Buddhist and Taoist statuary in China targeted by Chinese communists, servants of a Jewish atheist

China orders crackdown on large outdoor religious statues to ‘prevent commercialisation’: Directive from the United Front Work Department appears to target mostly followers of Buddhism and Taoism--

That has been accompanied by a renewed campaign promoting atheism and loyalty to the party, along with a push to study the works of one of communism’s founding fathers, Karl Marx, who famously wrote that religion “is the opium of the people”. The anti-religion drive overlaps with campaigns to promote patriotism and party loyalty, oppose separatism among ethnic minorities and fight Western liberal values.

The claims of Taoism and Buddhism to be far more authentically Chinese than Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism ever were or could be appear to be lost on China's ideologues, who laughably exalt the ideas of a foreigner, a Westerner and quite the late-comer on the world stage. Karl Marx as Chinese patriot is a bad joke.

Chinese communists pull down Islamic decor of Hui population in Ningxia

Reported here in the South China Morning Post, another example of the anti-religious policies of the Chinese communists initiated under Xi Jinping since his ascendancy in 2012:

The clampdown is part of a push to “Sinicise religion” – a policy introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2015 to bring religions into line with Chinese culture and the absolute authority of the party. “[We] should adhere to the direction of Sinicising religion in our country, and actively guide religion to adapt to a socialist society,” he said in a report to the party congress last autumn.

On the excuses of the papists

Richard Bentley called him one of the most universal scholars that ever lived

The papists ought in reason to allow them all the excuses they make use of for themselves; such as an invincible ignorance, oral tradition and authority.

-- Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699)

Ralph C. Wood of Baylor tries to enlist St. Paul in his nincompoopery

Here:

It is safe to say that, prior to Descartes, human reason seated itself either in the natural order or else in divine revelation. In the medieval tradition, reason brought these two thought-originating sources into harmony. Thus were mind, soul, and body regarded as having an inseparable relation: they were wondrously intertwined. So also, in this bi-millennial way of construing the world, was the created order seen as having multiple causes—first and final, no less than efficient and material causes. This meant that creation was not a thing that stood over against us, but as the realm in which we participate—living and moving and having our being there, as both ancient Stoics and St. Paul insisted. The physical creation was understood as God’s great book of metaphors and analogies for grasping his will for the world.

So, in the creation we live and move and have our being, huh? Firm grasp of the obvious there Ralph, except that's not at all what Paul said.

The language only vaguely familiar to Wood comes from Paul's Areopagus Speech in The Book of Acts, but Wood has it turned completely around. Paul insists that we live and move and have our being "in him", in the transcendent Creator God, not in creation, whether God's or our own:

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; . . . For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. -- Acts 17:24, 28f.

Far from being a great book "for grasping God's will", the world is a woefully deficient book in desperate need of an editor (as is Wood):

For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! -- Romans 10:12ff.

Whatever may be said of Descartes as a dividing line between the modern and the pre-modern, he has nothing on Paul, or Jesus, neither of whom imagined the long future which unfolded and we call Christendom. They were apocalyptic thinkers for whom the end of the world and final judgment were nigh. The separation between us and them is far deeper than anything wrought by Descartes, real or imagined. 

Ireland's oldest working blacksmith in 2017: There isn't a Christian around

Quoted here:

Traditionally, a meeting point where news was shared, nowadays the forge is a quieter workplace, although Florrie is still kept company by people dropping in.

"You'd hardly see anyone now. Rural Ireland is gone. There isn't a Christian around. They don't open the pubs till later and we don't have a shop anymore, and it used to be very vibrant."

Old Samuel Johnson's witty lines about a hermit mock these by a young John Milton

 

And may at last my weary age

Find out the peaceful hermitage,

The hairy gown and mossy cell,

Where I may sit and rightly spell

Of ev'ry star that heav'n doth shew,

And ev'ry herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures Melancholy give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

-- John Milton, Il Penseroso (c. 1631) 

There is only one right hermaphrodite

Man and wife make but one right

Canonical hermaphrodite.

-- John Cleaveland (1613-1658)

The way of the many is the servile way

He that will know the truth must leave the beaten track, which none but servile minds trudge continually in.

-- John Locke

Even a perfect performance is wanting . . . in reportability

Nadia Elena Comăneci 

 

 

Whoever thinks a perfect work to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

-- Alexander Pope

And now a word from a lying Jesuit dog, who obviously isn't one of Jesus' little lambs

"Don't waste what is holy on people who are dogs. Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you." -- Matthew 7:6

Then Jesus said to the [Canaanite] woman, "I was sent only to help God's lost sheep—the people of Israel." But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, "Lord, help me!" Jesus responded, "It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs." -- Matthew 15:24ff.

Jesus told her, "First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs." -- Mark 7:27

Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. -- Philippians 3:2

It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. They prove the truth of this proverb: "A dog returns to its vomit." And another says, "A washed pig returns to the mud." -- 2 Peter 2:21f.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" -- John 1:29

But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: -- John 10:26f.

Outside the city are the dogs—the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshipers, and all who love to live a lie. -- Revelation 22:15

Sorrow counts for nothing

If sorrow expresses itself never so loudly and passionately, and discharge itself in never so many tears, yet it will no more purge a man's heart, than the washing of his hands can cleanse the rottenness of his bones.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

Introspection! Solitude! Reflection! Convictions! The lonely way! Henry Kissinger!

