After 9/11 our president had an opportunity and a duty to eliminate the Taliban and al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and in so doing crush an international terror organization that has been a threat to us as well as the world. Our president chose to ignore the opportunity and to move our resources to invading Iraq which had no connection with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. For this monumental blunder, history as well as generations of Americans will never and should never forgive him.

The reality in Iraq is that a civil war is being waged between the Shia and the Sunni factions of Islam. Al-Qaeda, while present due to our president’s blunder, represent a tiny part of the insurgency; they are opposed by Iraqis and do not pose a danger of ever forming a government in Iraq.

The only hope in Iraq is to divide the country along ethnic lines with an agreement to share oil revenues on a per capita basis. Our troops should remain only in a capacity to prevent foreign powers from entering the region and not as cannon fodder in a civil war.

President Bush and the Republicans have shown us that they are incapable of providing security for our nation; in fact they are the ones responsible for putting us in danger. Allowing them to continue to damage this country and the people in it is plainly irresponsible.

CATHOLICISM THEN AND NOW

I must admit that my knowledge of Catholicism is old; about 60 years old or so. I have not kept up with all the “new” goings on in Catholicism so I probably do not speak from “current” knowledge but there is something to be said about then and now.

My family or shall I say my mother was a staunch Polish Catholic that survived Siberia, the Middle east and all sorts of hell in the middle and her savior was the Virgin Mother and she was going to pay her back by raising her children “right” in the faith.

I was an alter boy, saw the priest drunk on many occasions before Mass but hey, they represent Jesus so it must be OK.

I was taught that eating meat on Friday would result in my going to hell and if children died before they were baptized, they also went to hell. This was drummed into me by “adults” so I had to believe them.

Recently I was appalled to learn that eating meat on Friday is allowed and baptism is just an initiation party into the Catholic community; you will not go to hell if you die before you’re baptized, you won’t even go to purgatory because the Church big-wigs have decided there is no such thing as purgatory.

Imagine after hundreds if not thousands of years they decided that maybe they were wrong about their sacred pronouncements. Maybe they did not hear correctly what God was saying to them?

Having been raised a Catholic and knowing full well the fear, awe and terror instilled in me by priests, nuns, bishops, cardinals and my mother if I dared to stray, I might say that I am slightly pissed to learn they were all full of ignorance?

Can’t blame my mother, she never really knew all the theological nonsense that the Church was grappling with, her heart is pure and she blames all the problems in the Church (pedophiles) on “man” and sinful humanness; she prefers to speak to Mary.

When I hear that the Church has now adopted the “historical-critical method” of interpreting the Bible (John Paul II) I am amazed at its openness and willingness to even discuss matters of faith with the unwashed. Pope Benedict XVI and his return to the past, reminds me how quickly the Church can turn back and again shut the door, demanding blind obedience.

I will learn about the new Catholicism as I should but I better hurry up before we return to the old Catholicism and again have to eat fish on Fridays; which I do to this very day.

MODERN JEWISH PROPHET - Goodbye!

Let me talk about someone who is Jewish for a change.

I think it is important to mark the passing of Rabbi Sherwin Theodore Wine. He was killed recently in Morocco in a car accident, he was 79. He was from Detroit and was rabbi at the Birmingham Temple, in a suburb of Detroit.

I knew of him but didn’t really know a lot about him. What fascinated me about him was that he was a Jewish Rabbi and ran a Jewish Temple and yet he was an atheist; a Jewish atheist to be exact to distinguish him from lets say a Christian atheist.

You don’t see too many Christian atheists running a church or having a congregation to take care of; this was different.

I have mentioned on many occasions that it seems to me that people like the “idea” of religion; being in a community of like minded people with the same belief system. Rabbi Wine also saw that. He realized that half the Jews in the United States considered themselves “secular” although definitely Jewish and that these people felt alone because they did not have an organization of like minded people to join.

He thought, why not celebrate Jewishness but without a God. He emphasized secular Jewish culture and Jewish history rather than a belief in the Jewish God as sources of Jewish identity.

He eventually called his movement “Humanistic Judaism” and became part of the larger secular humanistic movement in the U.S. and around the world.

His standard answer about his Godless religion, so to speak, was “since it was not possible empirically to prove or disprove the existence of God, the concept of God was meaningless”. He referred to this stance as “ignosticism” instead of atheism.

He held services and observed all the Jewish holidays but took God out of all that.

He composed new poems and passages for his services:

Where is my light? My light is in me.
Where is my hope? My hope is in me.
Where is my strength? My strength is in me – and in you.

Or how about a prayer for Shabbat:

How wonderful is the light of the world.
How radiant are the candles of peace.
How beautiful are the lights of Shabbat.

He used Jewish history as proof for the lack of God. Look what the Jews have endured and only people can solve human problems of survival because there sure was no supernatural force helping his “chosen” people out.

Obviously I have only touched on what this man stood for and what he taught but I sure do respect his intellect and power of reason and above all his courage to stand up for what he believed and to take his message to the people. Yeah!

