All Comments (37)

dfjnmykoc jqhxomf aoblu ecrhdot chjnkaugo zyfic rcwxldgk

dfjnmykoc jqhxomf aoblu ecrhdot chjnkaugo zyfic rcwxldgk

WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THE SO-CALLED SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE WHEN THE CHURCH IS CO-OPTED TO CARRY OUT SOME OF THE STATE'S
FUNCTIONS (INTERROGATIONS)?

In argentina; catholic priests; accompanied sedated communists, and gave them the last sacraments before being thrown out a helicopter into the sea.
In Colombia; the murderous ELN was founded by a spanish catholic priest, who saw no problem to killing people into liberation.

Paganplace,

"Actually, Godfrey, it's from the Latin," etc.

The theory is controversial. Not all philologists agree.

Mr. Wells, I apologize for having been overly strong with you. It is a bad habit of mine to overdo a point with the wrong person. You are right that it requires no training and only a little thinking to distinguish extremist Muslims from their more moderate coreligionists. I was concerned by this: it is a bad habit of our age of sound-bites that leads to any amount of havoc, and it is glossing over specifics with generalizations that aren’t true, and using a catch phrase whose meaning we don’t really mean. So what I was specifically getting at was this: true Islam? What does THAT mean? I am a Catholic and prepared to discuss Christianity, and even which form of it is the truest to Christianity as such. Naturally, my own. But for a Muslim to talk about true Christianity is cheeky and ambivalent. It is cheeky because he is unqualified to judge one shade of Christianity based on its Christian-ness. It is ambivalent because he probably means the sort that gets along with Muslims the best, when that has nothing to do with the form of Christianity that is most Christian.

As for torture and deprogramming:

We cannot torture because torture is bad and we want to be good. This concern strikes me as human, rather than religious as such, though one expects good religion will say something about being good and not being bad.

As for deprogramming, it strikes me as a very useful idea. I only urged (I think) caution in using Muslim clerics to do so. The moderate Muslims call themselves “less Muslim” than the extremists; isn’t that what “moderate” means - less than extreme? Extremists see them as traitors. For their own part, the moderates see themselves as moderated, less than extreme, compatible with non-Muslim things. So why would the extremists, who see the moderates as traitors, listen to them? If such efforts are ineffective, we ought not be surprised. If they seem effective, we ought to be a bit suspicious. It is just possible that the two people – cleric and lay-faithful, neither of whom we understand very well, might themselves come to an understanding that they do not care to share with us.

As for differences between Catholic and Protestant understanding of authority and scripture, the sacrament of Confession, salvation and damnation – well, those are a big topic. I am happy to discuss any of them, but they seem far afield from the topic of this board.

I am not sure how long this board will last – if you want to email me, you can do so at withouthavingseen@gmail.com.

Mr. Haber you are right I am not a religiously trained Muslim. How much training is required to distinguish the extremists from among the moderate Muslims? The deprogramming concept, led by moderate Sunnis for Sunnis and Shiites for Shiites may be quite effective.
To simply point out it cant be done because of reasons x,y,and z,-- what class of training is that ? It has been my experience that many of the >learned< of this world become quite legalistic as they cull through the ideas and solutions to problems currently pressing Humanity, while never offering their own. Now I am not judging you as one of these learned for your comments appear to excuse you as such. So the question is, do you have a counter proposal to the deprogramming concept, or is( x,y and z, it cant be done) all there is in your quiver.
Also, on the domestic front, what about those circumstances clerics face when the penitent refuses to or cannot cease from their malicious activities. Does the Father actually tell them in His written word (canonical) they risk eternal damnation if they comment to an authority, or does this belief originate from a less inspired source?
Regards

Thank you T.J. for stating the correct sense and meaning of the confession, in the midst of this cloud. God bless you on your vocation!
Dante

I wonder if the seminarian is correct about what a priest could reveal from a confession that someone had planted a bomb at an airport. From my knowledge of Catholicism, the priest could tell authorities that someone had planted the bomb as long as he does not reveal who confessed it.