What?

Inundated via social media with the opinions of multitudes, users are diverted from introspection; in truth many technophiles use the internet to avoid the solitude they dread. All of these pressures weaken the fortitude required to develop and sustain convictions that can be implemented only by traveling a lonely road, which is the essence of creativity. ... The digital world’s emphasis on speed inhibits reflection; its incentive empowers the radical over the thoughtful; its values are shaped by subgroup consensus, not by introspection. ... The Enlightenment started with essentially philosophical insights spread by a new technology [the printing press]. Our period is moving in the opposite direction. It has generated a potentially dominating technology [artificial intelligence] in search of a guiding philosophy.

Read the whole thing here.

If we were really making progress as a society she'd be carrying a baby instead of an AR-10

We aren't reproducing enough to replace ourselves as it is, which is part of the reason why individuals feel compelled to take matters into their own hands to protect what the whole will not, starting with themselves.

The damned Chicoms are at it again, sending hundreds of thousands of Muslims to re-education camps and prisons

Why do we tolerate this Maoist repression by Communist China? You know the an$wer. We are as damned as they are. The Christians will be next. There can be no rapprochement between communism and religion.

From the story here:

Since last spring, Chinese authorities in the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang have ensnared tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Muslim Chinese — and even foreign citizens — in mass internment camps. This detention campaign has swept across Xinjiang, a territory half the area of India, leading to what a U.S. commission on China last month said is “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.” ... The internment program aims to rewire the political thinking of detainees, erase their Islamic beliefs and reshape their very identities. The camps have expanded rapidly over the past year, with almost no judicial process or legal paperwork. Detainees who most vigorously criticize the people and things they love are rewarded, and those who refuse to do so are punished with solitary confinement, beatings and food deprivation.

On a few of the forms of murder

Hunger and thirst, or guns and swords,

Give the same death in different words:

To push this argument no further,

To starve a man in law is murther.

-- Matthew Prior

A Christian antecedent of "Arbeit macht frei"

 

 

 

 

 

Next to reading, meditation, and prayer, there is nothing that so secures our hearts from foolish passions, nothing that preserves so holy and wise a frame of mind, as some useful, humble employment of ourselves.

-- William Law (1686-1761)

They say that in Flanders fields wasted young lives abound, sleeping still beneath the ground . . .

Yet from what I've seen of life the waste is all around, though walking the dead above also are found.

All's fair in love and war

 

 

 

 

A just war may be prosecuted after a very unjust manner; by perfidious breaches of our word, by inhuman cruelties, and by assassinations.

-- Francis Atterbury 1662-1732

The Synoptic accounts put Mary at the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathaea, but John makes it seem like she didn't get the memo about the spices

And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre. -- Matthew 27:61 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. -- Matthew 28:1 (Matthew says nothing about the spices one way or the other)

And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid. -- Mark 15:47 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. -- Mark 16:1

And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. -- Luke 23:55f. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.  -- Luke 24:1

Then took they [Joseph and Nicodemus] the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. -- John 19:40 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.  -- John 20:1 (John has Mary present at least at the cross)

So either Mary came on the first day of the week just to see (Matthew 28:1 and John 20:1), in which case John's account invalidates Mark and Luke, or she came to anoint the body (Mark 16:1 and Luke 24:1), invalidating John.

The tradition is unsettled on this basic point to say the very least, without mentioning other uncertain details.

Joseph of Arimathaea improbably carried away Jesus' body and rolled his great tombstone all by himself

And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre. -- Mark 15:46 And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. -- Mark 16:3f.

And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. -- Matthew 27:59f. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. -- Matthew 28:2

And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. -- Luke 24:2

John solves the improbability by introducing a helper for Joseph:

And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand. -- John 19:38ff. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. -- John 20:1

But it never occurred to John how improbable it is to have Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead yet still need helpers first to remove Lazarus' tombstone:

Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. ... Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. ...  -- John 11:38f., 41.

Jewish cooking authority opens the can of worms known as cultural appropriation, aka theft

And she does it with such chutzpah, too.

Leah Koenig, here, not only justifies the appropriation as "borrowing" by implying that what was stolen didn't really belong to its owners in the first place, in the sense of exclusive ownership, but she also connects that with the essence of Jewish culture itself:

The relatively young, politically supercharged country is often accused of cultural and culinary appropriation of Arabic cuisine. Of course, Israel is filled with remarkable cultural diversity, including Arab communities living within the country, and Jews hailing from Arab countries who arguably have their own longstanding relationships with Levantine cooking. The problem comes back to those making claims of exclusivity. Yes, falafel, hummus, and the like are “Israeli” because these dishes are fundamental to the people who live there. But by no means are they Israel’s alone. ... 

Ultimately, borrowing is at the heart of all Jewish cuisine—and Jewish home cooks have historically played the role of adapters and transmitters of recipes, rather than innovators. But this is something to celebrate, not apologize for. 

 

 

Oy vey, as if we needed another reminder that stealing from the non-Jew is built-in to the religion and race from the beginning.

 

Didn't Luther make the point well enough in On the Jews and Their Lies?

Being chosen has its advantages:

Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it. 

 

-- Deuteronomy 23:19f.

He came to throw fire on the earth, and the sword and division, but not peace!

You either follow the Synoptic Tradition, or John (14:27, 16:33), it cannot be both.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

-- Matthew 10:34 (οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν)

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

-- Luke 12:51