CHRISTIAN THREAD KEEPS GOING?

This Christianity thread will just not leave me alone…

At the office cooler, the discussion turned to religion, Christianity that is. It started with a discussion of the Republican presidential candidates’ debate Sunday morning, specifically about Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith.

A remark was made that under no circumstances would Evangelicals vote for a Mormon. The Evangelicals consider the Mormons as a “cult” close to something Satanic. I don’t really know much about Mormonism but the little I do know shows the religion has some pretty big differences with mainline Christianity.

The bigger question raised at the cooler was how does anyone really know what is the “correct” or “true” form of Christianity which prompted someone else to bring up the recent remarks of Pope Benedict which proclaimed that Catholic Christianity is the only true Christianity which if you remember is what got me started on my religious blogs of the last two weeks.

This was a mixed Catholic and Protestant group and I was not surprised by the comments.

The Catholics, true to form, brainwashed by the Church from a very young age to listen and obey and to never question; I was one of them, view the Pope as the only one that knows for sure what the “truth” is since he is God’s representative on earth.

The Protestants, trained early on to distrust the Catholics and avoid them at all costs, hold “Scripture” as the ultimate truth recognizing also that scripture can be interpreted in many ways.

The Catholics are commanded never to read the Bible alone; the Church will teach them everything they need to know about the Bible. The Protestants obviously are urged to “study” the Bible. I ask you how are the Catholics and Protestants to converse about Christianity; they come from such different traditions.

An example of the difficulty of communication between the two groups was when the discussion turned to the fact that Peter was not really in charge of the Apostles; James, the brother of Jesus, was. The Catholics said, we didn’t know Jesus had brothers and sisters, what about Mary’s virginity? Do you see what I mean?

Now let me throw in an email I received from the Biblical Archaeology Society that same day. It was an invite to a series of lectures in San Antonio, Texas titled: Do recently Discovered Manuscripts Tell Us Anything New about Jesus and Early Christianity.

The lectures included topics such as what can we learn from Christian scripture not included in the new testament canon or what can we learn about Jewish Christians from Arabic sources, etc.

My point is that the academic world is all atwitter about the new discoveries that point to a myriad of Christianities in the first 300 years after the death of Jesus and about the concerted effort by the Roman Christians of that time to eliminate all challenges to their dominance- as I mentioned in the previous blogs on this subject. And most importantly that Jesus and his apostles were in direct opposition to what later became Pauline Christianity and then Roman Christianity; eliminating the belief base for both Catholics and Protestants.

And yet in August 2007 we have Catholics who keep going to church and reciting their Hail Marys’ and having not the slightest idea about their religion’s history; accepting anything and everything they are fed by their clergy.

On the other hand, you have the Protestants, great students of the Bible able to quote Biblical verses at the drop of a hat, able to explain the meaning or significance of every Biblical passage but yet oblivious to the fact that the words of the New Testament Bible may have nothing to do with historical reality but are just propaganda pieces written by people that wanted to win the Christianity wars.

I guess I am disappointed that what academics are discovering and talking about is not filtering down to the common religious folk. But then they may not want to hear something that would put their belief system in question, why would they, why should they?

Does truth really matter? In my studies of the Papacy, I have read many times where intellectuals would challenge the Church saying its teachings are based on legend and not fact but to no avail; no one seemed to care.

I don’t usually go around wanting to burst people’s bubbles but when I hear religious people speak with such conviction and assurance that they are right with God and have a duty to help everyone else “know” Jesus like they do to be saved, I actually do want to prick their balloon. I tried it once but did not get the satisfaction I was expecting; they just looked at me as if I was insane for daring to question their religious beliefs which are obviously, unquestionably right.

THE REAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

I can’t believe that the Pope’s statement saying that only Catholics can be saved because they are the “true” Christians set me off on this religious blog thread but I must see it to the end because things need to be said so people will know how full of crappola the Pope really is.

I left off with the discovery that Christianity did not start and develop homogeneously to this day; it evolved from hundreds of differing belief systems, scriptures, etc…

There were actually two people that caught on way before everybody else. They were both Germans and both had similar names but lived at different periods.

Note: You don’t have to go to a library to check up on my stuff; just Google whatever you want to confirm.

The first one was F.C. Baur (Ferdinand Christian Baur) (1792-1860). This dude was one bright boy, a theologian by training, he could see things or maybe was brave enough to see things that others did not; he paid a price for his bravery.

He argued that early Christianity represented a synthesis of two opposing theses: Jewish Christianity and Pauline Christianity (Peter versus Paul).

He saw that the Paul of the Acts of the Apostles and the Paul of the Epistles are two different Pauls. He saw the conflict between the two Christianities in the New Testament and how the authors tried to mediate between the two trying to make Peter and Paul appear as compatriots and not as the opponents they really were.

He was also to first to question some of the Epistles of Paul as not being written by him. This was a daring idea for that time in history since most people believed the Bible was the word of God and how could forgeries make it into the Word of God - Bible (New Testament).

