KairosFocus

Newswatch: Reported media clampdown in Honduras -- a troubling development

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Honduras's provisional government, while trying to persuade the international community that its overthrow of its president was democratic, is being criticized for taking control of a number of media outlets since the coup.

The country's Channel 36, run by a close associate of expelled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, was shut down following Mr. Zelaya's ouster and remained off the air this week, with only a blank signal showing up on Honduran televisions.

Channel 8, a state-owned network that had also supported Mr. Zelaya, went off the air on Sunday and then returned with a new cast of anchors, largely delivering news friendly to the government's interim president, Roberto Micheletti.

Radio Globo, a network that spent much energy criticizing Mr. Micheletti before he took power, remains under military guard, according to its owner, Alejandro Villatoro. When it broadcast the first Honduran interview with Mr. Zelaya Wednesday from exile, in which he was addressed as "Mr. President," soldiers turned off the station's transmitter, Mr. Villatoro said.

Other outlets less closely allied with Mr. Zelaya said they had no complaints . . . .

Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for press freedom based in France, said Wednesday that some stations "have resumed broadcasting but their coverage of the coup is either closely controlled or nonexistent." It also said international news outlets including U.S.-based CNN and Venezuela's Telesur -- which is run by the government of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and strongly supports Mr. Zelaya -- were no longer available on TV stations and could only be seen on the Internet.

In an interview late Thursday, the country's new interim president, Mr. Micheletti, said he had "not the slightest idea," about why soldiers had disrupted Mr. Zelaya's speech. But he said certain measures were necessary to prevent Hondurans from being incited to violence. A call to the Honduran National Telecommunications Commission seeking comment was not returned.

Now, in a de facto or declared state of emergency, it is normal for media to be restrained to a more than usual extent, in the interests of the public good; on the principle that one has no proper right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.

People say that all we see in Honduras are local news telling us a biased story of the situation, but the media is not saying how CNN is basing most of their news from reporters of TELESUR, a news channel loyal to Chavez. I have been watching CNN since sunday afternoon, which was when electricity and TV were restored. People in Honduras are outraged by the constant news by CNN tellin[g] the international viewers that life and business are not being carried as usual and there has been misinformation inside the country. Totally false, why don't CNN reporters como [sic] to Honduras instead of depending on Telesur or other leftist reporters. Let them go into a restaurant and film how CNN news are being displayed all around We are tired of listening to CNN and CNN in Spanich [sic] portray lies about what's going on in Honduras . . .

On May 24, 2007, Zelaya ordered ten two-hour cadenas (mandatory government broadcasts) on all television and radio stations, "to counteract the misinformation of the news media."[17] The move, while legal, was fiercely criticized by the country's main journalists' union, and Zelaya was dubbed "authoritarian" by his opposition.[18] Ultimately, the broadcasts were scaled back to a one-hour program on the government's plans to expand telephone service, a half hour on new electrical power plants and a half-hour about government revenues. According to the University of New Mexico's electronic bulletin NotiCen, "Zelaya's contention that the media distort his efforts is not without merit," citing reports which gave the public the impression that murder rates were rising, when they actually fell by 3% in 2006.[17] Journalists who have criticized Zelaya's rule have been murdered and harassed.[19] Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the United Nations criticized murders of journalists during Zelaya rule.[20] In 2008, The Organization of American States (OAS) accused Zelaya of imposing "subtle censorship" in Honduras. A study, "Censura sutil en Honduras: abuso de publicidad oficial y otras formas de censura indirecta", was released in September 2008.[21]

posted by Gordon @ 3:10 AM 0 comments

Newswatch: a senior Honduran voice speaks on the "coup"

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d'état.

That is nonsense.

In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law . . .

He takes time to explain, having first briefed on the background history and entrenched clauses of the Honduran Constitution:

Under our Constitution, what happened in Honduras this past Sunday? Soldiers arrested and sent out of the country a Honduran citizen who, the day before, through his own actions had stripped himself of the presidency.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.

Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added [by the author]], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."

Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America's authoritarian tradition. The Constitution's provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.

The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya's arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day . . . [Emphases added]

This therefore confirms and fills out the picture from the previous newswatch article.

The Honduran Constitution is a bit drastic on the matter, but in the historical context, that is unfortunately understandable; and defiance of clauses -- much less, entrenched clauses -- of a Constitution is most plainly an action that points to lawlessness.

And, in the end, it is better that the rule of law be preserved than that any one man -- however popular or even effective -- continue in office in defiance of plain law. (We can always change the law if it proves unsatisfactory -- in this case by calling a proper constitutional convention under its terms; which is actually one of the particular points that was being defied by what now looks like former president Manuel Zelaya. But, on a lot of painful history, to restore respect for law once a precedent of defiance of law has been set, is not so easy.)

Such confirmatory news is of course of general interest for those of us who are concerned about our region.

But, more to the point, we now see a question of a widening gap between reality and the picture being painted for us by prominent international and regional statesmen and organisations, as well as by media houses. For, we have not heard of headlined complaints that the Honduran Constitution is defective through being overly drastic (which would be understandable and debatable); instead, from seemingly every quarter, we have been hearing the repeatedly headlined outright declaration of "fact" that a coup has taken place against Senor Zelaya and that Honduras is to be subjected to sanctions against a coup.

And that brings us right up against the theme for this blog that much of the news, views, and state-level declarations that so often fill our headlines across the Caribbean plainly cannot be safely taken at face value. With very serious implications for the question of the manipulation and deceiving of the nations. For, if half of a story on one matter can so easily be turned into what now appears to be a false picture on the nation of Honduras and those who have sought to preserve the rule of law there, creating a climate of unjust contempt and even hostility; what about the possibility that the same tactics may one day be deployed against us?

(That is, I am here applying he Golden Rule of Matt 7:12 by asking us to put ourselves in the shoes of those who have been -- on what now has to be viewed as credible evidence -- victimised by distorted and irresponsible reporting. How would we feel were we in their shoes? What would happen if such evidently irresponsible and unfair, imbalanced media coverage were to become routine? [This is Kant's approach: that which is immoral or unjust shows itself by the likely destructive consequences were it to spread unchecked across the community.] How, then should we pray? What, then, should we say and do?)

Not to mention, that the plainly unbalanced responses we have seen raise serious questions about the judgement, actions -- and perhaps even competence on international affairs -- of several regional and international statesmen, starting within Caricom, but extending to the OAS, the White House and even the UN.

Troubling questions in a dangerously turbulent time. END

posted by Gordon @ 5:51 AM 1 comments

Newswatch: Another side of the Honduras story

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking . . . .

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica . . . .

The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it . . . [Emphases added]

Food for thought.

So, even as more and more members of the Caricom grouping rush to join Mr Chavez's ALBA, perhaps we need to0 pause and reflect on this other side of the story.

For, there may be more to this story than meets the eye indeed, END

posted by Gordon @ 9:29 AM 0 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 83: On the Fifth Column within the gates

1] North Korea has repudiated the armistice and is breathing out nuclear and conventional war threats. But, we are being soothingly told that it is just a matter of an internal power transition. (But, if threatening nuclear war in Asia and across the Pacific is how the North Korean elites think 'internal" power transitions should be made, what does that tell us about the danger posed by that oppressive regime? And, what does it imply about the valid point in Mr Bush's remarks so many years ago now when he warned about the danger posed by North Korea and other oppressive regimes that sought nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them? Should we therefore simply accept the disregard for solemn international non-Proliferation agreements by signatories -- and BTW, Israel has never been a signatory -- now openly tied to saber-rattling?)

2] Mr Obama made a widely praised speech in Egypt, at the invitation of two leading Islamic universities. However, while it will be unpopular to raise questions on Mr Obama [a darling of the media elites and the educated public in our region, to the point where I have seen Obama campaign stickers on cars], and while the speech strongly reflects the more or less "standard" media trumpeted conventional wisdom of progressivist post colonial narrative in which Western powers bear a particular burden of having been oppressors, the speech seems to be lacking on a few key points of note, e.g. somehow Mr Obama forgot that the past decade's face of US foreign policy did in fact "look like" him: Mr Powell, and Ms Rice. Similarly, while it was important to say that the holocaust was a real horror, it would have been a key departure to point out, however gently and eloquently, that a founding father of palestinian Arab militancy [mufti Hussein] was (a) implicated in and indicted for crimes connected to that holocaust as a collaborator with the Nazis, and (b) was shielded from having to stand before a bar of justice by Egypt. Similarly, Hamas has enshrined in its charter in clause 7, a hadith that calls for the wholesale end of days massacre of Jews, and Iran's regime has indulged itself in both Holocaust denial and a blatant attempt to acquire nuclear weapons in defiance of its international commitments, while openly declaring intent to wipe Israel off the face of the map. In that context, a call to the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank to walk away from the history of war to destroy not just Israel but its Jews, and instead go back to the principles of the UN mandate of 1947 and the post six-day war resolution 242 -- i.e. mutual recognition and peace -- would have been a much more just start point than the agenda-laced Saudi proposal. So, it would have been an important point to call the Middle East to a general recognition of the rights of all historic Middle Eastern peoples, including Jews, Kurds and the Copts of Egypt; as a first step to real regional peace. Then, a call for reform of the regimes to better balance liberty and justice for all, backed up by a call to re-examine the various theologies, law sources and texts in Islam that have spawned the sort of hostility, violence, terrorism and oppression that we have seen across that region and now spreading to the wider world in recent decades, would have been a key premise for addressing the role of religiously motivated ideology in that region's problems. (And if such a speech could not have been made from that platform, Mr Obama had no business being on the platform. For instance, the UN would have been a very suitable venue for a true "new beginnings" speech, if such a platform was needed.)

3] After Iran's blatantly stolen election, many Iranians have taken to the street in protest, calling for a real election. Only, to be met with beatings and oppression, multiplied by a deafening global silence on the part of leading democratic nations. In short, notwithstanding that the other candidate was also vetted by the mullahs [but has now found himself as the symbol of rejection of Mullah-ocracy, which ironically echoes the role Mr Gorbachev found himself in in the years from 1984 on . . . ] we have strong evidence that the people of Iran want democratic liberation, but are being oppressed. (So, we must ask a sad question: is it that the voices of liberation in our region and in the wider West are concerned for liberation, or is our concern confined to just western oppressors and potential oppressors? [It would be wise to note that none of Britain, France and the USA were lily-pure in 1939 - 1945; but a sober estimate of the circumstances would have shown that Hitler and co. were infinitely more dangerous and destructive. In that light, France's half-hearted-ness in the war (driven by divided counsels and deep mutual animosity) cost it dear, and cost the world dear.])


