Jerry Falwell

Jerry FaLwell

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Personally I find the whole idea of religion hostile and insulting, but I shall refrain from complaining about your posts if you allow those of us with a different opinion from yours to express it.

Personally I find it hostile and insulting that finding the idea of religion both hostile and insulting, just as it is hostile and insulting to find the ideas of atheism and agnosticism hostile insulting.
Furthermore, personally I find it just as hostile and insulting for people who suggest that "If you believe as I do, everything will be a-ok" as it is when people who were raised as agnostic/atheistic think they are any more free of the shackles of assumptions.
Just a little pin prick ....

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

In absolute terms, the US gives more than, I believe, the sum of the next three countries.

Is it 'absolute', or is it what you 'believe'???

Got any facts? Or are you just blowing more patriotic sunshine up everyones behind... ;)

Google it you *^&^&^%$.

Is this the same Bill Hyland?!?
The same one who chastised me when I finally sank to Chuck's level?
The one that reminded D/B, when he was a moderator, of

No messages intended to annoy or antagonize other people, or to hijack a thread.
No messages that are deliberately hostile or insulting.

???

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Personally I find the whole idea of religion hostile and insulting, but I shall refrain from complaining about your posts if you allow those of us with a different opinion from yours to express it.

Personally I find it hostile and insulting that finding the idea of religion both hostile and insulting, just as it is hostile and insulting to find the ideas of atheism and agnosticism hostile insulting.
Furthermore, personally I find it just as hostile and insulting for people who suggest that "If you believe as I do, everything will be a-ok" as it is when people who were raised as agnostic/atheistic think they are any more free of the shackles of assumptions.
Just a little pin prick ....

Personally I find that persons finding things hostile and insulting is the cause of things being hostile and insulting in our within or without religion, ascetisms, libertarianism, humanism, objectivism and other cosmologies of your taste and flavour, but that is just me speaking my opinion on the hostile and insulting capabilities without meaning to be hostile and insulting in any way, but if you find it hostile and insulting your are of course all free to be hostile and insulting towards me in a cosmological way of your choosing:-)

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It is SEXY to DONATE!
Skype = demiurg2

In the beginning there was only Poot.
And Poot hovered over the water.
And Poot spoke the word,
and the word was Poot,
and Poot become Pooty...

...and on the seventh Poot,
Poot looked upon Poots Poot,
and saw that all Poot was good.
And then Poot gathered up the Poot
that Poot had made,
and Poot rested.

Carl

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It is SEXY to DONATE!
Skype = demiurg2

Stoning brings war to once-peaceful town

By Ferhad Murasil

May 18, 2007

MOSUL, Iraq – Bashiqa, a small town sitting in lush green hills east of this city, used to be regarded as an island of peace and stability in a violence-plagued country.

With 70 percent of its population Yezidi – an ancient sect that is neither Muslim nor Christian – the village had escaped the ethnic and sectarian violence that had devastated the surrounding areas.

Residents of Mosul would drive the 15 miles to Bashiqa to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of a little town, where Yezidi temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches stand in proximity.

But that peace was shattered on April 7, when a furious mob stoned a 17-year-old Yezidi girl to death as bystanders applauded.

Duaa Khalil Aswad had run off with a Muslim boy, thereby violating a basic tenet of her faith that forbids relations with members of other religions.

Her death, or “honor killing,” was hardly unique, but the reaction to her murder has unleashed widespread sectarian strife in the formally peaceful community.

Aswad, a second-year student at a local fine arts institute, had fallen in love with Muhammad, a Muslim neighbor who owned a local cosmetics shop. She initially hoped to elope with Muhammad, but he apparently refused, saying that Muslim tradition recommends that both families give their blessing to a marriage.

So Aswad decided that she would convert to Islam so the couple could be wed. She informed her parents who, while not pleased with her decision, did nothing to stop her.

The Yezidis are ethnic Kurds who practice a unique religion that incorporates elements of ancient faiths such as Zoroastrianism, as well as drawing on Islam and Christianity.

