spin

Strangely enough the causes aren't so different. In Vietnam, the AMericans supported drug lords and prostitution racketeers as a means to stave off political events disliked by the government. In Muslim countries the Americans supported all the most fundamental groups against the more liberal and democratically minded. Khomeini in the fifties was one of the first radical Islamic fundamentalists supported by the policy. The muslim brotherhood in Egypt against Nasser. All the powerbrokers and religious nutters in Afghanistan are examples. Osama bin-Laden! The one exception in their stable was Saddam Hussein. All of these were set up at the loss of democracy and modernism in Arab and Muslim countries. This swarth of death, destruction and backwardness was done with god on their side.

Yeah, so why were the relevant countries perverted by America in the first place? It's the shortsighted view that the enemy of our enemy is our friend and our enemy is anyone who gets in the way of our material interests.

Don't crap on about Radical Islamic fundamentalism. Crap on about the political and military interference in Muslim countries over the last 60 years.

What on earth do you know about democracy? If you did, you wouldn't have sat back and taken no notice when fledgling liberal Muslim nations around the world were dismantled in the fifties, Iran, Iraq... If you did, you wouldn't have sat back and taken no notice when the semblance of democracy you live in was unveiled as a sham when George Jnr got his brother to give him Florida. But worse, when his mates at Diebold gave him a second election, the lambs lay down. Well, that's democracy for you.

Oh, say can you see by the bright burning cross,
What so proudly we stole, as they all ran escaping?
All the wealth that we gained at our victims' great loss,
As they fled o'er the ramparts from our killing and raping.
In the white phosph'rus light, we watched them take flight
Giving proof through the night that power makes right
Oh say, does that burning cross blaze overhead
In the land of the free, now that they are all dead?

The term is "Sharia".

First you corrupt them and then you have a reason to kill them. They have the free will to die.

So for every dollar you pat yourself on the back for, how many people do you think suffer at the hands of your political institutions?


spin

Gamera

[QUOTE=Amaleq13]How do you know he didn't?

Ironically you've just done what you accuse me of doing. By the way, trying to resolve existential questions with reference to Webster is, I suggest, a tragically doomed effort.

Gamera

[QUOTE=JamesABrown]yeah, the OT are damned curious texts, virtually incoherent at time. Thank God I have the gospel message, which has the virtue of being clearer.

I think smite means kill and I think God said kill those Midianites. The next question is what does that mean in reference to prisoners, children, etc.

Our army was tasked with killing Germans during WWII. But killing prisoners was illegal. The point is, it's all how you take the command to kill. And we know how Moses took it, God help him.

Roland

Actually, I have heard of them, but I have a hard time imagining they will get very far. Still, I guess people in pre-Nazi Germany might have thought the same thing.

Sheshbazzar

I confess that YHWH is my Supreme Commander, to whom I have publicly pledged my allegiance, Whom you name as Yahweh.
Interesting that you identify yourself as being a "Jew", obviously only by circumstance of birth, certainly not by faith, in view of your contempt for the faith of the Fathers in the One who brought your people and nation into being.
A "Jew" without the religion of "Judaism". Why bother, just to be a living insult to all that your fathers and the Nation of Israel, have held to be holy?

This last post indicates that you are replying to me under the continuing mistaken misconception that I am a "Christian",
I am NOT a "Christian", and am NOT a member of the "Christian" religion, of any description, denomination or sect.
My congregations (world-wide) are officially "NON-Christian", The elders and teachers of my faith proclaim us to be NON-Christian, Our "Christian" family, friends, and acquaintances, familiar with our beliefs, and our teachings and our practices, agree that we are NOT "Christians".
Thus by our own beliefs, stance and confession, We are NOT, and even by the beliefs, stances and confessions of those who are "Christians," We are NOT.

So when I refer to those who Love the Name of Yahweh, among the nations, the reference is exclusive, (no "gawd", "gawds" or "loard", "adon", nor "baal") nor any other of the many names and titles misappropriated from pagan sources are acceptable as "translations", "synonyms", and/or "substitutes".
They that Love The Name of YHWH, are not the "Jews", "Christians"
"Muslims", or any other than those upon whom His Name IS called.
We baptize (immerse) exclusively in the name of YAHOSHUA.
The popular "Greek" and English pronunciations and spellings, we leave to them who desire them.
The acts that you are attributing above to "Christians", were NOT perpetrated by us. And most of those involved in the doing of those things, had never even so much as heard the Name YHWH, nor His Son's Name, having been indoctrinated, baptized, and led in another name, a substitute, that of the Greek statue which you may see on public display.
We, who love YHWH, and The Name YHWH, and our fellow man, are as appalled by the evil wrought through religious extremism in the name of Gawd and "Gee-soos as you are.
And having that example before us, know how NOT to conduct ourselves among men.
Thus when I inquired to you;
The question was not what evil deeds you could enumerate among those men who have chosen to call themselves "Christians", but rather among The People of YHWH, scattered throughout the world, Known ONLY by His Name, whom both the religions of Judaism and Christianity reject, and are them whom also reject those religions.