4] In Pakistan, the Taliban and allies have made a major power grab in the Swat valley, only sixty miles from the capital of that dangerously unstable Islamic nuclear power. This provoked fighting, which for the moment has pushed back the threat, but the overall situation simply underscores the dangers posed by radical Islamism. (And, we should note that in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, it is clear that Mr Bush sent Mr Musharraf a message: either be the first regional ally in the war on terrorism, or its first target in the axis of evil. An axis that --as our headlines and an atlas will show -- in significant part, is clearly still in business.)

5] In America, a madman has barged into the Holocaust memorial museum, and has murdered a guard there. Immediately, it was trumpeted that this -- following on the heels of the murder of a late term abortionist as he ushered in his church (of which he seems to have been a major financial backer) -- is a second sign of a trend of right wing, religiously motivated "fundamentalist" extremists and the dangers of such. Soon, it turned out -- from his own online writings -- that this latest mad man actually despised Christians and the New Testament, and saw himself as a champion of the racialist form of Social Darwinism [a profile that is remarkably similar to that of the murderers at Columbine High School a decade ago]. But in this year of Darwin 200 celebrations and hagiography, it is not politically correct to point out that not only did Darwin sub-title the first five editions of Origin with "the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for existence," [with the direct implication of the extinction of "unfavoured" ones] but that this was not jut a matter of "races" of cabbages. (Believe it or not, that was put to me in a blog commentary thread some days ago. Similarly, yes, Christians, Jews, and many other individuals and movements have been implicated in racism etc; but such distractive immoral equivalency rhetoric simply blocks us from listening to the moans of over 100 million victims of social Darwinist thought in the hands of powerful elites claiming to act with the culturally dominant warrant of science in the past 100 years. So, with all due regard to other historic sins and dangers, we must now frankly face then address the clear and present danger of Darwinist amorality and associated aggressive elitism. In fact, Darwin's second book, on The Descent of Man, makes it plain in Chs 5 - 7, that he saw the White Germanic European races -- observe his way of speaking of the English as "Saxons" -- as the supremely fit ones, and sees them as exterminating "inferior" ones such as Negroes and Aboriginal Australians over the next few centuries; not to mention his dismissive remarks on fringe European peoples such as the Irish,and mixed race peoples such as in Brazil and the Americas more generally. And in a notorious letter of 1881, he added Turks to the list of inferiors. The insistent refusal to face and soundly address the moral hazard of aggressive elitism that leaps out of Darwinian thought -- now in racist and sexist forms, now in the rise of abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, etc -- should tell us that this is not merely a past historical issue, but a still present problem, one that is being covered over by powerful elites flying the flag of Science.)

6] In Iraq, terrorist bombings have again begun to creep back into our headlines, even as media coverage of the war continues to fail to give us an informed and objective analysis of the underlying strategic, ideological and Islamic apocalyptic issues that are driving the global terrorism crisis and associated military campaigns. In that context the new American regime has decided that it will now read captured terrorists the Miranda Rights (an unprecedented step for prisoners of war, much less captured illegal combatants . . . ), while moving away from recognising a global war on terror to speaking about "overseas contingency operations." indeed, I find it astonishing that by far and away most informed people do not know the term "black flag army," or the hadith about how they will come from Khorasan [E. Iran and to the east and north thereof] and under Imam Mahdi will conquer the Middle East, conquer and massacre the Jews in and around Jerusalem then subjugate the world.)

7] In the UK, on a more personal note, I have now received notification on the outcome of my protest on the way a BBC entertainment programme, Bonekickers, on July 8, 2008 recognisably Protestant "fundamentalist" Christians were portrayed as zealous, violent crusaders who -- in a Dan Brownesque scenario full of allusions to pieces of the "true cross" and knights templar etc -- set out on holy war and in that process seized an innocent Asian muslim man and beheaded him. This turnabout of the actual situation where for instance the South Asian islamist terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed seized Israeli -American journalist Daniel Pearl and beheaded him, to the cheers of many islamists across the world, reeks of the demonisation of Bible believing Christians that is now ever so common in the western media and among wider elites. In particular, it seems that, under the distorting lens of the postmodern post colonialist progressivist narrative, they seem to think that the current global situation boils down to Western crusaders setting out on unprovoked colonial aggression in Asia yet again, just as 1,000 years ago; never mind the fact that the crusades -- horribly carried out as they were, and with very bad theology turned into war propaganda as well -- were, strictly speaking limited counter-offensives after centuries of Jihad that had carried Islamist conquest and terroristic or piratical raids from Arabia to India and to France. Similarly, they claim -- even post Dan Brown -- that merely labelling and presenting such stereotypes and afrd hominem laced strawmen as fiction suffices to remove harm. So, it is no surprise to learn that my objection has been dismissed right tot he level of the Editorial Standards Committee, which in its report has not even made mention of the Associated Press Style book recommendation that since the term "fundamentalism" has become so much a term of abuse and demonisation, unless a group specifically calls itself "fundamentalist," it should not be labelled as such; indeed, when I received the proposed published report, it -- lamentably -- brimmed over with precisely the problem just pointed out. (I intend to carry the protest forward to he highest level, on a point of principle.)

posted by Gordon @ 4:34 AM 0 comments

Matt 24 watch, 82: The Gathering Storm -- yet again . . .

1 --> How Germany, long since chafing under the Versailles treaty restrictions (designed to prevent a resurgence of the aggression that under the Kaiser threw the world into chaos and bloody turmoil), first ended up in the hands of a charismatic ex corporal as dictator, then how he bluffed France and Britain into allowing him to re-militarise the Rhineland. After all, Germans were "just going back into their backyard."

2 --> But once the Rhineland was re-occupied militarily, a fortress line was put down that recalled to a France with lingering wounds the formidable German lines that it had cost so many hundreds of thousands of French soldiers their lives to fruitlessly assault; ultimately provoking the nearly fatal mutinies of 1917. And, with the "back-door" to France and Britain thus locked and barred, Hitler felt free to rearm and indulge his appetites for expansionism in Eastern Europe.

3 --> At the first, he was rebuffed, not by Britain and France, but by Italy under Mussolini; who sent Italian troops to the Brenner Pass when Nazis in Austria tried to subvert that state in 1934, murdering its leader.

4 --> But then, Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, and neither Britain nor France nor the League of Nations that they led had the backbone to stop him. Symbolic sanctions were imposed, but they were not crippling, just provocative, driving Mussolini straight into Hitler's waiting arms.

5 --> So, soon enough, Hitler re-armed, building the army, air force and U-boat (submarine) fleet that would soon plunge the world into an even worse nightmare than the First World War. At each step, on the fear of or revulsion to war and the hope that he would be appeased, he was allowed to get away with the build-up to war. Then, in 1938 he was allowed to step by step engulf Austria, then the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, both of which were ethnically German.

6 --> Next, early in 1939, he gobbled up the remainder of Czechoslovakia on one excuse or another; setting the stage for turning on Poland. At this, the leadership of Britain finally woke up -- after they had already thrown away their advantages and would have to fight at a serious strategic disadvantage.

7 --> By September 1939, Hitler attacked Poland, provoking war. Then across the spring of 1940, he conquered Denmark and Norway, finally attacking and utterly defeating France within only a few weeks in May and June 1940.

8 --> So, by the Summer of 1940, an isolated Britain stood alone, and only the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy blocked Hitler from conquest of the keystone state of the international system at that time. Thankfully, the immortal few -- flying mostly semi-obsolescent Hurricanes and a minority of Spitfires that were only just comparable to Hitler's fighters -- prevailed in the Battle of Britain.

How much more so are the small nations of our Caribbean vulnerable to the tidal waves of our times?

ANS: We are far more vulnerable to the decay of our civilisation that is ever more and more living out of Romans 1 than we are wont to recognise. (That is why we must be ever aware of our own inner apostasies, divisions and proneness to the idolatry of political messiahs and utopian ideologies that divert us from a sound understanding of our need to repent and be reformed through the gospel. It is also why we must understand the dangers in the tidal waves of de-Christianisation surging down into our region from the North, through satellite-cable TV, the Internet, popular music and culture, the intellectual and policy fashions of he day and many other avenues of influence. [in particular, we the Christians of the Caribbean need to soberly re-assess our tendency to emotionally identify ourselves with ideological forces and movements in the north that are strongly associated with Romans 1 style apostasy, whether or not we still smart from our history of slavery, colonialism and racism.] Similarly, we must be aware of he global ambitions of the Islamists. [Kindly note the distinction I here draw to ordinary Muslims.] )

WHEN the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits the White House on Monday for his first stage-setting visit, he will carry with him an agenda that clashes insistently with that of President Obama. Mr. Obama wants Mr. Netanyahu to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu wants something else entirely: the president’s agreement that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons . . . .

Mr. Netanyahu would prefer to avoid hard decisions concerning the Palestinian issue, for reasons both political (he is not, let us say, sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian self-determination) and strategic (he believes the Palestinians, divided and dysfunctional, their extremists firmly in the Iranian camp, are unready for compromise). Nevertheless, the prime minister’s preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt . . . .

Mr. Netanyahu . . . said that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons represented a “hinge of history.”

“Iran has threatened to annihilate a state,” he said. “In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there are perfunctory condemnations, but there’s no j’accuse — there’s no shock.” He argued that one lesson of history is that “bad things tend to get worse if they’re not challenged early.” He went on, “Iranian leaders talk about Israel’s destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance.”

Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t believe that Iran would necessarily launch a nuclear-tipped missile at Tel Aviv. He argues instead that Iran could bring about the eventual end of Israel simply by possessing such weaponry. “Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella,” he said. This could lead to the depopulation of the Negev and the Galilee, both of which have already endured sustained rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah.

More broadly, he said, a nuclear Iran “would embolden Islamic militants far and wide, on many continents, who would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph.”

“Hadith indicate that black flags coming from the area of Khorasan will signify the appearance of the Mahdi is nigh. Khorasan is in todays Iran, and some scholars have said that this hadith means when the black flags appear from Central Asia, i.e. in the direction of Khorasan, then the appearance of the Mahdi is imminent.” [Muhammad Hisham Kabani – a chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America -- The Approach of Armageddon? (Canada, Supreme Muslim Council of America, 2003), p. 231. (NB Others point out that Khorasan formerly referred to areas E & NE of Persian Empire; and point to the Taliban as the probable black flag army.) ]

The Mahdi will be victorious and eradicate those pigs and dogs and the idols of this time so that there will once more be a caliphate based on prophethood as the hadith states . . . Jerusalem will be the location of the rightly guided caliphate and the center of Islamic rule, which will be headed by Imam al Mahdi . . . That will abolish the leadership of the Jews . . . and put an end to the domination of the Satans who spit evil into people and cause corruption in the earth, making them slaves of false idols and ruling the world by laws other than the Shari’a [Islamic Law] of the Lord of the worlds.[Signs of Qiyamah (Islamic Book Service, New Delhi, 2004), p. 40.]

