McCain, Obama, Palin: Judgment, Not Guilt By Association, Is The Issue

This is an extremely complicated question and has much more to do with judgment than with faith or even with basic morality. Do each of these candidates' associations tell us something about their judgment and personal history? Certainly. The real question is what weight should be attached to the history. For me, the answer clearly lies in the importance of these relationships to the candidates' views about the world and to their public policy positions. "Guilt by association" is not exactly the issue. If you concluded that I was a thief simply because I have a friend who is a thief, that would be guilt by association. But if all of my friends were thieves, it might be reasonable to conclude that I am one too. And if I were to say that thievery is justifiable because we live in an economically unjust society, that would certainly raise legitimate questions about my judgment. But if I said I still loved my friend, the thief, even though I deplored his actions, would that make me anything more (or less) than a compassionate human being?

Each of the situations mentioned in this question raises a different issue. John McCain was, in the 1980s, a close friend of Charles Keating, the major figure in the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal. He met with federal regulators, at Keating's request, who were deciding whether there should be a government takeover of the tainted S & L. McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and cleared of legal wrongdoing, though he was criticized for exercising poor judgment (to which he admitted at the time). Rather than judge McCain on the basis of his old association with Keating, I would prefer to concentrate on his opposition to regulation of financial institutions during the past eight years. It seems to me that this is far more relevant to McCain's qualifications for office--since it speaks to the man of today--than whatever he did or did not do with old cronies in the 80s. McCain is now outraged--outraged!--to discover that there is greed on Wall Street, even though he voted for most of the laws that allowed greedy institutions to run amuck and produce the current housing crisis. Keating is old news. McCain's votes in the last few years show who he is now.

Sarah Palin's association with the African preacher Thomas Muthee (who, by the way, accused a woman in Kenya of being a witch after he conducted a ceremony to protect Palin against witchcraft when she decided to run for governor in 2005), is a somewhat different matter. I was a bit too flippant when I said last week that I didn't care whether Palin believed in witchcraft, as long as she didn't want fear of witchcraft to be instilled in public school students. Maybe she thought that the witchcraft invocation was just a colorful ceremony and didn't believe a word of whatever nonsense Muthee was spewing. Of much greater concern is the fact that Palin has worshipped for her entire adult life at right-wing fundamentalist churches--and that is a legitimate political issue because fundamentalists wish to write their values into law. It is shameful that not a single question was asked about candidates' views on the separation of church and state at the debate between Palin and Biden last week. The usually admirable Gwen Ifill, whom I believe was intimidated by the Republican attack machine in the days before the debate, did not do her job. Palin has been given a pass on her extremist religious views by much of the mainstream press. Her overall extremism, not her association with Muthee, is the issue.

Obama's history with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is yet a different case. l don't in any way condone the anti-white statements Wright has made, but Obama has repudiated them and talked at length about his vision of a more just, and less racist, America. I think that Wright, like my metaphorical thief, was someone that Obama once loved and that repudiating him publicly was a painful act. (I also think that Wright, who was relegated to the margins of Obama's campaign from the beginning, was jealous and wanted to cause Obama trouble with new inflammatory, racist statements.)

By the way, Palin, acting as McCain's surrogate, is bringing up the issue of Wright
again--as if Obama had not already denounced his comments about whites. How ironic that Palin, who attends churches that hold a 14th-century view of the Bible and of supernatural hokum like witchcraft, thinks that only Obama ought to be called to account for the views of his pastor. Palin has done and said nothing to repudiate repudiated the anti-rational teachings of her extremist associates. I must assume, given her silence, that she agrees with what she has been taught by bigoted and superstitious right-wing clerics.

In any event, the candidates' current behavior and recent records--whether you are for or against them--offer ample evidence of their public policy views and their capacity for leadership. We don't need "gotcha" moments from past associations to judge them. By their current words and deeds we can know them..

Comments

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Bigots and racists screaming bigotry and racism at others.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 14, 2008 1:20 PM
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Independent.co.uk
Religion vs science: can the divide between God and rationality be reconciled?
By Paul Vallely
Saturday, 11 October 2008

''A clergyman in charge of education for the country's leading scientific organisation – it's a Monty Python sketch," pronounced Britain's top atheist, Richard Dawkins, recently.

The problem was that Reiss, as well as being an evolutionary biologist and population geneticist, is a non-stipendiary priest in the Church of England. When he said recently that science teachers should answer questions about creationism if pupils asked them he was deemed to have been advocating the idea that British schools should teach the idea that the world was magicked up (complete with fossils and ancient geology) just 6,000 years ago – and then tell pupils to make their own minds up between that and the theory of evolution to which the overwhelming scientific evidence points.

The hapless Reiss made it clear that he insists creationism is scientific nonsense. But a handful of the Royal Society's most eminent members began a campaign to have him sacked. Sir Harry Kroto, Sir Richard Roberts and Sir John Sulston said in a letter to the president of the Royal Society: "We gather Professor Reiss is a clergyman, which in itself is very worrisome." We must all now be on the look-out, it now seems for Revs under the beds.

The idea that science and religion are incompatible is a fairly recent import into contemporary culture. It has been given huge credence by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The pronounced motivation of Islamic fundamentalists in 2001 hammered home that some people are prepared to inflict outrageous acts of inhumanity in the name of religion.

Yet the roots of the shift in attitude go back much further. "It came about because of a perfect storm – a wide range of factors came together," says the atheist philosopher Julian Baggini. Among them were a shift from liberal to evangelical Christianity in Britain, the rise of creationism in America, advances in scientific techniques in biology and changes in public perception on issues as disparate as homosexuality and assisted dying.

But we are leaping ahead here. The relationship between science and religion has had a long and chequered history since the settled days of the medieval consensus, which saw faith and the natural sciences as part of a cosmic whole. Galileo put paid to that with his insistence that the earth revolved around the sun. The Catholic Church, which saw man and his planet at the centre of the universe – and which already felt its authority threatened by the rise of Protestantism – locked horns with him. The clash became a metaphor for the irreconcilability of scientific materialism and biblical literalism.

Things changed with Isaac Newton. His laws of physics led to a world view which relegated God to background status as the designer of a clockwork world which he wound up and then left to its own devices. Newton's celestial mechanics brought an advance in our scientific understanding but didn't really work for a faith that wanted to believe that, through the historical Jesus, God had become, in the words of the song "a slob like one of us".

Next came Darwin. At first many saw his theory of evolution as a threat to religion but mainstream Christianity soon accepted evolution as the answer to the "how" of creation, leaving the "why" questions of meaning and morality to faith. Science and religion exercised authority over two discrete compartments of life between which there could be no link.

But through the latter half of the 20th century a synergy developed. In cosmology the science of the expanding universe and the Big Bang chimed in with a moment of creation. The inherent uncertainty that quantum physics discovered at the subatomic level overturned Newton's mechanics and created room for a "God of the gaps". Process theology embraced evolution and said men and women are called to play a part in an ever-ongoing creation. Advances in neuro-science showed that mental and spiritual phenomena depend upon biological processes, undermining the old dualist notions about body and soul and offering a more holistic body-mind-spirit axis.

"Attacks on religion, when I was a student in the Sixties, were largely on political grounds," says Dr Denis Alexander, the Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge. "It was seen to be on the side of capitalism and the rich." In Anglo-American philosophy, says Baggini, "religion was seen as wrong but as something that didn't really matter much. The world was going secular and eventually it would just die out."

But the rise of Christian fundamentalism in America in the past few decades – the word fundamentalist in its religious sense was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in only 1989 – was mirrored in a milder way in Britain too. Liberal Christianity, so long in the ascendant in the Church of England, began to lose ground to evangelicalism. "Non-literal Christianity failed," says Baggini, "because it doesn't capture the popular imagination. The certainties of evangelical Christianity appeal more to those for whom the attractions of religion are on a more visceral level." This appeal was symbolised through the 1990s by the Alpha course on the basics of the Christian faith devised in London by a curate at Holy Trinity, Brompton, which has since been used by more than 10 million people in 160 countries. The idea that the miracles of the New Testament may have been metaphors rather than literal truths suddenly went out of fashion in Christian circles.

Throughout this time scientists such as Richard Dawkins had evidenced a disdain for such simple certainties. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene there were a few side-swipes at religion and in 1986 in The Blind Watchmaker he conducted a sustained critique of the 18th-century deist argument that the world is too complicated to have sprung into existence by accident so a rational observer should conclude that it must have been designed, just as someone finding a watch would conclude that somewhere there must be a watchmaker who made it. And by 1991, in response to the question of why evolution had allowed religion to thrive, he had coined the notion that religion was a virus.

But it was the terrorist attacks in 2001 that turned Dawkins into an Alpha atheist and transformed him from an academic backwater into a populist ideologue. Before 9/11, he said, religion may have appeared a "harmless nonsense". But the attacks in New York showed it to be a "lethally dangerous nonsense". Previously, he said, "we all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!" The gloves were off.

But another prominent atheist, medic and secularist, the Liberal Democrat MP, Dr Evan Harris, is not so sure that 9/11 was the nodal point. "It's not the main thing to scientists," he insists. "When you talk to them the thing that comes up most often is the influence religion has had on science in America under George Bush." Religious pressures there have had direct impacts on a wide range of policy – from a ban on public money being put into stem cell research to a refusal to allow US aid programmes to hand out condoms to fight Aids in Africa. "Scientists who are publicly funded can't go to conferences and speak without being obliged to stick to the Bush line," says Harris.

Advances in bio-technology have opened up new areas for disagreement. Test tube babies, embryo selection, saviour siblings, stem cell research and animal-human cybrids have all created new battlegrounds between those who think that an embryo is a person from the moment of conception to those who think it is merely a cluster of cells before implantation or even birth – and all variety of opinions in between.

