The first source of difficulty about the Middle East problem is the name itself. The geopolitical name for the people of this region was an American invention.
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All Comments (11)
i think that everyone should just stop thee violence so the world could just be at peace people are doing so many thing for stupid reasons they are not amking things better they are making things worste....does kids dying and being seperated from their parents semm like they are making things get better??!!..:/ no so STOP THE VIOLENCE PLEAZE AND THANK YOU!??!!!...
April 21, 2008 5:50 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 21, 2008 17:50
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November 14, 2007 5:20 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on November 14, 2007 17:20
THE STATEMENT-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"because Christian men and women, on Christian
principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thats an extraordinary assertion-
founded on christian principles?
i guess everyone but australians are aware that their country was founded by the british exporting their convicts to south wales.
(actually many australians are very aware of this-
"History" meant great men, stirring deeds, useful discoveries and worthy sacrifices; our history was SHORT of these. This made us even more anxious about our worth as Australians living in Australia--the root of "cultural cringe" which would continue to plague us until long after World War II" (Hughes, p.x-ii).
On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip landed in New South Wales. 1,000 people, of whom 717 were convicts, accompanied him to establish a new colony. It was a colonial experiment; never before had a colony served as a JAIL FOR CONVICTS. Until 1840, when convict transportation was abolished in New South Wales, convicts arrived regularly and were used as labor by the free settlers who came to New South Wales to raise sheep for wool. Australians have regarded their CONVICT heritage as a stain on their Australian selfhood. As a result, most Australians have desired to forget this past, and SCHOOLS have conveniently IGNORED its study. An incredible silence has pervaded the acceptance of Australian convicts because it threatened notions of British decency. The pressure to DISOWN this history became especially strong in the late nineteenth century when debates about biological determination and notions of race and purity dominated the intellectual climate of the time. Not until the 1960s did Australian historians seriously examine the convict experience in Australia. The works which inspired these works were Manning Clarke's History of Australia, 1962) and L.L. Robson's The Convict Settlers of Australia 1965). These works and others have begun to prove that convicts have a history that can no longer be ignored.
Sources
Hughes, Robert. The Fatal Shore. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1986.
Encyclopedia Americana. 1989.
October 10, 2007 2:17 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on October 10, 2007 02:17
belly,head,soul and theory of saponification.
the soul is the command control of mankind head and belly.the evidence is manifest clear when the soul go the body cease and seize.every mankind know what to do with his belly and his head.what is the politic of the soul?where is the constitution of the soul?what is the constitution of the soul?what is the source of the soul?what is the geopolitic of the soul ?where the soul get its reference from?in who,s hand the human soul in?where is the soul head qurter?what is the impact of the human mass soul on the human mass belly and head?where mankind get the purgation and the saponification of the soul.
the soul rot like no less no more than the belly and head,every mankind know what to do when his belly and head rot, but not every mankind know where and how and since when to cure and purge his soul.
there is no pharmacitical nor cosmotological nor saponificational nor scientificational nor technologicals nor political cure for the soul,the cure is in the hand of the creator of the soul .
please take the soul to the lab of academecia for further ultra investigation and elaboration.
September 18, 2007 9:15 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 18, 2007 09:15
Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on
Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals
in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.
A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to
Australia and her Queen at a special meeting with Prime Minister John
Howard, he and his Ministers made it clear that extremists would face
a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to
Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the
country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state, and
its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if
you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then
Australia is not for you", he said on National Television. "I'd be
saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing
people in Australia: one the Australian law and another Islamic law
that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent
courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the
opportunity to go to another country, which practices it, perhaps,
then, that's a better option", Costello said.
Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he
said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to
the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told
reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should
"clear off". Basically people who don't want to be Australians, and
who don't want, to live by Australian values and understand them, well
then, they can basically clear off", he said.
Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by
saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.
Quote: "IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave it.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some
individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we
have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of
Australians."
"However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the
'politically correct' crowd began complaining about the possibility
that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against
immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a
better life by coming to Australia." "However, there are a few things
that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some
born here, need to understand." "This idea of Australia being a
multi-cultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and
our national identity. And, as Australians, we have our own culture,
our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle." "This
culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials
and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom"
"We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese,
Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to
become part of our society. Learn the language!" "Most Australians
believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political
push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian
principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is
certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If
God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world
as your new home, because God is part of our culture."
"We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is
that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with
us."
"If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like "A Fair Go",
then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this
planet. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change,
and we really don't care how you did things where you came from. By
all means, keep your culture, but do not force it on others. "This is
OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will
allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done
complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our
Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take
advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO
LEAVE'." "If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to
come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted."
Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, Canadian and American
citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing
the same truths !
September 18, 2007 12:30 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 18, 2007 00:30
In Europe and U.S., Nonbelievers Are Increasingly Vocal
By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 15, 2007; Page A01
BURGESS HILL, England -- Every morning on his walk to work, high school teacher Graham Wright recited a favorite Anglican prayer and asked God for strength in the day ahead. Then two years ago, he just stopped.
