WIP

I know of more than a few deadbeats that don't contribute anything to the children they've fathered! Good! Bully for them! No one has "trained them that to be a mother is second class." That is an absolute lie perpetuated by the Christian Right to mask their own intentions that motherhood is the ONLY acceptable option they desire for women. And, I question how much we really need to "import" people. If there is clear fraud, it's this so called crisis of negative demographics. We import people primarily because successive Liberal and Conservative governments realized long ago what a reliable voter base first generation immigrants are. And we are likely to be swamped by the spillover effect of illegal immigration that is reducing the U.S. to Third World status: America galloping toward its greatest crisis in the 21st centuryBy Frosty Wooldridge The United States gallops headlong into its greatest crisis early in the 21st century. At current growth rates, America expects to add 100 million people by 2035—a mere 26 years from now. Ironically, you hear nothing about it! Not one word from the main stream media! No alarm bells sounded by political leaders! While mountains of evidence and symptoms of overpopulation erupt in TV news reports and newspapers, the general public continues its daily nonchalance with indolent disinterest. No matter how many water shortage reports, climate change indicators, mass species extinctions or air pollution stories you read about, America blissfully adds 3.2 million people annually. Another 77 million humans add themselves, net gain, to the planet annually and 1.0 billion add to the globe every 12 years. America's population increase would be marginally higher, based on its own positive fertility rates; but the irony is that the so-called "pro life" policies of preventing access to abortion and contraception, that backward fundamentalists and the right wing have been promoting around the world, has caused Third World populations to spike upward again. The net result is that many who grow up in overcrowded nations facing food and water shortages, are going to find their way to our shores.....and reckless policies advocating unrestricted population growth really come home to roost! What bells and whistles do you have in mind? A house? A car? Or the horrendous burden of trying help your kids get a good education these days? I'm the breadwinner, making over 70,000 a year, and I'm certainly not living in luxury -- just covering the bills. Women who are able to work, are out there in the workforce out of necessity, not because they want luxuries or won't obey their husbands (which is the underlying motivation of the Christian Right family values message) Why not just put an end to right wing economic policies of the last 25 years that have gutted manufacturing and have had an overall effect of depressing wage levels? Thirty or forty years ago, the average guy working in a steel mill or an auto plant could buy a home, buy a new car every four years, and comfortably support a family without any jiggering of the tax code. Also, the basic costs of necessities, like food, were much less back then. It's suicide to be providing more incentives for population growth in a world that is reaching the breaking point and won't be able to sustain present population levels much longer. What we need are disincentives that encourage young single women to have more babies. They invariably discover too late that the child tax benefits and other income supports they receive, which seem like hitting the gravy train in beginning, don't cover the bills as their children get older -- by the time they're teenagers, they're looking for excuses to kick them out of the house. According to you at least!

That sounds like a pretty frivolous reason for rejecting a Bible translation, especially considering how many closeted homosexuals toil away within every religious establishment. And it's a surprising conclusion, considering that the motivation for creating the NIV was a fear that the Revised Standard Edition had adopted modern liberal interpretations. I would agree if the premature birth was due to sudden illness or other natural causes, but I'd like to find an unbiased opinion from a medical expert, for the odds of a baby surviving birth-by-physical-trauma at a time when no real medical assistance was available, before I can accept the writer would have also made that assumption. And there certainly is a long history of women having less value than the baby they were carrying. The best example is the caesarean sections that were performed -- which almost always resulted in the mother's death, until very modern times. I was shocked the last time there was an abortion thread going on - to discover that the Catholic Church-created laws in several European nations ordered the attending physician who had a choice of either performing a caesarean to save the baby, or removing the fetus with his forceps and saving the mother's life - was under strict orders to perform the caesarean, thereby choosing the life of the infant over the mother! Clear evidence that until the modern age, women were not of much higher regard than breeding stock under the legal codes of the day.But, "why can't it be both!" Why wouldn't the verse mention both? Since it cannot be assumed that both mother and child would suffer the same fate as a result of the injury. There is no mention of more than one injured party, so the likely conclusion is that the writer didn't regard the fetus as having reached the stage where it should be awarded protection under the law. But, enough of this passage in Exodus; the Book of Numbers (beginning in ch.5 v.11 describes a "trial by ordeal" proscribed for a woman who is suspected by her husband, or another male family member, of becoming impregnated by unlawful intercourse. The Temple Priest makes the woman drink a rancid blend, which more than likely led to a guilty verdict. Picking up the story at:5:27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. What does the writer mean by: her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot?" Some modern translations interpret that last part as "her uterus shall drop," which sounds likely since this trial by ordeal is trying to determine whether she has been impregnated by her husband or another man. If the intent of the potion was to cause her belly to swell and make her sick, it's easy to see how this would act as an abortifacient, since many women over the ages have injested poisons to induce a miscarriage. It doesn't sound like this trial is considering that an "unborn child" may be killed by the procedure! When it comes to the Hebrew Old Testament, the most authoritative version should be the Greek Septuagint, since it was written between the 3rd and 1st Centuries B.C. For an English online translation: http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/index.htm Biblical scholars have determined that the Septuagint was in common use during the 1st Century, and was quoted from by New Testament authors. Biblical literalists may not appreciate the fact that the Septuagint included many books that were later declared to be unscriptural.