"There is a definite danger of our desire for research outstripping our capacity to anticipate the ethical implications of those advances," says the feminist theologian, Tina Beattie, whose book The New Atheists argues that Dawkins & Co misuse Darwin and evolutionary biology as much as the Christian fundamentalists misuse the Bible. "Some scientists experience religion as merely an irritating brake on their striving to do new things." The public, after a list of scientific disasters from thalidomide and nuclear weapons to BSE and the stealing of dead children's organs at Alder Hey, are much more suspicious, judging that "scientists have problems policing their borders".

From a very different perspective Andrew Copson, the director of education for the British Humanist Association, agrees. "Scientists are fearful so the issue has become very emotive," he says. "They fear that, behind what people like Michael Reiss say, there lies a Trojan horse." It is perhaps significant here that the two main instigators of the campaign to have Reiss ousted from his Royal Society job, Sir Harry Kroto and Sir Richard Roberts, are now based in the United States where creationism is a major phenomenon. Polls suggest that around 45 per cent of Americans are creationists with 40 per cent believing that God worked through evolution and just 10 per cent saying it was nothing to do with a God.

The experience of being a secularist in the US is clearly a radicalising one. "I don't know if it is too late to stop the slide in Britain but I think it is in the US where [the religious right] have now almost complete control over politics, the judiciary, education, business, journalism and television," Kroto, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1996, has said, adding darkly: "The Royal Society does not appreciate the true nature of the forces arrayed against it."

The position in the UK is nothing like that, though the statistics are unclear. A 2006 BBC poll claimed that 48 per cent of the British public accepted evolution with 22 per cent preferring creationism but the definitions it used were so sloppy as to be almost meaningless. A survey of schoolchildren has suggested that more than 10 per cent now believe in creationism. But the Evangelical Alliance, whose members now number around 3 per cent of the UK population, reckons that only a third of its members – about 1 per cent of the population – are creationists. About a third think Genesis is merely symbolic, and a third believe that God worked through evolution but is still capable of intervening in specific ways. Its most recent, unpublished, survey shows that the proportion seeing the Genesis account as symbolic is increasing, the EA's Head of Theology, Dr Justin Thacker, says.

Evan Harris accepts that the number of British schools teaching creationism is tiny. But, as an MP, he is worried about the increasing activity of religious lobby groups in public life. "Groups like the Evangelical Alliance, the Christian Institute and Christian Action Research and Education are now all much more organised and active in seeking to change public policy. They are making the running in parliament, much more than the leadership of the Catholic Church. The Church of England's bishops are much more evangelical too; their centre of gravity has changed form the days when liberals ruled the roost. And the C of E has been much more active in Parliament."

All this is having a real impact, Dr Harris suggests. "In the days of Thatcher all the mainstream Tories voted in favour of embryo research. Twenty years on most of the new suave modernising Cameroonian Tories vote against it." Academics detect a similar shift. Professor Steve Jones, of University College London, who has been teaching genetics and evolutionary biology for 30 years, has said that religious students – even those studying medicine – are becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to evolution, demanding to be exempted from classes and exam questions on the subject.

Creationism, like Coca-Cola, came here from the United States. The American lobby group Answers in Genesis, with its $13m annual budget, now has an office in the UK from where staff go round giving illustrated talks about how humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth together. Another conservative group, Truth in Science, has adopted a strategy of lobbying for schools to "Teach the Controversy" in an attempt to get Intelligent Design, a spin-off of creationism, taught alongside evolution in school science lessons. In 2006 it sent resource packs to the heads of science of all British secondary schools; New Scientist claims that 59 schools have used, or plan to use, them.

The fear generated by such tactics is what did for Michael Reiss. "Even if he doesn't support all this, what he said might be seen to give succour to it," says Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association. "I can understand why alarm bells go off with people who are familiar with 'Teach the controversy' tactics of people who want to baby-step creationism into our science classrooms."

All of this mystifies the vast majority of the nation's Christians who have been taught since the time of St Augustine, who died AD430, that where there appears to be a conflict between demonstrated knowledge and a literal reading of the bible then the scriptures should be interpreted metaphorically. They see no conflict between faith and reason because, as Pope John Paul II put it: "God created man as rational and free, thereby placing himself under man's judgement." Just last month the present Pope reiterated the same line, warning of the dangers of fundamentalist readings of the Bible. Each generation, he said, needs to find its collective interpretation of the text. For this task of interpretation – which can never be never completely finished – science offers a major tool.

It all perplexes academics who specialise in the interplay between science and religion too. Creationism doesn't just involve many scientific errors, it relies on a major theological one too. "When Robert Burns tell us his love 'is like a red, red rose', we know that we are not meant to think that his girlfriend has green leaves and prickles," says the particle physicist and Anglican priest, Sir John Polkinghorne. Why, he wonders, would any rational person want to read the Bible in that way?

The world of science he encounters is a much more subtle one. "There's a cosmic religiosity among physicists," he insists, though "biologists see more ambiguity, perhaps because they look at the wastefulness of nature, and perhaps because sequencing the human genome has made them triumphalist." It is more complex even than that: the head of the Human Genome Project, Dr Francis Collins, last year published a book about his journey from atheism into faith arguing that science and religion, far from being irreconcilable, are in fact in deep harmony.

In the past 30 years an area of inter-disciplinary activity has opened up to explore this. Areas of research include cognitive neuro-sciences and issues like freewill and consciousness and whether human minds are merely matter or something more. In evolutionary psychology they have also explored together questions like the origins of altruism – asking whether evolutionary biology can give an adequate account of why people are willing to sacrifice themselves on behalf of others. In paleobiology they are asking questions like how eyes evolve in different lineages – suggesting that evolution isn't a random or chance process but is channelled by certain chemically-determined pathways. In cosmology there is a universe versus multiverses debate.

"All that going on, but all the public knows about is Dawkins," says Dr Denis Alexander of the Faraday Institute in Cambridge. "Academic discussion on the relationship between science and religion is genuinely exploratory, not polarised. To most people in it Dawkins just sounds rather odd."

John Hedley Brooke, who recently retired as the first Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, is more sanguine. "These eruptions take place from time to time historically," he shrugs. "Dawkins is just a throwback to 19th-century rationalism. He has a strong emotional antagonism that is very indiscriminate and treats all kinds of religion the same. A lot of fine distinctions that get lost in the polemics. The problem is that it is all a cumulative process in which the extremes feed off one another."

"Paradoxically, Dawkins is the biggest recruiter for creationism in this country," says Denis Alexander. Recently, he says, Bill Demcksi, a leading US creationist, e-mailed Dawkins to thank him for his assistance. "The danger is that all this polarisation will make some believers more anti-science which is not a clever move tactically." He hopes that whoever succeeds Dawkins as Oxford's Professor of the Public Understanding of Science is more interested in promoting science than in attacking religion.

On the other side of the argument Evan Harris is unapologetic about contributing to what Julian Baggini waggishly calls this "assertiveness inflation". "It's good that there's this tension," the MP says. "These debates need to be had in public. Science has nothing to fear from them. I don't think we're winning; we've won a few battles; but there's a war to be fought." He concedes that Michael Reiss may have been sacked unfairly – saying that the "overstrong line" taken by Kroto and Co should not be taken as representative of all on the secular side – but points out that employment injustices are perpetrated every time a church school refuses to appoint a maths teacher because she doesn't "have Jesus in her heart".

The danger is that between the strident secularists and the fanatical fundamentalists some important middle ground is being squeezed out. "Dawkins sees religion as credulous, superstitious and prejudiced but mature religious traditions teach people to challenge all that," says Tina Beattie. "Science will never offer an answer to the parents of Madeleine McCann. Nor will it ever be irrational to go to a Mozart concert, though science can never explain the genius of his music. The new atheism completely misunderstands the way that human beings experience the poetry and narrative of life."

Perhaps the conflict is not between science and religion but between good and bad ways of doing both. In all of us there will always be a struggle between the craving for certainty, purity and closure and the acceptance of mystery, brokenness and provisionality. At their best, both scientists and people of faith are in a permanent state of awe-struck humility before the wonder and strangeness and messiness of things. At their worst, they are arrogant, dogmatic, and incurious. There's a bit of both in all of us, of course.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 14, 2008 12:18 PM
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Post on crusades was mine.

Posted by: Observer12 | October 14, 2008 10:36 AM
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READ ALL ABOUT IT! READ ALL ABOUT IT! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

NEW TESTAMENT AND THE CRUSADES! BROUGHT TO YOU BY ccnl. "WE LEARN BY EXAMPLE"-ccnl THE CRUSADES, FOR EXAMPLE.

http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/fifthcrusade.html

Posted by: Anonymous | October 14, 2008 10:35 AM
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Farnaz:

See my post below to ccnl-racist. WaPo wouldn't let me post the full text. Later, I'm going to post antisemitism from the saints, Martin Luther, more recent material, unless you want to. Then I'm going to go on with famous Christian nazis, including Catholic Hitler, well versed in the NT.

If you want to post any of this yourself let me know.

Meantime, let all nonbigots thank CCNL. As you have said, Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down.

Posted by: Observer12 | October 14, 2008 10:18 AM
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CCNL:

Right you are. We learn by example. One of the examples you learned by, Hitler, the Catholic. You've been warned by a lot of people, confused croissant to stop your racism. Obviously, it didn't take. You have no excuse. The Inquisition is over, so you're not learning from Isabella the Catholic. Hitler is dead. Still, I'm sure you have your NT and your Catholic friends to back you up. Ask me why I left the church, Bagel. Here is a web site that contains the full text of the Vatican's 1933 Concordat with the Reich. Much more to come on recent concordats.