PaganPlace,
I am aware the clergy want too participate in interogations on Muslims for the War on terror.

The CIA and the Military torture the enemmy in case you have not been following the discussion regarding Cuba and secret CIA tortuure camps.

Where else do you expect the clergy to interrogate the people except in the secret torture camps where the interrogations occur?

I would not want to participate in these secret interrogations that are considered inhumane, nor would I want my organization particpiating in these illegal international activites either!

Att: T O M 3, et al; hellow Cyber Friend(s):

Did you Know L. Ron HUBBARD (Scientology) used his own Rehab techniques, because he (psychiatry mind controlling lover} was "ADDICTED-TO-OPIUM"?

Did You Know the Sigmond FREUD [Founder of Psycology] was a "Coke Pusher/promoter & Addict?

Did you Know That JUNG [Psyciatry] was a crazed drunk & Homosexual.

Did you know that Moses loved to smoke "Hashis-Marajuan"?

Did you know that Mohammad loved to smoke "Opium"?

Did you know that JESUS loved to drink Wine, to be on the tippsy side?

Did You Know...... So what do they really know??? Besides, "Hard Headedness" ,how does one(s) get to the center of the "Frontal Lobes"?

Note: In Eclati-on knowledge, Cognative INTELLIGENCE (gray Neuronal Matter which needs sleep) is seperate from ours infinite innate "Immortal HEURISTICAL(s)" (that part that has never slept, nor ever been created nor can ever be destroyed, and from the MAGMApercolation We was Baptized & Pre-Confirmed long ago) And this is how some of the story goes.

praise the Holy No mon LORD/GOD/ECLAT + "i" in me and my "ME ME" that is in and of US-ALL! Ya Ya.

The US was using Israeli personnel at Abu Ghraib, according to BGEN Karpinski.

The Moslems are going to very annoyed if the US was letting the Israelis torture them.

The American Psychological Association refuses to condemn the use of psychologists in torture at Gitmo and elsewhere in Chimpy's Gulag.

The AMA and the American Psychiatric Association have both condemned this as unprofessional conduct.

Now we have the possibility of the US using clergy for the same purpose. This is obviously unprofessional conduct and all clergy groups should condemn it.

Who Would Jesus Torture?

Windhill,

I certainly did not say that the punishments dealt out by the Inquisition were humane, or just. I only said that they were among the more lenient courts available. Moreover, their existence is a sort of compliment even to those with whom they dealt harshly, albeit a backhanded and unwelcome one. The compliment was to say to someone that they and their ideas mattered, and in fact were so powerful - for better or worse - as to be intolerable. That is a fact, and I offered it to paint the context in which the Inquisition sits.

In our own context, we modern Westerners are a great deal more cynical than any religious fanatic. You wrote of "power-mad religious fanatics" without understanding the contradiction in terms. Religious fanactics (you may judge me to be one for disagreeing with you on a point of remote history) may have or even seek power, but it is the idea that concerns them, that drives them mad. Those who hunger for power for its own sake, for their own sake, are driven mad by the idea of themselves. Our age is one in which ideas are not held to make any difference at all, as shown in the common belief that religions are all more or less the same. In such an age in which ideas do not matter, the only thing left to make a difference to oneself is, well, one's self. And that is the Big Idea of our age, isn't it: Individualism.

In the Inquisition's context, people were not generally so cynical. They actually acted for reasons other than their own satisfaction; or at least they tried to do so; or at the very least, they thought such was possible, even if only for others. They understood that people act upon what they believe to be true: that people do not attempt to walk through doors they think closed without first opening them, on the basis of believing closed doors are impassible. Likewise, believing a given practice (like witchcraft) would bring divine judgment upon the entire community (whether that belief is in fact true or not), the only rational thing to do was to eliminate it.

We, by contrast, do not act based on what we believe to be good, but on what we believe to be economical. Worse, we rapidly learning to identify one with the other.

When the views of our ancestors seem to criticize or judge us on a number of issues (say, on sexual promiscuity or abortion), we dismiss them as being "bound up with their times." Yet we spare history no harsh judgments at all. It is very easy to sit on our high horses and judge history harshly by our standards, rather than their own - they cannot defend themselves as we can, owing to the simple fact that they are dead and we are not.

