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"Biblical Argument For Bernie Sanders," By Jim The Evangelical Pastor

September 18, 2015, 1:07 pm
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Transcript of "Biblical Argument for Bernie," by Jim the Evangelical Pastor


Original thread here.


Recording.


Full text (formatting and emphases my own, proofreading welcome):


Hi my name is Jim. I am the guy who recently posted onto Reddit under the Sanders4President Subreddit that I’m a Liberty University Alumni, and that I support Bernie, and think that he’s a good spokesman for justice.


I thought I would take a second to, sort of, unpack that, because I could tell there’s a lot of people, both Evangelical conservative folk and more liberal Bernie-supporting folk, who are very confused that I could occupy both worlds. So, I thought, I’ll take a few seconds and explain myself, and maybe that will be helpful for the conversation.


So a little bit about me. I am not a current student at Liberty. If I was, I actually wouldn’t have been able to post onto that Reddit board and say that I’m supporting Bernie. There is an Honor Code at Liberty University, and while it’s not always enforced, if you support a candidate who is pro-choice or pro-gay marriage, you can be punished by the University, up to and including expulsion from the school. So as a graduate of Liberty University, I’m in a good position to represent folks that might go there and people from the Evangelical tradition, but not be within the world that they can, you know, punish me for my opinion.


So I got my Bachelors degree in Religion from Liberty University, and I also got my Masters degree from Liberty University in Marriage and Family Therapy. In 2004 I worked for the George W. Bush campaign. I spent about 8 years as a Conservative pastor. And also as a schoolteacher at a conservative Christian academy. And today I serve my community as a therapist and also a pastoral counselor, somebody that folks from churches might go see to get counseling whenever they want to see somebody who’s both a clinical counselor but also a pastor.


So I serve all those roles. I think I’m pretty much a card-carrying Evangelical Christian. I still subscribe to a conservative evangelical theology. And what that means, a lot of people get confused when they hear the word ‘conservative,’ they assume you mean politically. ‘Conservative theology’ means that I believe the Bible is trustworthy, I think that God inspired it, Jesus was absolutely real, and really died on the cross, and really did resurrect three days later; and I am an Evangelical Christian in that way.


So, how did I come to find myself supporting Bernie Sanders? How did that evolution take place? How could it be that in 2004 I was working for the George W. Bush campaign, and today in 2015, as a double Liberty University graduate, under Jerry Falwell—when I went to school, Jerry Falwell was the Chancellor—how is it that I could be now supporting Bernie Sanders, who’s a very progressive, very liberal guy; he describes himself as a ‘democratic socialist.’ How do I find common ground on those two things?


Well a lot of people I think falsely believe that in order to do that you have to give up one of your sides. Either you have to not really be a progressive, and you’re just an Evangelical who just likes Bernie, or you have to not really be an Evangelical, and just secretly be a Progressive who’s faking it and pretending to be an Evangelical, but wouldn’t actually pass the litmus test of being an Evangelical.


I pass both tests, I am very much 100% legitimate in both camps, and I want to explain why that’s not a mythological thing, that’s not a disconnect. Some people call that a contradiction, or hypocrisy, it is absolutely not. I believe that my views are 100% consistent. And so I think that the shock value for that comes in beginning to appreciate that the Bible and Jesus, in my opinion and in my very moderate reading of the Bible and the words of Christ, leads us to a Progressive worldview. And that is shocking to a lot of people, especially folks back home in the Evangelical community, they hear that and go, “What are you talking about? That’s heresy—“ it’s like, hold on. Hear me out. There is a Biblical argument for voting for Bernie Sanders, believe it or not, and I’m gonna walk you through it really quick on some key issues.


So that first issue that I’d kind of point your attention to is kind of what Bernie brought up during his speech at Liberty. Basically, the wealth inequality problem—and see a lot of us, on the Evangelical side think that what Jesus really cares about is gay marriage and abortion. And of course, the great irony is if you read the red letters of Jesus, there are no statements on abortion. There are no statements on gay marriage. Now, that’s not to say the Bible doesn’t speak about these things, but it certainly is to say that Jesus, founder and master of our faith, did not see fit to make these high-priority topics. It’s not to say he doesn’t care. But it is to say that we need to be careful not to ‘major on minors.’ We should be focused on the things Jesus did talk about.


So what did Jesus talk about?


So here’s the interesting thing. When I was watching Bernie Sanders talk at Liberty University, I was just really shocked, and something kind of magical happened for me, because as I watched that guy stand up on that stage, here’s what I saw. I saw a wild-haired Jew crying out in a hoarse voice, in a very forceful and forth-speaking way, he was convicting the Christian leaders and religious leaders in that University and calling us out for being complicit in the abandonment of those who suffer: “The least of these.” And siding with the powerful and the rich and the masters of this world. And he was convicting us, and calling us out. And we scorned him, and we stared him down, and with sour faces we thought, “Who is this whacko? And why do all these people seem to follow him, seem to like him? This wild-haired Jew, crying out from the wilderness of the political Left, in his hoarse voice?”
And if you’re an Evangelical listening to me today, you already know where I’m going with this. When I heard Bernie speaking in that way, when I saw that guy on stage at Liberty University, I saw John the Baptist. I saw the wild-haired, roughly-clothed John the Baptist, eating honey and wearing camel’s hair, and crying out to the religious leaders, the Pharisees of his day, calling them corrupt and complicit with those who have all the power and all the money and all the wealth, and for abandoning the people that God loves, that God cares about. For the Pharisees, who were siding with those who already have power and wealth and saying that they will be the last in the Kingdom of God, and that the weak, and the meek, and the simple, and those who need help—they are first in the Kingdom of God.


And I saw that guy, that John the Baptist figure, who is standing up and saying “There is coming a messenger, there is coming a messenger who will bring equity and justice to the poor, and to the weak, and who will stand for ’the least of these.’” That’s the wild-haired Jew that I saw up on that stage. I saw, and felt, the same voice coming from the Bible when I read about John the Baptist, who cried out in the desert to the Pharisees, warning them that Jesus was coming, the messenger of God. And that he was coming to restore justice, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and to value ’the least of these’ when the Pharisees had failed.


And as I heard Bernie talking, and as I listened to his cries for justice, I remembered, suddenly, what Jesus had actually said in the Book of Luke, when he unravels the scroll in the synagogue, and he quotes the Book of Isaiah, which says that the Son of God was coming. And then he says, “This has been fulfilled in your presence here today.” He quotes the book of Isaiah which says that the Son of God is coming to bring justice, and Jesus says “it is now come to pass in your presence.” And he says, “I have come to bring Gospel to the poor.”


Gospel—is that word we Evangelical Christians have based everything on. Gospel means ‘good news.’ And Jesus said “I have come to bring good news to the poor.” To restore sight to the blind, to stand with the suffering, to set the captives free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Whoa.


As I heard Bernie Sanders crying out to the religious leaders at Liberty University, in his hoarse voice, with his wild hair, this Jew, and he proclaimed justice over us. He called us to account for being complicit with those who are wealthy and those who are powerful and for abandoning the poor, ‘the least of these’ who Jesus said he had come to bring good news to. And in that moment, something occurred to me, as I saw Bernie Sanders up there, as I watched him I realized: Bernie Sanders, for President, is good news for the poor. Bernie Sanders for President is good news for the poor. Bernie Sanders is Gospel for the poor. And Jesus said, “I have come to bring Gospel—good news—to the poor.”


And lightning hit my heart in that moment. And I realized that we are Evangelical Christians, that we believe the Bible. We believe in Jesus. We absolutely shun those who attempt to find nuance and twisted and tortured interpretation of scripture that they would use to master all other broader interpretations, to find some kind of big message that they want to flout. We absolutely scorn such things. And yet somehow, we commit to the mental gymnastics necessary that allows us to abandon ‘the least of these,’ to abandon the poor, to abandon the immigrants, to abandon those who are in prison. I listened to Bernie Sanders, as he said he wanted to welcome the immigrants and give them dignity. As he said he wanted to care for the sick children, and mothers, and fathers, who do not have health care. As he said he wanted to decrease the amount of human beings who are corralled like cattle in the prisons. As he said he wanted to do justice for those who have nothing and live homeless. And I remembered the words of Jesus, who warned his disciples that there will be judgment, and on that day he will look to his friends, and he will say ‘Blessed are you, for you cared for me, for I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick, and you cared for me; I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was in prison, and you came to visit me; I was homeless, and you gave me shelter.” And the disciples said, “Jesus, when did we do any of those things for you?” And he said, “If you have done it for ‘the least of these,’ you have done it for me.”
And those words echoed in my heart. As I listened to that crazy, hoarse-voiced, wild-haired Jew, standing in front of the religious leaders of the Evangelical movement, calling us to account, as a Jew once did before. Telling us that he intends to care for ‘the least of these.’ To clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to care for the sick, to set the prisoners free.


Yes. I am an Evangelical Christian. I believe in the Bible. I follow Jesus. When I look at Bernie Sanders, and I hear the things that he’s saying, it’s like he’s ripping them out of the pages of scripture. I would have to try to avoid the meaning of those words. I would have to bury my head in the sand to continue to support conservative policies. I am religiously conservative but I am not politically so. And I think here is the heart and soul of it:
When we chose to follow Jesus, we decided that the Kingdom of God, and the men and women and children of this world, were more important than us. And that accidentally made us all liberals. The day we decided to follow Christ, and the day we decided that we value other human beings more than ourselves, we accidentally became liberals.