Concordat Watch
Concordat Watch . Concordats - treaties and agreements of the Roman Catholic Church and Vatican with Church privileges. Secular, humanist and atheists for ...

www.concordatwatch.eu/ - 20k - Similar pages

http://www.concordatwatch.eu/
Concordat Watch - Croatia | Lawsuit charges that N...
Concordat Watch - Croatia

Posted by: Observer12 | October 14, 2008 10:14 AM
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From CCNL

We learn much by example:

The Jericho Massacre-

"The people raised the war cry, the trumpets sounded. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, they raised a mighty war cry and the wall collapsed then and there. At once the people stormed the city, each man going straight forward; and the captured the city. They enforced the curse of destruction on everyone in the city; men and women, young and old, including the oxen, the sheep, and the donkeys, slaughtering them all. -- Joshua 6:20-21"

Posted by: Anonymous | October 14, 2008 8:57 AM
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CCNL:

Good heavens. I forgot--

Maimonides

Posted by: Farnaz | October 14, 2008 12:54 AM
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Elitist narrow minded obsessive compulsive meet
Elitist narrow minded obsessive compulsive.
Who will prove to be the biggest bigot?
Who really cares?

Posted by: Anonymous | October 14, 2008 12:34 AM
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Posted by: Anonymous | October 14, 2008 12:30 AM
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CCNL:

More Jewish Men for You to Worship along with Yehoshua and R. Wolpe:

R. Steinsaltz, a man with a fine secular education, one of the foremost experts on Jewish mysticism,trnslator of the Tanakh into English, the Talmud into contemporary Hebrew.

The Saadia Gaon,

Yehuda Halevi (remarkable poet),

Stanley Kunitz (remarkable modern poet),

Mordechaj Anielewicz, the very young martyred leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,

My brother (brilliant, good man, great sense of humor),

Franz Kafka,

Uriel Weinreich (great linguist-I like linguistics)

Franz Rosenzweig, and the ever popular

Levinas (read by Christians. Smart guy.)

Abraham Joshua Heschel (frequently read by
Christians--Magnificent in his way).

Marc Chagall (wonderful artist. painted crucifixtions, btw.)

My husband, also brilliant, a decent poet with a strong social commitment, a wonderful father, very funny, and a good athlete.

Shocked? Put away the Johnny Walker. I've told you many times, I'm a woman.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 14, 2008 12:14 AM
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CCNL:

You wanted sources, Catholic and Jewish. You now have them. As I said, I would begin with Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, probably available at your local library. Sadly, you will not be able to access it on the web. As for moi, I have Jospehus on the shelf, and, frankly, he's on a number of sites.

Personally, as I've said before and will say again. I don't care what you believe. You want to worship a human being, JC, whom you claim existed as such and not as a divinity, go ahead. Worship R. Wolpe as well, since you seem to like Jewish men. (Maybe, in light of the economy, you should give some thought to Paul Krugman, as a possible J man to worship.)

Just leave the Tanakh, of which you no nothing, out of your posts. Otherwise, we'll be seeing a lot of one another.
_______________________________________

References on the fictional nature of Josephus, cribbing of Tacitus, mythic nature of the"trial."

Here ia a partial list of references showing the fictive nature of Josephus, along with the impossibility of the "trial." Many more to come. I've included as many Catholic/Christian writers as possible, which is, of course, problematic, since try as some do, and they do, they can't quite explain any of it as Jewish scholars would, and last time I checked, Passover was a Jewish holy period, the Sanhedrin, a Jewish court. Ruether tries mightily.

But how could you not know that the Sanhedrin could not meet during Passover, that this is considered NT myth.

Surely, you know what Passover has always been? From the beginning, there is only one reason to break it:

To save a human life. The life must be at risk, do you get it?

And of course, the Sanhedrin never met at night.

ROSEMARY RUETHER, FAITH AND FRATRICIDE

Craveri, Life of Jesus: 380-381, 384

Hinnels, Dictionary of Religions: 251, 279, 285

Maccoby, Revolution in Judea: 71-74;202, 251

Martin, New Testament Foundations I: 86-87

Guignebert, Jesus: 463

Nineham, Saint Mark: 400-401, 403, 406
quoted in Yerby, Judas, My Brother: 515
Wilson, Jesus: The Evidence: 103,407
Maccoby, Revolution in Judea: p203

Morris Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition,

Schonfield, The Passover Plot: 141

Actually, you should read through all of them, but minimally Ruether, a Catholic, to get a handle on this discussion from a C-person perspective. Also, she does not believe in JC's divinity. Get back to me when you're done reading and I"ll post the next list. Meantime keep us J people, including Moses, out of your lists, and I shall keep your JC person et al out of m

October 12, 2008 11:53 PM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on October 12, 2008 23:53

Anonymous:

More on Josephus-

Louis H. Feldman, "Josephus" Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, . 990–91

Michael L. White, From Jesus to Christianity. Harper Collins 2004. 97–98

Egal Feldman, Catholics and Jews in twentieth-century America. Highly readable discussion of the Sanhedrin myth.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 12, 2008 1:20 PM
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CCNL:

On Eboo Patel's thread you asked for Jewish and Christian sources supporting my assertions. There I posted a bibliography that includes highly regarded biblical scholars who doubt the credibility of Josephus, their doubts dating to the 1950s. Ditto the "trial." This is what you asked for, and this is what you got.

I made you an offer, and I shall make it again. If you don't wish to inform yourself, but instead cling to your views in the face of massive counter-evidence, I have no problem with that. Leave Jews out of your posts, especially Moses, and I will leave your Biblical people out of mine.
Otherwise, list for list.

Live and let live. Do good, and do no harm.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 12, 2008 1:18 PM
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From Concerned the Christian now Liberated:

http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/270_Priests_Question

Note that Professor JD Crossan, an On Faith panelist, does not believe that Jesus had a trial before the Jewish priests or anyone else. The simple preacher man caused a disturbance in the Temple. For that, he was nailed to a "tree". No trials were ever given to lowly Jewish peasants or preachers according to the Professor. More details in the Professor's book, The Historical Jesus, The Life of Mediterrean Jewish Peasant.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 12, 2008 4:45 AM
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Peruse

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden

to educate yourself about BO and JB before November.

Peruse

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

to educate yourself about JM and SP before November.

And don't forget to VOTE !!!!

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 11:33 PM
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Farnaz, you said,
"What if there are millions or billions of CCNLs, all cornmeal donuts or bagels everywhere? What if Fluff really exists? What if the Muffinists prevail at last? Questions for our time."

I'm about to go to bed, and I think you just made sure that I will have nightmares! (LOL!)

I'm down for the count.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 11:19 PM
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Hi Arminius,

Ah, Arminius. The question of CCNL is multicultural, spans continents, not to mention condiments.

Somehow, this all reminded me of being down south and eating hush puppies, which I greatly loved, but which is probably irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Try as I might, I simply cannot imagine either cornmeal donuts or cornmeal bagels except with respect to CCNL. I think I should probably verify their existence in external reality, but, alas, that is for another day. What if there are millions or billions of CCNLs, all cornmeal donuts or bagels everywhere? What if Fluff really exists? What if the Muffinists prevail at last? Questions for our time.

Farnaz

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 11:07 PM
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What purpose is served by this mean and pointless name calling? Is this an exercise in Republican political tactics?

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 10:26 PM
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Farnaz,

I just laughed for about 5 minutes, because it suddenly hit me. Here I am, 65 years old. If someone had told me 30 years ago that someday I would be conversing over a computer with a friendly Jewish atheist from Iran about cornmeal donuts, I would have done my best to have them committed to a mental institution. Ain't life grand?

I will remain agnostic about cornmeal donuts. To me, a great donut nearly floats in air.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 10:25 PM
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But, Arminius, there are also cornmeal donuts. See my last post. Would they be better?

I appreciate your open-mindedness!

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 10:12 PM
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Farnaz,

I'm having a tough time with cornmeal bagels. I am, for sure, a Southern man, and there are few Southern foods more yummy than a big slice of cornmeal, cooked in an iron pan, and slathered with butter and honey! God, I just ate, and that makes me hungry! But a bagel? Here in the South, that might be considered culinary blasphemy. But I will try to be open-minded about it.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 10:08 PM
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Dear Arminius,

The Research Continues: Cornmeal Donuts

A google search reveals pages of same. Recipes and menus. This one looks promising:

Donut planet Manhattan | Yelp
creme with warm corn meal donuts and a berry melange. Absolutely fabulous. I would go back just for this dessert. Pros: -Awesome mini olives at the bar ...
www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=donut+planet&find_loc=

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 10:06 PM
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Arminius,

Cornmeal bagels continued:

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Bagels On Broadway 223 W. Broadway ... - 5:59pm

Cornmeal bagels are back!......through the middle of October. ... Cornmeal bagels are also great with a hot bowl of chili or your favorite fall soup! ...
missoula.suddenvalues.com/sudden/values/Display.cfm?recordid=22642 - 14k -

If you can get to New York soon, you may be able to have a cornmeal bagel at this place.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 10:04 PM
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Dear Arminius,

I just googled cornmeal bagels and found several pages. There are recipes, menus including said bagel types, etc. Here is one recipe that looks promising. More to come.

http://stoneheart.org/recipes/?p=34

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 10:01 PM
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Farnaz,

I think a cornmeal bagel would really be a cornmeal donut. Seems to me that bagels are kinda unique.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 9:09 PM
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Hi Arminius,

Re: The Cornmeal bagel question

I was just informed that there is a pizza parlor in Manhattan which makes cornmeal pizza crusts. I don't care to taste-test since I'm content with the typical crust.

However, it occurs to me that a cornmeal bagel may be conceptually possible, to a great mind, I mean.

It's a complicated question....How to proceed, what to do, etc.

Farnaz

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 9:02 PM
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Farnaz,

Another pointless spam from the Cornmeal Bagel! Maybe I was wrong in saying he is intelligent.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 8:48 PM
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From Concerned the Christian now Liberated:

Some of the references used by NT and historical Jesus exegetes as found in their books:

1. Historical Jesus Theories, earlychristianwritings.com/theories.htm -- the names of many of the contemporary historical Jesus scholars and the titles of their over 100 books on the subject.