Do you not see some danger of hypocrisy in judging the past by our standards, while refusing to be judged by theirs?

Of course burning people at the stake is a horrible thing; it is good that society no longer condones it. I wouldn't attempt to rationalize it. Contextualizing it is, at the very least, what we owe ourselves though. But what will our own history judge us for, one wonders?

Hopefully they will be gentler with their dead than we are with ours.

Att: Mr. DAVID IGNATIUS, R Y A N ha, R O Y, et al;

WE need "Religious Gulags" for "sicko" idealogists type/level 1, 2, 3, patient's.

Note: Today, on Channel 4, I saw how there are Kid's, as young as 12, who "Graduated-Class" of Terrorism 101 & 102. Complete with Koranaholic's giving out "Holy Diplomas", so to speaketh, with patts on the back etcc.

And Most of the "Terminator(s) model #'s type 2007,17,06" have "Dual Citizenship's".?! [I wrote a paper on this duality ambiguity dilemma].

I predict that on "07.07.07" there will be an attempt some where somehow, comming to a neighbor"hood" neier you.

Talking about "International Religious Mafia-Capitalism", "Black-Markets" and "Under-Ground Econo my's?!

So "Quantanomo Bay in Cuba" is very good for Eclatari-On(s) & never the eclati-Off's. Hence; Stupid Folk are Dangerous indeed. {This includes "Secret Prison's"].

Wherefore" Like "seperation of Church from OURS "Secular Government {WE are a "REPUBLIC" not just a Democracy, there is a Big difference here} Then;

Confession, trials & Tribulations & more should be left-up to the "Secular" & never the "Pre-Apocalyptic Five Major Religious System(s) & their "Un-Holy Offsprings, branches, sects, etc...

So; Keep religion out of "Military Business" in times of WAR! Of which this Pepublic is engaged. More Spicically, WE will Prevail via Forced and or non forced, DEMOCRATIZATION of Religious Ideologists gone Mad & or Bad, so to speaketh, here & there.

Ya Ya. Praise the LORD/ECLATi + America & friends!

Ryan Haber,
I suppose you can rationalize anything if you try hard enough.After all, Hitler was kind to his pets, and was a fair landscape painter as well.
If you ever find yourself being burned at the stake by power-mad religious fanatics, try consoling yourself with the thought that the situation could be worse if you were in the hands of the government. By the way, ignore the screams from you wife, who is being immolated next to you. She does not understand how lucky she is.

I never fail to be amazed at the creativity of the human psyche..........

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This is the first time in a very long time that I've read an editorial by David Ignatius the didn't leave me shaking my head and bemoaning the depths to which the WaPo has fallen.

A great editorial, David.

Roy,

I am sorry for whatever bad experiences you may have had at the hands of clergy. I cannot imagine what it may have been or how much harm they caused you.

I am certain you have not had bad experiences at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, however. You are not aware that it was considered in its day, and by historians who compare it to other court-venues contemporary to it, quite liberal. In England at the time, all felonies tried before common law courts were punished by hanging - including stealing more than 5 shillings' worth of goods. In the Spain of its day, the Inquisition was seen as so promising that people accused of a crime in civil court often insisted that they belonged to some heretical sect or other that permitted such things, simply to have their case transfered TO the Inquisition. This maneuver was attempted because at the court of the Inquisition, heretics who recanted were let off without penalty at their first offense. In England, similarly, at first only clerics, but eventually all people could claim "benefit of clergy" at the first offense on a number of crimes. At first this privilege meant having one's case transfered to more lenient ecclesiastical courts; eventually it meant a first-offender's pardon or sentence reduction in the common law court.

This comment will almost certainly start a firestorm, but so be it.

I cannot speak for Muslim clerics. Catholic priests however do not extract confessions from prisoners - they are offered them by men or women free to come and go as they please; and these confessions a priest never reveals.

Note: This is recycled & slighty corrected. Thank You ALL.

