It's kinda amazing that Real Clear Religion would put this Muslim gaslighting into its rotation

"You are the religious fanatics, not us".

 

Why are US, Israel Framing Conflict as a Religious War?

Sarah Shamim, Al Jazeera

 

... Abusharif said that the war on Iran is about power and politics, but using religious rhetoric energises supporters and “moralises” the conflict. “The war itself is not theological. It is geopolitical. But the language surrounding it increasingly draws on sacred imagery and civilisational narratives. That rhetoric can mobilise supporters and frame the conflict in morally absolute terms,” Abusharif said. ...

Same stuff, different day: In early September 1929 Arab fanatics were butchering Jews in various neighborhoods of Jerusalem

 

Gay billionaire, 39, can't understand why Muslims just won't be libertarians, you know, like everyone else

 Mike Solana is the protege of Republican Peter Thiel, another gay billionaire.

 

Hundreds of millions can't be wrong: Providence, the magazine of Christian realism, laughably redefines barbarism out of existence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This guy's problem isn't that he doesn't know what barbarianism is, it's that he doesn't know what civilization is, which was born in a tiny country in the Mediterranean with a small population of just a few million.

 

Can you guess which one?

 

These Are Not Barbarians

Robert Nicholson 

“This is not a clash of civilizations,” the prime minister continued. “It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life. For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together.”

The speech went on for almost an hour, conveying a clear picture of the high-stakes war to which the US is unwittingly a party. By the end, however, I was still reeling from the analytical flaw embedded in the first few lines.

On one hand, Netanyahu is right. The actions of Hamas on Oct. 7 were barbaric, at least in a colloquial sense. The Iranian regime and its proxies threaten the US-led order. Israel needs all the help it can get.

Yet he’s also wrong. Our enemies are not barbarians. They are highly-intelligent defenders of a rival civilization who want to destroy our way of life for reasons we don’t care to understand. More importantly, they are supported by hundreds of millions of Muslims—the majority, not just the mullahs in Tehran—who, inspired by a shared understanding of the Islamic tradition, deem the killing of non-Muslim civilians as legitimate for the same reasons the ancient Israelites killed the Canaanites: because God said so.

Yeah, if hundreds of millions applaud crashing planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11 and the rape, torture, and murder of 1,000+ Israelis on 10/7, they must have a point.

Can you tell I'm disgusted?

And the assertion of immoral equivalence between Islam and Judaism is breathtaking, which isn't designed to do anything but undercut the moral superiority of Christianity and the West in the fight against Islam and other evils, like The Empire of Japan, whose holocaust in Asia is on the lips of no one like Nazi Germany's is and shouldn't have been ended by dropping the atomic bombs, according to this lunatic.

That Christians like this aren't laughed off their own stage isn't a sign that they are correct. It's a sign that Christianity has become wholly empty-headed and incapable of defending itself. London has become Londonistan in our lifetime, now infamous for knife and acid attacks by Islamists. Enoch Powell predicted it in the 1960s, but the prophet is without honor in his own country.

Barbarism isn't the "extreme outlier". It's in every man. Christianity used to teach this, as did Aristotle, and the prophet Jeremiah, but not Nicholson, nor George W. Bush for that matter, whom Nicholson resembles perfectly:

True barbarians . . . are rare in our world. ... To pretend as if hundreds of millions of Muslims who see the Hamas massacre as morally justified—and who condemn the US preoccupation with Israel’s security—are depraved savages is to insult both them and ourselves. They are merely drawing on a tradition different than ours.   

If I had a subscription to this rag I would end it.

 

Millions leave organized religion, weak, believe-what-you-want communities blow up, end up offering refuge to DOZENS lol

 

 As millions leave organized religion, spiritual and secular communities offer refuge

 

Vinings Lake Church ― Mableton, Georgia:

When Deese invited a member of the Muslim faith to address the congregation about Islamophobia, people walked out. Others did the same when he brought in a blacksmith to make art from melted-down reclaimed firearms acquired from the local sheriff’s office.

But the real exodus, Deese said, took place when he attempted to address the topic of Christian nationalism.

“Bottom line is, if you need to know how to shrink a church, I’m your guy,” Deese said wryly.

A congregation of 800 plummeted to 100. The budget shrunk by $1 million. Some staff members had to be released.

 

Awakenings – Houston:

The community has about 40 core members, and while the Bible is the text most often referenced, Awakenings attracts people of all faith traditions, Norman said.

 

Aldea Spiritual Community – Tucson, Arizona:

A typical Sunday gathering features talk, music and meditation and draws half of the community’s membership of about 150, nearly all of whom are people who have left traditional organized religion, Haber said. [150/2 = 75 lol]

 

Heartway Church – Davie, Florida:

“We lost a lot of people in the process,” Prada said, blaming much of that on his own zeal, immaturity and antagonistic approach to the faith he was shedding. “I felt like it was my duty to prove that way of Christianity was wrong and this one was right. Even now, a lot of people can’t go where we continue to go, and they fall by the wayside.” ...