2. Early Christian Writings, earlychristianwritings.com/
-- a list of early Christian documents to include the year of publication
30-60 CE Passion Narrative
40-80 Lost Sayings Gospel Q
50-60 1 Thessalonians
50-60 Philippians
50-60 Galatians
50-60 1 Corinthians
50-60 2 Corinthians
50-60 Romans
50-60 Philemon
50-80 Colossians
50-90 Signs Gospel
50-95 Book of Hebrews
50-120 Didache
50-140 Gospel of Thomas
50-140 Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel
50-200 Sophia of Jesus Christ
65-80 Gospel of Mark
70-100 Epistle of James
70-120 Egerton Gospel
70-160 Gospel of Peter
70-160 Secret Mark
70-200 Fayyum Fragment
70-200 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
73-200 Mara Bar Serapion
80-100 2 Thessalonians
80-100 Ephesians
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-110 1 Peter
80-120 Epistle of Barnabas
80-130 Gospel of Luke
80-130 Acts of the Apostles
80-140 1 Clement
80-150 Gospel of the Egyptians
80-150 Gospel of the Hebrews
80-250 Christian Sibyllines
90-95 Apocalypse of John
90-120 Gospel of John
90-120 1 John
90-120 2 John
90-120 3 John
90-120 Epistle of Jude
93 Flavius Josephus
100-150 1 Timothy
100-150 2 Timothy
100-150 Titus
100-150 Apocalypse of Peter
100-150 Secret Book of James
100-150 Preaching of Peter
100-160 Gospel of the Ebionites
100-160 Gospel of the Nazoreans
100-160 Shepherd of Hermas
100-160 2 Peter

3. Historical Jesus Studies, faithfutures.org/HJstudies.html,
-- "an extensive and constantly expanding literature on historical research into the person and cultural context of Jesus of Nazareth"

4. Jesus Database, faithfutures.org/JDB/intro.html--"The JESUS DATABASE is an online annotated inventory of the traditions concerning the life and teachings of Jesus that have survived from the first three centuries of the Common Era. It includes both canonical and extra-canonical materials, and is not limited to the traditions found within the Christian New Testament."

5. Josephus on Jesus mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

6. The Jesus Seminar, mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria

7. Writing the New Testament- mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/testament.html

8. Health and Healing in the Land of Israel By Joe Zias
joezias.com/HealthHealingLandIsrael.htm

9. Economics in First Century Palestine, K.C. Hanson and D. E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1998.

10. 7. The Gnostic Jesus
(Part One in a Two-Part Series on Ancient and Modern Gnosticism)
by Douglas Groothuis: equip.org/free/DG040-1.htm

11. The interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Pontifical Biblical Commission
Presented on March 18, 1994
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM#2

12. The Jesus Database- newer site:
wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php?title=Jesus_Database

13. Jesus Database with the example of Supper and Eucharist:
faithfutures.org/JDB/jdb016.html

14. Josephus on Jesus by Paul Maier:
mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

15. The Journal of Higher Criticism with links to articles on the Historical Jesus:
mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

16. The Greek New Testament: laparola.net/greco/

17. Diseases in the Bible:
etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-08022006-125807/unrestricted/02dissertation.pdf
18. Religion on Line (6000 articles on the history of religion, churches, theologies,
theologians, ethics, etc.
religion-online.org/

19. The Jesus Seminarians and their search for NT authenticity:
mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/seminar.html#Criteria

20. The New Testament Gateway - Internet NT ntgateway.com/

21. Writing the New Testament- existing copies, oral tradition etc.
ntgateway.com/

22. The Search for the Historic Jesus by the Jesus Seminarians:
members.aol.com/DrSwiney/seminar.html

23. Jesus Decoded by Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco (Da Vinci Code review)jesusdecoded.com/introduction.php

24. JD Crossan's scriptural references for his book the Historical Jesus separted into time periods: faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan1.rtf

25. JD Crossan's conclusions about the authencity of most of the NT based on the above plus the conclusions of other NT exegetes in the last 200 years:
faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan2.rtf

26. Common Sayings from Thomas's Gospel and the Q Gospel: faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan3.rtf

27. Early Jewish Writings- Josephus and his books by title with the complete translated work in English :earlyjewishwritings.com/josephus.html

28. Luke and Josephus- was there a connection?
infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html

29. NT and beyond time line:
pbs.org/empires/peterandpaul/history/timeline/

30. St. Paul's Time line with discussion of important events:
harvardhouse.com/prophetictech/new/pauls_life.htm

31. See www.amazon.com for a list of JD Crossan's books and those of the other Jesus Seminarians: Reviews of said books are included and selected pages can now be viewed on Amazon. Some books can be found on-line at Google Books.

32. Father Edward Schillebeeckx's words of wisdom as found in his books.

33. The books of the following other On Faith panelists: Professors Marcus Borg, Paula Fredriksen, Elaine Pagels, Karen Armstrong and Bishop NT Wright.

34. Father Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, NY, 1977, 878 pages, with Nihil obstat and Imprimatur.

35. Luke Timothy Johnson's book The Real Jesus,

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 8:39 PM
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THat was I, Arminius. I wish everyone would do as Susan does, or that Susan would do as everyone else on the blog does, moniker-wise.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 8:21 PM
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Arminius,

It is true that there is no such thing as a cornmeal bagel. But then this is virtual reality. I could also see if the nearest bagel store would make one...?

Or we could stay with Croissant, since, after all, croissants are light and airy, Fluffy, as it were, and thus, consistent with CC's Muffinism, Pastryfically speaking.

Bigotry, IMO, is intellectual surrender. It's all a matter of definition, of course, so we are both correct.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 8:20 PM
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Farnaz,

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a cornmeal bagel. I suppose that would make it more appropriate!

Intelligent bigots are rather common. Moral bigots do not exist.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 8:14 PM
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Arminius,

I used to think CCNL smart, but no longer do. Smart means dialoging with what you read, synthesizing, noting questions that are not answered, accepting contradictions, questioning. Bagel doesn't do this. He posts lists. Anyone can do that. It takes the ability to read, not to think critically.

Confused Cornemeal-bagel Nervously Listing*

*In two senses.

What do you think?

Farnaz

PS. Intelligence and bigotry are mutually exclusive, no?

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 7:39 PM
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Farnaz,

I would not label CCNL brilliant, but there is no doubt that he is pretty smart. Yet his mind is shut, and he is totally fixated on his rather bizarre 'theology'. Many, including myself, have tried to dialog with him about his claims - he just keeps posting the same stuff. On topics not related to religion or politics, he can be approached.

I have no idea how to work bagel into his initials.

Posted by: Arminius | October 11, 2008 7:24 PM
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Dear Arminius,

I don't know how to say this. I mean I think "Confused Croissant" is brilliant. Also I think CCNL's acronym should stand for words beginning with the letters of said acronym.

However, although I have struggled mightily agains the temptation, I have found myself using "Bagel" of late to refer to CC. The thing is it is empty in the middle. Air flows through it, you see, much like it does in the vast empty space between CC's ears.

Is there no way to work Bagel into this?

Farnaz

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 7:12 PM
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NEWS FROM THAILAND

What follows is a note from a Thai student. Keep your eye on Thailand, Malaysia, etc. Tell the British to return the savage Thaksin to stand trial and to return the money the Brits have of his to Thailand. Tell the Swiss to give Thaksin's bank accounts to the Thai people. Keep your eye on Malaysia.
******************************
Dear Dr. Farnaz,

Now I'm watching Thai cable TV, It is showing pictures which the police shot potesters in front of a parliament. Many protester were seriously injured. I saw one, who lost his leg, sitting on the side walk.

I think that the new prime minister commanded police to shoot the protesters because he said, he will use any way that government can announce a policy in the parliament. He is the brother-in-law of Thuksin(former prime minister) who,now, lives in England with his family. I have to watch more news now. I hope you understand what I wrote.

You can communicate very well, Dr. Farnaz, so will you please tell Americans? Thank you very much. Thank you for helping us.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 11, 2008 6:54 PM
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PSEUDO, GREAT CHRISTIAN POET.

It's damp here in the Amazon. Please return.

Farnaz

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 6:40 PM
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That last post was Victoria

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 3:11 PM
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Ms Jacoby states-
"(I also think that Wright, who was relegated to the margins of Obama's campaign from the beginning, was jealous and wanted to cause Obama trouble with new inflammatory, racist statements.)"

Actually the "racist" statments by Wright could not have been motivated by jealousy, as they occurred a long time before Obama was a candidate for POTUS.

and-
"By the way, Palin, acting as McCain's surrogate, is bringing up the issue of Wright
again--"
It isn't Wright who is being pushed forth by the Palindrone right now anyway it is Bill Ayers-
Bill Ayers, by now everyone knows, Leader of the Weatherman Underground, served on the same community board fo education as Obama, which was founded by the Republican group, the Anneberg Foundation.

"People are screaming comments like traitor, treason, socialist, communist, terrorist, kill him, and off with his head at their rallies"

Should we then assume also, any republican who attends one of these hate rallies- by association, approves and supports such behavior?

And may even spontaneously break out in similar rants and actually BECOME one of the hatemongers?
Ad by extension, that association condoned by the fearless leader- influences all republicans?

"Tell people what they want to hear; give them simple solutions to complex problems, enemies on whom they can blame their discontents." - Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 3:00 PM
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Read all about it, Read all about it:

From Professors Crossan and Watts' book, Who is Jesus.

"That Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, as the Creed states, is as certain as anything historical can ever be.

“ The Jewish historian, Josephus and the pagan historian Tacitus both agree that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea. And is very hard to imagine that Jesus' followers would have invented such a story unless it indeed happened.

“While the brute fact that of Jesus' death by crucifixion is historically certain, however, those detailed narratives in our present gospels are much more problematic. "

“My best historical reconstruction would be something like this. Jesus was arrested during the Passover festival, most likely in response to his action in the Temple. Those who were closest to him ran away for their own safety.