Hello Karen, Jim A., David, et al;

Greetings from Coney Island, Brooklyn, N.Y. The Fun place to be.

Besides pre-Apocalyptic faiths based systems like "DIANETIC" via their "Founder" Ron L. Hub-"bard"?, (SCIENTOLOGY) of which I wrote an analysis on there "System" afew weeks ago, So,

I am now Linking two more [Faith based systems] that involves the "NEW-AGE" actors, of old or their founders, Ms. Marry Baker Eddy of "CHRISTIAN-SCIENCE" & founder Ms. H.P. Blavatsky of "THEO-SOPHICAL SOCIETY" respectfully;

1) Christian Science;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy%2C_Mary_Baker

2) Theosophy Society;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blavatsky

Note: These are Faith Based in Competition for Prophetic Poetry & More. Tell me what you all thinketh?

< ?: +)/ Ya Ya. Praise the LORD/ECLAT + "i" = PHOTONS + you in and of ALL, animate & ALL inanimate, stuff, things & Law(s) therein & thereof.

Note: For me sabatical this Summer, I am writing a paper on;

"DNA & The Me-Me Evolution As Religion" according to "ECLATi-ON Holy Cosmic Feeler(s) Faith"!

HALALUYA Source-One! Ya.

Roy: Do I detect some major prejudice on your part? Seriously dude, that post was just vile. The vast bulk of the world's religious workers are humanitarians of the best sort who have dedicated their entire life and afterlife to working for the good of their fellow humans. There are certainly bad religious workers throughout the world and throughout history, but it's their very exceptionalism that makes them stand out.

Thank the Goddess I don't know anyone like you. Seriously, dude, just vile.

As to the question in the essay. Absolutely there should be a religious worker present at any detention fecility. When do we need our Gods the most? In the darkest hours of our souls. And your soul's gotta pretty black to qualify you for Guantanamo. And the case of the 9-months pregnant woman whose husband told her that Allah demanded that she commit a suicide bombing? Please, somebody run down to the local social services office and fetch an imam to clear her head. Fanatics always isolate their victims in order to brainwash them. Just talking to a religious authority figure who is still connected to humanity can relieve some of these poor brainwashed kids of their 72-virgin illusions.

Mr. Wells and Ms. Cunningham both do an excellent job, in different ways, of revealing misunderstandings about the nature of religion and conflict.

Mr. Wells mentions "the Korans [sic] true meaning." Presumably, Mr. Wells is not a Muslim of any sort, let alone a religiously trained one; he can only presume to postulate on the *true* meaning of a religious text by presuming that he knows more about a religion than its adherents. This assumption is common among those who believe that all religions, to none of which they happen to adhere, at rock bottom mean more or less the same thing: serve God by loving your neighbor.

That assumption is patently wrong. For example, Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God, himself of the same being and nature as His Father. Muslims, on the contrary believe that He is not, and to hold Him as such is misguided (or even wicked) idolatry. Those who believe all religions to boil down to more or less the same message will hold such points to be beside the point; the point presumably being good morals. But such a point is precisely the point: if the Man is God then to worship Him is sensible and to obey Him is compulsory. If He is not, then to worship Him is socially dangerous and obedience to His decrees is compulsory only if the decree makes sense on some other standard. These diverging opinions naturally impinge upon the obedience owed to His ethical teachings, like "turn the other cheek."

It is cheeky at best for a non-Christian to tell a Christian what his religion means; or for a non-Muslim to tell a Muslim what his religion is about. It is at least doubly cheeky, if one were to do so, to tell each that his religion means the same thing as the others', and that they are only too blinded by their religious differences to see how very nearly identical their religions really are.