Because right wing extremists are the greater threat! You weren't motivated to start a thread calling for a little sanity on the right, after abortion doctor - George Tiller was murdered yesterday! But just because rightwing bullies who use threats of death, violence along with plain old intimidation tactics, get a piece of their own medicine, we're all supposed to feel sorry for them because all they wanted to do was to deny someone else their civil rights! The criminally insane "Army of God" anti abortion group carries links of personal information on abortion providers, and puts an X through their pictures when one of them, such as George Tiller, is murdered. Isn't there an old saying:"as you sow, so shall you reap!" Let me know when any of these alleged death threats actually materializes into real violence -- because abortion providers have received thousands of death threats. Some of them actually materialize into real murders when criminal agitators like Randall Terry provide the inspiration to commit murder. Proposition 8 slipped through during a heated election, and soon after the election, polls indicated the No side would have won if it had got more attention during the campaign. The trend is towards respecting everyone's civil rights, since support for gay marriage increases as you move down the age brackets. The only thing preventing gays from having the same marriage opportunities as everyone else, are the old people who actually believe that a gay or lesbian couple living down the street is going to destroy their marriage! You mean to say you never noticed your friends in the anti-abortion movement have been doing this, and much worse things for years? A history of violence on the antiabortion fringe

Are you saying that you believe that a fetus could survive premature birth under such circumstances? Remember, this was written almost 3000 years ago! It's not like they could have rushed her off to the emergency room. Since that "mischief" is followed by a call for the death penalty, I think we can safely assume that "mischief" means unintended death. But death of whom? The mother or the unborn child? Fundamentalists who believe human life starts at conception, try to interpret the verse as referring to the fetus: if the fetus survives, a fine is payed, but if it dies, the death penalty is in order.Two problems here -- again, what is the likelihood that any fetus is going to survive premature birth due to injury; and that interpretation would make the mother completely irrelevant! Her injury, or possible death from internal bleeding, are more likely the point of reference, rather than the fetus. 21:23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 21:25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Premature birth by itself, would have carried high odds of mortality during this era, and add to that the fact that it is caused by severe physical trauma, and it becomes far more likely that the author of the law would have been expecting miscarriage under these circumstances. I know women were given little value during this time, but shouldn't we assume that if there is only one reference to death, it would be the woman's, and not the fetus? Otherwise it would be a ludicrous situation if the fetus survived, while the mother died of internal hemorrhaging, and the penalty for the crime was paying a fine to the husband. No such assumption is made! Verses 24 and 25 repeat the "eye for an eye" principle of biblical justice, which should indicate that the exact penalty would depend on the extent of injury to the pregnant woman. The KJV is more honest than many modern translations, in the sense that it was not given the cosmetic treatment that many newer translations have had, where they have deliberately chosen words to alter meaning, and smooth over apparent contradictions -- which is one of the reasons why the NIV is so popular for apologetics. As for source accuracy: in "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman, he points out (around p.209, 210) that recently discovered older Greek manuscripts, were unavailable when the King James was written -- so these new, modern translations have access to better source material. Their failings, besides making deliberate cosmetic changes, emanate from beginning with predetermined agendas to favour certain theological interpretations. For example the purpose behind producing the NIV was because many Evangelicals felt that the Revised Standard Edition downplayed the Virgin Birth. Both are likely guilty of beginning their projects with built-in agendas.