I do not presume that there were any high-level confrontations between Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod Antipas either about Jesus or with Jesus. No doubt they would have agreed before the festival that fast action was to be taken against any disturbance and that a few examples by crucifixion might be especially useful at the outset. And I doubt very much if Jewish police or Roman soldiers needed to go too far up the chain of command in handling a Galilean peasant like Jesus. It is hard for us to imagine the casual brutality with which Jesus was probably taken and executed. All those "last week" details in our gospels, as distinct from the brute facts just mentioned, are prophecy turned into history, rather than history remembered."

See Professor Crossan's reviews of the existence of Jesus in his other books especially, The Historical Jesus and also Excavating Jesus (with Professor Jonathan Reed doing the archeology discussion) .

See also Wikipedia's review on the historical Jesus to include the Tacitus' reference to the crucifixion of Jesus.

From ask.com,

"One of the greatest historians of ancient Rome, Cornelius Tacitus is a primary source for much of what is known about life the first and second centuries after the life of Jesus. His most famous works, Histories and Annals, exist in fragmentary form, though many of his earlier writings were lost to time. Tacitus is known for being generally reliable (if somewhat biased toward what he saw as Roman immorality) and for having a uniquely direct (if not blunt) writing style."

Other NT exegetes who discuss the crucifixion and life of the simple preacher man, aka Jesus:

H.S. Reimarus, R. Bultmann, E. Kasemann, Alvar Ellegård, G. A. Wells, Gregory Riley, Robert Eisenman, RoberFunk, Burton Mack, Stephen J. Patterson, Marcus Borg - An On Faith panelist, Stevan Davies, Geza Vermes, Richard Horsley, Hyam Maccoby, Gerd Theissen, Bart Ehrman, Paula Fredriksen- an On Faith Panelist, Gerd Lüdemann John P. Meier, E. P. Sanders, Robert H. Stein Karen Armstrong- an On Faith panelist, Albert Schweitzer (The Quest for the Historical Jesus), Mahlon Smith, Karen Pagels-an On Faith Panelist, Bishop NT Wright - an On Faith Panelist, Father Raymond Brown in his epic reference book, 878 pages, "An Introduction to the New Testament".

http://www.faithfutures.org/HJst.../ HJstudies.html, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

Then there are these scriptural references:

Crucifixion of Jesus:(1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) Gos. Pet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2.-

(read them all at

http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/005_Crucifixion_Of_Jesus

Posted by: Anonymous | October 11, 2008 12:42 AM
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Hi, Observer12,

Yeah, I came up with the Confused Croissant thing. The 'Confused' part was obvious. But somehow 'Croissant' emerged, and I think it came from the legend of the origin of that remarkable flaky pastry. The story is that it originated in Vienna, after the great siege by the Ottoman Turks by Sulimann the Magnificent. Winning, the Viennese supposedly made a cresent-shaped pastry to celebrate, since the cresent is a central symbol in Islam. This seemed an appropriate thing to annoy CCNL with, since he is a confirmed bigot against all things Islamic.

This is a team effort, and Farnaz and Wiccan have been crucial. We are working on assorted other pastries, etc. Here are some possibilities:

Confused the Perplexed Pastry
Confused the Bewildered Bun
Confused the Misguided Muffin
Confused the Ridiculous Roll
Confused the Troublesome Turnover
Confused the Pernicious Pie
Confused the Egotistical Eclair
Confused the Demented Donut
Confused the Baffled Biscuit
...or simply the Confused Croissant

And, maybe the best -
Confused the Croissant now Logodiarrheic

Posted by: Arminius | October 10, 2008 6:10 PM
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Confused Croissant(Bagel)

Here's a paste of Farnaz from Reese's thread. As you know, she's also listed sources in the past. Below hers, I add my own comments.

"The Pharisees were far to busy developing rabbinic Judaism to notice yet another of the 100 or so prophets emerging from the woodwork in their besieged country. This, btw., assumes Yehoshua existed, highly doubtful now that Josephus has been all but tossed.

Still, to be generous, let me concede that if said Yehoshua did walk on the earth, if not on water, a Sadducee or two might have spoken to him--I mean anything is possible. But, this too, is doubtful, since they were busy being wealthy.

Unfortunately, the Sadducees left no written records, leaving us with well, stories...."

Farnaz is right about Josephus. Not credible. The Sanhedrin NEVER met during Passover. No Jew on the face of the earth at any point in recorded history would have equated his body with bread and his blood with wine. Greeks would and did.

The Pharisees canonized the scriptures and ushered in the rabbinic age. They began the Talmud. Ain't know way in hell they'd have the time or inclination to be bothered with JC and all the other prophets of the time. They'd already declared an end to prophecy and ignored it.

That doesn't end the problem for you, Bagel. JC NEVER EXISTED. YOU AREN'T JUST WORSHIPPING A MAN, WHICH WOULD BE DISGUSTING ENOUGH, BUT A MAN WHO NEVER EXISTED.

ASK ME WHY I LEFT THE CHURCH, Bagel.

Posted by: Observer12 | October 10, 2008 6:05 PM
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Anon,

Bagel is great; however, I've been following the Confused Croissant saga. If I'm correct the new name originates with Arminius. He, Farnaz, and Wiccan have been trying to figure out the deeper meaning of CCNL. Arminius came up with Confused Croissant for CC. He's asked for help with NL. I forgot what some of the suggstions were.

Posted by: Observer12 | October 10, 2008 5:49 PM
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From CCNL:

Read all about it!!!! Read all about it!!!!:

http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/doubtingexodus.htm

"On Passover last Sunday, Rabbi David Wolpe raised that provocative question before 2,200 faithful at Sinai Temple in Westwood. He minced no words. "The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all," Wolpe told his congregants."

Wolpe's startling sermon may have seemed blasphemy to some. In fact, however, the rabbi was merely telling his flock what scholars have known for more than a decade. Slowly and often outside wide public purview, archeologists are radically reshaping modern understanding of the Bible. It was time for his people to know about it, Wolpe decided. After a century of excavations trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archeologists say there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved, ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. To the contrary, the prevailing view is that most of Joshua's fabled military campaigns never occurred--archeologists have uncovered ash layers and other signs of destruction at the relevant time at only one of the many battlegrounds mentioned in the Bible.

Today, the prevailing theory is that Israel probably emerged peacefully out of Canaan--modern-day Lebanon, southern Syria, Jordan and the West Bank of Israel--whose people are portrayed in the Bible as wicked idolators. Under this theory, the Canaanites took on a new identity as Israelites were perhaps joined or led by a small group of Semites from Egypt--explaining a possible source of the Exodus story, scholars say. As they expanded their settlement, they may have begun to clash with neighbors, perhaps providing the historical nuggets for the conflicts recorded in Joshua and Judges.

"Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we've broken the news very gently," said William Dever, a professor of Near Eastern archeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona and one of America's preeminent archeologists. Dever's view is emblematic of a fundamental shift in archeology. Three decades ago as a Christian seminary student, he wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but "no one would do that today," he says."

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 4:28 PM
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Ah... that was me. In some places, the term "bagel" is used for a "zero". As a bagel-lover myself (had a blueberry one this morning), I apologize.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 2:55 PM
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Anon:

Please don't insult bagels. CCNL is more like the burned bits at the bottom of the dish after one overbaked the cornbread.

Posted by: DMZ1 | October 10, 2008 12:14 PM
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He may be a Confused Croissant, but to some of us, CCNL is just a "bagel".

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 10:47 AM
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Confused Croissant:

That would be JC "who made much magic" walking on water (!) as "His only begotten son" (sic), healing the sick, raising the dead (sic, sic, sic) etc.

Stick to Fluff, CCnl. That's where your expertise lies.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 10, 2008 10:25 AM
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Confused Croissant:

Fake Current crisis:

Realization that the Jews are not god's not chosen people.
www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

Real Current crisis:
Realize that the Christians, Catholics are not "God's people." Not an issue in Judaism.

Fake Current Crisis:
Moses the "tablet-man" you say....

Real current crisis. Realize that JC NEVER EXISTED.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 10, 2008 10:22 AM
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I think of Sarah Palin as a sort of Elly-May Clampett type, (except for the part where she likes to shoot wolves from a helicoptor).

Posted by: Daniel in the Lion's Den | October 10, 2008 9:52 AM
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The cosmic degree of dumbing down is beautifully described here. Everybody should read it. A country which touts stupidity as a requisite for becoming president is doomed. Unfortunately, the rest of the world cannot separate itself from this mentality....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schirrmacher/assume-the-fetal-position_b_133446.html

Freedom? The freedom to cheat and kill.
Democracy? Free speech? The ability to tell lies consistently enough until the dumber half of a country believes them.
Religion? Believing in witches, like Palin, talking to god about invading Iraq, like Bush.
Education? Kentucky creationist museum. Kansas: Anti-science, anti-reason, anti intelligence. "Intelligent" on the verge of becoming an insult ("elitist").

Not only the money has been destroyed by the greedy gangsters: The former values themselves are "multiplied by zero", as Schirrmacher points out.

If I were a believer, I would scream "God help us".

And still there are enough aggressive idiots around ("kill him!") to support the very GOP criminals that sent them into misery... incredible. The crowd around McCain/Bush/Palin tries to demonize their opponent by association. Well: They don't have to fear to be demonized by association with criminals present or past: They are the criminals themselves, they know what they are talking about!

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 8:22 AM
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For complete and fair disclosure for those eyes and minds that have not seen:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a
mythical character as was mythical Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis (e.g. Rabbi Wolpe) have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

Current crisis:

Realization that the Jews are not god's not chosen people.
www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

Current crises:

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin, the necessary accessory-Pontius Pilate, the five witch doctors/ authors of semifiction- Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John!!!!