And so there is no contradiction between being a Bible-believing Christian and a Bernie Sanders supporter.


I follow the teachings of Christ: to care for ‘the least of these.’ And I believe that just as John the Baptist once cried out in the desert for justice, and called the religious establishment to account, and hearkened unto the day that Jesus would walk among us, and declare equity and justice and good news for the poor; and just as that day came, that Jesus stood in front of the multitudes at the religious institution and said “I have come to bring gospel to the poor,” I believe that Bernie Sanders now stands in front of us, wild-haired and hoarse-voiced, and he now declares justice for the poor. He declares good news for ‘the least of these.’ He has come to bring gospel. And I wouldn’t be much of a Christian if I didn’t stand on the side of gospel for the poor. Because the last time I checked, that’s where my master Jesus stood, and I’ll stand with him. And for now, that means I stand with Bernie Sanders.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/3l4khz/transcript_of_biblical_argument_for_bernie_by_jim/




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    Ahmed Mohamed And The Abyssal Swamp of Conspiracy Thinking

    September 18, 2015, 1:26 pm
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    Sep 17, 2015

    "They didn't think he had a bomb."                      

    I said: It's sad they thought that kid had a bomb. 

    She said: They didn't think he had a bomb. 

    I said: Yes, they thought he made a bomb and even called the police. 

    She said: They just wanted to humiliate a little Muslim boy. They didn't think he had a bomb. 

     I said: Don't be a conspiracy theorist. They might be a little prejudiced, but I'm sure they thought he had a bomb. 

    She said: OK. 

    But they didn't evacuate the school, like you do when there's a bomb. 

    They didn't call a bomb squad - like you do when there's a bomb. 

    They didn't get as far away from him as possible, like you do when there's a bomb. 

    Then they put him and the clock in an office: not like you do when there's a bomb.

    Then they waited with him for the police to arrive, and then they put the clock in the same car as the police. 

    Then they took pictures of it. 
    I said: Damn.....They never thought he had a bomb. 

    The School Administration will be rightfully sued.

     They can now pay Ahmed's way to MIT.

     Thanks.

     "They never thought he had a bomb"
    Alan: Islamic hospitality is legendary.










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    God Hatred And Conservative Passion For Falsehood: "I Am The Way, The Truth And The Life"

    September 21, 2015, 11:40 am
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    Dear John,

    Thanks for your email.

    If God is Truth -- as documented in the Gospel verse "I am the way, the truth and the life" -- it appears that conservatives delight in squatting atop God's face and shitting in his mouth.

    Conservative fondness for whole-cloth falsehood knows no bound and has reached such fever pitch that the American Right could conduct a clinic for Satan himself.


    What diabolical perversity in the conservative psyche compels whole cloth lies and ceaseless false witness?

    Right-wing passion for demonic mendacity has become the cornerstone flaw of American conservatism and will crash/burn "the movement" when a decisive non-white voting majority emerges in the next 15 to 30 years.

    That conservatives are too blind to see the catastrophe they are visiting on themselves is a measure of their blind devotion to The Prince of Darkness.

    Pax tecum

    Alan


    On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 10:04 AM, John Tarantino <joro8278@gmail.com> wrote:



    From: AUDREY KILLAR <amk1030@msn.com>Date: Friday, September 18, 2015 11:05 PM
    To: arthur Powers <apdarby1@verizon.net>, deryl mcdaniel <derylmc@msn.com>, Eleanor Smith <elismith623@yahoo.com>, gary gregg <ggregg@zoominternet.net>, John Tarantino <joro8278@gmail.com>, larry thomas <lthomas0217@aol.com>, louise smith <sweder1128@comcast.net>, Mary Reinhart <mrein3033@aol.com>, mickey brentzel <dbrentzel@msn.com>, nancy douglas <auntnono1@aol.com>, Pat Fenton <pattfen1929@netzero.net>, Patricia Fiedor <pjfiedor@icloud.com>, samuel marraccini <samuel@marraccini.com>, walt killar <wkillar@msn.com>
    Subject: FW: Santa Barbara Beach


    Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 23:05:33 +0000
    From: mrfromme@verizon.net
    To: john.bennison@verizon.net; amk1030@msn.com; sjuosb@hotmail.com; ditty701@comcast.net; patfromme@yahoo.com
    Subject: Fw: Fwd: Santa Barbara Beach


    On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 7:43 PM, "harriecaldwell@comcast.net" <harriecaldwell@comcast.net> wrote:






    Subject: Fwd: Fw: Santa Barbara Beach


    To:






    Santa Barbara..

    The first picture and the last picture are taken at the beach in Santa Barbara right next to the Pier. There is a veterans group that started putting a cross and candle for every death in Iraq and Afghanistan .

    They put up this memorial and take it down every weekend.  Guys sleep in the sand next to it and keep watch over so nobody messes with it.
    Every cross has the name, rank and D.O.B. and D.O.D. on it. Very moving, very powerful. So many young volunteers. So many 30 to 40 year olds as well.

    The ACLU has filed a suit to have all military cross-shaped headstones removed.
    The irony is that these heroes died for the members of the ACLU too.

    cid:1.1363544160@web111611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com

    And that they filed another suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress.

    cid:2.1363544160@web111611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com

    Keep forwarding this e-mail to others. I'm not breaking this one. I'm asking that you not break it either.

    cid:3.1363544160@web111611.mail.gq1.yahoo.com

    If I get it a 1000 times, I'll forward it a 1000 times! 
    Prayer for our soldiers... please don't break it! 
    Please offer this short prayers or one of your own, then send it to others: 

    'Heavenly Father, hold our troops in Your loving hands.  Protect them as they protect us.  Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in this our time of need.  These things I humbly ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Amen.'

    GOD BLESS YOU FOR PASSING IT ON!

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    No Evidence That Spacing Out Vaccines Is Beneficial. It's A Way To Salvage False Epistemology

    September 21, 2015, 11:49 am
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    Roald Dahl Lost His Daughter To Measles in 1962. 
    Here Is His Advice Letter

    Ebola Presents A Trivial Threat To Americans' Health

    The Anti-Vaccination Epidemic Is Fueled By "Education," Wealth And Privilege

    Spacing Out Vaccines? No Evidence Supports Candidates' Ideas


    by Sara G. Miller


    There is no evidence that supports spacing out childhood vaccines — which two Republican candidates for president suggested in last night's presidential debate — instead of following the recommended schedule, experts say.

    "I am totally in favor of vaccines, but I want smaller doses over a longer period of time," Donald Trump, one of the candidates for president, said at the debate.

    Candidate and retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson responded by saying, "We have extremely well-documented proof that there is no autism associated with vaccinations," he said.

    Carson went on, however, to agree with Trump about spacing out vaccines. "But it is true that we are probably giving way too many in too short period of time, and a lot of pediatricians now recognize that, and I think are cutting down on the number and the proximity in which those are done" he said.

    Candidate Senator Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist, also agreed.

    "I'm for vaccines, but I'm also for freedom," he said. "Even if the science doesn't say bunching them up is a problem, I ought to be able to spread my vaccines out a little bit at the very least."

    But not only is there no evidence that spacing out childhood vaccines is good for children's health, 

    but the evidence actually suggests quite the opposite, Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told Live Science.

    There's evidence that supports not spacing out vaccines any further than they are scheduled under current recommendations, Offit said. [5 Dangerous Vaccine Myths]

    "To suggest that you make your own schedule is dangerous," he said. "That's why we saw the measles outbreak in Disneyland this year" he said — because parents chose to delay vaccinating their children.

    Spacing out the current vaccine schedule leaves children susceptible to diseases for longer periods of time than they need to be, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told Live Science.

    Moreover, spacing out vaccines is an unproven way to vaccinate: No one's ever tested it, so scientists don't know how well it works or how safe it is, he said.

    And it's been documented that a vaccine that is pushed back can become a vaccine that is never received, Schaffner added.

    Although some parents have raised concerns that an infant's immune system may not be able to "handle" the numerous immunizations children are scheduled to receive, there is no evidence that shows this is true, Schaffner said. "That's been shown clearly not to be the case," he said. "It's safe and effective."

    Whenever a new vaccine is added to the existing schedule, scientists are required to prove to the Food and Drug Administration that the new injection doesn't interfere with other vaccines, Offit said. "It's well-tested," he said.

    "The immunization schedule is based on an elaborate amount of scientific research," Schaffner said. "It's designed to be maximally effective and maximally safe."

    Shortly after the debate, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement that read, in part, "There is no 'alternative' immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer."




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    "Kim Davis Needs to Read the Bible Again," The New Yorker

    September 21, 2015, 11:56 am
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    Kim Davis and her supporters lash out against homosexuality by calling on ancient divine pronouncements of anger, rather than upon the serene divinity who, in the New Testament, offered unconditional forgiveness.

      Pax on both houses: Gospel Of Mark: Why Doesn't Kim ...

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      Sep 3, 2015 - Gospel Of Mark: Why Doesn't Kim Davis Deny Marriage Licenses To The Previously Divorced? ... 10 Back in the house, the disciples asked him about this again. 11 So he told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries ...


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      Sep 5, 2015 - "Frog Hospital" And "Pax On Both Houses" Discuss Gay Rights. Gospel Of Mark: Why Doesn't Kim Davis Deny Marriage Licenses To The ...

      Pax on both houses: Amish Insight Into Kim Davis' Uncivil ...