And, once again that's according to the interpretation that you have been taught! There are many "liberal" biblical textual scholars who believe that: Matthew: 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.23:39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. was a redacted prophecy, written after the Romans destroyed the Temple, which would have been interpreted by the first century readers of this book that Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple and promised to return soon after. Again, you're looking at it with the eyes of someone who already knows that the 2nd Coming couldn't have literally occurred in the !st Century! Paul said in Romans, that the Gospel had already been preached throughout the World (or the world he was aware of) Even though those verses are asking for patience and not jumping to conclusions, he is addressing the people who are gathered, to watch for the SIGNS of his coming. He doesn't say 'don't worry about it now, but your descendents should know the signs of my return" -- no, he's telling them this message!But, if you want to explain it away and say that he was referring to some future generation, why didn't you tackle Mark 9:1? Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. That one sounds pretty clear that he would be back before the disciples of that era had all died! When I read that verse years ago, when I was about 14 or 15, it started me on my exit strategy from the Jehovah's Witnesses religion my family belonged to. I couldn't get a plausible answer for that, and other verses that sounded like the end times had already occurred, so I came to the conclusion that either they were false prophecies, or they had already occurred, including those that are re-interpreted along the lines of personal resurrection by the Catholic Church and mainline Protestant churches. But every generation has had prophecy fanatics looking for signs to climb up on their rooftops to await the 2nd Coming. And why not learn Ancient Greek and Aramaic, like the Biblical testual scholars do? As far as English language Bibles go, the King James is more honest than most modern translations that have been reinterpreted to suit the goals of the organization that made them. A good example was a while back in an abortion thread where I quoted Exodus 21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. as evidence that injury causing a pregnant woman to have a miscarriage, was proof that the fetus was not granted a right to life, since that would have carried a death penalty for the offender during that time, rather than a fine for causing injury -- while you pulled out some bullshit modern translation of the verse that retranslated the original meaning to "injurying her unborn child." Aside from playing games with meaning and interpretation, the other reason for sticking with the K.J. is that it is not under copyright like modern translations, so it can be freely used for quotes. I believe it started when I was trying to draw the distinctions between how wealth and those who have acquired wealth were historically viewed by the Church (pretty much only good if they donated substantial portions to the church) and the way they are viewed by modern, evangelical churches that follow Dispensational interpretation of Biblical history, emphasize free will over predestination, and therefore view wealth as blessings from God for their individual efforts. These churches are also big on end time prophecy and created the modern interpretation of the Rapture -- and I think it was somewhere around this point where you got offended and decided to jump in.

And how many times has this point been made over and over and over again with Christian fundamentalists like this one, just regurgitating "evolution doesn't explain where life came from" every time! If you take a look at Christian forums and so called apologetics forums, it becomes clear that ignoring answers and asking the same questions over and over again is an actual debate strategy for those who cannot prove their claims. There has been a number of breakthroughs recently in the study of abiogenesis which clearly demonstrate that life pre-existed the DNA molecule, in an RNA world, where it was the method for transcribing and copying information. I have been gathering a number of articles published recently (four so far) on abiogenesis research here. The latest breakthrough is from a chemist who has figured a pathway for nucleotides to self-organize as an RNA molecule. One by one, the gaps in understanding the path from organic chemistry to self-replicating, living organisms are shrinking, and by present trends, will eventually disappear when a complete theory of abiogenesis can be proposed. Looking at the history of life on Earth, paleontologists have discovered microfossils of Archaea bacteria which are over 3.7 billion years old, and this means that life began very early on in Earth's history -- and that's why it is reasonable assumption to make that conditions were exceptionally good for organic chemistry and creating life during that time.

My point is that there is a strong case based on those bible quotes, that the early Christians were members of an apocalyptic sect or cult. The "Left Behind" crowd today is going to try to reinterpret every last one of them for our day -- just like every other era in the last 2000 years of Christianity has had end time cultists. I'm not interested in arguing with all of the end time rationalizations; if it was just one or two verses, they could be rationalized away; but there are many others besides the ones I quoted, which indicate that the majority of New Testament writers were expecting Jesus to return during their lifetimes.