Wright, 59, said he was overwhelmed by a feeling that religion had become a negative influence in his life and the world. Although he once considered becoming an Anglican vicar, he suddenly found that religion represented nothing he believed in, from Muslim extremists blowing themselves up in God's name to Christians condemning gays, contraception and stem cell research.
"I stopped praying because I lost my faith," said Wright, 59, a thoughtful man with graying hair and clear blue eyes. "Now I truly loathe any sight or sound of religion. I blush at what I used to believe."
Wright is now an avowed atheist and part of a growing number of vocal nonbelievers in Europe and the United States. On both sides of the Atlantic, membership in once-quiet groups of nonbelievers is rising, and books attempting to debunk religion have been surprise bestsellers, including "The God Delusion," by Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins.
New groups of nonbelievers are sprouting on college campuses, anti-religious blogs are expanding across the Internet, and in general, more people are publicly saying they have no religious faith.
More than three out of four people in the world consider themselves religious, and those with no faith are a distinct minority. But especially in richer nations, and nowhere more than in Europe, growing numbers of people are actively saying they don't believe there is a heaven or a hell or anything other than this life.
Many analysts trace the rise of what some are calling the "nonreligious movement" to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The sight of religious fanatics killing 3,000 people caused many to begin questioning -- and rejecting -- all religion.
"This is overwhelmingly the topic of the moment," said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society of Britain. "Religion in this country was very quiet until September 11, and now it is at the center of everything."
Since the 2001 attacks, a string of religiously inspired bomb and murder plots has shaken Europe. Muslim radicals killed 52 people on the London public transit system in 2005 and 191 on Madrid trains in 2004. People apparently aiming for a reward in heaven were arrested in Britain last year for trying to blow up transatlantic jetliners. And earlier this month in Germany, authorities arrested converts to Islam on charges that they planned to blow up American facilities there.
Many Europeans are angry at demands to use taxpayer money to accommodate Islam, Europe's fastest-growing religion, which now has as many as 20 million followers on the continent. Along with calls for prayer rooms in police stations, foot baths in public places and funding for Islamic schools and mosques, expensive legal battles have broken out over the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes, which some devout women seek to wear in classrooms and court.
Christian fundamentalist groups who want to halt certain science research, reverse abortion and gay rights and teach creationism rather than evolution in schools are also angering people, according to Sanderson and others.
"There is a feeling that religion is being forced on an unwilling public, and now people are beginning to speak out against what they see as rising Islamic and Christian militancy," Sanderson said.
Though the number of nonbelievers speaking their minds is rising, academics say it's impossible to calculate how many people silently share that view. Many people who do not consider themselves religious or belong to any faith group often believe, even if vaguely, in a supreme being or an afterlife. Others are not sure what they believe.
The term atheist can imply aggressiveness in disbelief; many who don't believe in God prefer to call themselves humanists, secularists, freethinkers, rationalists or, a more recently coined term, brights.
"Where religion is weak, people don't feel a need to organize against it," said Phil Zuckerman, an American academic who has written extensively about atheism around the globe.
He and others said secular groups are also gaining strength in countries where religious influence over society looms large, including India, Israel and Turkey. "Any time we see an outspoken movement against religion, it tells us that religion has power there," Zuckerman said.
One group of nonbelievers in particular is attracting attention in Europe: the Council of Ex-Muslims. Founded earlier this year in Germany, the group now has a few hundred members and an expanding number of chapters across the continent. "You can't tell us religion is peaceful -- look around at the misery it is causing," said Maryam Namazie, leader of the group's British chapter.
She and other leaders of the council held a news conference in The Hague to launch the Dutch chapter on Sept. 11, the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the United States. "We are all atheists and nonbelievers, and our goal is not to eradicate Islam from the face of the earth," but to make it a private matter that is not imposed on others, she said.
The majority of nonbelievers say they are speaking out only because of religious fanatics. But some atheists are also extreme, urging people, for example, to blot out the words "In God We Trust" from every dollar bill they carry.
Gaining political clout and access to television and radio airtime is the goal of many of these groups. With a higher profile, they say, they could, for instance, lobby for all religious rooms in public hospitals to be closed, as a response to Muslims demanding prayer rooms because Christians have chapels.
Associations of nonbelievers are also moving to address the growing demand in Britain, Spain, Italy and other European countries for nonreligious weddings, funerals and celebrations for new babies. They are helping arrange ceremonies that steer clear of talk of God, heaven and miracles and celebrate, as they say, "this one life we know."
The British Humanist Association, which urges people who think "the government pays too much attention to religious groups" to join them, has seen its membership double in two years to 6,500.
A humanist group in the British Parliament that looks out for the rights of the nonreligious now has about 120 members, up from about 25 a year ago.
Doreen Massey, a Labor Party member of the House of Lords who belongs to that group, said most British people don't want legislators to make public policy decisions on issues such as abortion and other health matters based on their religious affiliation.