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      Sep 7, 2015 - Amish Insight Into Kim Davis' Uncivil Disobedience. Christian Witness. Christian Rebellion. Self-Imposed Exile. The Amish are biblical literalists ...

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      Sep 11, 2015 - Kim Davis, Kentucky county clerk. Kim Davis: If Christians Want Government Jobs, They Must Discharge The Government's Job Description

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      Sep 11, 2015 - When people are convinced God is on their side, there is no need for self-criticism. For if God approves me, why should I even think to ...

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      Sep 11, 2015 - Kim Davis Jail Cartoon ... Gay Rights Group Erects Billboard In Kim Davis' Ho. ... "Frog Hospital" And "Pax On Both Houses" Discuss G..

      Pax on both houses: Kim Davis Won't Return To Work Until ...

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      Sep 9, 2015 - Kim Davis , the embattled Kentucky county clerk at the center of a dispute over gay marriage and religious liberty, is out of jail but "needs time to ...

      Pax on both houses: Kim Davis Keeps $8o K Job As Head ...

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      Sep 14, 2015 - Gospel Of Mark: Why Doesn't Kim Davis Deny Marriage Licenses To The ... Kentucky clerk Kim Davis won't block licenses, but won't issue them.

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      Sep 3, 2015 - Gospel Of Mark: Why Doesn't Kim Davis Deny Marriage Licenses To The ... 10 Back in the house, the disciples asked him about this again.

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      Sep 2, 2015 - Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Ky., refuses to issue marriage licensesto same-sex couples because she believes same-sex marriage is ...

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    September 13, 2015

    Kim Davis Needs to Read the Bible Again

    By


    Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, returns to her post soon, after spending five nights in jail and then a few more days recovering at home. A Pentecostal Christian, Davis says “God’s authority” instructs her not to issue licenses for gay marriage, even though the law compels her to. Presidential contenders, including Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, both fundamentalists, have praised her stance.

    It’s undeniable that the earliest scripture books, the ones Christians call the Pentateuch and Jews call the Torah, don’t like same-sex relations. At the Garden of Eden, God decrees that a man will be the husband and a woman the wife. (See the second and third chapters of Genesis, ideally a scholarly translation such as the New Revised Standard; this article cites the N.R.S.V.) In Leviticus 18:22, the text states, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” In 20:13, Leviticus specifies that both parties in male-male sex shall “be put to death.”

    That seems open-and-shut, though one might wonder why Davis, Cruz, Huckabee and the like seek only to deny gays marriage, rather than execute them as God decreed.

    But here’s the thing. Christian theology says the New Testament amends the Old: what happened in the days of the apostles amends what came long before. Acts 13:39: “By this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” (Acts is the founding text of Pentecostalism.) Jesus overturned existing law about sin, the Sabbath, the afterlife and many other matters. His ministry proclaimed “a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” (II Corinthians 3:6.) “Letter” in this context means archaic law—that is, the law Davis, Cruz, and Huckabee want applied today.

    When conservative Christians justify opposition to gay relations by citing ancient scripture, by the most amazing coincidence they don’t mention the other stuff there. The ancient passages that denounce same-sex relations also denounce eating shellfish and trimming one’s beard. The Christian who says God forbids homosexuality – then shaves before going out for dinner at Red Lobster – is speaking from both sides of his mouth.

    In Leviticus, the Old Testament book that calls homosexuality an abomination, God not only sanctions but encourages slavery. Leviticus 25:44–46 , spells out rules for seizing, holding, and selling slaves. And there’s no estate tax: slaves may be kept “as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property.” In Deuteronomy 21:18–21, near the passages on the abomination of same-sex relations, ancient scripture directs that a disobedient child be taken by his parents to the city gate and stoned to death.

    If banning homosexuality is “God’s authority” to a modern Christian, ritual murder of children ought to be as well. So why don’t today’s Judeo-Christians believe in slavery and filicide? For mainstream Jews, some ancient doctrine has been reinterpreted by rabbinical commentary or civil law; for Christians, premises of ancient scripture have beenamended. This happened first via the middle prophets Isaiah and Hosea, who came centuries after ancient scripture—biblical tip: the key that unlocks the beauty of Abrahamic faith is the seldom read Book of Hosea—and then through the ministry of the Redeemer.

    What does the New Testament say about homosexuality and gay marriage? Silence on the latter; on the former, there’s one reference. In his Letter to the Romans, verses 1:26-27, Paul observes of idol worshippers, “Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

    Conservatives prefer translations, such as the God’s Word Bible, that substitute “perversion” for “error.” Yet many church-married, monogamous, man-woman, devout Christian couples engage in acts once thought perversion. Beyond this, Paul frowned on all sexual interaction, including by men and women married to each other. (I Corinthians 7:29.) The apostles evinced no interest in any form of carnality. Jesus never wed, and if he experienced erotic longing, the specifics are lost to history. The Old Testament is chock-full with lust and rape: by the New Testament, it’s as if sex has gone out of style. Those who beheld Jesus bathed in the glory of the resurrection believed the long-dreamt golden age about to arrive. Sex just didn’t seem terribly important compared to that.

    At any rate, the key word in Romans is not “perversion;” rather, “natural.” The science of the question of what a person’s natural sexual preferences are is unsettled, but tends toward the idea that people are born that way. If we are born with our sexuality, either it is a gift from God or evolved naturally. And if same-sex attraction is natural, then it is in concord with the New Testament.
    Of course, believers of all stripes pick and choose. Liberal Christians avert their eyes from Christ’s near-absolute ban on divorce, in Matthew 5:32. Wealthy Christians ignore their Redeemer’s warning that the rich are barred from heaven, in Matthew 19:24. Most Christians would rather not know that Jesus said to give to panhandlers, in Luke 6:30. Right now, the mainly Christian leaders of the European Union don’t seem concerned that Jesus said that only helping the destitute counts in the eyes of God. (Christ says, in Luke 6:33, “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”) Republican candidates thumping their chests about how admirably Christian they are skip the fact that Christ banned exactly such puffery. (Matthew 6:1 reads, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”) The Israeli right pounds the table about ancient scripture, but skips Exodus 22:21: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

    In the eight hundred thousand words of the Bible, one can find a verse to support just about anything. Even so, it’s disturbing that contemporary Christian conservatives lash out against homosexuality by calling on ancient divine pronouncements of anger, rather than upon the serene divinity who offered the world unconditional forgiveness.

    Voicing the thoughts of the serene God in John 15:12, Jesus summed up Christian theology in one sentence: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Once, God was full of anger; ultimately, the Maker cared solely about love. Why don’t today’s Christian conservatives understand that the second part amends the first part?

    Pax on both houses: Homosexuality And "The Natural Order"

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../homosexuality-and-natural-order.htm...

    Mar 17, 2015 - Homosexuality And "The Natural Order". Alan: A very persistent and sexually excited male Rottweiler once tried to have sexual relations with ...

    Pax on both houses: Cartoon: Jesus "View" Of Homosexuality

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../cartoon-jesus-view-of-homosexuality....

    Apr 5, 2015 - Pax on both houses. The best is enemy of ... Cartoon: Jesus "View" OfHomosexuality ... Hillary Clinton Asked To Appear Twice Before House.

    Pax on both houses: "This Modern World," Triumph Of The ...

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../this-modern-world-triumph-of-homos...

    Apr 22, 2015 - "The United States Of Homosexual Imperialism," By Laura Wood, "The Thinking ... Hillary Clinton Asked To Appear Twice Before House.

    Pax on both houses: Homosexuality In The GOP And ...

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../homosexuality-in-gop-and-homosexu...

    Oct 8, 2014 - It is revealing to note the 15 countries where homosexuality is least approved and the 15 countries where homosexuality is most approved.

    Pax on both houses: "The United States of Homosexual ...

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../united-states-of-homosexual-imperiali...

    Oct 7, 2011 - The salient difference between "then" and "now" is that, in the case of slavery, The Bible Belt's routine pigheadedness finally got its nose ...

    Pax on both houses: The Growing Belief That Traditional ...

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../the-growing-belief-that-traditional.ht...

    Dec 24, 2014 - The Growing Belief That Traditional Catholicism's View OfHomosexuality Is Monstrous. The foolish cruelty of Catholic conservatives who want ...

    Pax on both houses: Phil "Quack" Robinson ...

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../phil-quack-robinson-homosexuality-i...

    Jan 5, 2014 - Pax on both houses. The best is enemy of the good. ... Phil "Quack" Robinson: "Homosexuality Is A Sin In Leviticus 18:22". Embedded image ...

    Pax on both houses: "The Church and the Homosexual ...

    paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../church-and-homosexual-fordham.ht...

    Apr 10, 2012 - "Homosexuality," Plato wrote, "is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is ...



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    Having Kids Before Marriage No Longer Increases Divorce Risk. (Cornell University Study)

    September 21, 2015, 1:11 pm
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    Having Kids Before Marriage Doesn't Increase Divorce Risk

    http://www.livescience.com/52215-divorce-risk-premarital-children.html?google_editors_picks=true


    Unwed parents were once more likely to get divorced than couples who got married before having kids.

    Not anymore, a new study shows. Family structure and societal taboos have changed over the years, and now couples who have kids before marriage have no higher chance of divorce than couples who have kids after marriage, the researchers said.