An English chemist has discovered how RNA, the simplest self-replicating molecule, and an essential part of data transmission in living organisms, may have emerged on earth some 3.8 billion years ago. John D. Sutherland has solved a problem that for 20 years has stood in the way of understanding the origin of life — how the building blocks of RNA, called nucleotides, could have spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive earth. The discovery, if correct, should set researchers on the right track to solving many other mysteries about the origin of life. Scientists have long suspected that the first forms of life carried their biological information not in DNA but in RNA, its close chemical cousin. Though DNA is better known because of its storage of genetic information, RNA performs many of the trickiest operations in living cells. RNA seems to have delegated the chore of data storage to the chemically more stable DNA very early on in the development of life on earth. If the first forms of life were based on RNA, then the issue is to explain how the first RNA molecules were formed. For more than 20 years researchers have been working on this problem. The building blocks of RNA, known as nucleotides, each consist of a chemical base, a sugar molecule called ribose and a phosphate group. Chemists quickly found plausible natural ways for each of these constituents to form from natural chemicals. But there was no natural way for them all to join together -- until now: from Neurologica May 25 RNA World So, Dr. Sutherland cannot determine which assembly sequence led to the formation of RNA, and got the ball rolling in making life possible; but merely finding possible pathways to the natural formation of RNA solves one of the major obstacles standing in the way of developing a theory of Abiogenesis, and discovering how life began on earth.

SIMPLE! READ ALL OF THEM AND TRY TO EXPLAIN THEM AWAY. Let's look at the rest of the chapter then -- and remember, he says "all these things will come upon this generation -- referring to the gathering of people before him: 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 23:39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. The strange thing about this chapter is the reference to the Jews killing and stoning prophets. Which prophets is he referring to? Were any Old Testament prophets killed by the Jews? And if he's telling them that they will not see him until he returns in the "name of the Lord," isn't that referring to the 2nd Coming? And wouldn't the desolation of the holy place refer to the Temple being sacked and desecrated by the Romans in the year 70 C.E.? An event which already took place before the book was written, and well within the lifetimes of many of the people who were disciples. Oh! I'm trying to mislead, am I? Why no comments about Mark 9:1 Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. Gee, that sure sounds like he's referring to his contemporaries - still being there when he comes back! Or Luke 21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. I'm not interested in whether your end-time church dogma tries to explain away every instance where verses indicate the end-time prophecies were referring to the people of Jesus's day; the fact is that is the simplest, most straightforward interpretation -- that the verses mean exactly what they say, instead of having to be twisted and molded to try to make them apply in the present day, or the near future. If I wanted to really pile on, I could have added more verses for you to try to explain away: Matthew 16:28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. 1 Corinthians 7:29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none. I Thessalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Hebrews 9:26 But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Courtesy of Evilbible.com

No, the authors of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) thought the end was nigh back in their time; that's why they wrote things like: Matthew 23:36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation; Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (but in Romans 10:18 Paul says that job has already been done: But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.; even more blatantly that they were already in the end times: Mark 9:1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.; Mark 13:30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.; Luke 9:27 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.; Luke 21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.; Romans 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.; 1 Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.; and by the time 2 Peter was written, the early church was noticing that the natives were getting restless. Well, why the hell not! They had sold all of their possessions to become itinerant preachers on the assumption that the end was coming: 2 Peter 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. So, the point is that the collection of 66 books that most Christians today treat as one single book - The Bible - is a buffet table of differing beliefs! Those early Christians almost certainly believed they were living in the last days, because very little thought was given to organizing a church, let alone how governments and laws should be established. That's why the later Catholic Church started to borrow and steal from ancient Greek philosophers, primarily Plato and Aristotle, to flesh out a complete Christian theology. For most of Catholic and Protestant history, the salvation drama of a world coming to an end, to be replaced with a new, perfect world - was replaced with a theology of personal salvation and resurrection to the heavenly realm.

The only thing that's right about the CARM statement is that science has to be based on an a priori assumption that we are capable of learning about and understanding our world. We have to assume that phenomena that appears reliable, like electricity, is really based on underlying principles that we can depend on for reliability. But CARM makes the assumption that the laws which govern things like electric charge have to be intelligently designed, and the Fine Tuning arguments made by creationists are making that assumption on a lack of information -- just as they have made ID assumptions of design for complex biological features such as eyes, bacteria flagella, and the blood-clotting cascade -- and each one of these assumptions have been unravelled as biologists have learned more about the evolution of these features. So, just because Cosmology is a new science, and little is known about the conditions of the early Universe (or possible other universes), they assume that the physical laws had to be put there by a creator. I usually just let them go ahead and argue for this case, because what they are doing is making a case for Deism -- a creator that makes the initial conditions for a universe to unfold and eventually become complex, with stars, planets and galaxies that produce carbon based molecules that also eventually become living creatures. The god of deism is remote or has abandoned his creation after giving it the push start. If the Bible-based creationist can't figure out the difference between this kind of limited, remote tinkering sort of creator, and the one they are arguing for, which is constantly meddling and watching human affairs -- then they really are too thick to make logical arguments. After all, an omnipotent creator could have immediately created a world with intelligent creatures; and he didn't have to wait billions of years, and create a vast, empty wasteland of a universe to do it! And why would he create a physical universe with so many imperfections (including us)? He could have stopped after he made his heavenly realm, where we are told, everything is perfect and immortal -- what the hell was the point of making this place, if he had complete control over the process? And it doesn't tell about even more important things, like the germ theory of disease -- imagine how many lives could have been saved or how many people could have been saved from the ravages of disease if that theory found its way into one of the ancient holy books!