One hard-and-fast rule of Yezidi tradition is that marriage outside the faith is not permitted.

While her parents may have been understanding of her conversion, other members of her tribe were less forgiving. She eventually took refuge with a local Yezidi cleric, a common practice among people fearing retribution.

On April 7, one of her uncles arrived to say that all had been forgiven and asked that Aswad return home.

“She thought they had really forgiven her, when she was going to her death,” said one local resident who declined to allow his name to be used. “She was wearing a black skirt and a red jacket with her hair in a ponytail.”

As she approached her home, however, Aswad was surrounded by 13 of her cousins and a large number of other sect members.

“They started kicking and punching her, pulling her hair and forcing her to the ground,” said one witness to the killing. “She was shouting for help. Her father tried to get to her, but the people stopped him.”

The crowd beat, kicked and threw stones at the prostrate young woman for two hours, while some filmed the killing on their camera phones.

Once she was declared dead, her killers took her body to the outskirts of town, burned it and buried it with the remains of a dog, to show they regarded her as worthless and unclean.

Angry Muslims in Mosul described her as “our martyred sister,” and vowed revenge.

Retaliation was quick. On April 22, gunmen stopped a bus carrying workers from a textile factory in Mosul. All the Muslims and Christians on the bus were released unharmed, while the 23 Yezidi passengers were removed and summarily executed.

Four days later, a Yezidi baker and three of his workers were killed in Mosul; three days after that, two Yezidi policemen were killed.

Other Yezidis reported being assaulted all across Kurdistan.

Meanwhile, some Muslim residents in Bashiqa reported being threatened and told to leave the Yezidi-majority town.

Ultimately, police and Iraqi army soldiers were called in to cordon off the town in an attempt to prevent future reprisals.

Aswad's murder has led some members of the Yezidi sect to challenge the actions of their co-religious brethren.

“Such penalties are unacceptable,” said Edo Bashar, a local resident. “No Yezidi religious text prescribes such a punishment. People in the modern world will view the Yezidis as a racist and unforgiving people, lacking in either intelligence or reason. Barbarism is no way to uphold a religion.”

Murasil is a journalist in Iraq who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict.

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me@rescam.org

In absolute terms, the US gives more than, I believe, the sum of the next three countries.

Is it 'absolute', or is it what you 'believe'???

Got any facts? Or are you just blowing more patriotic sunshine up everyones behind... ;)

Google it you *^&^&^%$.

Is this the same Bill Hyland?!?
The same one who chastised me when I finally sank to Chuck's level?
The one that reminded D/B, when he was a moderator, of

No messages intended to annoy or antagonize other people, or to hijack a thread.
No messages that are deliberately hostile or insulting.

???

One and the same, and I am soundly chastised. Notice that I did spoon feed him the data in a later post.

ibso facto

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Notice that I did spoon feed him the data in a later post.

You call it data... I call it lies... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Jerry Falwell A friend – finally

By Deborah Caldwell; managing editor at Beliefnet.com

May 20, 2007

In the mid-1970s, as Jerry Falwell built his empire in Virginia, I was a child in rural Pennsylvania, a place often described as the northern Bible Belt. Many a night, my family drove along the back roads listening to AM radio as it picked up signals from all over. Sometimes we heard a New York talk show or a Boston baseball game – but usually we'd listen to the “Old-Time Gospel Hour” and its preacher, Jerry Falwell.

The sermons became a family fascination. We were amazed at the invective he'd throw at anyone he deemed liberal. Astonished that he brazenly asked listeners for donations to build a fundamentalist juggernaut. We couldn't believe he'd ever succeed.

But then a new church, Liberty Baptist Church, came to town. It was a Falwell offshoot and the pastor, a Liberty University graduate, began making waves with pronouncements against other Christian groups. He wrote critical letters to the weekly newspaper and confronted pastors at town meetings. People were stunned. Hurt. And ultimately, because of Falwell, they divided.