    "There's less social pressure now to marry [before having children]," said study researcher Kelly Musick, an associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University in New York. "Couples are establishing their relationships and maybe considering marriage, but not worrying so much about marriage before starting a family." [5 Facts About Couples Who Live Together]

    The new research relied on data about couples who had children between 1985 and 1995 (the earlier period) and 1997 and 2010 (the later period), who were part of the National Survey of Family Growth run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    Participants in the survey — women of childbearing age in the United States — answered questions about their relationships and family formation. (The researchers looked only at surveys from 1995 and from 2006 to 2010, and included women who had children within 10 years of each survey.)

    The researchers examined survey responses from cohabitating or married couples with kids, giving them a sample of 2,656 couples from the earlier period and 3,046 from the later period.

    In the earlier period, 17 percent of the couples had children before marrying. Of these, 21 percent married within a year, and 59 percent went on to marry within five years of having kids, the researchers said. In the later period, twice as many couples, or 35 percent, had kids out of wedlock. What's more, fewer of them married after having kids: 15 percent married within a year and 48 percent married within five years, the researchers found.

    Divorce rates were high among the earlier group, they found. Couples who lived together, then had children and later married were more than 60 percent more likely to divorce than couples who got married and then had kids.

    Surprisingly, this effect disappeared in the later group, even after the researchers controlled for socio-demographic factors that are tied to marital behaviors and risk of divorce, such as race, education levels and whether or not the participants lived with both biological parents until age 18, they said.

    However, one group did not fare well in the later group. Cohabitating parents who never married were more likely to separate than married couples. About 30 percent of these couples separated within five years of having kids, a breakup rate twice as high as the married couple rate during that period, the researchers found.

    "This is a disturbing finding in terms of child outcomes, because we know that family instability is a risk factor for children," the researchers wrote in the paper.

    Why the change?
    It is anyone's guess why divorce rates have dropped among couples who have kids before marriage, but the researchers have several ideas. For instance, more couples in the United States are living together before marriage, and some of these couples may have children before tying the knot, they said.

    "The increasing stability of relationships involving cohabitation and the declining importance of marriage timing relative to parenthood is consistent with waning social pressure to marry and the blurring of boundaries between marriage and cohabitation," Musick told Live Science. [I Don't: 5 Myths About Marriage]

    Moreover, people tend to have high standards for whom they marry, and may hold off on marriage until a number of other prerequisites fall into place, including being economically stable and having a decent job and place to live.

    Even if they have children together, "some couples may hold off until those pieces are in place," Musick said. "They've got marriage on the back of their minds, but wait to take that step until they feel they've met these pretty high standards."

    The findings were detailed Wednesday (Sept. 16) as a briefing paper for the Council on Contemporary Families. The full results will be published online Sept. 18 in the journal Demography.

    Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science@livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

    Editor's Recommendations


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    Republicans Are Like Hypochondriacs Who Die At 104 Saying: "I Told You Something Was Wrong!"

    September 21, 2015, 1:18 pm
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    "American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/arrested-development-american.html

    "Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"

    "Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

    Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die


    "Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

    "The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

    "A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

    "People Who Watch Only Fox News 
    Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

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    The Unanswered Question Republicans Won't Even Ask

    September 21, 2015, 1:19 pm
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    Ann Coulter's Rant Abourt "Fucking Jews"

    September 21, 2015, 12:38 pm
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    Dear John,

    Thanks for your email.

    I am still in Rochester with sporadic internet/email access.

    Yes, Ann Coulter is responsible for the views you asked me to fact check. 


    Spread those cheeks long enough and Lucifer's jizzum ejaculates from "your" mouth intermingled with bits of shit and projectile vomitus.

    I encourage you to check out Wikipedia's article, "Islam In The United States."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States

    Excerpt: 

    Politics

    In the 2000 Presidential election, nearly 80 percent of Muslim Americans supported Republican candidate George W. Bush over Democratic candidate Al Gore. However, due to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq which took place under theBush Administration, as well as what some call an increased anti-Muslim rhetoric from the Republican Party after the September 11 attacks,[118][119] support for the Republican Party among American Muslims has declined sharply. By 2004, Bush's Muslim support had been reduced by at least half, who would vote for Democratic candidate John Kerry or a third party candidate.[120] By 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama got 67% to 90% of the Muslim vote depending on region.[121]
    Excerpt from my 2012 blog post, "Islam: An Open Invitation" -http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/islam-invitation.html

    Did you know that Florida's Islamic-American community voted overwhelming for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election? 

    Keeping in mind that "everything" depends on how "one does the accounting," it is a "fact" that if only half of Florida's Muslims had voted for Bush - rather than the 80% plus who did - Al Gore would have won that election hands down, no questions asked. 

    At least until the Iraq War, American Muslims - in keeping with their conservative values - cast consistently conservative ballots. 

    "How Did Muslims Vote in 2000?" 

    "A Fascinating Look At The Political Views of American Muslims"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/fascinating-look-at-political-views-of.html 
    Excerpt: "A new Gallup poll shows that they (American Islamics) are more likely than Christians or Jews to object to the targeting and killing of civilians."

    Pax on both houses

    Alan

    I have not fact-checked all the above statements but they are consistent with Coulter's viewpoint.
    To begin, check out her WikiQuote page:

    On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 3:22 PM, JT wrote:

    Ann Coulter | Sep 09, 2015 Among the benefits of Donald Trump's proposed immigration moratorium is that we won't have to keep importing hordes of Third World "refugees," such as the ones currently swarming across Europe. For decades, the United States has taken in far more refugees than the entire rest of the world combined. Nearly half of the refugees we take in are Muslim. And it's worked out great! Fazliddin Kurbanov, or "Idaho man," as he is dutifully described in the American media, was brought to the U.S. as a refugee in 2009, joining hundreds of other Uzbeks in Boise, Idaho. He came with his wife and young child, his sister and his two ailing parents. (What an economic powerhouse that family must be. Marco Rubio is right: We're making all kinds of money off of immigrants!) So grateful was Kurbanov to America for rescuing his entire family from "persecution" that he spent the next few years conspiring to commit jihad against us. As he cheerfully told his terrorist buddies back in Uzbekistan: "We are the closest ones to infidels. We have almost everything. What would you say if, with the help of God, we implement a martyrdom act? ... There are military installations right here, targets, and vehicles are available as well." Kurbanov had plenty of time on his hands to plot terrorist attacks in the U.S. because he was being supported by you, taxpayer. As the Lewiston Morning Tribune (Idaho) reported: He was "struggling" to find a job -- preferably something that involved either marketing or killing all the Jews. Last month, Kurbanov was convicted of various terrorism charges, based on his possession of Tannerite, ammonium nitrate, bullets and aluminum powder, as well as his stated intention, in conversations recorded by the FBI, to bomb military bases in Idaho and Texas. For the cherry on top, the whole welfare-dependent, Islamic terrorist-nurturing family won refugee status in America by claiming they were persecuted in Uzbekistan for being Christians. I am 100 percent sure there will be no thought given to deporting the rest of this useless family. To the contrary, we're probably bringing in their cousins. You wouldn't want to separate families, would you? A few years ago, the FBI realized we'd let in scores of Iraqi terrorists as "refugees," including Mohanad Shareef Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan -- the latter of whose fingerprints were found on boxes of IEDs seized in Iraq. On FBI surveillance tapes, the men bragged about having used a sniper rifle to kill American soldiers north of Baghdad, blowing up Bradley tanks and building more than a dozen bombs for use against U.S. troops. After being happily "resettled" into public housing in Bowling Green, Kentucky, they continued their war against America, including one specific Army captain. Soldiers who had survived an IED attack that killed four troops in Iraq were warned by the FBI that their comrades' murderers had been relocated To America -- courtesy of the U.S. government -- and might be coming for them. The Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had received asylum in the U.S., before launching the 2013 attacks that left four dead and thousands injured in Boston. That's not including the three Jewish men whose throats Tamerlan slit in Waltham, Massachusetts, a few years earlier. The entire extended Tsarnaev family got asylum based on Russia's brutal crackdown on Chechnyan Muslims -- persecution so unspeakable that various family members continued to vacation there. Hundreds of "refugees" from Somalia and elsewhere, who have been granted fast-track U.S. citizenship because of their sworn fear of persecution in their home countries, seem to forget all about that "credible fear" as soon as the time comes to go back and engage in jihad. To be sure, not all our beloved refugees are Muslim terrorists. Some are Hutu terrorists. A few years ago, we took in a genocidal Rwandan, Beatrice Munyenyezi, as a "refugee." Only after Munyenyezi was granted citizenship did we find out that, as the federal court put it, she had "personally participated in the mass killing of innocent women, men and children solely because they were called Tutsi." Although her American citizenship was revoked, Munyenyezi remains a legal U.S. resident, whom we are supporting in prison for the next decade. Only an immigration court can order her deportation. Which it will not. A few other heart-warming humanitarian stories: -- Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, or "the Blind Sheik," imprisoned for life in the U.S. for his participation in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing: Asylee. -- Ramzi Yousef, ringleader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing: Asylee. -- Egyptian Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport, killing two: Refugee. And the list goes on ... Even the refugees who don't specifically come here to murder Americans aren't fleeing persecution. They're fleeing countries with less generous welfare policies than we have in the West. Which won't exist anymore, if we don't turn off the spigot from the Third World. For at least half a century, the U.S. has taken in the vast majority of the world's refugees. Isn't it somebody else's turn, now? How about Mexico take in a few "refugees"? Why not El Salvador or Honduras? Could the pope have a word with his co-religionists about the suffering in Syria? How about Vatican City? Talk about the perfect place to build some low-income housing projects! Maybe it's time the world gets used to life without the United States. If our current immigration policies aren't stopped, this country will soon be nothing more than another failed Latin American state. Speaking of which, I note that our allies, Japan and Israel, aren't taking in any Syrian refugees. Japan is pretty far away, but Israel is even closer to Syria than Sweden is! Evidently, Japan and Israel aren't as gung-ho about destroying themselves as our European friends are. Donald Trump's soaring popularity suggests that America may not be ready to commit suicide yet, either.