[T]he exploitation of the weak, the unjust system of distribution and denial of the rights of nations [i.e. inter alia Iran's "right" to break its former commitments under the Non Proliferation treaty, and access the technologies for the weapons that would equip it to "wipe Israel from the face of the map"], will end with the reappearance of Imam Mahdi (AS). In the government of the Imam man will witness real economic welfare throughout the world without any discrimination

. . . . Imam Mahdi and steadfast devotees will gather in Mecca . . . . Imam Mahdi sends troops who kill the Sofyani in Beit ol-Moqaddas [i.e. Jerusalem], the Islamic holy city in Palestine that is currently under occupation of the Zionists. . . . Imam Mahdi will be the leader while Prophet Jesus [NB: the Islamic end times no. 2 to the Mahdi: Isa, not the Biblical Jesus!] will act as his lieutenant in the struggle against oppression and establishment of justice in the world. [Consider here, on many recent illustrations of what such Iranian-style Islamic "justice" too often has meant.] Jesus had himself given the tidings of the coming of God's last messenger and will see Mohammad's ideals materialize in the time of the Mahdi. The seat of the Mahdi’s global government will be the city of Kufa [a Shiite city and centre of pilgrimage in Iraq] . . . .From here he will dominate the east and the west to fill the earth with justice.

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews). When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla [= slave or servant of Allah], there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharqad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim).

Mr. Netanyahu may be able to convince Mr. Obama that Iran poses an Amalek-sized threat to Israel, but he will have a much more difficult time convincing him that Iran poses an existential threat to America. It is certainly true that a nuclear Iran is not in the best interests of the United States. It would mean, among other things, the probable beginning of a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region, and it would mean that the 30-year-struggle between America and Iran for domination of the Persian Gulf will be over, with Persia the victor. But the short-term costs, in particular, for an American strike — or an American-approved Israeli strike — could be appallingly high.

As the crisis worsens, Mr. Obama will find his options few, and those that exist will require him to bring to bear all his talents of persuasion . . .

posted by Gordon @ 3:51 AM 0 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 81: On Acts 8:26 - 39, the message of Isaiah 52 - 53 and 1 Cor 15:1 - 11

^{Ac 8:26}Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." ²⁷So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."

³⁰Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.

³¹"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³²The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:

"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
³³In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth."

³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" ³⁵Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized? ³⁸And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

1CO 15:1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

1CO 15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared . . . [lists the chief "official" witnesses: Peter, James [Jesus' brother], the twelve [less one of course . . . ], 500+ at one go, all the apostles, Paul himself]

¹⁰ The LORD will lay bare his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God . . . .

¹⁴ Just as there were many who were appalled at him ^c]">[c]—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man
and his form marred beyond human likeness—

¹⁵ so will he sprinkle many nations, ^d]">[d]
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.

And yet -- oh how hard our hearts almost always are, we men in rebellion against God -- Isaiah 53 has to begin with a paradox:

¹ Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

All of this has been fulfilled, all of it.

In just one individual (and the Ethiopian eunuch ws plainly right, we are dealing with an individual, not a nation or a group) in the long, long -- and ever so painful -- history of Israel. the one who, being despised and rejected, was crucified between brigands (literally taking he place of the ringleader), and who waas buried in a ricvh man's tomb. the same who was seen alive on the third day and thereafter by over five hundred people, of whom we can identify about twenty from the official list and the more detailed accounts int eh gospels and Acts.

So also we have a sign: a breaking into history seven hundred years in advance to predict what would be -- and was plainly beyond the power of one who was taken by force and pushed in front of one unjust and abusive kangaroo court after another (Judaean elites, Herod's Palace or the Roman Governor's seat makes but little difference: do lawyers and Judges today first reflect on this indictment on their professions, when they sit down to craft ever so clever arguments and to make judgements that can ever so easily unjustly take away liberty or life?) -- then was shunted off to die as the convenient solution to the problems of power.

Then, too, we have a second sign: even as the sickening play of injusticve in the halls of power and where it leads passes in front of us, the despised and rejected one does not react with rages and curses. Instead we see a sign of the God who loves. For, the unjustly dying servant of YHWH reaches out with forgiveness and intercession for us, even reachig out to the fellow dying man on the next cross over.

So, we learn the depth of God's love: even a self-confessedly guilty brigand, now a penitent at the last hour, can be saved by God!

And, it was Friday.

The now dead servant is taken down, mourned by broken-hearted followers -- notice, mostly the women [the men having (all but one) fled in fear for their lives] -- and buried by wealthy men fromt he same tribunal that unjustly first condemned him. men who werer plainly making a statement to the tribunal -- imagine having the unjustly condemned prophet's tomb jusrt outside your city gates -- but who may also have been subtly signalling their sympathy and discipleship.

But, Sunday was coming.

(As Tony Campolo is ever so fond of reminding us.)

Come Sunday Morning, some of the same women begin from Bethany at the crack of dawn, collecting others in Jerusalem, and reach the tomb site as the sun comes up. They were debating how they would be able to get into the tomb to do some last, pitiful acts of devotion by anointing the much-brutalised and broken body of the martyred prophet.

One of all too many across the course of history.

But, in the meanwhile, all Heaven had broken loose!

And ever since, history has not been the same.

So, now the Easter Morning challenge is to us today: whose report will we believe?

And, why? END

posted by Gordon @ 9:33 AM 0 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 80: Is the God of the Bible (esp. the OT) a barbaric, genocidal "moral monster"?

Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism [= evolutionary materialism] is true. Assume, furthermore, that one can’t infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ [the 'is' being in this context physicalist: matter-energy, space- time, chance and mechanical forces]. (Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer an ‘ought’. And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there’s no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action. Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it’s not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action. (This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal deontic logic.) We’ve conformed to standard principles and inference rules of logic and we’ve started out with assumptions that atheists have conceded in print. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion: therefore, for any action you care to pick, it’s permissible to perform that action. If you’d like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan ‘if atheism is true, all things are permitted’. For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don’t like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time.

Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible (for example, racist actions). Since the conclusion of the argument denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit. Thus we are forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more intuitively appealing) principle that one can’t infer ‘ought’ from ‘is’.

1 –> The key issue here is that while evolutionary materialistic atheists [and their fellow travellers] are often fond of direct or indirect arguments from evil against God [e.g. the moral monster thesis of Dawkins et al], their own worldview is inescapably incoherent at this point: assuming and using the reality of objective morality, even as they hold to a worldview that entails amorality (and often thus enables immorality).

2 –> So, onward, we need to look at the issue of that incoherence as it seems a global consensus that human beings are morally mutually obligated: we all quarrel by in effect claiming “you unfair me.” (That is, we imply that we have rights that must be respected, based in the end on our dignity as persons . . .

3 –> . . . and so, materialists: what inherent dignity accrues to a bit of jumped up pond slime and its perceptions of emotions of outrage or sensations of pain — which are in any case inevitable to one degree or another?

4 –> In short, we have a global consensus that we are morally bound and hold some dignity, a dignity incompatible with our being jumped up pond slime.

5 –> We also have a global consensus that at least some of the time we think, reason and know objectively and even correctly.

6 –> But if we are jumped up pond slime, so-called thought is nothing but electro-chemical activity in neurons, which are in turn partly programmed genetically and partly programmed by whatever accidents of environment we encounter; in the end tracing to mental activity being produced and controlled by chance circumstances and mechanical material forces, however mediated. So, what controls our thought life has nothing whatsoever to do with (especially abstract) logical validity or truth.

7 –> Bn short the objectivity of morality and the credibility of mind both turn out to be facts that are not well accounted for by evolutionary materialist thought [and please notice my specificity, as is so for Mr Hawthorne too].

8 –> But, such thought and its zealous promotion by its true believers depend implicitly on the credibility of what it cannot account for as a theory and worldview of origins. In short, we see self-referential incoherence of an evidently inescapable kind. Reductio ad absurdum, unless a reasonable solution is forthcoming . . . and the burden of rebuttal is on the side of the evidently incoherent position.

9 –> But, does that not equally point to the need for Judaeo-Christian theists to rebut the problem of evil? Precisely: DONE, ever since Plantinga blew away the deductive dofrom and tamed the inductive form as a the turn of the 1970’s. (The existential/pastoral form is a matter for counselling not debate; go find yourself a good pastor or priest or rabbi, not a circle of Job’s false comforters.) For those who came in late:

a --> The Defense approach is more logically powerful than the theodicy approach, for it relies on mere validity to disestablish a contradiction, not truthfulness of premises. (And those who try to read it as a theodicy show their misunderstanding.)

b --> The classic posed and claimed contradictory theistic set is demonstrably not contradictory, and there are reasonable grounds on which a world in which there is significant suffering experienced by creatures, is morally justifiable, given inter alia that morality itself is premised on the power of choice. In short, a world in which love is possible is one that necessarily has hate — and worse, indifference [in the bad sense] — as possible too.

c --> Thence, the point that the lesser of evils may be a relative moral good; e.g. wars may be just and homicide excusable; in a further context where death of an “innocent” (even that is relative . . . ) is a tragedy but may in context offset far greater losses in both time and eternity.

d --> Such a world is one in which reformation is also possible — and important. So is containment of evil [a la Cold War], and if necessary, removal of otherwise virulently spreading and destructive contagion (of which Nazism is an excellent recent case in point) through just war that inescapably will kill significant numbers of innocents given the means available a the relevant time.

e --> And note the current resort of the Islamist terrorists and their fifth columnist friends in our civilisation, who make much of the inevitable loss of innocents in a war of containment or defense against attack, as if those who resist contagious and aggressive evils are to be equated to those who spread such while intentionally targetting civilians etc to terrorise and paralyse their intended victims, and inter alia binding generations to come into a blood feud to carry out the aggression as long as their culture endures as an entity holding significant power.

f --> If that sounds familiar, it should: this is materially the same dilemma faced by those confronting the Amorites c. 1,300 BC and who drove them out, breaking up the power centres and destroying the hard core who insisted on defending the indefensible to the bitter end. (And indeed, nearly 1,000 years later, a descendant-survivor of the elites of the Amorites sought to destroy all Jews in the Persian empire: Haman.)

g --> It is also the same dilemma that confronted the Spanish monarchs c. 1491 and impelled them to forcibly convert or exile what they viewed with some justification as an utterly irreconcilable and blood feud prone population descended from invaders. (NB: I am not defending Ferdinand and Isabella [much less, the notorious Inquisition . . . ], I am asking us to understand their dilemmas and ask ourselves whether we have reliably better solutions that we can present as at least the credibly lesser of evils. . . )

h --> It is not without relevance to note that after WW I, the German populace in certain key parts, denied the reality of military defeat . . . a defeat bought at ruinous cost by the Allies. 20 years later, we paid an even worse price, but after the utter devastation of Germany, the centuries long feud between germans and franks finally came to an end, after three wars in 70 years.

i --> History has some very sobering lessons for us . . .