Current crises:

Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals, the necessary accessory-Pontius Pilate, the five witch doctors/ authors of semifiction- Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John!!!! and atonement theology. .

Current crises:

The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.

Current crises:

The caste system and cow worship/reverence.

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations, embellishments, lies, and myths surrounding the founders and foundations of said rules of life.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 7:55 AM
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Until a better theology comes along i.e. one not covered in 24/7 creation of blood and flesh, holy ghosts, elevating bodies, the sin of a mythical woman, atonement, "pretty wingie thingies and demons of the demented--LET ME FINISH THIS FOR YOU, O, PASTRYFIC ONE--WE WILL HAVE TO SETTLE FOR FLUFF.

And we have, dear Confused Croissant. Muffinize away.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 12:48 AM
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To wit:

Pilate was a necessary accessory in the "rise" of JC. Without that crucifixion, where would we Christians be?? i.e. "Pilate saved us all" should be inscribed on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

And JC an organizer?? Hardly!!! Paul did most of the organizing and original advertising. M, M, L, and J did the added embellishing and the ad campaign raising a simple preacher man to deity status akin to the OT fortune tellers and Roman emperors' campaign people. More necessary accessories!!!!

Christianity really should be named for The Five Voodoo Doctors aka P, M, M, L and J with their changing of wine into blood and bread into living tissue/flesh and the raising of at least two dead men.

Hmmm, "pama malujism" sounds good and historically accurate!!!!

And let us hear it again for the Tough Lady from Alaska!!! She even scares the Russians!!! Putin the Vicious should take some "family-value" lessons from her.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 10, 2008 12:32 AM
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Arminius,

That last Anon, an apologetic for CCNL and Muffinists everywhere, was from me.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 9, 2008 11:33 PM
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Arminius,

TSK,TSK. We must allow Confused Croissant his Muffinist theology, and, anyway, Palin obviously knows more about foreign policy than our Born Again Prez since she makes it a policy to know what foreign lands Alaska is near.

I daresay the lady is more knowledgeable on matters economic, having grown up without, managed a large family, and ruined a small town's economy, more knowledgeable than our Born Again Secretary of the Treasury who is a billionaire who made his fortune creating the toxic paper he now bewails.

Being born again doesn't necessarily involve evil self interest, however. One can be born once and achieve the same results. When you have time, read up on the buzz at the Frankfurt Exchange. These folks, born once for the most part like Cheney have no sense of responsibility for what's happened to the German economy nor, it would seem, does its dereg government. The Frankfurt Born Once CEOs are cleaning up with golden parachutes.

And then you have Vladimir P for Pig Putin, stabilizing his economy, while crushing, trampling, and savaging as various opportunities present themselves. Where is all this going? It's carnival time all over the world.

The blood dimmed tide was loosed long ago. A sphinx is being born in Bethlehem. Fluff's hour has come round at last. Let the Confused Croissant ramble on.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 11:29 PM
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If Miss Mooseburger is so tough, why isn't she allowed to do interviews except on Fox Noise?

Yeah, she scares the Russians all right. She scares the crap out of anybody who values the separation of Church and State.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 11:13 PM
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Confused Croissant babbled,
"And let us hear it for the Tough Lady from Alaska!!! She even scares the Russians!!!"

The Russians are having a belly laugh at the expense of the Tundra Tart. More power to the Ivans - if they have that good a sense of humor, we'll get along fine. Yeah, the Moose Slayer is tough. But she is also ignorant, and lacks all judgment but political cleverness. Nixon was clever too - up to a point. But at least he was smart.

Posted by: Arminius | October 9, 2008 8:05 PM
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Keep in mind that Pilate was a necessary accessory in the "rise" of JC. Without that crucifixion, where would we Christians be??

And JC an organizer?? Hardly!!! Paul did most of the organizing and original advertising. M, M, L, and J did the added embellishing and the ad campaign raising a simple preacher man to deity status akin to the OT and Roman emperors' campaign people. More necessary accessories!!!!

Hmmm, "pamamalujism" sounds good and historically accurate!!!!

And let us hear it for the Tough Lady from Alaska!!! She even scares the Russians!!!

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 7:58 PM
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I called Sarah Palin mildly ambitious because she DID make her own way to being governor of Alaska. But she did not do anything to be the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, other than accept the invitation. I say that she is mildly ambitious, because I do not really think that she believes she will be Vice President, but all this attention, being in fact, suddenly, a cultural icon, highlighted on Saturday Nigt Live, which she apparently likes, adds to her resume and her future value as a candidate in some other contest. In fact, I would not be suprised to see her in the future as a US Senator from Alaska.

Posted by: Daniel in the Lion's Den | October 9, 2008 7:22 PM
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In answer to the Confused Croissant, here is a post I put in on the PostGlobal blog discussing the bashing of Palin by the Russian press:

Ah, yes. St Sarah the Moose Slayer, the Trailer Trash of the Tundra, the Neanderthal of the North.... even many republicans are starting to wonder if McWorse had a stroke or something.

At any rate, the Russian media seems better at journalism than Fox.

And for all you republicans claiming that Obama has had no experience - his experience record is on a par with Lincoln's. Go figure. And, oh, yes - Jesus was a community organizer, and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

Posted by: Arminius | October 9, 2008 5:48 PM
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Shawn, Shawn, Shawn,

Sarah Palin is currently the governor of Alaska.

Another great Vice President with a thin political background i.e. he was a part-time farmer, also sold hats and was a judge before becoming a US Senator.

"Truman grew up on a farm near Independence, Mo., worked at various jobs, and tended the family farm. He served as a captain of field artillery in France in World War I. On his return from the war he married (1919) Elizabeth (Bess) Virginia Wallace; they had one daughter, Mary Margaret. After a brief partnership in a haberdashery store, Truman turned to politics and, with support from the Democratic machine of Thomas J. Pendergast, was elected judge (1922–24) and president judge (1926–34) of Jackson co., Mo. He attended (1923–25) the Kansas City school of law."

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 5:02 PM
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DITLD

I would not call Sarah Palin mildly ambitious. I would characterize anyone who wants to jump from mayor of Wasilla, Alaska to one heart beat away from the presidency in two years to be insanely ambitious.

A quick tour of Wasilla should scare anyone about Palin's ability to manage anything, it's pretty much a string of uncontrolled strip malls and sprawling unplanned residential neighborhoods. The idea that she could be president scares me.

Posted by: Shawn Cromett | October 9, 2008 4:39 PM
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"Terrorist Ayers, quite different. I am noting the Obama campaign is claiming Obama knew nothing about Ayers upon meeting him. I am highly skeptical. Ayers is infamous and I am certain Obama knew Ayers is a known terrorist. This is a case of Obama having beforehand knowledge of Ayers being a terrorist and electing to associate with Ayers. This is a display of very poor judgement."

Dr. William Ayers is more than just a "terrorist". He is a renowned educator, sits on the boards of many universities, including the University of South Carolina, and was awarded "Citizen of the Year" by the City of Chicago in 1997. This is the William Ayers that Obama knew, not the '60's radical who threw bombs when Barack Obama was eight years old and living in Hawaii.

Frankly, I'm three years younger than Barack Obama, and up until recently, I'd only known of the Weather Underground as a weather site. (www.wunderground.com). Do you always check into the backgrounds of people that you have business associations with? No, I didn't think so.

As for terrorist associations - how about McCain's associations with the World Anti-Communist League, who sponsored death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua? What about Sarah Palin's husband, who was until recently a member of a group that wants Alaska to secede from the United States?

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 3:35 PM
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Sarah Palin is a good-natured, slightly ambitious nit-wit. Why ask her difficult questions? Why ask her to explain herself? You will get no coherent reply, but just cringe-worthy babble. I have heard about all I need to from her, and do not need to hear anymore.

I am assuming that Barak Obama's political ambition goes back a long way. And I assume that his church affiliation may be partly to satisfy the "religion-requirement" in American politics. So what of it? That is the way the game is played.

Conservative Republicans say that they are not racist, and that they would vote for a black man if they agreed with his views. But let's face it, that disqualifies just about all black people, who reject the Republican Party, as it has rejected them. Is this racist? In my opinion, that is the definition.

And what is with John McCain, pointing sideways underneath his other arm, at Obama, as he looks away from him, referring to him as "that one?"

That is just plain bad manners. I have started to notice that this guy (McCain) has limited social skills, and routinely practices bad mannners. That is something very different than having a temper.

Posted by: Daniel in the Lion's Den | October 9, 2008 12:17 PM
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test

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 10:37 AM
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Gerry,

The 11:26 post preceding CCNL's was mine. Forgot to click on preview.

Farnaz

Posted by: Farnaz | October 9, 2008 12:32 AM
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From CCNL:

So following the lead of Jesus, John McCain was trying to correct the sinning Mr. Keating???

And Barack Obama was trying to bring the "light of white" to Reverend Wright???

And Sarah Palin was absorbing the spells of Pastor Muthee to set him free???

And Joe Biden has no odd and/or sinning friends???

Posted by: Anonymous | October 9, 2008 12:04 AM
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Hello Gerry,

You write:

I therefore simply doubt the legitimacy of accusing Obama, by association, to be co-responsible for such angry irresponsibilities, especially given the fact, that Obama has distanced himself from Wright. Do you have documented proof that Obama "pals" up with Farrakhan, btw? A similar setting. And I haven't heard anybody (yet) accusing Obama of Antisemitism.

No, I haven't heard Obama accused of racism in any credible way. If I had, if I knew him to be a racist with respect to any group, believe me I would publicize that information to the best of my ability. The same, of course, holds true of the other candidates.

As for Wright, we know Obama's association with the minister. He was his pastor and close friend for twenty years. Wright baptized his children. Wright, in turn, was a close associate of Farrakhan. That would be Farrakhan, the thug, opportunist, exploiter of the poor, possible murderer of Malcolm X and others, buddy of that bastion of democracy Kaddaffi, who funds his charming religious organization.