Ms. Cunningham makes my point but from the opposite direction. She simply notes that religion and tribe are often bound up together, and that what many unreligious people blame on religion really has very little to do with it at all. If Patrick and George happen to be one Catholic and the other Protestant, and claim those religions as their chief sources of identity, and even of opposition, and they begin to fight each other, their religions are not the cause of their fighting any more than the colors of their flags. Their religions simply are the standards they bring with them into battle. Now they might indeed be fighting with religious motivations, and their respective religions might even be bringing about the battle. But to make the assumption upfront is like assuming that a Buddhist patient pays a Hindu doctor because one is Buddhist and the other Hindu, and proves it by showing how boldly each person wears his religious attire. The one pays the other presumably because a service as been rendered. In North Ireland the one fought the other because each feels himself threatened or injured, and without other recourse for remedy. The best evidence to my argument is that now that each is confident of just recourse for injuries, they have stopped fighting against each other, and agreed to start governing with each other.

T.J. is correct that while a priest cannot under any circumstances betray anything whatever that he has learned in the sacrament of confession, there is nothing contrary to the Catholic Faith in a priest urging a penitent to confess his crimes to a civil authority. In fact, as T.J. mentioned, in the case of a very serious crime, a priest in sometimes obliged so to compel the penitent as a condition of his penance. The common good is a concern he must consider. Whether a priest cares to stand in the place of torture, risking perhaps to be incorporated as a form of it, is at his discretion subject to the approval of his bishop and any relevant church laws.

Whether a Muslim cleric wishes to aid a more-or-less secular Muslim or a very secular Western government in its attempt to secularize or pacify a Muslim jihadist will be at his discretion as well. Before launching on course to recruit a cadre of such clerics, it would behoove us in the West to be certain that we understand who we are recruiting and where their deepest motivations lie. Otherwise, we might find our cleric-recruits using a language and culture we do not understand to encourage a goal we do not desire, and accepting our payment to do it.

Hell yes. Clerics are good at interrogation. These is a long history of clerics using interrogation and torture to get their sheep to confess and fly right. From the Spanish Inquisition to Latter Day Mormon Bishops asking their young men about masturbation and homosexuality then referring the gays to electroshock therapy to "cure" them.
With Mitt Romney and the Reverend Dr. Holsinger as Surgeon General, we can use clerics of all religions in the process of getting gays to confess and then "curing" them. Who better to interrogate, torture and convert than the clergy?

Hell yes. Clerics are good at interrogation. These is a long history of clerics using interrogation and torture to get their sheep to confess and fly right. From the Spanish Inquisition to Latter Day Mormon Bishops asking their young men about masturbation and homosexuality then referring the gays to electroshock therapy to "cure" them.
With Mitt Romney and the Reverend Dr. Holsinger as Surgeon General, we can use clerics of all religions in the process of getting gays to confess and then "curing" them. Who better to interrogate, torture and convert than the clergy?

David Ignatius asks:

>Should clerics from any religion be part of an interrogation process?....When the British were interrogating IRA terrorists, for example, should they have brought a Catholic priest into the cell block...

When American pundits need a non-Muslim example of a terrorist why do they always seize upon the IRA? Unionists in the UDA (Ulster Defence Association) also commited sectarian murders. Equal time for Proddies, Mr Ignatius! Equality in murders.

Anyway, the example is out of touch with the realities of Northern Ireland. The fighting was tribal as much as sectarian. No IRA internee (and they were interned without trial, similar to Guantanimo) would have trusted an English Catholic priest. Wrong tribe. An *Irish* Catholic priest would have been damned as an informer--particularly hated in Irish history-- and in time this luckless, hapless cleric would have been summarily dealt with by the hard men of the north.

Mr. Ignatius, your comments describe what U.S. citizens and their govt. are hoping for in the Middle East. That is, Muslim countries themselves controlling the extremist in their midst.
This deprogramming effort should not be a miniscule reactionary unit relegated to one on one encounters. It should be a large widespread force that is on a constant search and destroy mission exposing terrorist’s warped beliefs and impacting thousands with the Korans true meaning.

Now, should a cleric be present in our local interrogation rooms? If one life can be saved by such a presence why on earth not, does heaven tell us not to? If this circumstance presents the cleric with a crisis of faith,- so be it. Perhaps if they answered On Faiths question of the week,
THE QUESTION
“What is the place of questioning in faith? Does questioning tenets or traditions make your faith less valid”?
they could better decide whether to serve tradition or God.