    --
    Sent with Postbox


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    Pigs May Not Fly... But Elephants Do

    September 22, 2015, 8:17 am
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    Dumbo

    "Are Republicans Insane?" Best Pax Posts
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/12/are-republicans-insane-best-pax-posts.html

    "American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/arrested-development-american.html

    The Psychiatric Diagnosis Of American Conservatives: Folie à Plusieurs
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-psychiatric-diagnosis-of-american.html

    "Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"

    Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

    "Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

    "Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

    "The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

    "A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

    "Thomas Aquinas On American Conservatives' Continual Commission Of Sin"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/thomas-aquinas-on-american.html

    "Is Perfectionism A Curse? Paul Ryan Tells The Truth"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/paul-ryan-tells-truth.html



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    Trump Revealed: The Underlying Void Of Bluster No Longer Sells; Now He Must Know Something

    September 22, 2015, 8:18 am
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    Trump has run out of ways to say nothing.

    "It's going to be really great." 
    "It's going to be spectacular." 
    "It's going to be phenomenal." 
    "It's going to be better than ever."

    Until recently, people rode Trump's anger straight through his vacuity all the way to The Washington Establishment.

    Now they only see as far as his internalized abyss.

    What's more, Donald's essential emptiness is a precise profile of America's "conservative" psyche.

    "We Are Known By The Company We Keep: Evangelicals LOVE Trump"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/evangelicals-love-donald-trump-how.html

    I wish Donald all the political success he is capable of.

    May Trump become the GOP nominee or at least launch his own party.

    Run, Donald, Run!

    "Moderate Republican For Trump: Only Trump Can Restore GOP Sanity... By A Landslide Loss"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/07/dear-fred-last-night-after-spanish.html

    "Trump Family Fortune Began With Booze And Prostitution"
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/09/trump-family-fortune-began-with-booze.html





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    Beyond Raw Power And Limitless Money, Trump Doesn't Know What He Wants

    September 22, 2015, 3:00 pm
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    The Video of Donald's Jobs Proclamation

    Dear Fred,

    Thanks for your email.

    Trump may not know what he want.

    But he knows that this campaign is his last shot at the presidential stage and I'm convinced he's happy to "wing it" just as he assumes his dimwitted devotees will sign off on whatever plan he devises after being elected - a vanishingly remote possibility.

    "Deal makers" like Trump don't plan very far in advance, preferring "providential moments" when "the stars suddenly align."

    Fire-sale-bankruptcy-repo stuff.

    Trump is a fundamentally opportunistic fellow, and like opportunistic infections he prospers virulently whenever unexpected opportunity presents.

    "Trump Revealed: The Underlying Void Of Bluster No Longer Sells; Now He Must Know Something"


    Was it you who said Trump and Sanders (to whose campaign I donated last week) represent fingers flipped at the Washington establishment?

    Trump is the political equivalent of road rage.

    Pax tecum

    Alan

    On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

    Governor Walker wanted very much to be elected President and he was qualified, as such, having been competent, if disagreeable, as Wisconsin's governor.
    Donald Trump does not want to be President. He wanted, very much, to achieve fame and wealth, and he has been quite successful in meeting his own goals.
    But Alan, I am asking you, does Trump want to be President? I don't he's being clear to himself about what he actually wants at this stage in his life.
    --
    Fred Owens
    cell: 360-739-0214

    My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
    My writing blog is Frog Hospital




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    Swtichback Roadway, China

    September 23, 2015, 8:11 pm
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    Amalfi Coast, Italy

    September 23, 2015, 8:13 pm
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    Pulpit Rock, Norway

    September 23, 2015, 8:14 pm
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    Sheep In Ireland

    September 23, 2015, 8:16 pm
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    I saw "Jimmy's Hall" yesterday, a brilliant Irish/English film with a totally forgettable title.

    Most critics  applaud this historical drama although it has been less well received by cinema goers.

    Although the cumulative IMDb rating is only 6.7, I give it an easy 8.

    "Jimmy's Hall" is based on the life and work of the only Irishman -- Jimmy Gralton -- to be deported from his native land.

    The True Story Behind Ken Loach's New Movie, "Jimmy's Hall"
    http://irishpost.co.uk/the-true-story-behind-ken-loachs-new-movie-jimmys-hall/

    James Gralton
    Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gralton

    "Jimmy's Hall"
    Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy%27s_Hall



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    The Papal Visit Evokes Right-Wing Ugliness

    September 23, 2015, 8:57 pm
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    Originally posted at Talk to Action.
    In a recent press release, Catholic League president Bill Donohue warned, “Pope Visits To U.S. Occasion Ugliness.” Donohue then went on to describe the activities of several Catholic and non-Catholic Progressive leaning organizations during the last two papal visits. As is his wont, Donohue recklessly tarred dissent (by the Women’s Ordination Conference, for example) as anti-Catholic behavior.  Donohue demagogically conflates progressive and liberal dissent with hate. There are important differences between hate and dissent, regardless of the source.
    But with the ascendancy of the more open-minded Pope Francis, the Catholic League president all-too-conveniently overlooked much of the ugliness aimed at the pontiff from the Right.
    On his upcoming visit to the United States Pope Francis will be addressing Congress. A significant portion of his message is expected to focus on the need to take action against Global Warming. This is not sitting well with many conservatives including conservative Catholics who would prefer that Francis talk about culture war memes such as abortion and the supposed war on Christianity.
    One of these is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) -- a Tea Partier and a vocal gun rights activist -- who once described Native Americans as “wards of the federal government.”  He has also signed a pledge to vote against any Global Warming legislation that would raise taxes. It would be an understatement to say that he is at odds with Francis over economics and the environment.
    So, to that end, on September 17, 2015 Representative Gosar published a piece on the conservative website Townhall.com entitled, “Why I Am Boycotting Pope Francis’ Address to Congress.”  The statement is a long list of grievances against the successor to Saint Peter -- and it is not short on hyperbole.  Gosar complains, for example, that Francis may discuss climate change, but he...
    …has adopted all of the socialist talking points, wrapped false science and ideology into “climate justice” and is being presented to guilt people into leftist policies. If the Pope stuck to standard Christian theology, I would be the first in line. If the Pope spoke out with moral authority against violent Islam, I would be there cheering him on. If the Pope urged the Western nations to rescue persecuted Christians in the Middle East, I would back him wholeheartedly. But when the Pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one.

    It goes on like this.

    If the Pope wants to devote his life to fighting climate change then he can do so in his personal time. But to promote questionable science as Catholic dogma is ridiculous.

    Gosar claims:

    I have both a moral obligation and leadership responsibility to call out leaders, regardless of their titles, who ignore Christian persecution and fail to embrace opportunities to advocate for religious freedom and the sanctity of human life. If the Pope plans to spend the majority of his time advocating for flawed climate change policies, then I will not attend. It is my hope that Pope Francis realizes his time is better spent focusing on matters like religious tolerance and the sanctity of all life. As the leader of the Catholic Church, and as a powerful voice for peace throughout the world, His Holiness has a real opportunity to change the climate of slaughter in the Middle East… not the fool’s errand of climate change.

    “Socialist talking points?”  “Leftist policies?”  Really?
    Gosar’s condescending screed is full of stuff like this:  “…when the Pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one.” Such language is not civic in nature, but instead, full of hatred and hostility.
    Unfortunately for Gosar, this partisan sniping reveals a breathtakingly bad understanding of Catholic social teaching (of which, both the “Option for the Poor” and “Stewardship of God's Creation” are of great importance).  He should know this since he boasts of his Jesuit education.
    Then there is conservative writer Maureen Mullarkey who recently inked a poison pen piece entitled, “Francis and Political Illusion” in which she describes Francis as “an ideologue and a meddlesome egoist.”  Mullarkey subsequently published a piece entitled, “Pope Francis Is A Leftist And Must Be Called Out”.  In it, she complains that Francis is not being harsher on Islam “when innocents are slaughtered in Paris by the same forces that are shedding Christian blood in the Middle East... .”
    Such ranting should be no surprise coming from Mullarkey who is a contributor to the journal First Things, the well-known outlet for Catholic and Evangelical neoconservatives.
    None of this is new.
    As I pointed out in 2013 when Rush Limbaugh, Jeb Bush and Bill Donohue himself engaged in some ugliness by mischaracterizing Pope Francis’s criticisms of libertarian economics as a call to Marxist revolution. This is far from the first or only time a Catholic has been called a Marxist or a Socialist for wanting to use the power of government to ensure that capitalism be fairer and less predatory.  
    While it is true that a lot of ugliness has been directed at Pope Francis: Bill Donohue just isn’t being straight with us about the direction from whence it mostly comes.