My closing continued thoughts penned in an earlier post and referred not to you but to Susan.
I refuse to listen to Jacoby's romantic defenses of Obama's relation with Wright. It is patronizing, insulting to Obama at a level I find disgusting. Obama is not a fool and not to be the client of big white mama essayists.

This devil/angel nonsense was visited on Hillary Clinton, btw, to some extent by this same "public intellectual" who actually wrote that anyone who supported Clinton was a closet racist using health care as an excuse. (I kid you not Ger. Big Mama evidently forgot that some black people don't have health insurance.) And, now, what does she make of Obama's comments about health care yesterday? ( I leave you to sort out the irony--Jacoby makes her living attacking the decline of the American mind!) Of course, Paul Krugman and others warned that health care under Obama would not be mandatory, as it would have been under Clinton, which invites a mess of problems, but Obama's plan as thus far described is much better than any McCain has put forward.

About some other bigoted comments, in her writing, I will say nothing for the moment.

As for Germany, I honestly don't know what to say. Few people do. I have worked with German exchange students, some of whom actually still ask, Why us? Why us going from country to country killing? Why us? Why not, the White Russians, for instance?

Germany has done more than any other country to look at its century's old anti-Jewish racism. Compare it to Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian, Ukraine, France, Hungary, Rumainia, England, etc. With respect to "guilt," what to say. In this country, people say that "whites" among whom I do not number, benefited from slavery and the generations of discrimination that followed. Jews, especially, did. How I don't understand since I am not a maniac and cannot follow maniacal thought.

Did German Catholics/Lutherans, observant or not, benefit from the Shoah in the sense used above. Yes.

As for current racism, "minority problems" is euphemistic is it not? And, no that doesn't mean you cannot comment about racism here, not at all, but it would be nice, if not only you, but others from other nations, were somewhat more forthcoming.

Stand by for comments on France and Italy....

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 11:26 PM
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While I agree that Obama has some questionable if distant associations in his background, this pales against the possibility that the McCain ticket might win.

The downside of this possibile White House combo supercedes our current fiscal crisis by magnitudes. Obama will learn the job, and of that I have no doubt. McCain is so far past it, the political dopler effect doesn't even come close to describing a man that is fading fast - his best days far behind him.

To any clear-headed observer, McCain is a much older, more tempermental and testier version of Bush - he's suffers from the same entitlement syndrome to the maximum....and he doesn't have the chops - period. He's just a pissed off old man.

The man sold his soul to the devil that is masquerading as the evangelical right - it's all about John McCain and the illusion of his political destiny.

As he fell by the wayside, sinister forces would take charge - and they're waiting in the wings, have no doubt.

Palin doesn't deserve comment - never has a nasty ass hockey mom with an attitude ever been so close to global power and potential political hegemony in the history of the world. 'Unqualified' is hardly an apt description of her credentials.

The McCain/Palin campaign operates at the lowest common political denominator of character assasination, personal slurs, and the perfidious slander of a man who is and has been functioning as John McCain's duly elected peer in the Senate.

Talk about disrespect - it defines the McCain strategy. McCain has indeed taken the low road.....where he still gets his support is beyond me. But they're out there.

Palin does her best to incite both racial and religious hatred at her KKK-style rallies....the people attracted to this message are seemingly teetering on the moral abyss - on the other hand, maybe they're quite comfortable there.

The media is banned from all political rallies involving Palin, of course - meanwhile, the press is apparently sitting still for being shut out. All of this is very strange indeed. Have the media been given their marching orders?

You historians will have to go a very long way to find her equivilance among the imperial dynasties of the past - and none with a snow mobile parked in their garage.

Whatever happened to vigilent and even aggressive journalistic truth in reporting? That died off with the Bush administration - and seemingly has remained supine and moribund throughout the McCain campaign.

If there's an upside to this current crisis we're in, it's the imminent defeat of John McCain.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 9:09 PM
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Farnaz,

I always read your contributions with interest and sympathy, so I don't quite understand the sudden slur at my intelligence at the end of your post.

I didn't justify Wright (much less the German churches in the 3rd Reich!). All I tried to do is put myself into the shoes of a black minister (I know, I know, it is impossible, and, at that, like you, I am an atheist) and understand that one of the many mental states he is going through would be anger. Anger will induce a person to lose command of what he says (I know it from scrutiny of myself on some rare occasions) and he certainly doesn't hope to be quoted for irresponsibilities uttered in such a context. Neither you nor I know the exact conditions of his attachment to Obama (social activities, maybe?) within a certain religious ritual setting. I therefore simply doubt the legitimacy of accusing Obama, by association, to be co-responsible for such angry irresponsibilities, especially given the fact, that Obama has distanced himself from Wright. Do you have documented proof that Obama "pals" up with Farrakhan, btw? A similar setting. And I haven't heard anybody (yet) accusing Obama of Antisemitism.

It is funny that the hate writings of Alaska secessionist Joe Vogler, much worse than anything Wright has said against America, is regarded more or less as a pardonable joke. Nobody cares, nobody really assesses Palin's close ties to the AIP which is of a very recent date. Imagine the outcry if Vogler had been black!

The context you introduce to Berlin escapes me. Or did you insinuate that the fact that Germany having her minority problems precludes the right to observe and comment on racial prejudice in another, and in some ways even comparable political situation?

And I feel shame but not personal guilt ("Kollektivschuld?") as to the German atrocities (the "Re-Orientation" must have yielded some effect, lol!). But if people shout "kill him" in a Palin or McCain campaign event, the difference of the moral mentality of Nazis and this sort of a certain KKK-mob seems to melt away.

Posted by: Gerry | October 8, 2008 6:42 PM
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Once again:

Hmmm,

"While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

This passage from the NT passes the necessary attestation and stratum testing of most historic Jesus exegetes.

e.g.

"(1) P. Oxy. 1224, 2 v ii, lines 1-7
(2a) Mark 2:13-17a = Matt 9:9-12 = Luke 5:27-31
(2b) GEbi. 1c
(2c) Luke 15:1-2

Crossan analysis:
Item: 113
Stratum: I (30-60 CE)
Attestation: Double
Historicity: +

So following the lead of Jesus, John McCain was trying to correct the sinning Mr. Keating???

And Barack Obama was trying to bring the "light of white" to Reverend Wright???

And Sarah Palin was absorbing the spells of Pastor Muthee to set him free???

And Joe Biden has no odd and/or sinning friends???

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 6:19 PM
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Last Anon-"Gerry writes...." was mine.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 8, 2008 4:37 PM
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Gerry writes:

When as a young student I was honored with a wonderful scholarship to study at an American university, under the so-called "Re-Orientation Program" to educate German youngsters away from evil Nazism, blacks still had to sit in separate places in buses and other public facilities. Re-Orientation.

A teacher at my university referred to a colleague as "this damn Jew". Re-Orientation.

Americans cannot put on an act as if slavery was a little pardonable error in antediluvian times. The effects are there to this day, and Obama has to put up with it every single day.

If Wright blew his top about those still virulent effects, it was certainly stupid to voice it in a given context, but quite understandable to feel it. Smearing Obama with such dirt coming from the witch-believing bigot Palin is literally breathtaking. Where is the pertinent Re-Orientation Program?

Well, Gerry, the AmeriChristians still have a great deal to do with respect to American Jews repair-wise. One has seen the racism on this thread, the bigotry and blindness in its essayist. Your teacher has had many children all over this country.

Among them is Farrakhan, for who the words "damned Jew" are a kind as it gets. This man was and is a close associate of Wright's for many years. As I posted below, Wright gave him a lifetime achievement award in a very public ceremony. He is also chummy with Lybia's great president Farrakhan. There is no way that Obama didn't know Wright's politics and didn't know Farrakhan, who endorsed him.

Now, if Wright is justified, what should all us J people say to German Catholics and Lutherans? Suggestions? And we could go on through the decades through the sixties.

And Gerry, what is happening in Germany right now? In Berlin for instance. And we're not just talking about Jews, but about Turks and other minorities. So how shall we proceed?

The point for me is with respect to the nonsense in Susan's essay. Obama "Wuvved Him" Sniffle, and it Hut him to distance himself, but he had to, Smiffle. Pleeze.

I support Obama, but I do not support assaults against intelligence.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 4:36 PM
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I agree 100% with Susan. The fundamental difference is, Obama came out and publicly addressed which of Wright's statements he did NOT agree with. Ultimately, the disagreements between the two men led Obama to break with Wright.

The video of Muthee's sermon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAWM7E_WMfo) where he prayed over Palin is downright scary. Amongst other frightening statements, he says that we've got to get Islam, Buddism, witchcraft and... SORCERY out of our schools.

Now I know Americans are unreasonably scared of Muslims. But since when are we scared of Buddists? And SORCERERS????

Then, after all his ridiculous, objectionable statements, Palin pops up out of her pew, goes to the altar and allows this man to pray over her and bless her. Looked like an endorsement of Muthee's comments to me.

I'd very much like to hear a reassuring statement from Palin that she does NOT hold any prejudices against Muslims and Buddists.... or SORCERERS.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 2:37 PM
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I think we need to know about significant relationships in your life. Certainly you can't be guilty just by association but your friends are those who influence you. We should scrutinize the friends that candidates hang around and see how their philosophies affect the candidates. Clearly they can influence or be influenced.

McCain's involvement with Keating is an tarnish on his record, but let's keep it in perspective. It happened 20 years ago and McCain has repented. I don't see this influencing his current policies. Politics is a dirty business and even the best candidates can make a bad decision.

Palin's involvement with Pastor Muthee seems much less of an issue. He doesn't seem to have been her full time pastor or had significant influence. I don't know if Palin believes in his teaching on Witchcraft or not. But I see this as a personal church issue. She has never brought up any policy that would ever relate to this belief. I don't think we should delve into personal beliefs that don't have to do with policy. I would need to see much more about Muthee and Palin to be concerned.

