Talk about hate speech

With all the hoopla about Rev Wright's so called "hate speech," you oughta take a look at John Hagee's hate speech.

abstinence from flesh diet and strong drink

Here's something I had never learned in the seminary. From TheNazareneWay.com

WHEN St. John Chrysostom (D. 407), in his homily on Matthew xxii, 1-14, tells us that "flesh-meats and wine serve as materials for sensuality, and are a source of danger, sorrow, and disease," he does not stand alone.

Writing, in confutation of Jovinian, a monk of Milan, who abandoned asceticism, St. Jerome (D. A.V. 440) holds up vegetarianism as the Christian ideal and the restoration of the primeval rule of life. The passage may be rendered :--" As to his argument that in God's Second Blessing permission was given to eat flesh- a permission not given in the first Blessing- let him know that just as permission to put away a wife was, according to the words of the Saviour, not given from the beginning, but was granted to the human race by Moses because of the hardness of our hearts. So also in like manner the eating of flesh was unknown until the flood, but after the Flood, just as quails were given to the people when they murmured in the desert, so have sinews and the offensiveness of flesh been given to our teeth. The Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, teaches us that God had purposed that in the fullness of time he would restore all things, and would draw to their beginning, even to Christ Jesus, all things that are in heaven or that are on earth. Whence also, the Saviour Himself, in the Apocalypse of John, says, ' I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.' From the beginning of human nature, we neither fed upon flesh nor did we put away our wives, nor were our foreskins taken away from us for a sign. We kept on in this course until we arrived at the Flood. But after the Flood, together with the giving of the Law, which no man could fulfill, the eating of flesh was brought in; and the putting away of wives was conceded to hardness of heart; and the knife of circumcision is brought into use; as if the hand of God had created in us more than is necessary. But now that Christ has come in the end of time, and has turned, back Omega to Alpha, and drawn back the end to the beginning, neither is it permitted to us to put away our wives, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh; hence the Apostolic saying, ' It is a good, thing not to drink wine, and not to eat flesh.' For wine also, together with flesh, began to be used after the Flood."

Not less striking is the testimony of St. Basil (D. 379) : " With sober living," he says, " well-being increases in the household, animals are in safety, there is no shedding of blood, nor putting animals to death. The knife of the cook is needless; for the table is spread only with the fruits that Nature gives, and with them they are content. John the Baptist, he continues, "had neither bed, nor table, nor inheritance, nor ox, nor grain, nor baker, nor other things regarded as the necessaries of life; and yet it was to him that the Son of God gave the eulogy that he was the greatest of the children of men."

The Gospel according to the Hebrews was that which was in use amongst the first Christians of Jerusalem, and the Gospel according to the Egyptians is thought to have been in close relation to it. It has been said that there are traces of it in the Talmud before A.D. 130., It has even been conjectured that it was the Hebrew source from which the present Gospel according to Matthew was derived. This Gospel, according to the Nazarenes, was widely. circulated in the early Church, and was held in high esteem by the Jewish Christians.

Hegesippus gives a remarkable account of James, the brother of the Lord, and the first ruler of the Christian Church in Jerusalem. James, we are told was Holy from birth. He drank no wine nor strong liquor, nor ate he any living thing. A razor never went upon his head, and neither used the bath nor anointing with oil. Even his clothes were free from any taint of death for he wore no woolen but linen garments only., " It is a remarkable fact that Instead of being represented as a sectary at the head of a new school of religious thought antagonistic to the ancient Hebrew faith, we are told that he, and he alone, was permitted to enter the sanctuary.

That the physical puritanism of abstainence from intoxicants and flesh-meats was not an ideal foreign to Judaism we know from the examples of the Rechabites, the Nazarites, the Nazarenes, and the Essenes. The accounts that have come down to us of the last named sect are very interesting and suggestive. They lived in a brotherly community, they cultivated the land, they observed the Sabbath strictly, they refused to swear, they abstained from intoxicants and flesh.

There are striking parallelisms between Essenism and Christianity. Seek first the kingdom of God was the aim of the Essenes (Matt, vi, 33, Luke, xii, 31). Sell your possessions and give to the poor (Matt vi, 33)., They despised riches (Matt vi, 19-21). The brotherly spirit amongst them was a wonder to the Jewish people, and a test of Christianity is "we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren" (I John iii, 14). The Essenes and the Christians in Jerusalem lived in communities where each man had a share in the common. No wonder that De Quincey with his love of paradox should declare the Essenes to be "neither more or less than the new-born brotherhood of Christians.

The writer of these few extracts makes acknowledgment the same to E. A.' Axon, LL.D., F.R.S.L.

This contradicts everything in the bible, particularly the New Testament. I need to explore this more.

And even more irony during the Pope's visit

While the Pope was calling for treating people with human dignity and for proper treatment of Latino immigrants,

(The United States must do “everything possible to fight…all forms of violence so that immigrants may lead dignified lives,” the pope said when asked if he would address the issue of Latin American immigrants with the US leader.)

the bushistas chose to carry out immigration raids at Pilgrim's Pride plants (ironically) in 5 states arresting 280 undocumented workers.