10 –> But also, there is the issue that the mere known existence of evil as an objectionable entity has implications, as Koukl pointed out:

Evil is real . . . That’s why people object to it. Therefore, objective moral standards must exist as well [i.e. as that which evil offends and violates] . . . . The first thing we observe about [such] moral rules is that, though they exist, they are not physical because they don’t seem to have physical properties. We won’t bump into them in the dark. They don’t extend into space. They have no weight. They have no chemical characteristics. Instead, they are immaterial things we discover through the process of thought, introspection, and reflection without the aid of our five senses . . . .

We have, with a high degree of certainty, stumbled upon something real. Yet it’s something that can’t be proven empirically or described in terms of natural laws. This teaches us there’s more to the world than just the physical universe. If non-physical things–like moral rules–truly exist, then materialism as a world view is false.

There seem to be many other things that populate the world, things like propositions, numbers, and the laws of logic. Values like happiness, friendship, and faithfulness are there, too, along with meanings and language. There may even be persons–souls, angels, and other divine beings.

Our discovery also tells us some things really exist that science has no access to, even in principle. Some things are not governed by natural laws. Science, therefore, is not the only discipline giving us true information about the world. It follows, then, that naturalism as a world view is also false.

Our discovery of moral rules forces us to expand our understanding of the nature of reality and open our minds to the possibility of a host of new things that populate the world in the invisible realm.

11 –> Thus, evil is now reduced to proper scope: a painful difficulty within the general face-validity of a theistic view. And, as Job’s case shows, it may be painful and hard to understand — perhaps even in part beyond our capacity to understand — but that does not give us leave to pretend to knowledge beyond our capacity, and to dismiss what we can otherwise know of God through personal encounter and/or from the characteristics of creation etc [Cf Job 38!]

__________________

EXCERPT 4: Euthryphro's dilemma:

12 –> Someone has raised that hoary, long past sell-date objection, the Euthryphro dilemma. But, it is fatally flawed: for, it inescapably depends for its rhetorical force on a long since discredited Greek concept of gods, i.e. in a context of the independent reality of the material and ideational worlds. (It is on that implicit base that it becomes persuasive to ask whether the gods command the good because they are good [a reference to the platonic Form of the Good], or because of their power, i.e arbitrarily.)

13 –> The Hebraic- Christian, revelationally anchored view of the Creator- Sustainer- Redeemer God is utterly different and is inherently not subject to such an objection.

14 –> For, we are contingent; it is in the Creator-God that we live, move and have our being, including that we live in a contingent cosmos, dependent for its origin on a necessary being, the Creator. And, that Creator — who is Reason Himself, Truth himself, Love Himself and Holiness Himself — by his necessary nature is both powerful and moral. So, he acts in ways that are both moral and moral in a context that they are also reasonable.

15 –> Thus morality is intelligible to us and we sense its compelling force as OUGHT, not just IS; i.e. we can understand core morality and see that its precepts are self-evident, on pain of hypocritically inconsistent absurdity on rejecting them. (Resemblance to the 2nd para of the 1776 US DOI is NOT coincidental.)

16 –> Indeed, let us see how Locke cites “the judicious [Richard] Hooker,” from that Anglican worthy’s Ecclesiastical Polity, when Locke set out to ground the natural law of liberty and justice for all — i.e Laws of [moral] nature and of nature’s God — in the 2nd chapter of his 2nd essay on civil govt:

. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man’s hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature [which of course in both Hooker's and Locke's contexts traces to the equality of our creation in God's image], as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant.

17 –> Thus we see articulated precisely the view of core morality that we find in Romans:

2: 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the [written Mosaic] law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) . . . .

RO 13:8b . . . he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

18 –> In short, core morality — not the mores of any given place or time, which often fail to be consistent with core morality 9which is why we need repentance and reform, and to listen to the pleading ever so sweetly reasonable voice of both conscience and true prophet [note the modifier!]) — is just as deeply and indelibly imprinted in our inner life as is core intelligence.

19 –> That is how we find it an objective, consensus obligation, and how we find it reasonable as well. That is OUGHT is objective truth, in a world created and sustained by the inherently moral and inherently necessary, inherently truthful and loving Creator God.

20 –> Thus also, why we find the objectivity of such core morality is a compass needle pointing to its Source.

__________________

EXCERPT 5: On the implications for our worldviews:

j –> We also — as a matter of fact — find ourselves bound to respect the truth and to seek it, though we often fall short thereof; especially where the truth affects matters of justice. (Just think about what happens when we quarrel.)

k –> So, again per brute experienced and observed fact, we find ourselves morally bound to one another; leading to the issue of equality of nature and moral obligation as an inherent part of that nature.

l –> Such of course leads to the criterion of worldview choice that no view that is amoral or immoral is credible. (Thus, en passant, the force of Hawthorne’s argument, and Koukl’s argument, as well as the impact of the moral argument to God; as well as the significance of Plantinga’s successful blunting of the problem of evil per the Free Will Defense.)

m –> As well, by the very nature of virtue, virtues rest on choice: one loves only because one has made a choice. A programmed robot cannot LOVE, though it may be an instrument of someone’s loving care. (And notice how virtue is a property of persons, indeed of intelligent agents.)

n –> Thus also a world in which virtues based on love are possible, is also a world in which vices based on hate or indifference are possible. And in such a world, especially if the in-group vs out-group trans-generational vengeful blood feud is a cultural prospect, we face sometimes grim choices of the lesser of evils. (NB: I cited some cases earlier this morning. Until the objectors who would paint God as a moral monster engage these issues, they have no right to claim that such putting of God into the dock is a responsible position.)

o –> If you have the lesser problem of being troubles by such grim realities, welcome to the club.

p –> Only, let us be humble enough to understand that we cannot calculate the balance of evils better than God. And then try to imagine a world in which ONLY an eye for an eye and ONLY a tooth for a tooth was an IMPROVEMENT.

q –> Then join me in shuddering as we contemplate what lurks in the depths of our hearts.

r –> Then, understand the love of God who came and bled for us.

s –> Then, join us in the call to mutual repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation leading to discipleship under the Teacher of Love and reform based on love, that are at the heart of the gospel.
____________

Grace be with us all . . . that we may unstintingly look into our own hearts, and find a way to turn from evil and vengefulness to the good. END

posted by Gordon @ 9:33 AM 10 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 79: An Israeli, Muslim, Bedouin Arab Vice Consul speaks out on "Israel Apartheid Week"

(i) those who may either have not heard of the current wave of 'Zionism = Racism = Apartheid" rhetoric, or

(ii) those who may naively believe this now increasingly stressed theme of the post-Colonialist narrative on the Middle East.

. . . My perspective is unique, both as the vice consul for Israel in San Francisco, and as a Bedouin and the highest-ranking Muslim representing the Israel in the United States. I was born into a Bedouin tribe in Northern Israel, one of 11 children, and began life as shepherd living in our family tent. I went on to serve in the Israeli border police, and later earned a master's degree in political science from Tel Aviv University before joining the Israel Foreign Ministry.

I am a proud Israeli - along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deals honestly. By any yardstick you choose - educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation - Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East . . . .

If Israel were an apartheid state, I would not have been appointed here, nor would I have chosen to take upon myself this duty. There are many Arabs, both within Israel and in the Palestinian territories who have taken great courage to walk the path of peace. You should stand with us, rather than against us.

This partly biographical introduction and summary is vital in a day and age where debate by life story is far too often rhetorically decisive.

(We are at that sad pass as a dying civilisation living out of Romans 1 and Eph 4:17 - 19, where far too many no longer recognise that the evident and material truth and valid or cogent reasoning connected to the truth are the core of a good argument. So, unless an emotional connection is made, too many ears will simply not be inclinded to listen, much less then take time to carefully reflect.)

Having introduced himself and hinted at the key issues, Mr Khaldi also raises several rather pointed questions directed to "organizers of Israel Apartheid week, for those of them who are open to dialogue and not blinded by a hateful ideology."

Highlighting:

If you are really idealistic and committed to a better world, stop with the false rhetoric . . . .

Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage - you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available . . . .

Your radicalism is undermining the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. We are working hard to move toward a peace agreement that recognizes the legitimate rights of both Israel and the Palestinian people, and you are tearing down by falsely vilifying one side . . .

Strong words, but people of good will who want to move towards real, sustainable peace in the Middle East need to reflect on them.

For, this, too, is a part of the multi-sided, multi-perspective story.

So, let us pause and hear this side, then go on to objectively evaluate the overall situation, reckoning with the light sed by this view by a moderate Muslim who just happens to be not only a proud Israeli, but also a vice Consul of Israel. END

posted by Gordon @ 5:17 AM 0 comments

Following up a comment thread exchange

>> The measure of Functional Sequence Complexity, denoted as ζ, is defined as the change in functional uncertainty [ H(X_f(t)) = -∑P(X_f(t)) logP(X_f(t)) . . . Eqn 1 ] from the ground state H(Xg(ti)) to the functional state H(Xf(ti)), or

ζ = ΔH (Xg(ti), Xf(tj)). [Eqn. 6] >>

>>RNA's building blocks, nucleotides, are complex substances as organic molecules go. They each contain a sugar, a phosphate and one of four nitrogen-containing bases as sub-subunits. Thus, each RNA nucleotide contains 9 or 10 carbon atoms, numerous nitrogen and oxygen atoms and the phosphate group, all connected in a precise three-dimensional pattern. Many alternative ways exist for making those connections, yielding thousands of plausible nucleotides that could readily join in place of the standard ones but that are not represented in RNA. That number is itself dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands to millions of stable organic molecules of similar size that are not nucleotides . . . . inanimate nature has a bias toward the formation of molecules made of fewer rather than greater numbers of carbon atoms, and thus shows no partiality in favor of creating the building blocks of our kind of life . . . I have observed a similar pattern in the results of many [Miller-Urey-type] spark discharge experiments . . . .