Obama does have some connections Bill Ayers and Rev Wright. Both promote policies that seem to go against American ideals. Ayers was a self-proclaimed terrorist, who has never repented and but was never convicted. His ideals are quite socialist in nature. Obama only denounced the man's practices after optaining the national spotlight.

Rev Wright doesn't seem to thingk whites and blacks can coexist. He seems to promote ideals that promote blacks above whites and is completely unrepentent. Again, Obama only denounced him after he was pretty much forced to by the media.

I don't believe that Obama is the radical that these people are, but you have to know there was influence there. He didn't have to hang around these guys but he chose to. I don't see how you can ignore the influence these men had on him and how if could affect his presidency.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 1:46 PM
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A teacher at my university referred to a colleague as "this damn Jew". Re-Orientation.

Americans cannot put on an act as if slavery was a little pardonable error in antediluvian times. The effects are there to this day, and Obama has to put up with it every single day.

Posted by: Gerry | October 8, 2008 11:56 AM
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Ms. Jacoby,
You are giving Obama a free pass. Sure, he rejected Wright, but he only did so last spring under tremendous pressure. Obama and Wright were much closer than any of the other pairs in question. What is wrong with judging Obama on his 20+ year association with a firebrand preacher?

Posted by: Drew | October 8, 2008 11:13 AM
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Some people spend an entire lifetime deciding if they made a difference or could of, would of should of. Great challenges mean great rewards. We're still in the challenge stage here. I guess it can only get better as we meet the challenges and move forward. Anything is possible. People tend to go on with their disordered thoughts and people break charity for lack of a better way. There's always a better way and the yields are higher that way. More for charity, less for loss. The bailer goes all the way to the bottom. Capital goes all the way to the top. We're just in the middle for now. I'm upper, lower, middle class and that's how I'm staying. I have staying power though. That's America for you.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 8, 2008 9:00 AM
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Hmmm,

"When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."

This passage from the NT passes the necessary attestation and stratum testing of most historic Jesus exegetes.

e.g.

"(1) P. Oxy. 1224, 2 v ii, lines 1-7
(2a) Mark 2:13-17a = Matt 9:9-12 = Luke 5:27-31
(2b) GEbi. 1c
(2c) Luke 15:1-2

Crossan analysis:
Item: 113
Stratum: I (30-60 CE)
Attestation: Double
Historicity: +

So following the lead of Jesus, John McCain was trying to correct the sinning Mr. Keating???

And Barack Obama was trying to bring the "light of white" to Reverend Wright???

And Sarah Palin was absorbing the spells of Pastor Muthee to set him free???

And Joe Biden has no odd and/or sinning friends???

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 11:47 PM
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Palin does not have good judgement by encouraging her teenage daughter having sex, unsafe sex and immoral sex.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 11:29 PM
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Joe Biden has no friends? No spiritual guides? No official pastor?

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 11:21 PM
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Arminius,

The key to it all is deregulation and globalization. Start with the former and keep going. Then branch out. Maybe, Pseudo can write a poem.

The German economy is suffering from this recent disaster, but then Germany bought in....

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 8:39 PM
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Sorry, but again, although I support Obama, I cannot and will not go along with self-serving defenses, fraught with romanticism, sentimentalism, and, I hope, disingenuous naivete, masquerading as morality.

Wright did not pick up his politics overnight, and given the length and depth of Obama's relation with him, it is inconceivable that he was unaware of his minister's views. Equally unimaginable is that he did not know of Wright's association with Farakkan to whom Wright's church gave a lifetime achievement award some years ago in a very public ceremony. That Farakkahn and Obama never met is not at all likely.

Something frightening has happened to the American mind, Susan.

Posted by: Farnaz | October 7, 2008 8:37 PM
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Guten Abend, Chris,

I am assuming that is Chris in Hamburg, Deutchland.

Well, I'm Christian, but I am just as puzzled as you.

Fear has been used by the Republicans ever since 9/11, and it has worked, and the darkness has descended. Let us hope that there will soon be a new dawn, not four more years of night and fear.

No one seems to understand the economic crisis, even the ones at the top of the political feeding chain. It's going to be grim, I fear, for all of us.

Posted by: Arminius | October 7, 2008 7:49 PM
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Blogs would be significantly more enjoyable if these Obamabots would stop with their spam all over the worldwide web.

Susan, I agree with and support your notions about "guilt by association." This is truly not so much an issue rather is often a mindless assumption.

Quality of judgement upon entering an association with a person is very important. Most of us, probably all of us know better than to befriend O.J. Simpson. This is good personal judgement.

McCain and Glenn, I view their association with Keating as simply their being gullible. Rather doubtful either man knew, beforehand, Keating was engaging in criminal acts.

Terrorist Ayers, quite different. I am noting the Obama campaign is claiming Obama knew nothing about Ayers upon meeting him. I am highly skeptical. Ayers is infamous and I am certain Obama knew Ayers is a known terrorist. This is a case of Obama having beforehand knowledge of Ayers being a terrorist and electing to associate with Ayers. This is a display of very poor judgement.

Of greater importance is how a person handles an aftermath of an unacceptable association.

McCain did admit his association with Keating was wrong, was a display of poor judgement and McCain corrected his behavior. This is honorable.

Obama has yet to admit his association with Ayers is wrong and Obama has yet to correct his behavior. This is dishonorable.

If not in jail where he belongs, I would not play golf with O.J. Simpson, not even be seen in the company of O.J. Simpson. My dignity, my personal judgement, neither make allowance for such events. This is a case of exercising good common sense.

McCain has made his share of mistakes, like we all do. McCain also admits his mistakes, deals with his shame, then moves on.

Obama either dodges his mistakes or simply refuses to admit his mistakes. His behavior is a poor reflection upon his character.

We all make mistakes. How we deal with our mistakes is significantly more important than actually avoiding making mistakes.

McCain deals with his mistakes. Obama avoids dealing with his mistakes.

This is my take on this topic of yours, Susan.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 7:34 PM
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I'm not a Christian myself, but I found this a refreshinly interesting discussion of the two campaigns and their candidates.

It is strange to me that people who purport to be Christians can stir up so much trouble with their name-calling and down-right lies about Obama. The word "anti-christ" has already been making the rounds. This is not surprising when you consider the confusion and fear that people feel when confronted by an economic situation that they cannot understand.

Fear is often used to create hatred and to prevent people from questioning the real "thieves", such as those on Wall Street who engeneer take-over bids and strip the assets from a company. The hole in the economy is very much related to the systematic corruption promoted by bankers and profit takers, whatever their religion.

The darkest hour is just before the dawn, as the saying goes.

Keep the faith, Chris Brown in Hamburg

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 7:32 PM
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Susan,

First, good essay, thanks. Guilt by association can get too quickly morphed into the old 'Mashed Potato Menace'.

Next, your blog is not yet set up to enforce handles. Others are.

Posted by: Arminius | October 7, 2008 7:19 PM
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All of this guilt by association malarky is being raised by the McCain campaign because they are failing miserably by actually discussing the issues. How about the fact that the Dow dropped another 500 points today after a similar loss on Monday? And this was after the bailout package was put into effect. The bottom is falling out of the economy, and McCain and Palin realize that they don't have a leg to stand on. The same Republican policies that created this mess cannot be used to get us out of it. I want real change! I am voting Obama-Biden 2008! Comments welcome: http://whenelephantsfly.blogspot.com

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 6:10 PM
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I am simply not surprised anymore with what the McCain campaign comes up with. Soon they are going to start claiming that Obama is the antichrist. Throughout this campaign, they have managed to stoke fears that Obama is muslim (like simply being one is a dangerous thing, but the fact that Obama is actually christian is not known to many people), link him to all sorts of associations with crooks, sometimes simply on the basis of Obama being in the same room with a person, lie about his tax plan for the middle class, continue to charge that the media is biased (to innoculate their lies). Now they claim Barack Obama is associated with the Weathermen (Obama was 8 when they were active!). There is a difference between an casual acquaintance, and an undeniable influence on someone's decisions. Yes, indeed Obama has gone into attack mode as well, but his attacks are based on far more relevant associations like McCain's deep links with Lobbyists (the McCain campaign is both financially supported and staffed by lobbies, and he has demonstrated his culpability to corrupt commercial influence thru the Keating 5 scandal), McCain's dangerous healthcare plan (taxing your healthcare benefits to give you healthcare tax credits), his proposal to open up social security for investment decisions (good idea, but also adding considerable risk to people's security net), and McCain's behavior (claiming that the fundamentals of our economy is strong, and then messing up the bailout talks for political gain, his impulsive my-way-or-the-highway approach to foreign policy, his irresponsible selection of Palin), his tactics of dividing the electorate on choices that do not matter to the challenges we are facing today (guns, abortion, gay marriage etc), and his unethical attempts at voter caging across swing states to disqualify democrat votes. So while both campaigns have gone negative, we need to take things into perspective, and understand the difference between mud slinging versus relevant criticism, they are very different things. I have given up trying to convince the hard-core right wingers, and racially prejudiced people, because these are a group that have been completely swayed by their own preconceived notions about a candidate they have not even tried to read up about. This group has been hugely affected by John McCain's systematic strike at the media establishment (so they can say anything they want), to believe only what John McCain is saying, and have been programmed to allow their prejudice to claim that Obama is not experienced enough. TRUTH IS, YOU CAN HIRE EXPERIENCE AND YOU CAN BUY KNOWLEDGE, BUT WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE IS A PERSON'S JUDGMENT AND THE FUNDAMENTAL MORAL COMPASS THAT GUIDES IT. I am hoping that the Independent voters and undecided voters, who tend to be more deliberate, and inquisitive in their considerations would be able to make these critical distinctions.

Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2008 6:09 PM
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McCain, Obama, Palin: Judgment, Not Guilt By Association, Is The Issue

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