Attendance averages between 120 and 140 on any given Sunday, he said – a showing he considers respectable given the church’s location in conservative South Florida. It includes individuals who consider themselves spiritual but not religious as well as nones, those who don’t affiliate with any particular religion.

 

C3 Spiritual Community – Grand Haven, Michigan:

Sunday gatherings average around 90 attendees and are built around a topic presented by a group or guest teacher bookended by community discussions.

The community began as a Reformed Church in America, part of a network of mainline Reformed Protestant churches. Its separation from the RCA began in the 1990s after the church let a gay organization conduct meetings in a church office.

As the community went through its theological transformation – the name C3 refers to its former identity as Christ Community Church – many members fell by the wayside; it now meets at a community center but has seen recent growth among younger generations, executive director Shannon McMaster said.

Christians don't care what the Bible says, they just pick and choose, or completely avoid mentioning what it says

Like this guy, a Jesuit Catholic priest, who fails to mention that the practice in Egypt was turbocharged by the Muslim conquest, and who should know better than to employ the is-is-ought fallacy:

This Easter, as some Christians get tattoos, this history might serve as a reminder of tattooing as a legitimate Christian practice, one that has been in use since the beginnings of the Common Era.

You must not slash your body for a dead person or incise a tattoo on yourself. I am the LORD. 

-- Leviticus 19:28

 

America's amusing smorgasbord of religious, social, and political beliefs according to Real Clear, ranked, annotated

Percent who believe in, believe that, say that, are, et cetera, per Real Clear Opinion Research, here:

 

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right 93.8 (this idea was foreign to ancient Israel, Greece, Rome, Christian Europe, and the era of the Muslim conquests, to name just a few)

 

God 85.4 (name not indicated)

Heaven 84.7 (John Lennon most hurt)

Healthcare is a fundamental human right 83.7 (the propaganda of the ObamaCare era worked)

Miracles 83.0 (Justin Amash fooled the people 5 times, Peter Meijer only once)

"In God We Trust" 83.0 ("In Fiat Money We Trust" was too long)

Jesus is God or Son of God 80.3 (thanks to not being aborted by the Holy Virgin Mary)

 

Hell 72.4 (San Francisco, New York City, Portland, et cetera)

The Devil 70.3 (yeah baby, drugs, sex, and rock and roll)

 

A woman and her doctor should get to decide whether to have an abortion 63.4 (vaccination highly recommended)

Ghosts 61.4 (unstated whether they are tiny baby ghosts or not)

 

Aliens 56.9 (oddly explains the southern border)

God is male 50.0 (Jesus is shocked, shocked, I tell you)

 

Reincarnation 47.7 (belief in Hinduism is dead last 0.5% ha ha ha ha ha, see below)

Witches 45.8 (strongly believed in Michigan methinks)

Prejudice against Jews is a very serious problem in the US 42.6 (because the Jews run everything)

 

2020 Joe Biden 38.6 (voting by mail multiple times or in person not specified)

Protestant 36.3 (prejudice problem 17.3)

2020 Donald Trump 34.6 (not everything deserves a comment)

Democrat Party 33.6

Republican Party 32.8

 

Never attend religious service 29.2 (makes sense given these results)

Prejudice against Muslims is a very serious problem in the US 29.1 (because of what they did on Oct 7)

God is neither male nor female 27.5 (0.9% of respondents also neither male nor female)

2020 didn't vote 24.8 (thank God) 

Catholic 22.0 (prejudice problem 14.9)

Independent party 21.4

 

Attend religious service once a week 19.5 (as good as it gets for category)

No religion 19.4

Prejudice against Evangelical Christians is a very serious problem in the US 17.3

Prejudice against Hindus is a very serious problem in the US 16.2 (but, but reincarnation)

Prejudice against atheists is a very serious problem in the US 15.7

Prejudice against Catholics is a very serious problem in the US 14.9

God is female 14.1

Not registered to vote 12.1

Atheist 3.8 (prejudice problem 15.7)

Agnostic 3.7

Other religion 3.3

Islamic 3.2 (prejudice problem 29.1)

Mormon 2.9

2020 voted for other 2.0

Judaism 1.9 (prejudice problem 42.6)

Buddhist 1.6

Orthodox 1.3 (Rod Dreher)

Hindu 0.5 (prejudice problem 16.2)

 

People clearly believe that some groups, to paraphrase Barack Obama in 2012 about the Danes, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Irish, and the Filipinos, seem to get punched far out of proportion with their weight in the culture. 