The analogy that comes to mind is that of a golfer, who having played a golf ball through an 18-hole course, then assumed that the ball could also play itself around the course in his absence. He had demonstrated the possibility of the event; it was only necessary to presume that some combination of natural forces (earthquakes, winds, tornadoes and floods, for example) could produce the same result, given enough time. No physical law need be broken for spontaneous RNA formation to happen, but the chances against it are so immense, that the suggestion implies that the non-living world had an innate desire to generate RNA. The majority of origin-of-life scientists who still support the RNA-first theory either accept this concept (implicitly, if not explicitly) or feel that the immensely unfavorable odds were simply overcome by good luck. [Scientific American, Feb. 2007.>>

>> Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [Lewontin, NY review of Books, 1997; sadly, now enforced officially though decrees of the US National Academy of Sciences, etc.] >>

posted by Gordon @ 1:04 AM 14 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 78: Lessons of history, the post-colonial narrative and the IslamIST challenge to our region

"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. [NB: Lenin's "definition" of Imperialism is: the export of capital [implicit: backed up by gunboats] i.e. this (plainly deeply flawed) Marxist thesis also takes in the issue of decolonialisation.] From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10

...[The C]rusades were waged, [by] European monarchs, lords, knights and their armies of devout followers to fight — and settle — in an area stretching between what is today Syria and Egypt. The Muslims responded [emphasis added] with their own sporadic jihads until finally, by 1291, the Christians had been driven out.' [Riding, Review of ''Kingdom of Heaven,'' NYT, April 24, 2005]

Five centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial—papal power play led to centuries—long series of so—called holy wars [emphasis added] that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust. [Esposito, Islam The Straight Path, New York, 1994; cited, Bat Ye'or.]

Within several centuries of Muhammad's death in 632 C.E., based upon the 'proto—jihad' campaigns he waged in Arabia, Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the institution of permanent jihad war against non—Muslims for the submission of the known world to Islam.

The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the great Muslim historian al—Tabari's recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al—Khattab to the commander of the troops he sent to al—Basrah (636 C.E.), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar (the second 'Rightly Guided Caliph') reportedly said: [7]

Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, (This is to say, accept their conversion as genuine and refrain from fighting them) but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. (Qur'an 9:29) If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have been entrusted.

Jihad was pursued century after century, because jihad, which means 'to strive in the path of Allah,' embodied an ideology and a jurisdiction. Both were formally conceived by Muslim jurisconsults and theologians from the 8th to 9th centuries onward, based on their interpretation of Qur'anic verses [8] (for e.g., 9:5,6; 9:29; 4:76—79; 2: 214—15; 8:39—42), and long chapters in the Traditions (i.e., 'hadith', acts and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, especially those recorded by al—Bukhari [d. 869] [9] and Muslim [d. 874] [10]).

9:5 [the Sword Verse -- an Islamic title] When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God [i.e. Allah] is forgiving and merciful.

[. . . . ]

9:29 [the verse of Tribute -- likewise an Islamic title] Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Yusuf Ali).

[Article 12] . . . the enemy has trampled on Muslim soil. In such a situation, launching a holy war [against] him and confronting him become the personal duty [fardh ‘ayn] of every Muslim man and woman: the woman goes out to fight [the enemy] without her husband’s permission, and [even] the slave [is obliged to go out to fight the enemy] without the permission of his master. There is nothing like it in any other political system, and that is an indisputable fact . . . .

[Article 15] The day enemies steal part of Muslim land, jihad [becomes] the personal duty of every Muslim. With regard to the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, it is a must to fly the banner of jihad. That means the propagation of Islamic awareness among the masses – locally [in Palestine], the Arab world and the Muslim world. The spirit of jihad must be disseminated within the [Islamic] nation, the enemies must be engaged in battle and [every Muslim must] join the ranks of the jihad warriors [mujahidee].

“[c]ontemporaneous to the autonomous Muslim Maroon ummah, hundreds of thousands of Mu’minun (the Believers of the Islamic faith) of African descent worked as slaves on the plantations in Jamaica.” [“The Jihad of 1831–1832: The Misunderstood Baptist Rebellion in Jamaica,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2001, p. 227. (Provably false, as the some 300,000 slaves in Jamaica at Emancipation were mostly Animist, and then increasingly Christian, often of Baptist persuasion. The Maroons, similarly, per the main weight of the historical and anthropological evidence were overwhelmingly animist, not Islamic. Even the fact that the Maroons, since Spanish times, were famous for Jerked Pork, is a relevant counter-example. Cf. rebutting discussion
by Prof Maureen Warner-Lewis.)]

Jihad became the religious and political ideology of these crypto-Muslims, who became members of the various denominational nonconformist churches since being sprinkled with the water by the rectors of the parishes. Despite the experience of the most cruel servitude and the likelihood of a swift and ruthless suppression of the rebellion, the spiritually inspired Mu’minun collectively responded to the call for an island-wide jihad in 1832. Commonly known as the Baptist Rebellion, the Jihad of 1832 wrought havoc of irreparable dimension to the plantation system and hastened the Emancipation Act of 1833. [Afroz, p. 227. NB: This set of claims is most improbable .]

Thus, it is concluded by Islamic advocates that the Caribbean’s ancestral and cultural roots are largely Islamic. Islam, then, seeks cultural legitimacy in the Caribbean as being linked to our predominantly African identity, which is specifically tied to an emphasis on jihad as military struggle. On this basis, Caribbean peoples are in effect invited to turn away from both secularism and the Christian religion of our oppressors, and “return” to Islam.

posted by Gordon @ 5:36 AM 12 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 77: On the Black Flag Armies and the importance of learning from an all but forgotten recent past of totalitarianism

She: What brings you to Denver?

Me: I am giving a speech.

She: What do you do?

Me: I'm a radio talk-show host.

She: Who did you vote for?

Me: McCain

She: Why?

Me: Smaller government and the war on terror.

She: Terror is the new communism.

Me: Communism killed about a hundred million people. And who do you think attacked and killed 3,000 of us on Sept. 11?

She: The [US] government.

Prager aptly comments:

. . . she had to be a student at a major university. She would never have come up with "Terror is the new communism" on her own. [In the sense she intended it, i]t is a moral obscenity that one has to learn . . . . At most universities, communism is a non-evil, indeed, largely a non-issue. The most enslaving and murderous movement in history is almost never taught as such. When communism is mentioned at all, it is usually solely in order to show how vile anti-communists were. Thus, as little as students may know about McCarthyism, most students far more readily identify it with evil than they do communism . . . .

Does one in 10,000 students know of the communist terror-famine that took about 6 million Ukrainian lives? How many know about the communist Pol Pot, who butchered nearly one-third of his fellow Cambodians? Or how many innocents were murdered in the Gulag Archipelago (or could even identify it)? Or that China's communist tyrant Mao Zedong killed about 60 million of his fellow Chinese? Or that Communist North Korea is essentially a concentration camp in the guise of a country?

(We need not bother with the folly of believing in the various conspiracy theories on the 9/11 attacks in the teeth of abundant and easily accessible evidence on what happened that sad Tuesday Morning; save to link to so humble a source as Wikipedia, here and here.)

Now, while Prager's example is from North America, there is no shortage of bright young people in our region captivated by similar, tendentious and deeply polarising mis-education. For, something is seriously wrong with how we are learing our history and with how we are therefore thinking about current issues and challenges. Something that is therefore potentially fatally dividing and polarising our civilisation. And, just when we need to stand together with moral clarity and resolute determination to see the struggle through in the face of a rising existential global totalitarian threat.

What "global threat"?

THE BLACK FLAG ARMIES FROM THE DIRECTION OF KHORASAN . . .

The what?

The fact that we don't know the phrase is itself an evidence of what is going on.

[T]he exploitation of the weak, the unjust system of distribution and denial of the rights of nations [i.e. inter alia Iran's "right" to break its former commitments under the Non Proliferation treaty, and access the technologies for the weapons that would equip it to "wipe Israel from the face of the map"], will end with the reappearance of Imam Mahdi (AS). In the government of the Imam man will witness real economic welfare throughout the world without any discrimination

. . . . Imam Mahdi and steadfast devotees will gather in Mecca . . . . Imam Mahdi sends troops who kill the Sofyani in Beit ol-Moqaddas [i.e. Jerusalem], the Islamic holy city in Palestine that is currently under occupation of the Zionists. . . . Imam Mahdi will be the leader while Prophet Jesus [NB: the Islamic end times no. 2 to the Mahdi: Isa, not the Biblical Jesus!] will act as his lieutenant in the struggle against oppression and establishment of justice in the world. Jesus had himself given the tidings of the coming of God's last messenger and will see Mohammad's ideals materialize in the time of the Mahdi. The seat of the Mahdi’s global government will be the city of Kufa [a Shiite city and centre of pilgrimage in Iraq] . . . .From here he will dominate the east and the west to fill the earth with justice.

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews). When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla [= slave or servant of Allah], there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharqad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim).

Islamic tradition pictures the Mahdi as joining with the army of Muslim warriors carrying black flags. The Mahdi will then lead this army to Israel and re-conquer it for Islam. The Jews will be slaughtered until very few remain and Jerusalem will become the location of the Mahdi’s rule over the Earth.

But, Islam is "The Religion of Peace!"

Have you asked just what "peace" in the Islamic -- not even IslamIST, yet -- sense really means? (For, different worldviews will interpret key terms differently.)

Peace is peace!

Not necessarily. In classical, authoritative Islamic teachings and law, the world is "temporarily" split into two: Dar ul Islam -- the house of peace; and Dar ul Harb -- the house of war.

The dividing line: the former is under "proper" Islamic rule, and there is a global conflict with that part of the world that is in rebellion against Allah, His Law and His prophet. A conflict that is normally expressed militarily. (Indeed, the nearest Islamic comparison to gospel preaching missions to the world, is Dawah; strictly a call to surrender, with the implication that refusal is grounds for military attack. [And, reading back ways, many Muslims therefore view Christian Missionaries as agents of subversion and military threats. Indeed, that finds expression in using Intelligence Agencies as weapons to oppose such missionaries.])

But Islmists and terrorists are a tiny minority!

The IslamISTS are usually estimated as about 10% of the World's Muslims. 100 - 150 millions, including those who control the Government of Iran. That is actually far more than the total number of Nazis and Communists who so plagued the last Century, combined.