Tom Tancredo was outraged at the Pope's stance on immigration. (He was raised Catholic but left the church, probably because it was too liberal for him, heh.)

I would like to know what part of our lax immigration policy is considered violent. I fail to see how accepting more refugees than any other nation — and providing free health care, education, housing and social service benefits to millions of illegal aliens is in any way “violent” or “degrading.”

Well let's see:
From March 8th, Statesman.com:

Chertoff faced questions from Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., about the treatment of children at immigrant detention facilities at the T. Don Hutto residential facility in Taylor and a smaller facility in Berka, Pa.

Sanchez said that children at the facilities had been put in cells alone for hours, awakened in the middle of the night with flashlights in their faces and threatened with being permanently separated from their parents.

Attorneys for several of the children confined at the Hutto facility contended in lawsuits that conditions there were inhumane and violated minimum standards for minors in custody. The case ended in a settlement that included new standards for the centers.

Chertoff said that he couldn't judge the conditions because he wasn't there, but that "eventually, this was resolved to the satisfaction of the plaintiffs."

Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., asked Chertoff to explain what it meant that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had power to "briefly detain" people and whether that included denying them food or access to their families. Watt said this occurred last year at raids of Swift & Co. meat plants.

Chertoff said that "no specific amount of time" has been determined by the courts as far as detention periods.

Watt also suggested that Chertoff needed more minority staff members. He pointed out that the 10 staff people with Chertoff at the hearing were white men.

Typical Chertoff. Homeland Insecurity. feh.

No one asked me but why not hold corporations who hire undocumented workers accountable for breaking the law, and throw the CEO's of said companies and their children in "detention centers" so that they can shine flashlights in the rich kids faces in the middle of the night and tell them that they will never see their parents again.... but that wouldn't be nice.
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Meanwhile while the president was hosting the Pope who is calling for treating people with dignity NYT’s Lichtblau: Bush Torture Program And CIA Tape Destruction ‘Could Lead To Criminal Action’

The God Particle is Being Studied

The Economist has an interesting article on the Science of Religion.

The first task of CERN's [the European particle-physics laboratory (CERN) at Geneva] new machine, the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to open later this year, will be to search for the Higgs boson—an object that has been dubbed, with a certain amount of hyperbole, the God particle. The €2m, by contrast, will be spent on the search for God Himself—or, rather, for the biological reasons why so many people believe in God, gods and religion in general. continued

The author says, "Religion cries out for a biological explanation." First evolutionary biologists have to find out which parts of the brain generate religious experiences and determine if they are epileptic seizures. Then there is a study of how religion effects behavior and if it was "invented" because of the long term cooperative benefits of holding a group or a society together (supposedly it does.)

But there's more. And this is an interesting thought:

Dr Wilson himself has studied the relationship between social insecurity and religious fervour, and discovered that, regardless of the religion in question, it is the least secure societies that tend to be most fundamentalist. That would make sense if adherence to the rules is a condition for the security which comes from membership of a group. He is also interested in what some religions hold out as the ultimate reward for good behaviour—life after death. That can promote any amount of self-sacrifice in a believer, up to and including suicidal behaviour—as recent events in the Islamic world have emphasised. However, belief in an afterlife is not equally well developed in all religions, and he suspects the differences may be illuminating.

That does not mean there are no explanations for religion that are based on individual selection. For example, Jason Slone, a professor of religious studies at Webster University in St Louis, argues that people who are religious will be seen as more likely to be faithful and to help in parenting than those who are not. That makes them desirable as mates. He plans to conduct experiments designed to find out whether this is so. And, slightly tongue in cheek, Dr Wilson quips that “secularism is very maladaptive biologically. We're the ones who at best are having only two kids. Religious people are the ones who aren't smoking and drinking, and are living longer and having the health benefits.”

That quip, though, makes an intriguing point. Evolutionary biologists tend to be atheists, and most would be surprised if the scientific investigation of religion did not end up supporting their point of view. But if a propensity to religious behaviour really is an evolved trait, then they have talked themselves into a position where they cannot benefit from it, much as a sceptic cannot benefit from the placebo effect of homeopathy. Maybe, therefore, it is God who will have the last laugh after all—whether He actually exists or not.

oh god.

John Hagee, teh christian zionist who endorsed John McCain (but didn't get half the bad press that Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright received from the media for being a total wacko) just announced donations of $6 million to Israeli causes "and said that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem."

Hagee and his group, Christians United for Israel, joined keynote speaker Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's hard-line opposition Likud Party, at a rally in support of Jerusalem remaining united and under Jewish control.

"Turning part or all of Jerusalem over to the Palestinians would be tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban," Hagee told an audience filled with Americans who waved Israeli flags and cheered.

Lovely. Way to promote peace on earth, goodwill to all men.