 

Results discussed here, where this is surely wrong, leaving out the little word "not" in a crucial spot at the end:

Most Americans also remain deeply respectful of the country’s religious roots. A strong majority of respondents – 83% – believe the phrase “In God we trust” should remain on U.S. currency and coins, compared to 17% who back the phrase’s removal.

“Republicans felt more strongly that the phrase should remain compared to Democrats, with 91% believing the phrase should [not] be removed, compared to 78% of Democrats,” Kimball said.     

In 2011 former Republican Justin Amash (MI-3) joined eight Democrats to vote against "In God We Trust", which in his first term was a sign of things to come in his last.

 

 

The root of iconoclasm is in The Ten Commandments, and some of its most ardent representatives remain Evangelical Protestants

 The Reformed Protestant view against images of any kind in worship or out is ably presented here, from which this important excerpt: 

Yet another strongly worded evangelical Protestant position against the creation of images of any member of the Trinity is found in the Westminster Larger Catechism, written in 1647. Question 109 asks, “What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?” The catechism answers as follows: “The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counselling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; tolerating a false religion; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind or image or likeness of any creature whatsoever.” Here, one of the most respected and widely used catechisms in Protestant Christianity since the mid-17^th century notes, in no uncertain terms, no member of the Trinity may be represented by any physical or mental image. 

The numbering of the commandments varies, but they begin this way in Exodus 20:3ff.:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 

 

The ideas here are the whole basis of Judaism, and they are the reason why Jews regard the incarnational theology of the Christians as wholly impossible and anathema, and why Muslims came to the same conclusion.

The revenge of Bishop Krister Stendahl's ecumenism against Lutheran Sweden

In 1985 Krister Stendahl infamously advised leaving room for "holy envy" in response to the uproar over the Mormons' plan to build a temple in Stockholm. 

Sweden ended up getting fewer than 10,000 Mormons, but got 800,000 Muslims instead.

Stendahl, who repudiated his own faith tradition in favor of "ecumenism", wasn't careful in what he wished for.

Here he was in 1997, blaming both (Pauline) Christianity and Islam for the trouble caused by their "universal claims": 

But there can be no doubt that it is exactly the universal claim of Christianity (or Islam) that makes for trouble rather than for peace. 

Sweden liberalized under the influence of his ilk, invited in the world, and was repaid with soaring immigrant crime. Twenty-five years later there is no doubt that such multiculturalism has also made for trouble rather than for peace:

Crime has become the number one issue in Sweden; before she said a word about migration, Andersson boasted that her party added 7,000 new police officers, built more prisons, and drafted laws creating 30 new crimes. She decried “those who claim that it is certain cultures, certain languages, certain religions that make people more likely to commit crimes”—yet her own government has substantiated those claims.

The heterodox Mormon Vision of the Redemption of the Dead of October 3, 1918 expands religious identity to the point of Universalism

The "vision" is notable for the way the Second Coming of the Son of Man as judge is minimized and rationalized away in favor of a now all-consuming Universalism.

Such rationalization is a feature of religion, not a bug.

The Pharisees were liberal democritizers of Judaism with their synagogue system, expanding the availability of the holiness of the Temple priests to the hinterlands of Israel and to the Diaspora. Paul for Christianity expanded membership in the lost sheep of the house of Israel saved by Christ to the Greek-speaking Gentile world of the Mediterranean. Even Muhammad for the Arabs gave them their very own Book which rewrote the erroneous Jewish and Christian Bible in their own language. The Protestant Reformers of hierarchical Catholicism created a  priesthood of all believers transmitted in the vernacular thanks to Gutenberg.

But Mormons would flat out save the entire human race, expanding the availability of salvation even to the dead. The specific impetus is the belief that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were scattered globally, multiplied, and are basically unknown even to themselves, and that the Mormon mission is to gather them in to the House of Joseph in America, the twin of the House of Judah in Israel.

It's not unlike the Muslim view of its own legitimacy asserted through Ishmael, not Isaac. Mormonism is to American Protestantism, particularly nonconformist Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening in Western New York, as Islam is to Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly Nestorianism.

It's as ingenious as it is unconvincing.  

The Whole Earth Shall Be in Commotion

It was just a few weeks before his own death when President Smith was in the depths of sorrow over the sudden death of his oldest son when he received the crowning heavenly revelation known as “the vision of the redemption of the dead.” In this vision, he not only saw his father in the Spirit World but the great gathering of millions of the righteous who had died into the arms of Christ. He also saw the offering of redemption to those who had done wickedly on the earth on the condition of their repentance in the Spirit World. This was Christ’s visit to the Spirit World during the 3 days His body was in the tomb, fulfilling His promise recorded in 1 Peter: 3, 4 . . .