I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War II. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.

“Very few people were true Nazis,” he said, “but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.” . . . .

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or execute honor killings. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the “peaceful majority” is the “silent majority,” and it is cowed and extraneous.

. . . . Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by the fanatics. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because, like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10

"The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody." p.24

"The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be." pp.25-26

"...the organizer must be able to split himself into two parts -- one part in the arena of action where he polarizes the issue to 100 to nothing, and helps to lead his forces into conflict, while the other part knows that when the time comes for negotiations that it really is only a 10 percent difference." p.78

"From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until he has those means and power instruments, his 'tactics' are very different from power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals." "Change comes from power, and power comes from organization." p.113

"The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new." p.116

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.' ... When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments and carry out your attack.... One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angles are on one side and all the devils on the other." pp.127-134

. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant. [Cf Rom 13:8 - 10, Matt 7:12, Leviticus 19:15 - 18.]

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

posted by Gordon @ 8:49 AM 0 comments

Matt 24 Watch, 76: on the complexity of issues in the Middle East that we see on our TV screens

This led immediately to accusations of "disproportionate" use of force by Israel, and latterly to the accusations of deliberate use of White Phosphorus munitions to attack civilians, causing severe injury or agonising death.

Being quite busy elsewhere, I have not hitherto commented here on the situation.

However, a few days back, I was in a local hardware store where a gentleman of my acquaintance was buying some phosphoric acid based drain cleaner. I casually remarked on how corrosive it is [I have a nice Swiss Army knife that I one day forgot to think about what I was doing, and opened the seal on such a bottle with the knife -- it began to eat the blade . . .], and he immediately launched into a passionate declaration on how Israel is torturing and murdering civilians (especially children) in the Middle East using phosphorus.

I was of course astonished, and tried to suggest that on matters in the Middle East, we need to take extra caution to find the balance of credible facts and contexts, not least because of the high incidence of false atrocity stories in the ME. To my further astonishment, this was twisted into the inference that I supported the murder or harming of children using such weapons.

That of course beings to mind the classic warning Aristotle gave us on in The Rhetoric, Bk I Ch 2, the destructive, deceptive potential of manipulative rhetoric [and by extension propaganda], 2300+ years ago:

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [ethos]; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos]; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [logos]. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible . . . Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. Our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile . . . Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question . . . .

However, the ensuing conversation underscored the want of critical thinking and history education in our region, and on gaps in the church's teaching and discipling ministry; including on the key biblical roots of modern liberty and democracy, and on issues on why such an evil as war or other resort to lethal policing power may be a lesser of evils, one that prevents even worse outcomes.

Accordingly, I wish to share a slice of the correspondence that has followed, towards better equipping our churches, educators and people to find a balanced position in these sadly rhetorically over-heated, over-polarised days.

________________

I prioritise the most important of these [concerns]:

1] "Religion" [and implied fanaticism] vs the truth about our situation

. . . as (i) creatures made in God's image, (ii) accountable to him as sinners in rebellion, and with (iii) the possibility of forgiveness through faith in Christ and (iv) onward transformation of life through discipleship and the ethics of the gospel:

When I mentioned . . . that the only deliberate positions I take are those of Christian, Bible-based discipleship, [my interlocutor] immediately made an unwarranted connexion to the idea of religion as fanaticism . . . I must pause to correct [for there is now a growing, media-fed misunderstanding of and unwarranted fear of Bible-believing Christian faith that will if unchecked do our region no good].

So, here we begin:

--> The very nature of the intricately designed world without and our minds, hearts and consciences within jointly scream that we are creatures of a God of love, concern and justice. [Cf here Rom 1 - 2.]

--> But equally, we are plainly creatures in sinful rebellion against a Just God and are properly subject to trial and condemnation as guilty rebels. This is the root of ever so many of the moral outrages of our world, including real cases of destructive religious fanaticism.

--> However, in love, God came in the form of the Eternal Son, and stood our penalty, rising from death with 500+ eyewitnesses of the truth. And, pouring out the blessing of the transforming Spirit, who changes us from rebels and manipulators to those who more and more act from love, truth, purity and godly power.

--> Consequently, we read this summary of gospel ethics (and I deliberately choose this less well known passage, for reasons which will be apparent in a moment):

Rom 13: 8 . . . he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet,"^[a] and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."^[b] 10Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. [NIV]

--> Neighbour-love is harmless, so love fulfills the commandments of just law and principles of morality. Indeed, neighbour-love is the plank of good citizenship.

--> But, not all are good citizens . . .

2] Justice, the sword and the state

This brings us to the context of Rom 13:8 - 10, in vv 1 - 7:

Rom 13:1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.

6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

--> The state (especially within the context of the nation, as Paul discussed in Ac 17) and its civil authorities (individually and collectively) are God's establishment for justice, to do the citizenry good and to restrain evildoers through the necessary evil of the power of the sword, backed up by the further necessary evil of reasonable [as opposed to confiscatory -- "thou shalt not steal" also applies to Gov't] taxation and all that goes with that by way of monitoring and control.

--> We find this easiest to understand in the context of the police: defenders from evildoers who are largely based in our own familiar community. Few if any will object to the need for such protectors of the civil peace to be sword-bearers [or in our day even here in M'rat, MP5 bearers when bank money has to move]

--> Few will object to the observation that sometimes police make errors, even horrible ones, and that some can become corrupt. So much so that there are means of redress and recourse to correction and even removal of a cop gone bad.

--> Similarly . . . there is recourse [through Courts of Appeal] against the courts, for they too can go bad by mistake or intent.

--> Such is also regrettably possible on the part of Civil Servants or even Ministers of Gov't . . . all the way up to the Queen (and much moreso in days when the Monarch held far more power).

--> Now, a shocker: In Rom 13, the sword-bearer in chief was NERO CAESAR, never mind that he was then still under tutelage of Burrus and Seneca, and had not yet gone utterly mad. In short, even an evil man is sometimes in the role of God's servant to do us good, and is accountable before God for that doing good and defending the civil peace and justice.

--> The wider teachings of the Bible will show that here is in fact a provision for dealing with such a case as a ruler gone bad, through which lower magistrates may act with the people to remove such, e.g. the tax rebellion blessed by God when Rehoboam foolishly sought to multiply already onerous taxes from his father. (In modern times, this pattern of teachings is what underlies much of the rise of modern democracy and liberty -- though it is as a rule neither taught in our schools or our churches; yet another failure of the education system and the teaching ministry of the church in the Caribbean. I have discussed this at length here . . . )

--> In short, there is a [biblical] justification for some forms of resistance, even [after all other reasonable resort has failed] armed resistance, to oppressive civil authority, under the aegis of orderly remonstrance and representative lower magistrates.

--> And in the end, as Daniel and his friends, and as the Apostles showed: "we must obey God rather than man." [In light of Rom 13:8 - 10, this is not at all a call to fanaticism, but to refuse to do wrong because the state abuses its power under false colour of law, and orders us into wrong. (BTW, I note that it is a core principle of Israeli Military law, that an improper and criminal order is not to be obeyed. [This reflects what happened under the Nazis, where otherwise good men blindly obeyed unjust orders and carried out the very worst atrocities.])]

--> Indeed, such is the historical and logical foundation of our electoral system with the associated freedoms of expression, association and publication: the general election is an audit on the government, with potential for peaceful revolution.

--> But, that was bought at bitter and bloody price, which we must not forget. Nor, should we fail to realise that the privilege of selecting our rulers peacefully can be exploited by unscrupulous manipulators.

This extends to the international arena . . .

3] Justice and war among states and nations

Just as there can be domestic evildoers who threaten the civil peace, there can be foreign ones: pirates and the like (non-state actors), and oppressive or aggressive states (official actors), with associated movements and ideologies.

The civil authority bears the sword in no small part, to defend the civil peace against such aggressors -- aggressors in our day who even at small scale can now access the most destructive weapons, including improvised weapons such as hijacked airliners crammed with innocent hostages . . .

--> This last brings up the dilemma of Sept 11, 2001: civil airliners operating on peaceful missions and with ordinary people going about the ordinary affairs of life were hijacked by men who threatened the lives of stewardesses to gain access to cockpits, then proceeded to slit the throats of the aircrews.

--> The remaining hostages were then used as human shields to delay effective action against these improvised missiles that were then flown into the WTC towers, full of innocent people going about the innocent affairs of life. (Had the missions been as "successful" as intended, upwards of 50,000 could easily have died as the towers collapsed, and the over US$ 100 billions in economic damage could have gone much, much further; triggering a massive international economic collapse.)

--> Similarly, a plane was crashed into the Pentagon, with something like 50 civilians onboard. (Consider on why the unquestionably present missile defenses were not activated . . .)

--> A fourth aircraft was crashed into a field in PA, largely because the passengers -- having heard of the fate of the other planes through cell phone calls -- rose up as an impromptu militia and fought the hijackers with their bare hands and whatever they could find in the plane, such as the food trolley.

--> It emerged that evening through a reply to a question by the Vice President [Mr Dick Cheney] on a TV news show [I saw it myself, live], that the US president had issued the order that any further planes, if they were on a threatening track, were to be shot down, lest even worse damage be done. (It seems Mr Bin Laden was attempting a so-called decapitation strike against the US, hoping to trigger collapse of the state that is the bulwark against Islamist global ambitions, as per the first attached.)

--> Yes, though it is not usually reported in the major media or in our schools or most churches, IslamISM -- not the general religion, but a key movement associated with it and acting in its name and on the authority of the Medinan parts of the Quran such as key passages in Surah 9, e.g. verses [ayas] 5 and 29 (which [in Islamist eyes] jointly mandate world conquest and in the vv following 29 a particular, slander-based hostility to Jews and Christians) -- is a religiously motivated, global conquest ideology:

[Amplifying]

sword: Q 009.005
YUSUFALI: But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

Tribute: Q 009.029
YUSUFALI: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Slander Q 009.030
YUSUFALI: The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!

009.031
YUSUFALI: They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and (they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah: there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him).

009.032
YUSUFALI: Fain would they extinguish Allah's light with their mouths, but Allah will not allow but that His light should be perfected, even though the Unbelievers may detest (it).

(It should be noted that by “Son of Allah” M. evidently has in mind the idea of the old pagan gods and their notorious proclivities for pretty girls that in the myths led to the births of heroes such as Hercules. Judaism teaches no such thing about Ezra, and the Eternal Son of God – so demonstrated with power by the resurrection from the dead [with 500+ eyewitnesses], even in the face of the accusation of blasphemy on the point [Cf here Dan 7:13 - 14] -- is not the biological child of the Father! And that should have been obvious from the fact of the doctrine of the VIRGIN birth.)