Eisenhower warned about that military industrial complex almost 50 years ago, which turned America into a nation dependent on the military to secure oil developments overseas, and the use of military spending to drive economic growth. But the latest financial collapse seems to be more centered on the growth of Wall Street and the financial services sector as a percentage of GDP, while allowing manufacturing to collapse. he sad thing today is that the new Obama Administration is following almost exactly the program of the Bush Administration, allowing the banks to shift the financial obligations of their greed onto the American Taxpayer, while there is no talk of bringing back banking reforms that were instituted during the Great Depression to prevent the banks from engaging in high risk investments or regulating these new derivative markets that are taking over the bulk of trading from the actual trading floors that can be monitored. And as long as people like Tim Geitner and Larry Summers are in charge of financial policy, any changes will be minor window dressing......unless this apparent "recovery" turns out to be nothing more than a mini-boom within a Bear Market.....then we will see what real financial calamity looks like, and maybe real financial reforms will actually happen.

It's difficult to say whether a Liberal would be trying to imitate Obama, or would be reaching back 40 years to try to figure out how Pierre Elliot Trudeau somehow managed the trick of turning himself into a charismatic celebrity politician.

The predeterminist or preterist theology is not very friendly to the concept of wealth and riches being a sign of divine blessing. Their harm is caused by the fatalist attitude that predeterminism generates in people, and obviously during most of the Catholic and Protestant churches' histories, they have used the doctrine to justify keeping people "in their place" -- whether we're talking about peasants, tradesmen, slaves, or married women -- predeterminism gives the implicit message that "this is your lot in life, and just be devout, do a lot of praying and hope that you are among the elect who escape eternal damnation." It's worth noting that the dogma of the Divine Right of Kings developed from this theology, and was used for centuries to entrench the monarchs and other priviledged members of the aristocratic ruling classes. The strong free will doctrine came more from outside of the Church, when the developing Renaissance made people realize that they really could do things on their own to improve the quality of their lives. This started a humanist philosophy, that did not necessarily take on religious dogma (especially in the early days), but was strong on ideals of freedom and individual choice. They started to develop a view of man as being basically good, unless otherwise corrupted, and possibly capable of reform and improvement. The traditional Christian attitude was based on Original Sin, or something close to it, to explain that we are incorrigible, deserving hellfire, but the creator lets a few of us in the Pearly Gates as an act of mercy. The traditional view sees man as untrustworthy and needing repressive laws (human and divine) to be made to act righteously.......I think you can see how this thinking is expressed in modern times by the "law and order" conservatives, who want the state to interfere with what we watch on TV (or the computer), what sort, if any, mind-altering substances we can injest, or whether some men can legally buy sex if they can't get it at home.....and only want freedom to make money or go bankrupt. I've often had arguments with American conservatives who think they are in step with the Founding Fathers, that their way of thinking today mirrors the authoritarian ways of the British colonialists, not the HUMANISTS who decided that kings did not get their authority to rule from God, and every man (except for slaves) had personal rights. The conservatives want to celebrate the Revolutionary War and the battles fought for independence, but most of the values of the Founding Fathers have gone right over their heads! Unfortunately, the only freedoms they value are the economic ones, and certainly not many, if any of the Founding Fathers would have been described as socialists, but they would have called for a revolution today if they saw the militarism of today's conservatives.