 

While yes, Christ’s Second Coming will cleanse the wicked from the earth, after death, He offers healing to all who will accept it. He wants us to come home.  This gathering overcomes all the “separateness” and chaos that evil inflicts upon us. It not only gathers us into the arms of Christ but into the arms of each other. Even as we approach the Apocalypse and the center stops holding on earth, it does hold in eternity. I rejoice to know that, in the end, all things in heaven and earth will be gathered together as one in Christ.

Lies the secularists tell: "Secular people are more supportive of sex education, which reduces sexually transmitted diseases"

Phil Zuckerman in the failing Los Angeles Times, owned since 2018 by a biotech billionaire who invented Abraxane:

Op-Ed: Why America’s record godlessness is good news for the nation :

"Secularity is highly correlated with a host of moral orientations that will markedly improve our nation. ... Secular people are more supportive of sex education, which reduces sexually transmitted diseases".

The lie here isn't the support of sex education. It's that sex education has that effect.

Notice the "will" in the claim, however, anticipating anyone with the temerity to bring up the facts. You know, the science. Despite record STDs in now secular America they would doubtlessly respond that sex education still hasn't failed. Like Keynesian economics hasn't failed, we just haven't had enough sex education yet.

Progressives sell a this-worldly version of hopium no less fantastic than the promised imminently coming army of angelic legions appearing in the heavens lead by the Son of Man in ~ A.D. 30.

Just give it a little more time and a new age of dignity, liberty and well-being will dawn.

"Research shows that secular people are more likely to support women’s reproductive rights, universal healthcare, gay rights, environmental protections, death with dignity, gun safety legislation and treating drug abuse as a medical rather than criminal problem — all of which will serve to increase dignity, liberty and well-being in America." 

At least until the Muslims take over.

Sexually Transmitted Disease Cases Reach Record High In The U.S. [Infographic]

Laugh of the Day: That Ben Op book's been so great for Rod Dreher that he can now support more than one wife

I thought his trajectory would go Methodist → Catholic → Orthodox → Gay.

Instead it appears to have gone Methodist → Catholic → Orthodox → Muslim. I mean, he's praying for their dead in New Zealand and everything. Or does that mean he's really gone Mormon now?

Cultural enrichment from Shia Islam: Spare the burning hot coals on the feet, spoil the child

Father makes his little boy walk over HOT COALS while men whip themselves with blades in gory self-flagellation Shiite Muslim ceremony

Celebrating 9/11 will become a national holiday once the Muslims outnumber us, complete with a three-day weekend and kebabs on the grill

Cop:

"Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders," said Gallagher, then a sergeant. "The women were shouting in Arabic and keening in the high-pitched wail of Arabic fashion. They were told to go back to their apartments since a crowd of non-Muslims was gathering on the sidewalk below and we feared for their safety."

Read the whole thing here.

The Gates of Vienna: Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz shuts 7 mosques, expels 40 imams

From the story here:

'Political Islam's parallel societies and radicalising tendencies have no place in our country,' Kurz told a news conference outlining the government's decisions, which were based on that law. ... 

'This is just the beginning,' far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache told the news conference held by four cabinet members. The Freedom Party's leader said Friday's measures are 'a first significant and necessary step in the right direction. 'He added: 'If these measures aren't enough, we will if necessary evaluate the legal situation here or there.' The ministers said up to 60 imams belonging to ATIB, a Muslim group close to the Turkish government, could be expelled from the country or have visas denied on grounds of receiving foreign funding. A government handout put the number at 40, of whom 11 were under review and two had already received a negative ruling. Austria, a country of 8.8 million people, has roughly 600,000 Muslim inhabitants, most of whom are Turkish or have families of Turkish origin.

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.

Maybe the barbarism of Spain in the New World had something to do with its 800-year experience of Islam before Columbus

From "Islamic Spain in Middle Ages no paradise for Christians, Jews, women" by Paul Monk here:

The real thrust of Fernandez-Morera’s critique of the myth of Andalusia is that Islam in Spain, far from setting a high bar of tolerance, was characterised by plunder, domination, the harsh application of sharia law, the persecution of Christians or Jews who openly avowed their non-Muslim beliefs, and the violent suppression of ‘‘heresies’’ and apostasy within the Muslim community. ... There is no Andalusian golden age of Islam to emulate.

Some books are more equal than others

Just a reminder that Pope Francis is the chief cuck of Islam to whom 1.1 billion Christians defer

Il papa, quoted here in 2013 at Vatican Radio:

I greet and thank cordially all of you, dear friends belonging to other religious traditions; firstly the Muslims, who worship the one living and merciful God, and call upon Him in prayer. I really appreciate your presence, and in it I see a tangible sign of the wish to grow in recipricol trust and in cooperation for the common good of humanity.

The Muslim call to prayer startles a kafir in Brooklyn

Video here.