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    "First Thing's" Maureen Mullarkey Considers Pope Francis "A Meddlesome Egoist"

    September 23, 2015, 9:25 pm
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    Maureen Mullarkey

    First Things' contributor Maureen Mullarkey recently inked a poison pen piece entitled, “Francis and Political Illusion” in which she describes Francis as “an ideologue and a meddlesome egoist.” Mullarkey subsequently published a piece entitled, “Pope Francis Is A Leftist And Must Be Called Out”. 

    Alan: The only other woman so dedicated to slagging Pope Francis is Laura Wood, "The Thinking Housewife."

    Ms.Wood contends "Bergolio" is an "anti-Catholic papal impostor."

    According to The Thinking Housewife, "Bergoglio is clearly urging Catholics to stop being Catholic."


    Compendium Of "Pax" Posts On "The Thinking Housewife," Laura Wood



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    Follow-Up To "The Thinking Housewife's" New Idée Fixe: The Talmud's Treatment Of Yeshua

    September 23, 2015, 10:11 pm
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    Religious Views Of Albert Einstein
    Wikipedia

    "Jesus In The Talmud" By Peter Schafer... Brought To You By "The Thinking Housewife"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/09/jesus-in-talmud-by-peter-schafer.html

    "The Thinking Housewife: 4 Consecutive Posts On Cover-Ups And Elaborate Gov't Falsifications"