That's right! The first stories of Jesus and his followers describe a socialist cult leader. But, keep in mind that the admonition to give away all your possessions is based on the idea that Jesus and the early church thought they were living in the end times -- so wealth and possessions would soon be of no value. Remember the story of Ananias and his wife Saphira in the Book of Acts? They were a rich couple who tried to hold back a few things for themselves; and for the sin of holding out and not giving everything to the church, they were struck dead by the Holy Spirit.....it's hard to find the Prosperity Gospel of Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn in that example! Well, keep in mind that by the time the 2nd Century rolled around and there was no sign of Jesus coming back, they finally started to realize that they had to create an organizational hierarchy. The few descriptions of the early church describe nothing more than a gathering around a teacher. The epistles (letters) of Paul written to various congregations in Asia Minor, imply that the very few members of the congregation who could read, would read letters and books that had been declared to be scripture. The letters of Paul indicate that he was having a hard time keeping the churches' together regarding doctrine. During this time, there were serious splits regarding the nature of Christ (was he human or divine?), was there a Trinity or just one God, the role of women in the church; and it ended up with the Church of Rome using its new found position of Church of the Empire to enforce their doctrinal views on the rest of the churches within the Roman Empire. The 10% tithing thing wasn't adopted by the Catholic or Protestant churches, and wasn't even common when I was young, since this idea was lifted from the Old Testament -- the tithes were used to support the Temple in Jerusalem and the Levite priesthood. Tithing in the Mormon, 7th Day Adventist, and new evangelical churches brought in an almost obscene influx of cash to build the biggest, most modern church buildings with extra facilities, not to mention linging the pockets of the church leaders. The Catholic Church did not start to rigidly enforce celibacy until around the 12th Century, likely to keep the money in the Church and from going to priests' families. The Protestant churches depended on donations and special church taxes administered by the local government. Today, if you drive around, you can tell which churches collect tithes and which don't just by looking at the outside! If it's a garish, modern building with adjacent school, gymnasium and stores -- you can bet your life they are demanding 10% of the money from members in good standing......and that still doesn't include special "love offerings," which have to be raised to support whatever real charitable work the church does! The grimy old United, Lutheran or Baptist churches you find downtown, with cracks in the brickwork, have missed out on this gravy train, and cannot offer themselves as full service community centers like some of the new churches built in new subdivisions. Let me know if you find one that helps you pay your mortgage!

Was it the Catholic vote that won re-election for Bush, or the blatant voter fraud that delivered him a state, even though Bush economic policies had already put them on the leading edge of the recession? http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080696

In a nutshell, it starts with the theological approach the church takes on the old free will/determinism conundrum. The Abrahamic religions all have a built in paradox because despite the dogma that God is supposed to be all-knowing, including knowing the future -- man is supposed to be imbued with free will and has complete independence over his choices in life. For the free will churches, this provides their defense against the Problem of Evil -- they had their choice, and chose to reject salvation and sin and go to hell....and this supposedly gets God off the hook for creating a system of eternal torture for finite crimes here on earth. And since man has free will, this also implies that, in a free country like America, they are lazy and just lacked the ambition to succeed that enterprizing millionaires have. The rich made the free will choice of becoming rich, and the poor made the free will choice of being destitute and living in misery. The churches that support a strong interpretation of human free will include those influenced by the teachings of John Wesley, and descended from a rival of John Calvin named Jacob Arminius. So the Baptist and Methodist churches that played such a big role in forming an American theology, lean strongly towards the free will approach, and that is also the seed of the "you get what you deserve" nonchalant attitude about the wealth gap. The other side, represented by John Calvin and Martin Luther in particular, believed that human free will could not conflict with the omniscience and omnipotence of the creator. They believed strongly in predestination, because if God knows everything, and knows everything that is going to happen in the future, he has to know everything that we are going to do in our lives. Salvation is not chosen by the individual, but granted by God. John Calvin taught that God chose who was to be saved, and who would be sent to hell before he created the world in the first place....since his perfect knowledge of the future means that he had to know all future events, including who goes to heaven, and who goes to hell. The Catholic Church tried to incorporate free will, but still declares Grace to be pre-eminent, so whatever free will we have, is limited according to Catholic theology. It's worth noting that until modern times, the problem of a just, all-loving creator sending people to hell, was not considered to be an ethical dilemma --- God could just do what he damn well pleased, and no man had the right to think, let alone ask, if God was acting in a just manner. Theologians over the centuries have created a number of compatibalist attempts to harmonize predestination and free will. The irony here regarding money and wealth, is that the old fashioned predestination churches are less likely to view the rich favourably, as having received a blessing from God than the free will believers. They don't consider that anyone has the right to brag about their achievements, whether its getting rich or being a great athlete. And wealth can lead to gluttony and avarice and other sins. The free will side like to use Jesus's parable of the talents found somewhere in the Gospel of Matthew -- about the servants who wisely invested the money given by their master, and generated equity from their master's investment, as a confirmation that God blesses those who use their wealth to generate more wealth....unlike the foolish third servant, who returned the money he was given, and did not choose to build equity with the money he was given. So, to sum it up, I think the adoption of a strong position in favour of free will led the American churches to a general determination that a person's successes and failures are due solely to their own efforts, or lack of effort -- and that's where the Blessed Are The Rich theology got started.