[End of amplification]

--> One that has played no small part in the history of the past 1,400 years.

--> E.g. there is an "anniversary reason" why Sept 11 was the logical target date: Sept 11 1683 was the previous high water mark of Islamist world conquest actions: the day before the siege of Vienna was decisively broken by a desperate late afternoon cavalry charge led in person by the King of Poland Jan III Sobieski, riding at the head of his 3,000 Winged Hussars and leading altogether 20,000 cavalry to break the stranglehold of the besieging Ottoman-Islamist armies; just outside the gates of Vienna.

--> And, the same context has had much to do with the recent history of Israel and the wider ME; thus, our current global dilemmas. (On the aspect of the history of Modern Israel, kindly cf here.)

--> And so, the Gaza situation and the atrocity stories:

4] The current Gaza war -- is it just and pursued in light of reasonable tactics?

First some background.

Generally, wars may be initiated by those who are acting unjustly, or [sometimes they] may be based on pre-emptive action by just rulers acting in the defense of civil peace in the face of a clear, rising danger.

This last, may happen in situations where the price of delay may be too terrible to bear -- e.g. the delay from 1938 to 1939 through the now notorious "peace in our time" Munich pact [the worst "land for peace" deal in recent history] -- in fighting Hitler allowed him to seize the Czechoslovakian resource base that enabled the blitzkrieg to work, ultimately costing 40+ million lives and a devastated continent.

Had France and Britain acted resolutely in 1938, in defense of the Versailles Treaty and related international agreements through the League of Nations, we would not have had a WWII. but, in the face of the memories of the horrors of war -- e.g France's losses of 1.4 millions in WW I and the related devastation of Northern France -- a fatal deal was struck with a man who viewed such pieces of paper as tools to gull his next victims while he made mincemeat of the present one.

Through his subsequent conquest of Czechoslovakia, Hitler acquired not only the former Austrian Empire's famed Skoda arms and general industry factories, but the trucks to mobilise his panzer divisions, and the [37 mm cannon-armed] T35 and T38 tanks that for the vital years 1939 - 41, substituted for the Pzkw III and IV tanks he did not yet have in sufficient numbers to make a difference. [The Pzkw I had only machine guns, and the Pzkw II was armed with a 20 mm gun. A high-velocity gun of 37 - 40 mm or sometimes 50 mm was in 1938 - 40, the typical armament for tanks used to shoot at other tanks. Hitler, apart from the ex-Czech tanks, had astonishingly few tanks suitable for tank vs tank battles.]

Absent those inputs, he simply could not have done what he did in France in 1940.

(For instance, the famous PzDiv 7, "the ghost division" that was one of the hardest charging of all the 7 divs that broke through at Sedan and drove for the English Channel -- led by a soon to be world famed Rommel -- was largely equipped with those former allied tanks.)

This is living-memory context (I first learned of these things from my parents, who lived through those horrible days, and are yet with us) for the circumstances of Gaza today.

5] More specific background:

a --> The Jews, Kurds, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Berbers, Dinkas and more are peoples rooted in the ME and neighbouring parts of the world, have just as much a rightful claims to their homelands as do the Arabs who surged out on conquest through Islamist ideology starting in the C7. Indeed, in Palestine/Judaea and Samaria, Arabs are descendants of these INVADERS.

b --> The subsequent claims that Palestinian Arabs are descended from the Philistines etc are without historical merit -- modern archaeology etc inform us that the Philistines for instance were exiled under Babylon and because they had no distinctive ideology dissipated into the general population of that empire; unlike the Jews. And such dissipation and assimilation was in fact the intent of the policy of exile. (That is why Daniel and his three friends are so important in the history of Israel.)

c --> The 1919 post WW I Versailles settlements, for all the sins and errors made there that helped lay the foundations for WW II, sought to remake Europe and linked lands in the aftermath of the collapse of the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman Empires, on the principle that each people so far as possible should have its own recognised homeland and where reasonable, their own state.

d --> This is the premise of the wave of nationalism that has led to the League of Nations [LON], the United Nations and the wave of post-colonial independent states all across the world. A wave that we benefit from here in the Caribbean-- under no other circumstances would independent microstates like ours across the region be viable.

e --> As a part of that process, Chaim Weizmann (representing the Jewish Agency) and Feisal Hussein (representing the Sherif of Mecca and the leadership of the then envisioned emerging Arab nation; later, king of Iraq, and his brother Abdullah became King of trans-Jordanian Palestine [Now Jordan]) entered into a 1919 Versailles process side agreement in London, for the joint, mutually supportive development of the Arab and Jewish nations in the Middle East. As my note on this history documents, had this been followed, the ME would today be a leading, prosperous, and peaceful region.

f --> Sadly, largely through Islamist fanaticism and murder [not discounting the perfidy of British and French Diplomatists], this was not to be. Riots in the 1920's and an Arab revolt in the 1930's led to the situation where post WW II, the British wished to surrender the LON mandate to the successor of the League, the UN.

g --> The UN voted partition, the Arab League threatened war of genocide, the Jews accepted partition and declared Israel's Independence; leading to invasion by five Arab armies within 24 hours, May 14/15 1948. Against all odds, Israel survived, and in addition to refugees from Europe etc, absorbed a further 600,000+ refugee Jews expelled or forced out from the Arab-dominated ME states. These constitute an irreconcilable refugee population, and are the capstone legitimising rationale for Israel as a land of refuge, and they and their descendants are the present majority of Jews in Israel.

h --> A similar number of Arab refugees -- mostly [but not wholly] owing to the invitation to Arabs to move out so the genocide could proceed unhindered, multiplied by Arab atrocity stories against the Jews [cf here] -- were forced to remain in camps by their brother Arabs [in the case of Egypt and Gaza, at machine-gun point], with the declared intent to exploit their suffering to foment perpetual war until Israel was destroyed.

i --> Then in the early 1960's opportunity seemingly arrived, as the USSR, in pursuit of its global ambitions, turned several key Arab states into clients, and armed them. The Russians, apparently to foment a situation where they could then intervene and in the process destroy Israel's nuclear centre at Dimona in the Negev [about 50 mi from Gaza -- bear this in mind], spread rumours of Israel's mobilising for war against Syria, then in a union with Nasser's Egypt.

j --> By May 1967, Israel was surrounded by a ring of steel: 800 aircraft, 2,800 tanks, 500,000 troops, with the Egyptians poised to thrust straight across the Negev in an armoured attack, cutting Israel's oil lifeline through Eilat. Nasser then declared that the Straights of Tiran were blockaded to Israel (in violation of international agreements and guarantees after the 1956 Suez war that was in key part triggered by the same act of war by blockade) -- cutting Israel's oil lifeline.

k --> After diplomatic initiatives proved obviously futile, instead of waiting until it had run out of oil etc, Israel launched a desperate air strike that knocked out the Egyptian Air Force, and then that of Syria. Simultaneously, they launched a tank attack with three improvised armoured divisions -- largely based on reconditioned and upgunned Sherman Tanks from WW II going up against far more modern Russian equipment. (Because of command of the air, this succeeded, and Israel found itself controlling the Suez and Gaza, both captured from the Egyptians.)

l --> Despite Israeli pleas to keep out, and then even to settle for a "barrage of honour" after it began to shell Israeli territory, Jordan insisted on further attacks and was counter-attacked, so that the West Bank was captured. (Jordan had captured this area in the 1948 war, and had illegally "annexed" it. Thus, W. Bank Palestinian Arabs held Jordanian Citizenship,and indeed in 1969 - 70 when internal unrest heightened, King Hussein offered Arafat the premiership; which he refused. A civil war ensued and the PLO was expelled from Jordan. That is what led to the establishment of the PLO in Lebanon, a material factor triggering in the Lebanese civil war of the 1970's - 80's; and the trigger to the sad situation of that former Paris of the Middle East, Beirut.)

m --> Syria, finally, was counter attacked, and the Golan was captured. The same heights that for 20 years had been used to shell Israeli farmers in Galilee.

n --> Subsequently, after the refusal to engage in a land for real peace deal post 1967, the 1973 war led to the settlement with Egypt and the exchange of all of the Sinai for real peace. (A subsequent settlement with Jordan also issued in exchange of a much smaller slice of land for real peace.)

o --> PLO terrorist activity from S Lebanon led to the Israeli intervention in 1982 [with a side-war with the occupying Syrians].

p --> Subsequent to the 1990-91 Gulf war triggered by Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait, a new wave of peace initiatives has been entered into, during which Israel has left Lebanon, tried to hand over the W Bank to the Palestinians, and has finally unilaterally walked away from Gaza in 2005.

q --> On one excuse or another, civilian-targetting terrorism has continued against Israel, now backed up by Iranian geopolitical and Islamist global supremacist ambitions that have led to the arming of Hezbollah [effectively the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Foreign Legion] and Hamas [a wing of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood] with increasingly long ranged rockets.

r --> In the case of Hamas, over the past decade or so, up to 10,000 rockets and mortar bombs have been lobbed into Israel, in what is in effect long term harassing fire, mostly targetting civilian settlements. And, the rockets used are gradually being escalated in range, now evidently approaching the 50 miles to Dimona.

s --> Then, Dec 19, after a six-month truce, Hamas began bombardments again [actually, it never really stopped, just diminished in ferocity].

6] Israel's response:

Having seen this gathering threat, Israel has acquired 1,000 GBU 39 60-mile range, GPS-guided mini bunker busters and other precision munitions. These, it began to use in a counter attack that targetted Hamas's munitions, launch sites and command structure [except for the main HQ, which is in bunkers directly under a major hospital].

The major challenge has been that Hamas not only bombards civilians, but hides behind innocent Arab civilians, using them as human shields. So Israel has responded by using precision attacks, guided based on intelligence -- much of that from unmanned aerial vehicles that have slowly compiled a database of attack-points.