    The Thinking Housewife


    The Talmudic Kat

    September 16, 2015
    MARK JAWS writes:
    I commend your excellent work on exposing the essence of The Talmud. I can assure that while today very few Jews know what is in the Talmud, an unhealthy percentage of them nonetheless go into Ashkenazi Apoplexy when Gentiles merely mention the name, Talmud. It is like, “Oh stoot! Who let the Kosher Kat out of the bag?” I am only half Gentile and a practicing Catholic to boot, and my comparison of the Talmud to the Quran in a family email has branded me an outcast among my mother’s Jewish family circle. No more Bar Mitzvahs for me – which is a shame, because they are the only place you can get really good chopped liver.
    Laura writes:
    Thank you. Sorry about the chopped liver.
    Deana writes:
    I am sure that much work has been put into verifying the accuracy of all of this but frankly, with all that is going on right now, I feel that there are other things that are more demanding of time, attention and concern.
    Laura, I understand that discussions about doctrine are important. Historical accuracy is important. But right this minute, Western Civilization is facing:
     – a Christian holocaust in the Middle East (NOT being performed by the Jews)
     – a Yazidi holocaust in the Middle East (NOT being performed by the Jews)
     – a political and religious invasion of Europe. I am assuming here you are of European descent. I simply cannot get my brain around the fact that the ancestral home of the greatest scientific, theological, medicinal, musical, and political achievements ever in the course of human history is suffering a MORTAL ATTACK and we are being reassured by the leftists that the attackers should be greeted with flowers and food and funds (of course). (This invasion is NOT being performed by the Jews. Indeed, the Jews are leaving Europe in droves and I do not blame them.)
     – a disastrous Iran deal that will haunt America, Europe, Israel and the rest of the Middle East and South Asia for generations. People are going to die and there will be enormous suffering stemming from this stupid deal. (Not only are the Jews NOT authoring this deal (I get the distinct feeling that Obama ordered the ayatollahs craft whatever they wanted), practically the entire nation of Israel has warned of its consequences. But we have “very smart” leftists here in the U.S. They know better. And so we are going to do this deal and just ignore the daily promises coming out of Teheran about destroying Israel in 25 years and attacking the U.S. main land.)
     – an invasion through our southern border and an immigration system that does not take our cultural values into consideration. (Jews are not coordinating all of this.)
     – a debt that is crushing us to death that we nor our children or even their great grandchildren will ever be able to repay. It is weakening us and making us vulnerable to our enemies. (Jews are not coordinating all of this.)
     – We have police officers being executed in the streets, cheered on by an ideology that is being embraced by people who are supposed to be in leadership positions (I just read that one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement was offered a teaching position at Yale Divinity School. We have reached a point in this country where that no longer surprises me.)
     – The 10th video of Planned Parenthood is out. I watched it and you would think we would get accustomed to it all but nausea still sets in when I watch these women so casually talk about “procuring” brains and gonads and all.
     – a Pope that is espousing ideas I don’t even recognize! I am Protestant and do not spend time reading up on Papal issues but even I can see that he is supporting issues that are not consistent with the beliefs of the conservative, devoutly faithful Catholic people I know. We (meaning all of us who follow Christ) NEED a strong Pope. We can argue doctrine all day long but a strong Pope would revolutionize Christianity. I can’t believe what I am seeing coming out of Rome. It’s almost as if it is in competition with some of the liberal protestant churches we are having to deal with. Who will reach the bottom first??
     I could go on and on but you get the point.
    Laura, please understand. It is not that I think that this is an issue that shouldn’t be discussed. Maybe this is more an issue of timing? I feel as if we are in a boat in the middle of the ocean and the boat is taking on water fast and we are focusing on whether the bolts in one of the rooms has rust on it.
     Do I think that the Jews are a particularly gifted people? Yes. Do I think they have an unusually high percentage of people who have come up with extraordinary ideas that have totally revolutionized the way we live our lives today? Yes. (I can not imagine working in health care today without the benefit of Jewish innovations alone. It would not be good.) Do I think that there have been a lot of Jews who have come up with spectacularly bad, if not down right evil, ideas that have caused a lot of people throughout history to suffer? Yes. But here is the thing: When I think of the Jews of the Soviet Union that helped implement communism or the George Soros and Saul Alinskys of history (both of whom fall in the evil camp, not just merely bad), they always were and continue to be surrounded by a lot of non-Jewish people who made sure those ideas became reality. The hideous ideologies that some Jews have come up throughout history would never have been more than a forgotten foot note of history had not a LOT of purportedly Christians/Catholics and atheists stepped up to the plate and helped activate those ideas.
    Right now, the things I love are not being destroyed by Jews. Every day when I turn on the television or I look on-line, I do not see thousands of Jews stating that they are planning to kill me or anyone who follows Christ. Jews today by and large do not spend time blowing up old churches or Buddhist temples. Ninety percent of Jews in America probably don’t even have a Talmud in their home. Even the tiny percentage of Jews who follow the Talmud to the letter pretty much stick to themselves and even they aren’t trying to kill us. They pretty much just want to be left alone so I frankly don’t care what they believe.
    We are ON FIRE right now. We are facing a MORTAL THREAT by a political movement disguised as a religion and few here are paying any attention because LOOK! Caitlyn Jenner has put on a new shade of lipstick!! And as if that were not enough, we here in the U.S. (and elsewhere in the west) are starting to see the full consequences of disregarding God’s laws. We have flouted what we know to be right for decades. How long will The Lord let this go on? Our arrogance is boundless. We are staring into the abyss and yet so many of our country men are urging that we hit the gas to get there faster.
     Again, please understand – I do not believe that there are things that should not be discussed. Everything is up for discussion. Everything. I just feel like this is somewhat akin to listening to a global warming discussion in which everyone is concerned about what the effects on the climate will be 300 years from now if the temperature increases 0.0001%. It could happen. It could be real. But right now there are other more pressing issues.
    Laura writes:
    Oh my dear goodness, you are gravely misinformed about current events.
    Let me try to enlighten you further in the future. I feel partly to blame for your ignorance. I am partly to blame.
    Let me just say that all of the problems you mention, from the refugee crisis in the Middle East to open borders in America to the execution of millions of American babies in the womb to the outrageous silence of the heretics who have taken over the infrastructure of the Catholic Church, all of these problems and more, would not exist without the decisive influence of Talmudism, a toxic ideology of revolution, deception and world racial supremacy. Of course, the cowardice and faithlessness of Catholics must take a great share of the blame. Jewish racial supremacy and revolution, the work of a very small number of Jews, enter the breach in civilization caused by indifferent Catholics.
    Wake up. You are blind.
    Muslims do not control our banks and their system of debt slavery. Muslims do not control our media. Muslims do not control our government. There are no Muslims on the Supreme Court mandating “gay marriage.” Are you blind? The refugee crisis was caused by the wars in the Middle East, by ourintervention, which would likely not have occurred without the influence of Israel. The Iran deal is not a disaster. It is a glimmer of hope. The American government has shaken off a small portion of the chains which strangle it. The Jews leaving Europe have a country to go to which is taking no refugees other than Jews, in fact it bars non-Jews from entering, and is happy to have them. The most dangerous country in the Middle East and in the world is Israel, bar none, and if anything should keep you awake at night it should be that a state built on racial pride and vengeance, already abundantly and breathtakingly exhibited on 9/11 and in Palestine, possesses nuclear weapons.
    Lydia Sherman writes:
    The bankers never appear to be behind it all, but their money and propaganda are. So your commenter needs to follow the financing and find out the reason for it. Many times strife is staged to cause nations to go to war and be forced to borrow from these bankers. If you look at countries that were not in debt and that threw out the international banker lending and usury schemes, and the countries that don’t use banks but pass money from hand to hand (some Arab countries) they were all targeted for war: example – Ukraine, which paid off its national debt. Watch Iceland. They got rid of their debt.
    Type in: “All wars are banker wars” for further education.
    Sept. 18, 2015
    L.B. writes:
    The thinly disguised smug of Mark Jaws’ comments is easily dismissed.
    “I commend your excellent work on exposing the essence of The Talmud. I can assure that while today very few Jews know what is in the Talmud, an unhealthy percentage of them nonetheless go into Ashkenazi Apoplexy when Gentiles merely mention the name, Talmud
    “Ashkanazi Apoplexy.”  How very clever, Mark.  You should be in advertising.  I would think Depends is right up your alley—or should be.
     “when Gentiles merely mention the name…”
    Yeah, right, Mark.  Lots of Gentiles have read the Talmud.  Lots of Gentiles go around “merely mentioning…”  Besides yourself, name one.
    “I can assure you…”  Oh, yes, I am so assured by your assurance.  You assurances are based on what?
    “an unhealthy percentage..”  What percentage would that be, Mark?
    “essence of the Talmud…”
    Six books has an essence. They address everything from washing your hands to burying the dead, but there is AN essence.  The rabbis contradict one another every other line, but there is an essence.  And you—having read the Talmud–know what that essence is. Right, Mark. The essence of your remarks starts with idi and rhymes with necrotic.
    And you compared the Talmud to the Koran.  How scholarly.  Did you also study Catholic writings during the inquisition?  You know?  Well-rounded is good.
    How about lines from Thomas Aquinas?
    “If forgers and other malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for putting to death one convicted of heresy.”
    Oh, how Christian.
    I wonder how many Catholics are guided by that line?
    Did it occur to you, Mark, that all religions have hideous writings in their histories?
    Your comments, Thinking Housewife, require a few more lines.
    Now we see the real Laura Wood.
    Get it all down to one enemy who has been working inside the walls for centuries.  Yeah, that’s how it is.
    Erect an incoherent self-celebratory rant that asserts one preposterous generalization after another, none supported by evidence and most easily defeated.
    How exactly is Talmudism at the bottom of Communism when the Jews who pushed it never read the Talmud?
    How many Jews have read the Talmud?  Even if not read, how are the dozen anti-Christian lines propagated anywhere else?  Name some Jew TV programs that denigrate Christ. Name a Jew-owned newspaper that speaks of Mary as a whore.
    How many Jews would not be ashamed of the anti-Christian lines?
    Do you think any Jews who read those lines take them seriously? “Oh, yeah, that’s JUST what we believe.”
    Have you asked a single Jew?  Or are you one of those gnostics who just knows?
    Ignore the obvious in order to sustain the litany of toxic drivel.  The Iran deal is a good idea?  A nuclear Iran is not as dangerous as a nuclear Israel? Israel has had nukes for 40 years.  How many have they used?
    It must be nice to have a small set of fixed ideas that can be used to handle just about everything.  More reflex than thinking, I would say.
    Let’s not forget how a country the size of a postage stamp is the cause of middle east chaos and violence.  It has nothing to do with how the region was carved up into conflictual entities, nor a religion that calls for perpetual and total war both within itself and against everything else, or the workings of ruling elites.  No, it’s Israel.  We know this because the area was all peace and prosperity and had a high standard of living before the Jews showed up.
    You know that Israel is guiding our foreign policy?  Please share what no one else seems to know.
    Make sure to ignore 500 years of distinctly unChristian thinking and actions by the Catholic Church. Far more than 60 books and 10 rabbis.   Maybe the Popes were Jews, too. Those clever hooked nosed Christ-killers.
    Don’t forget that Jews eat Christian children for Passover. Gefilte fish.  Not fish.  That’s not wine.  That’s Christian blood
    And Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  You might want to add that for a more thorough indictment.
    Laura writes:
    My deceased friend, Lawrence Auster, who was Jewish, said something I will never forget.
    He said sometimes civility is not good. Sometimes incivility is justified. This unfortunately is one of those times, and here is my somewhat uncivil response to you:
    You say you have finally seen the real Laura Wood. Well, no, you haven’t. You haven’t seen the real Laura Wood.
    I wish, I really wish, that I could for just two minutes show you the real Laura Wood. I wish you could be right here, standing in front of me in person. Because if you were, I would slap you so hard your eyes would rattle in your head, you bastard. Sometimes words are not enough to respond to disgusting insults and lies, even those like yours, which are partly by suggestion and implication (i.e., the “real Laura Wood” is a Nazi.)
    Now, it seems it is one of your great pleasures and triumphs to uncover Jew-haters. Well, you ain’t going to find a Jew-hater here, pal. I am sorry, very sorry, to disappoint you though I’m sure no matter what I say I can’t convince you of that. You obviously believe that anyone who points out the ugly truths about Orthodox Judaism or about Israel or about individual criminal Jews guided by a Talmudic mission, anyone who criticizes any of these things, hates Jews and wants to kill them. Such is the success of the rabbinic tyranny and psychological warfare over not just Jews but gentiles. It is you, not me, who is engaging in reflex thinking. I really am sorry to disappoint you, you righteous bastard. Not only do I not hate Jews, not only do I believe that I personally will go to hell if I hate anyone, not only have I had many Jewish friends, not only do I love individual Jews, but I get down on my knees and pray, pray very hard, that the Jewish people are rescued from the rabbinic tyranny that envelops and oppresses them, you righteous, phony bastard.
    Typical Judaic bullying. That’s what your comment is. (And yes, pseudo-Christians like you engage in Judaic bullying all the time.) A gentile points out the hate literature of the Talmud and the gentile is accused of hatred!! How do you like that! Isn’t that the ultimate psychological weapon?!
    Your laughable example from Thomas Aquinas, your outrageous blasphemy against the Church of Christ, which has never, ever taught Jew-hatred and has rescued Jews from physical harm many times, do not constitute any defense of the hate literature of the Talmud. There is an essence to the Talmud. And that essence is rejection of the Messiah and exaltation of the Jewish people as a race. 