Which is why allowing unfettered capitalism results in booms, followed by bust cycles, and an unhealthy income gap between the rich and everyone else. Altruism is also a human trait. But it doesn't seem to have high value among economic libertarians, Christian conservatives, and it is even considered to be harmful according to the whacked out Objectivists who read all of the Ayn Rand books. So you think marriage is just about achieving your own selfish best interests? Doesn't sound like the foundation for a good marriage to me!

More than likely! I was looking for some further information on the era when abortion was a criminal offense, and came across a link to an interesting book written about how women tried to get rid of unwanted pregnancies in the days before legal abortion. I was reminded again about the age-old self-abortion potions that many women ingested, that could cause death or serious injury. The review from the Library Journal points out that there may have been as many as 2 million abortions performed annually in America back at the turn of the 20th Century! It kind of drives the stake through anti-abortion arguments about protecting the unborn -- just like drug laws don't prevent the use of drugs. When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 (Paperback)by Leslie J. Reagan From Publishers Weekly In 1900, women attempted to induce abortions by inserting knitting needles, crochet hooks, hairpins, scissors, chicken feathers and cotton balls into their uteruses. In 1917, black women "pinned their faith on... [the] ingestion of... starch or gunpowder and whiskey." Reagan, an assistant professor of history, medicine and women's studies at the University of Illinois, dedicates her disturbing work on abortion in America before Roe v. Wade to "the lives of... women who died trying to control their reproduction." She chronicles the covert efforts and subsequent prosecution of doctors and midwives, and of unmarried women and their lovers (while married women made up the majority of clientele and were accused of "race suicide," they were pursued less often). Reagan has her work cut out for her: Though the law forbade abortions, she writes, "some late-nineteenth-century doctors believed there were two million abortions [performed] every year." And then, as now, debate raged: though some doctors disagreed, the Journal of the American Medical Association declared itself against abortion in the case of rape since "pregnancy is rare after real rape." For those who take legal abortion for granted, Reagan's work is an eye-opener. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal This book brings to life both the medical and the legal history of abortion in the United States by using newspaper articles, transcripts of trials and inquests, and other archival sources to show readers how people were affected by the criminalization of private activities. Reagan (history, medicine, and women's studies, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) demonstrates that abortion has always been available to women, whether or not it was legal. The documentation here points out the use of physicians as police and moral authorities, the correlation of economic depression with the need for abortion, the discrimination against unmarried women and midwives, and the paternalism of the medical profession. These factors have, until Roe v. Wade, placed many obstacles in the path of women seeking abortion. The current backlash against abortion threatens a return to the difficult times of the past. This fascinating history, with its extensive bibliography, is an essential purchase for academic medical, legal, and women's studies collections. Highly recommended for public libraries as well. I wonder if part of the current backlash against abortion, generated by non-stop religious propaganda, would fade away when the cold hard realities of re-criminalizing abortion were once again put in place. A while back when I was looking for information on this subject, I came across a comment on the NARAL site from a nurse who worked at an abortion clinic somewhere deep in the Bible Belt, where she is harassed on an almost daily basis by anti-abortion protesters - mention that on two occasions she has had two young women who often took stood with the protesters, actually come in to have abortions performed. One of the girls was not seen again on the protest line, while the other one was back holding signs and chanting with the anti-abortion protesters a week after she had her abortion performed! Some people can't think through the consequences of their actions.

If only that were true! If you really were interested in learning your creationism, you would be able to answer questions directly, instead of cutting and pasting the statements of others. This "God and Science" site that she's pasting articles from has a discussion forum; I may try to join there to find out how much science they mix with God. But, if it's anything like most Christian forums (CARM, for example), they won't be interested in honest debate -- just practicing how to sharpen their rhetorical skills on atheists and non-evangelicals.