In the case of the GBU 39, it is noted by Wikipedia:

The GBU-39 has a circular error probable (CEP) of only 5-8 meters,[2] which means it has a 50% probability of hitting within 5-8 meters its intended target, which should minimize collateral damage . . . . The small size of the bomb allows a single strike aircraft to carry more of the munitions than is possible utilizing currently available bomb units . . . . The SDB carries approximately 38 lb (17 kg) of AFX-757 high explosive, yet because of its design it has the same penetration capabilities as the 2000 lb BLU-109. During demonstrations, the SDB has successfully penetrated more than 8 ft (2.4 m) thick reinforced concrete. It also has integrated "DiamondBack" type wings which deploy after release, increasing the glide time and therefore the maximum range . . . . Although unit costs were somewhat uncertain as of 2006, the estimated value for the INS/GPS version was around $70,000. The cost of the second variant was more uncertain, but tentative estimates were $90,000 per unit or more . . . . Under a contract awarded in September 2006, Boeing is developing a version of the SDB I which replaces the steel casing with a lightweight compositeDense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). This will significantly reduce the possibility of collateral damage when using the weapon for pin-point strikes in urban areas.[7] . . . .

December 2008 - Used against Hamas facilities in the Gaza Strip, including underground rocket launchers.[13]

In short, it is clear that Israel is going to considerable expense and effort precisely to AVOID civilian casualties as much as is possible in war.

Indeed, the reports that they are phoning individual households near strike zones and advising occupants to seek shelter, is along the same lines. Sadly, the further reports -- and video of children being dragged off as such shields -- that reveal that Hamas militiamen are using this to put civilians into the zones as human shields are utterly telling.

And that contrast fits in all too well with the decades long propaganda tactic of accusing the Israelis [often falsely] of atrocities and war crimes, used to incite further regional and global hostility against them. Remember, Hamas by Charter is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and that in a context where a relevant hadith [authoritative tradition] from their prophet says:

. . . it was narrated that Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: “I heard the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say: ‘The Dajjaal [Devil] will come down to this pond at Marriqanaat (a valley near Madeenah [Medina]), and most of those who go out to follow him will be women, such that a man will go back to his wife, mother, daughter, sister or (paternal) aunt and will tie them up lest they go out to join him. Then Allaah will grant the Muslims victory over him, and they will kill him and his party, until a Jew will hide beneath a tree or a rock, and the tree or rock will say, ‘Here a Jew beneath me, (come and) kill him.’” (Narrated by Ahmad in his Musnad). This was also narrated by Ibn Maajah from Abu Umaamah al-Baahili from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) concerning the Dajjaal.

Notice just who are the evident "Party of the Devil" in this tradition: women, and Jews.

7] White Phosphorus

Now, this formerly was used as a weapon, but it is relatively ineffective as such and is mostly used as a smoke producing (or illuminating) agent today.

Smoke screens, of course, are a key tactic of concealment that among other things minimises casualties among attacking troops (as a part of the response to the horrible trench warfare slaughters of WW I; e.g. Britain lost 60,000 casualties, some 20,000 of them dead, in the first day of the attack on the Somme in July 1916); so it would naturally have been used in that role in the phase where a ground attack has now been undertaken.

Accordingly, in the context of accusations of misuse of such munitions, we should observe that the International Committee of the Red Cross remarks [cf the 5th attached, CSM report] that:

The International Committee of the Red Cross says white phosphorus is being used in Gaza. No question.

But they have no evidence that Israel is using it illegally.

“In some of the strikes in Gaza it’s pretty clear that phosphorus was used,” Peter Herby, head of the Red Cross mines-arms unit, told the Associated Press Tuesday. “But it’s not very unusual to use phosphorus to create smoke or illuminate a target. We have no evidence to suggest it’s being used in any other way.”

Monitor staff writer Robert Marquand reported yesterday that human rights groups have witnessed white phosphorus munitions exploding over populated area of Gaza. While using the agent is not banned by international laws when it’s used as a smoke screen. But it is outlawed for use on people – civilians or soldiers . . . .

The Red Cross urged Israel to use “extreme caution” when firing white phosphorus munitions, according to AP.

It is of course entirely possible for such munitions (or other munitions) to misfire or for civilians to be otherwise harmed as a result of such firing, even where they are not intentional targets. The tenor of the ICRC report, clearly, is that they have no evidence of intentional targetting of civilians or even soldiers by WP rounds.

Such harm has to be weighed against the cost otherwise of making the assaults in built up areas [i.e. saturation bombardments to suppress counter-fire, leading to very large numbers of civilians dead], and/or the longer-term issues that led to the assault. namely:

(i) bombardment of Israeli civilians in city after city, now potentially affecting ~ 1 million citizens of Israel, and

(ii) the rising threat to the nuclear centre at Dimona in pursuit of Iranian ambitions.

Indeed, the latter is the context of the relative silence of Arab states on the matter, as Iran is also their traditional enemy.

____________

So, perhaps, the above will prove helpful in helping us to address key gaps in the Church's teaching and discipling ministry, and perhaps even to help us come to a more balanced position on the perennial controversy in the Middle East. (I confess that I am a lot less confident that anything will ever settle the war, short of the Second Coming.) END

________

UPDATES: Slight editing, a link or two, Jan 19.

posted by Gordon @ 7:08 AM 0 comments

1 Chron 12:32 Report, no 57: e-Sword, a Christmas 2008 Blessing for the Caribbean Church and people

--> My set-up for e-Sword has Barnes' Notes, Matthew Henry's full and concise commentaries, Adam Clarke, Young, Jamieson- Faussett- Brown, Wesley and Calvin all immediately to hand, among other free classic commentaries.

--> I even have a Quran (though not in one of the three major translations; in an 1880s "Orientialist" translation). I access Muslim Student Association's 3-translations in parallel when I want to do a Quran reference. But an "on my PC" Quran is worth it too -- and the translation seems to be quite good. This is as a topic note

--> I could put up Hindu and Buddhist, Mormon etc. materials if I wanted. (BTW: if you need it I also ran across an obviously e-Sword-inpired full set of the Quran and Hadiths, in English, by a Croatian Muslim. Fat file, 6MB or so in Zip; so let me know if you need it for apologetics or other "tidal wave no 2" related ministry purposes. It's an exe file so your firewall may reject it when I email. No viruses or worms as far as I can see, though. No surprise: the Croatian was trying to do a service to God as best he knows him.)

--> I have also zipped most of my modules as a backup -- hard to keep up with fresh additions -- into a 200 + MB file. In other words, I am looking at about a Gigabyte of resources all told.

--> I guess we could eventually arrange to do a self-loading Caribbean e-Sword DVD with Mr Meyers. Any PC technology-savvy volunteers to help on that one?

--> Also, I have an unusual apparent Rastafarian text I ran across, the Holy Piby. [All you experts out there, could you help me on that one? What is it?] )

--> Oh, yes, I have Chesterton's Heresies and his Orthodoxy.

--> Not to mention, Machen's Christianity vs Liberalism and R A Torrey et al on The Fundamentals [1st 2 vols].

--> For illustration of my new approach to Bible Study: I have my four-column parallel mode set up to give me the ASV -- I prefer this ancestor to the NASB to the British RV -- as a basic reference in modern English; next, OT or NT in original Language with "hot" Strong's Heb/Gk numbering keyed into the relevant original language tools, and with KJV next to that. (I also have transliterations of the Heb and Gk text.)

--> Then I can pick my version of the moment for the fourth column: from Wycliffe's 1385 translation to Coverdale on and the Vulgate and Douai-Rheims all the way across to the New Jerusalem Bible. Good news Bible and other current translations too. (There are also resources in many other languages. Even saw a missionary trying for a Haitan Creole Bible.)

--> I have set up my new daily computer-based Bible reading scheme: [1] OT, [2] Gospel, Acts and Revelations, and [3] Epistles; in three different parallel cycles; using The New Jerusalem Bible -- which I have liked ever since I met it in 1st Form at Campion College -- as my preferred text. (NB: By paying for it I can have the 1984 NIV etc too. I have run across the 1978 NIV and the AMP as "free" resources, but the copyright status is a question on these. Do, please be cautious.)

-> NB: some of these extra non-e-Sword site resources are not self-loading. They require adding files manually to the e-Sword folder in program files. (Not for the faint of heart; but not rocket science either.)

--> Did I mention; e-Sword is also in Pocket PC version, and there are serious attempts to port it over to Linux and Mac? [Not for novices or the faint of heart, it seems. but the software is so important that I would recommend that you get an old reconditioned laptop for ~ US$ 300 - 350 or one of those student specials available from several major suppliers at US$ 400 - 500 or so and load it up with e-Sword.]

--> I have also now got major works like the Ante Nicene Fathers, Eusebius' History, Bede's History, Schaf's History, his work on the Creeds, Calvin's Institutes, Augustine's Confessions, the Didache, the Westminster Confessions, some Catechisms, and the like, as topic notes.

--> Even the old Catholic Encyclopedia and the equally veteran but still useful 1915 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. (A significant number of current as opposed to classic resources are also available, on a reasonable- fee- to- download basis.)

--> A useful Philosophical Dictionary

--> Strong's Greek in a Nutshell.

--> The 1828 Webster's Dictionary [a Bible dictionary in its own right . . . seems Webster also produced Bible resources] and several classic Bible Dictionaries, e.g. Smith's.

[1] the e-Sword Downloads pages. Just use the drop-down window at the top to see the various resources. this is for the easiest to download, install and use stuff. A good basic loadout.

[2] David Cox's e-Sword resources page. Mr Cox is a fundamental -- as opposed to Evangelical --Baptist missionary in Mexico and maintains a considerable online theological and church resource library, of course reflective of his particular theological views. (I think he, too, is deserving of a bit of support! Even if you may not agree 100% with is theological perspectives. For that matter, across time I don't agree with my own older theological perspectives 100%!)

[3] Craig White's e-Sword library. This is not so extensive as Cox's site, but it is important as the easiest access to the next level of e-Sword: creation of our own resources. For, in that page we can find what seems to be the easiest to use e-Sword resource creator and editor, e-Sword MEd, i.e. Module Editor; which is designed to work with a Word Processor that generates Rich Text Format (rtf) or plain Text format files. Cox's tutorial is here.

[4] So, we can create and make available our own library of resources, which will be especially important to address the key gap I see in the material I have found to date: discipleship and reformation supportive materials. (I am working to port over my ABCD basic follow up course, and will also, DV port over the Why Not Now series from Caribbean Challenge 1999 - 2000, the Cell Leader's Manual, the Apologetics Primer, my Intro to Phil course, the Ethics and Development public lecture of 2002, and the Mars Hill Strategy materials, as well the missions worksheet, the MVAT Kit and One Stop Missions Shop resources, for starters.)

[5] Two key online resource user and developer support groups are at Yahoo Groups; eSword and e-Sword_Tools.

posted by Gordon @ 4:20 AM 4 comments

Follow-up Blog visit report: A deleted post by GP

"no one is addressing Prof Olafsson’s paper."

posted by Gordon @ 2:01 AM 0 comments