The other German was Walter Bauer (1877-1960). He published a book in German in 1934 but because of the Nazis and WWII, it was not translated into English till 1971: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.

This is the man who concluded from his studies that there were many, many Christianities at the beginning but that Roman Christianity became the dominant Christianity because of various factors that we have mentioned before.

The kicker was, he said, that the practitioners of the now orthodox Roman Christianity then rewrote the history of the conflicting Christianities making it appear that the Roman Christianity was always the dominant one or the “right one”. This view has stuck through the ages because they (Roman Catholic Church) destroyed all writings in support of the other Christianities – until we found them again thanks to people that just couldn’t bring themselves to destroying “their” sacred books.

This knowledge did not officially come into the public realm until 1971 and the poor guy died in 1960. I bet you even now, many Christians don’t know about this or for that matter, give a crap about it because they don’t see how this changes anything.

Well pardon me, but for one, this makes the statement by the Pope total BULL!

It also puts a damper on Protestantism’s cry of “Scripture alone” and explains why the Romans Catholic Church insisted it is not 'scripture alone' but also “Tradition”. They knew that the New Testament was created by the Roman Christianity for the express purpose of substantiating their claim as the one, true religion.

How can you trust a New Testament that excluded hundreds of gospels, epistles and the like and only picked the ones that supported their theology? The New Testament is not the word of God; it is the word of the Roman Catholic Christianity that won the battle of the Christianities in the three centuries after the death of Jesus.

Let all that sink in for awhile and then we will talk again.

MANY CHRISTIANITIES EARLY ON

In my previous blogs I have shown how the Roman Catholic Church cannot link itself to Peter and therefore to Jesus of Nazareth because the Church backed Paul and not Peter and Paul had no connection to Jesus whatsoever. Paul did say that he had a vision in which Jesus spoke to him; I call that a delusion.

Before we get into how the Church has been able to keep this charade going, we must understand a few facts about history.

The winners write the history. Peter, James and the rest of the Jesus followers lost. They vanished or were assimilated into the surrounding populace. They were disowned by the Jews and called heretics by the Christians; they had no where to go.

With the Jerusalem group gone, Gentile Christianity prospered and spread.

Also, let’s have a few words about heresy, heretics and orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the belief that you call factual or the “right belief” and heresy is any belief that disagrees with your belief and is therefore the “wrong belief” – kapish?

This has nothing to do with what is ultimately “true” since nothing in religion can be proved or substantiated with “fact” so it’s all about one person’s ideas and beliefs against another’s’; the belief that wins gets to be called “orthodox” and the one that loses becomes a “heresy”.

You will find it very interesting that the discovery that the Roman Church has mislead people since earliest times is quite recent; in our own time (1970s) and that knowledge is not widely known today; maybe it has been suppressed?

Anyway, I find it fascinating so please hold on.

We now know that Christianity “evolved”. Before, most scholars believed that there was only one Christianity or Christian religion at the beginning and that this religion developed through the ages. A better way to say it is that Christians believed that their religion began from a single source (Jesus) with an intact belief system at its base and that Christians just continued to build onto that base throughout the centuries.

That scenario, we now know, was deliberately created by a number of early Church fathers but especially EUSEBIUS (275-339 C.E.). He manipulated history by manipulating history books or historical accounts that were in written form. He did a great job.

Modern archaeology has discovered a number of ancient texts from the early Christian period. One such discovery called the Nag Hammadi Library, consisted of a number of books (Gospels) previously unheard of.

What all these discoveries point to is a period after the death of Jesus that spawned hundreds of Christianities, hundreds of belief systems from one end of the religious spectrum to the other. There were hundreds of preachers traveling from country to country, area to area, all claiming to know what Jesus and his apostles taught and what they wanted the people to do.

Paul, in his letters (part of the New Testament [NT]) is forever bitching about all these “false” teachers (Judaizers) trying to challenge his (Paul’s) teachings.

Most of these “Christianities” had their own “sacred scriptures” which they followed. It must have been a real hodgepodge of Christianities.

What followed was a gradual “cleansing” if I may use that word or a consolidation of all these Christianities into one. The Emperor Constantine (280-337 C.E.) started the ball rolling in 313 C.E. by declaring Christianity the new national, Roman religion giving the city of Rome and the Christians in that city a lot more power and prestige than any other city in the realm.

This was not an easy task. People did not want to hear that they have been worshiping from heretical scriptures or that Jesus was not a god pretending to be a man but was both – huh? Or that Jesus had a father and a brother (Holy Ghost), all gods but really only one – double huh?

It became easier in 367 C.E, when a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt made up a list of books that would become the official New Testament Bible. All other books had to be destroyed. No wonder monks buried the banned books like at Nag Hammadi; they really believed them to be sacred and had a hard time burning them – good for us because we found them and good for us because we keep finding them.

So now 1600 years of Church history has to be re-written and re-examined. We now have a totally different picture of the early days of Christianity and what does that do for today’s Christianity.

I will examine just how and who led to this huge, in my opinion, discovery in the next blog; this one is getting too long.