Right makes Might, and YHWH has both the Might and the Right to do whatsoever He plans.
You may recall the story, He has brought calamity and destruction in the past, and has promised to bring more of the same in the future.
Call His works "the force of nature", or "cosmic accidents", they are still coming, and all that man has built up, shall yet again be cast down.
Call it injustice, call it evil, call it unfair, and call unethical, Curse Him day and night, It will make no difference in the day that Wormwood strikes the waters.

Sheshbazzar

Hello? spin from -"nowhere"-, I have lived my entire life in America, as a taxpaying, law-abiding, American citizen, what makes you from -"nowhere"- the absolute authority on what any confessed, and participating American citizen "knows about democracy?"
You come on here and post your political opinions as though you were the god of all political experience and knowledge, making constant attacks upon our elected leaders, but are too gutless to even reveal your nation or nationality. I am not impressed.
In the fifties, I was an orphan child under the age of ten, just what the hell were you expecting that I would accomplish in the field of Middle Eastern affairs? What did YOU do that helped the situation?

Where were you spin from -"nowhere"-, and what did you do, other than perhaps just sit back and shoot off your mouth?

With your contempt for America, and for Democracy, you will soon be getting very familiar with a lot more of the correct Islamic terms.
enjoy.

Amaleq13

It is not stated or even implied anywhere in the texts and that is all we have. Is that really the best you can do to rescue God from apparently condoning Moses' actions? The Bible simply doesn't include God's reprimand against him for taking God's order too far? I suppose that sort of nonsense works for Believers. :huh:

Wrong again. Unlike you, I have not altered the definition of "human" to suit my preferences.

Accurately defining what constitutes a specific species is not an existential question but, contrary to your earlier assertion, biological. Your original assertion continues to be logically flawed in that regard while your subsequent restatement is not but, as it does enter into the realm of existential questions, it is uninteresting to me so I'll leave you to it.

spin

So you can say, "four legs good, two legs bad." Don't expect any sympathy. You haven't earnt any.

I didn't expect you would be, but I did expect the blather, after the unanalysed claptrap you've rehashed with cliches such as "muslim radical fundamentalism", nuncle.

And I didn't expect you to take any notice of the fact that most of that "muslim radical fundamentalism" you're so het up about was fostered by US government policy. The good thing about politics is that the politician can expect that the average voter won't know anything about issues that are more than two weeks old, unless they've been kept current by media efforts, you remember the media coverage of the Kenny Starr circus or the weapons of mass deception.

Oh the indignity!

Fifties, sixties, seventies... the policies were quite similar.

The good christian speaks with the ire and froth of god in his nostrils.

I have contempt for the abuses of any institution. You should as well. But you are typically misguided in going from criticism of those institutions to assumed criticism of all things American. Just because you kow-tow to a capitalised "democassy", it doesn't mean that you know or understand what the notion means.

As to your final attempt at invective, if you can't put the letters anywhere near reasonable order, it doesn't augur well for your understanding or appreciation of things outside your local sphere of perception. One hazards to ask you if you actually know where Niugini is.

If you don't know what is going on in this world outside the relatively safe havens of the American hinterland, it should be hard for you to understand what people are on about when they deal with topics such as the one this thread is dealing with.


spin

Loomis

YHWH was a son of El(yon) and assigned to govern the nation of Jacob by El(yon). (Deut 32:8-9)

Later, the sons of El(yon) were fired from their governorships by a nameless god called Elohim. (Psalm 82)

Why do you pledge your allegiance to YHWH when Elohim (of Psalm 82) accused him of making ‘unjust legal decisions’ and ‘showing favoritism to the wicked?’

Be honest: Are you sure you have given this compelling issue the thought it deserves?

Gamera

[QUOTE=Amaleq13]Actually since Moses isn't allowed into the promised land, it is implied that he displeased God, and the explanation about the staff seems less a reason than a rationalization. But what isn't in a text is often more interesting than what is from a literary hermeneutical perspective. You're restricted by looking at texts as history, a seriies of presences, whereas the absenses are important too.

Since the definition is what is at issue, for your to privilege your definition is a bit silly. Again, let me state as clearly as possible, than answer to the philosophical issue of what makes us human will not be found in Webster.

[

That's the point: you've assumed your conclusion, that accurate defininng what constitutes a species is what accurately defines what being human is. It's the thing at issue, though you seem not to know it.