Actually, Godfrey, it's from the Latin, and was used to refer to the more agrarian folk long before the 'urbani' so to speak went Christian.

It became derogatory and later applied to indigenous religious folk as the Roman army became Christianized.

A brief history of the English word "pagan:" it originally meant someone from the countryside, and gave rise to such names as "Payne." Later it came to mean someone who was not enlisted in the army, then morphed to someone who was not enlisted in the army of Christ, whence the modern meaning. Whatever you believe that to be.

"Penace" before the Contemplation and or Act OR "Re-pentence" After the Contemplation or Act(s), if any? What Gives here Mon?

The thing abour the Catholic priest hearing a confession such as the one presented above is a good example that you bring up. Being a seminarian, a young man studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood, I know that a priest if asked by authorities cannot comment on what the penitant has confessed, becasue then the priest faces eternal damnation, and excomunication as prescribed by the church. But during the confession the priest will advise the penitnet strongly, to turn him self in, as his penance. We believe that if we do not do the penance prescribed by the priest, our confession is not completed, and we have to go to confession again. So in the end it is up to the penitant to turn himself in or not.

ooops. PELEG=DIVISION we Fall, & JOKTAN=UNITED, we stand!

"The Prophecy of the Mormon's lyes in the ECLATARIAN, "Melchizedek Peace Blessing" given the "Sholoh" The Phton/Light bringer on "TRANSFINITY MOUNTAIN", Orange County N.Y., not Mt. Olives, Mt. this or Mt. That.!

The Eclati-Off Vs, Eclati-ON's. Vis a Vis, This is the fight! JOKTAN(s) fending-Off "PELEG(s)or Converting them to the Right Path!

The PELEG "War Blessing(s) have been over-ruled and reversed IT (Noaha's Eclat+i) into the "JOKTAN" "Peace-Blessing.

The Division of "Hamas & Fatah" is one Sign of many. Ya.

The test ot time not Prophets is Here! So Behold of False Prophets indeed!

ZEIT (TIME/TEMP) and GEIST (HEURISTICAL/SOUL IMMORTAL).

And More! < ?:+)/ Ya Ya!

"honestly, what is paganism? is it not a pejorative term?"

That's been tried. I understand some are *still* trying. :)

"who in their right minds can be happy to advertise being a pagan?"

Isn't *that* an interesting question. :)

Capital P, by the way. Proper name. ;)

honestly, what is paganism? is it not a pejorative term? who in their right minds can be happy to advertise being a pagan?

no offense paganplace

I think the idea, Patrick, is that there's an idea of bringing Muslim clergy in to the prisons where Islamic terrorists are being interrogated, in hopes that there's a wiser spiritual and religious perspective on what the detainees may think is simply a 'holy war.'

I find it an uncomfortable concept in some ways, though, as 'Pagan Clergy' I see what goes on in regular prisons, where 'Pagan Clergy' are usually not allowed, and hear about what happens 'on the inside' without such guidance.

My thoughts of today seem to lead to the idea, 'It's worth a shot. With *serious* independent oversight.'

(((((((((((( Peace-Love-Rock-n-Roll-n-Wrap, Mitt-ROMNEY for Prez. Ya Vote 2008 )))))))))))))

Are Christians asking to participate in torturing Muslims along with the CIA and others?
WOW!

Oh, wow. That's *interesting.*

Something about that makes me at first deeply uncomfortable as an American.

But then, so does concentrating a bunch of people away from the world among a bunch of extremists *without* any moderate voices. I'm not sure how good an idea it is to align clergy with interrogators, (*That* makes me deeply uncomfortable as a Pagan, )

But it might be the best way: certainly, the case of the woman ordered to do something horrible she didn't want to do, well, it seems pretty clear-cut that she needed a 'way out' of the misappropriated religious idea she must obey her terrorist husband.

Countering religious fanaticism with religious moderation certainly would seem to be about the big picture, at least. Better than torturing someone and pitting the only religion they seem to *have* against the torture.

But I can see a lot of ways this could be abused.

I'd have to think this through, more, to really take a position on it.