But the church has disproportionate power and influence in Parliament, she said. Forexample, she said, polls show that 80 percent of Britons want the terminally ill who are in pain to have the right to a medically assisted death, yet such proposals have been effectively killed by a handful of powerful bishops.
"We can't accept that religious faiths have a monopoly on ethics, morality and spirituality," Massey said. Now, she added, humanist and secularist groups are becoming "more confident and more powerful" and recognize that they represent the wishes of huge numbers of people.
While the faithful have traditionally met like-minded people at the local church, mosque or synagogue, it has long been difficult for those without religion to find each other. The expansion of the Internet has made it a vital way for nonbelievers to connect.
In retirement centers, restaurants, homes and public lectures and debates, nonbelievers are convening to talk about how to push back what they see as increasingly intrusive religion.
"Born Again Atheist," "Happy Heathen" and other anti-religious T-shirts and bumper stickers are increasingly seen on the streets. Groups such as the Skeptics in the Pub in London, which recently met to discuss this topic, "God: The Failed Hypothesis," are now finding that they need bigger rooms to accommodate those who find them online.
Wright, the teacher who recently declared himself a nonbeliever, is one of thousands of people who have joined dues-paying secular and humanist groups in Europe this year.
Sitting in his living room on a quiet cul-de-sac in this English town of 30,000, Wright said he now goes online every day to keep up with the latest atheist news.
"One has to step up and stem the rise of religious influence," said Wright, who is thinking of becoming a celebrant at humanist funerals. He said he recently went to the church funeral of his brother-in-law and couldn't bear the "vacuous prayers of the vicar," who, Wright said, "looked bored and couldn't wait to leave."
Now, instead of each morning silently reciting a favorite nighttime prayer, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers . . . " (from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer), he spends the time just thinking about the day ahead.
He said his deceased mother, a Catholic, was comforted by her faith: "It kept her going through difficult times," particularly when his father left her when he and his sister were young.
"I really don't know how I will react if something really bad happens," he said. "But there is no going back. There is nothing to go back to."
Not believing in an afterlife, he said, "makes you think you have to make the most of this life. It's the now that matters. It also makes you feel a greater urgency of things that matter," such as halting global warming, and not just dismissing it as being "all in God's plan."
He called himself heartened that the National Secular Society, which he recently joined, is planning to open chapters at a dozen universities this fall. The rising presence of the nonreligious movement, he said, is "fantastic."
"It's a bit of opposition, isn't it?" he said. "Why should these religious groups hold so much sway?
September 17, 2007 6:41 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2007 18:41
Moderate,
I do.
September 17, 2007 4:56 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2007 16:56
The Moderate writes: "Do you seriously think that the problems in the Middle East, The Levant, The Caliphate, or what ever you want to call it would disappear also? I don't."
I certainly don't, but I do suspect it would make it easier to solve the REAL (water, oil, land, security, etc.) problems that they have if the IMAGINARY (Yahweh, Allah, etc.) problems that they have could be whisked from their consciousnesses.
September 17, 2007 4:38 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2007 16:38
Dear Concerned the Christian Now Liberated:
Still on that obsolete "scholarship" that happens to agree with your prejudices?
The people doing statistical analysis of the early codices are showing how wrong this kind of thing is.
The synoptic Gospels were added to the canon in the sixties, along with the letters of Paul. They contain the views of the eye witnesses to the phenomenon. Whether you believe what they did or not, and many modern minds have problems with it,
Jesus was not illiterate, and he was not hallucinating, or at least he was somehow getting everyone to hallucinate with him in exactly the same things at the same times.
Moreover, you have no basis in fact for you assertions. I take it that you have done no primary source research, but only read a pile of anti theists of the late twentieth century.
Finally, what happened when they got rid of religion in Russia, China, Korea, and Cambodia?
Blaming every ill of mankind on religion is a bit silly, in light of the answers to the above question, No?
Water is an issue, Oil is an issue, and tribalism is an issue. Now suppose you had a magic wand that could eliminate Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Do you seriously think that the problems in the Middle East, The Levant, The Caliphate, or what ever you want to call it would disappear also? I don't.
September 17, 2007 4:18 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2007 16:18
Sulayman S. Nyang seems to have a real grasp on the issues at play.
September 17, 2007 6:45 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2007 06:45
The question: "To what extent are problems in the Middle East about religion and to what extent are they about politics? Does it matter?
I would add "and to what extent are they about water supplies?
The answer: All Three with the religious problems and foundation flaws feeding the political and water problems.
How to fix???
Recognize the flaws in the foundations of said religions:
The flaws:
1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.
2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth. Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
3. Mohammed, the "holey not holy hallucinator, also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" aka "pwtfft"s and flying chariots to the Koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics. And who funds these acts of terror? Islamic Iran, the Third Axis of Evil and also the "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.
4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).
How to fix? Rewrite the OT, NT and Koran in historical terms.
Next???
Turn control of Jerusalem and the water supplies in the area over to the UN.
Use the current oil/blood/terror profits of Iran, Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, etc. to fund water desalination plant construction throughout the Mideast.
September 16, 2007 11:09 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 16, 2007 11:09