    You seem to be the only person in the whole world who doesn’t know of the enormous Zionist influence over the American government and the billions of dollars every year we give to this tiny, supremacist nation and the trillions of gallons of blood we have spilled for it. Don’t take it from me. Take it from a leader of Israel. On Oct. 3, 2001, Ariel Sharon said, “I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America and the Americans know it.”
    You write:
    Name some Jew TV programs that denigrate Christ. Name a Jew-owned newspaper that speaks of Mary as a whore.
    Oh, good heavens, what planet have you been living on? Our Jewish-run networks denigrate Christ every day of the week by promoting anti-Christian values and corrupting our children. Their exploitation, and that’s what it is, is not the work of all Jews, their crimes, and that’s what they are, cannot be blamed on all Jews anymore than the crimes of the Italian mafia can be blamed on all Italians, but they can be blamed on Talmudism and on a small minority of Jews who take its essence seriously and who do indeed have strong enmity against Christian civilization and a determination to topple it entirely and replace it with their own world order.
    You mention the Protocols of Zion. Have you ever read it? I bet you haven’t. Well, whatever one thinks of conspiratorial Jews, whether one believes they exist or one doesn’t, the Protocols is a shockingly vivid description of everything we have been living through for the last two centuries and  more. From Protocol One:
    25. Far back in ancient times we were the first to cry among the masses of the people the words “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” words many times repeated since these days by stupid poll-parrots who, from all sides around, flew down upon these baits and with them carried away the well-being of the world, true freedom of the individual, formerly so well guarded against the pressure of the mob. The would-be wise men of the goyim, the intellectuals, could not make anything out of the uttered words in their abstractedness; did not see that in nature there is no equality, cannot be freedom: that Nature herself has established inequality of minds, of characters, and capacities, just as immutably as she has established subordination to her laws: never stopped to think that the mob is a blind thing, that upstarts elected from among it to bear rule are, in regard to the political, the same blind men as the mob itself, that the adept, though he be a fool, can yet rule, whereas the non-adept, even if he were a genius, understands nothing in the political – to all those things the goyim paid no regard; yet all the time it was based upon these things that dynastic rule rested: the father passed on to the son a knowledge of the course of political affairs in such wise that none should know it but members of the dynasty and none could betray it to the governed. As time went on, the meaning of the dynastic transference of the true position of affairs in the political was lost, and this aided the success of our cause.
    26. In all corners of the earth the words “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” brought to our ranks, thanks to our blind agents, whole legions who bore our banners with enthusiasm. And all the time these words were canker-worms at work boring into the well-being of the goyim, putting an end everywhere to peace, quiet, solidarity and destroying all the foundations of the goya States. As you will see later, this helped us to our triumph: it gave us the possibility, among other things, of getting into our hands the master card – the destruction of the privileges, or in other words of the very existence of the aristocracy of the goyim, that class which was the only defense peoples and countries had against us. On the ruins of the eternal and genealogical aristocracy of the goyim we have set up the aristocracy of our educated class headed by the aristocracy of money. The qualifications for this aristocracy we have established in wealth, which is dependent upon us, and in knowledge, for which our learned elders provide the motive force.
    27. Our triumph has been rendered easier by the fact that in our relations with the men, whom we wanted, we have always worked upon the most sensitive chords of the human mind, upon the cash account, upon the cupidity, upon the insatiability for material needs of man; and each one of these human weaknesses, taken alone, is sufficient to paralyze initiative, for it hands over the will of men to the disposition of him who has bought their activities.
    28. The abstraction of freedom has enabled us to persuade the mob in all countries that their government is nothing but the steward of the people who are the owners of the country, and that the steward may be replaced like a worn-out glove.
    29. It is this possibility of replacing the representatives of the people which has placed at our disposal, and, as it were, given us the power of appointment.
    Among the basic doctrines of the Protocols is the use of violence and deception. Israel has used violence and deception since its founding. It is a terrorist nation. Ever hear of the King David Hotel? Ever hear of the Lavon Affair? Ever hear of U.S.S. Liberty? I suggest you go to Christopher Bollyn’s website and read his book Solving 9/11: The Deception that Changed the World. 
    The evidence that Israel attacked America on 9/11 is overwhelming.
    Good heavens, even Wikipedia of all things has a substantial entry on the Israel connection to 9/11. From that entry’s description of the Israeli agents seen celebrating moments after one of the Twin Towers collapsed:
    Of the 90 or so detained Israelis there was a group of five Israelis, now widely known as the “dancing Israelis”, who were spotted in multiple locations filming, and celebrating the attacks.
    The men were detained by NYPD. The police and FBI field agents became suspicious when they found maps of the city with certain places highlighted, box cutters (the same items that the hijackers allegedly used), $4,700 cash stuffed in a sock, and foreign passports. Police also told a New Jersey local paper, The Bergen Record, that bomb sniffing dogs were brought to the van and that they reacted as if they had smelled explosives. According to the Jewish Weekly Forward the FBI later determined that at least two of the Israelis were Mossad agents.
    Their names were Sivan & Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Schmuel, Oded Ellner & Omer Marmari.
    All this should come to light and be fully exposed. America needs to know of this evidence.
    Regarding the Iran deal: Do I wish to see Israelis harmed or attacked? No. Do I think they should be exposed to danger? No. But they have ample weaponry to defend themselves and their leaders have shown the will to use it, even against innocent civilians and children.
    I’m glad the sanctions against Iran are going to be lifted. I don’t wish to see Iran obtain nuclear weapons and I’m not convinced that it will. But the fact is, it faces a nation that hates it and has expansionist intentions and that is stacked to the gills with nuclear weapons. The Muslim world hates us most of all because of Israel.
    Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
    Jonathan Smith writes:
    Bravo!  I commend your refusal to grovel and cringe when L.B. shakes his mighty fist under your nose.  Every Christian should have a fair and cool-headed understanding of Talmudic teachings with respect to gentiles, Christians, Christianity and Christ.  When I first read these lines, after forty years of stern lectures on the vile anti-Semitism that is said to drip from the Gospel of St. John, I did not feel hatred.  I felt that I finally understood something that had puzzled me about Christianity’s long and complicated relationship with the Jews.  I did not begin to think that persecution and the ghettos were admirable or just, but I did begin to think that they were intelligible.
    The L.B. may be right when he says that few Jews read the Talmud, but it is also true that few Europeans of the Middle Ages read St. John.  These peoples learned these stories by oral transmission. And the Talmudic blasphemies against Jesus were in any case condensed in the Toledod Jesu, a short book which dates at least to the Middle Ages.  There may be a Christian equivalent to the Toledod Jesu, but I don’t know it.
    As I said, none of this should cause any Christian to feel hatred for Jews, or even mild distaste.  What it should cause Christians to do is stop feeling hatred for themselves.  Our forbears in faith sometimes did some nasty things, but they were not uniquely nasty.  Their nastiness wasn’t even remarkable in the great, sorry pageant of human nastiness.  But we (and more especially our children) are nowadays told that we have been, and are, uniquely wicked, and this vilification is beginning to take its toll on the morale of Christians (especially white Christians).  Imagine what would happen to the mind of a child who was repeatedly told that he had, in the past, committed monstrous and vile crimes against his angelic siblings.  He would collapse under self-loathing and guilt, much as Western Civilization and Western Christianity is today collapsing under self-loathing and guilt.
    I was happy to read your initial posts on the Talmud because they are an antidote to one part of this toxic narrative, and I was happy to read your spirited rejoinder to L.B. because you assert your right to administer this antidote.
    Laura writes:
    Thank you. You make an important point about self-loathing.
    I’m not going to get into the issue of the ghettos now, about which there is also some popular misunderstanding. Suffice it to say, it’s an important subject.
    B. Herchenroeder writes:
    My heart and emotions are with you. I spent a good deal of my life running a very well known Jewish bakery in Washington, D.C. Like you I had a number of Jewish friends. It was okay for them to call out another Jew but the dumb goyim best be careful. They have been on the run for close to 5,776 thousand years or how far back their calendar is dated. Christ threw the money changers out of the Temple if I recall. Now their goal is to create a one world government and destroy this country in the process. Sorry my word smithing skills are far off from yours but you hit it out of the park on your return comment to the one gentleman.
    I’m a gentile of German ancestery. That’s it ….blond hair and blue eyes. Everyone makes Germans out to be the monsters but it might have been a better world if they had won the war. Hitler would have been eliminated by the decent Germans and the people who knew what the bankers were doing then would have paved a different road for the course of history. We are in dire straights as a country and all you have to do is look at the first immigration act in 1964 and see who authored it to understand it has been in play for sometime. Lawrence Auster was an excellent man and he spoke the truth. Soros is behind Obama along with Sheldon Adelson. Their kingdoms are here on earth and mine is with God. Like you, I get on my hands and knees and pray. Who is behind the pornography industry? Banks? Payday loans? Creation of the ghetto? Rap music? Disney channel ( Miley Cyris is the sickest individual out there)…on and on. There were some decent people at Posin’s Bakery and Delicatessen and then we had Leiha who was an Aushwitz suvivor. Her son was a Rabbi and she used to steal Monday through Friday then Saturday she was at the synagogue. Sorry for my rant…must be the Malbec. I had a good friend (Jewish) who used to say it was a trait. He was apologetic for the Jewey Jews, like Howard Stern would say. Keep up the good work…unfortunately the money changers are to blame for the total destruction of this planet currently in process.
    Laura writes:
    Thank you.
    At the end of the day, I blame lukewarm Catholics who, for one, did not uphold the Church’s teachings on usury.
    Bill R. writes:
    I want to commend you on your courageous stand on behalf of the truth and against the lies, distortions, and mean-spiritedness of “L.B.”
    Among many excellent points you made, I would like to particularly acknowledge your statement that Israel is a terrorist state.  That cannot be said too often, since the accuracy of the designation is matched only by the degree to which it goes unacknowledged in the West.  It is a terrorist state and a racist state.  If it is not, then there neither is, nor ever has been any such thing.  It is a nation that was not only born in terrorism and racism, as many a mercilessly dispossessed and disenfranchised Palestinian could tell you, but continues in both to this day, made all the more insidious and frightening for the fact that this criminal nation is not only thoroughly unacknowledged as such by the West, but thoroughly supported by her instead.
    It is a measure of the pathological sensitivity of this people that almost any degree of criticism of them as Jews instantly becomes proof in their minds of anti-Semitic race hatred and bigotry.  They live in a permanent state of collective neurosis; always seeing the source of their troubles outside themselves instead of within; always in someone else’s “hate,” never their own; in someone else’s fanaticism, never theirs; in “white supremacists” or “Nazis” instead of in their own Jewish supremacism and racial fascism.
    So long as they choose to remain in that state, they stand no chance of ever seeing the real Laura Wood and others like her who are driven not by hate, but by love of their own people and its culture, history, values, and traditions, all of which remain desperately under siege and assault at this moment, a siege and assault that has been overwhelmingly led by Jews, and while not their sole province, their influence on it has been decisive, and their participation in it out of all proportion to their numbers.  It is a ruthless siege and a ruthless assault from which Jews are unwilling to cease and desist, on the one hand, nor possessed of the moral courage to honestly admit, on the other.  Furthermore, as you have well experienced, more than merely lacking the honesty to admit it, they are not satisfied until they have impugned the worst motives possible to those who do have the moral courage to point it out to them.
    Laura writes:
    Thank you.
    Just to clarify, I was not defending my culture so much as universal truths. Israelis don’t benefit from violence and deception or porn either.
    Also, I want to commend “L.B.” for something he said in our private exchange. He said that my reaction showed that I am no saint. He is right. I am no saint.
    Bill writes:
    It is a measure of the pathological sensitivity of this people that almost any degree of criticism of them as Jews instantly becomes proof in their minds of anti-Semitic race hatred and bigotry.
    If people are taught by their religious leaders that the world hates them, they understandably react with “pathological sensitivity.” I would like to look at this aspect of the Talmud, which has been written about by others, in a future post.
    Susan-Anne White writes:
    Tut tut, Mrs.Wood, your response to Perfessor Plum should have carried a “bad language” warning. Your RC faith hasn’t helped you to watch your language.
    Your rant made you sound like a foul-mouthed feminist.
    Laura writes:
    My faith has helped me to watch my language. Pope Pius X once said modernists should be “beaten with fists.”* That’s not to say the Holy Father would agree with this case, but that kind of reaction is not necessarily disgraceful.
    Yes, it was bad. However, I gave a warning. I said it was going to be un-civil.
    *[According to The Anti-Modernist Reader, edited by Fr. Anthony Cekada (True Restoration)]
    Bill R. writes in response to Laura:
    Just to clarify a bit myself. When I speak of culture, I take it as self-evident that that includes our conception of universal truths. If I sounded as though I was speaking in narrower terms, and thus of a narrower love on your part, I wasn’t. The most precious expressions of our culture, our art, literature, religion, etc., have to do with our vision of eternal truth.
    Laura writes:
    A Note to Readers: I had misidentified a commenter in this thread. He now goes by “L.B.” instead of “Perfessor Plum.”
    My sincere apologies to Perfessor Plum for the mix up.

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    Meet the Wikipedians. Those "persnickety," techy types who keep your favorite Internet information website brimming with data. Morley Safer reporting



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