It took awhile for most of us to realize that the Right has no intention of trying to produce balanced budgets, because the goal at the outset was to bankrupt the system to excuse cutting all government services.......except for the military and law enforcement, as you mentioned; because every right wing banana republic makes sure that their is money to keep the army, police and the prisons operating! A minor difference I would have with your analysis is that Neo-conservatives are a specific subset of the movement, whose leadership in the U.S. actually started out as the Defense-hawks in the Democratic Party; so they are not always social conservatives or opposed to domestic spending -- they just want most of the money spent on foreign wars and regime change. Many of the so called "Paleo-conservatives and the Religious Right, are worse than the Neo-cons on most issues. Stephen Harper has created something that didn't exist previously even in the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance of Preston Manning and Stockwell Day -- he is consciously apeing the American style Republican conservatives. This is why he is making appeals to religion and substantially increasing military spending, with most of that going to no-bid contracts. http://www.harperindex.ca/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=0071

I don't object to people who want to pray to monkey gods and sacred cows, as long as they don't make sweeping declarations about how their monkey-god/sacred cow values are the foundation of our laws and democratic system of government. As soon as we let that one slide by, along come the demands that we need more monkey-god values in government, the schools, and as the source of our legal principles. Then we end up with monkey-god and sacred cow evangelists consulting with the President on a bi-weekly basis, where they inform him of the their growing list of demands to enable continued support from the monkey-god/sacred cow worshippers.......at least Obama's got one thing right -- keeping the televangelists at arms length and away from the Whitehouse!

It just dawned on me that you cited a speech by the pope attacking the principles of secularism as an argument that this oppressive religious philosophy somehow has made the world civilized! I guess somehow you missed the fact that Mother Church caused the fall of the Roman Empire and plunged most of Europe into a thousand-year dark age by their book-burning and rejection of new knowledge that threatened their absolute power and control over the people. Recently, I discovered this German site (with English and other translations) Concordat Watch that explains these insidious agreements that are pushed by the Catholic Church to gain more power in the nations where they operate: What are Concordats? http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showtopic.php...b_header_id=822 These church-state accords generally give the Church massive state subsidies and other privileges. They also permit Church employees to be hounded about their private lives. Yet as "international treaties", concordats bypass the democratic process, making parliaments powerless to modify, let alone revoke them.................. and remember that partnership between Reagan and John Paul, that ended the Cold War by bringing down the Soviet Empire? Apparently it had some blowback and secondary effects that are the source of today's wars: Religious fronts against the Soviet empire: Evangelisation and Jihad http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showsite.php?org_id=872 The war in Afghanistan is now threatening to destabilise Pakistan: how did this disastrous conflict begin? It appears to have originated with “a secret initiative that some believed altered the course of the Cold War” — a US-Vatican partnership to use religious zeal to weaken the Soviet Union. This was a pincer movement which encouraged Catholic dissidents on the empire's western flank and Islamic fundamentalists on its southern one. Today the Vatican is happy to take credit for the first, but doesn't seem to mention the second.... ...................Brzezinski’s brainwave of harnessing religious zeal to beat communism had two extreme though opposite effects. The force of Christianity was a major factor in undermining Soviet communist domination of East Europe. Its lands turned around to embrace democratic change, a pro-Western orientation and a market economy in a still-evolving process. In Asia and the Middle East, Carter’s national security adviser resorted to fundamentalist Islam to defeat communism. The CIA-supported Mujahideen did indeed drive the Red Army out of Afghanistan. But this same religious weapon eventually became a boomerang against America. It spawned Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda, the Islamic jihadist terrorist movement dedicated to destroying the West and its values. Thank you so much for replacing a rational, evil enemy with irrational, evil enemies! I suppose that we can be thankful that the theocrats do not have the power in the West that Muslim theocrats enjoy, thanks to the Reformation and the Enlightenment - which were based on HUMANIST values, not the Christian ones that are trying to drag us back into the pit of subjection to religious authority!

Yeah, that made a lot of sense!

Who cares what the numbers were, since no reliable statistics were kept for such things years ago. The fact is that during the age before birth control and widespread condom use, many women -- some may have been prostitutes, others were just single girls who moved to big cities from small towns and farms, and were talked in to going to bed with guys they met in bars. As an anecdote, I am personally aware of one such case that occured when I was young, and abortion was still a crime,(though the full story wasn't explained to me as I was 7 years old at the time) -- a girl that my oldest brother liked, who lived down the street, ran away from home when she was 16 and was working the streets as a prostitute. She died from a septic infection from a botched abortion performed over the River in Niagara Falls N.Y., that her pimp had taken her to. Her family took care of burial arrangements, but never had a funeral for her, and wouldn't speak of her afterward.....that's the way these things were handled in the good old days when life was "sacred!"