Rural Pennsylvania is, and was, among the most conservative and Republican of places: The GOP holds a 3-1 edge, and there are more churches per capita there than anywhere in the nation.

Falwell saw places such as Pennsylvania as fertile territory to expand his empire. There he found like-minded cultural conservatives – but they weren't fundamentalists. Northern Christians at that time didn't care if politicians were biblical literalists. And they certainly didn't question who was “saved.”

That's why Christians in my town turned against each other. Many felt personally stung by criticism of their faith. They attended church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, volunteered, stayed close to their families, and lived godly lives.

Even as a teenager, I was repelled by Falwell and his ilk. I rode the bus to school and would often see a girl who belonged to Liberty Baptist Church. She made it her business to grill fellow students about the state of their souls every morning. One day she asked me, “Are you saved?”

“Yes,” I replied, and then we launched into a theological debate. Twenty minutes later, as we pulled into the school parking lot, I turned to her and said, “Good luck.” She replied, “I don't believe in luck. I believe in Jesus.”

A couple years later, Falwell launched the Moral Majority and helped get Ronald Reagan elected president. By the 1980s, he was a political kingmaker and national icon.

His influence continued in my hometown. Liberty Baptist Church boomed. Other new politically active churches sprang up and organized members to run for local office. The Pennsylvania GOP came to be dominated by conservative Christians. Churches conducted massive voter registration drives and round-the-clock election prayer vigils.

But by 1999, Falwell had become a bit of a buffoon, with suggestions that the Antichrist was a living Jewish man, and labeling the Teletubby Tinky Winky as a subversive gay rights symbol. Around then, my editors at the Dallas Morning News decided it was time to talk with Falwell. I flew to Lynchburg to spend the day with him, not knowing what to expect. Would he be scary? Would he be a big jerk?

Instead, he charmed me. I rode around Liberty University with him at the wheel of his Chevy Suburban, cackling as he pretended to plow over undergraduates in his path. Students approached to introduce boyfriends and girlfriends, to have their pictures taken with him.

Over lunch he talked about his grandchildren, who called him “Poppy.” He said it was OK with him that students watched R-rated movies and wore jeans outside class. He even thought a little hip-hop wasn't all that bad.

Falwell still didn't back down from arguments over abortion, gay rights, secularism, evolution and anything else he deemed remotely liberal. In fact, he said, he loved the controversies.

“But I never get mad in a fight. I don't care who they are, give me a few weeks or months with them, and they'll be my friend,” he said.

The part about making friends stuck with me. I was still angry at how his followers had caused so much unnecessary division among Christians in my hometown. I knew firsthand of people hurt by his hateful statements – Jews, Muslims, other Christians, gays. Yet I found I couldn't resist him. He was polite. Sincere. He even seemed – and I know this sounds crazy – kind.

He told me he was working on a formal transition plan so his successors would know how to run the ministry when he died. He hoped the Lord would give him 10 more healthy years to finish his life's work.

He didn't get all 10 years, but until the end, he still believed in the Old-Time Gospel. He still loved a good argument. And he still knew how to make a friend.

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me@rescam.org

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The crescent moon symbol of Islam dates back to Byzantium

Stars and Stripes

Q: So, I know that the crescent moon is the symbol of Islam and is featured on the flags of a bunch of countries. But why? How did that symbol come to represent Islam? What’s up with that?

A: Just as the cross is the internationally-recognized symbol of Christianity, and the Star of David tied to Judaism, the crescent moon is the accepted symbol of Islam and the dominating symbol of many Muslim countries. It adorns flags, mosques, and is even used on some product advertisements.

Although the crescent moon and star symbols predate the founding of the Islamic religion by thousands of years, the most prevalent explanation involves the ancient city of Byzantium, which later became known as Constantinople and Istanbul. According to the stories, the rulers of Byzantium had adopted the crescent moon as the symbol of the city. Most historians say it was chosen in honor of the goddess Diana, or that it was in honor of a battle won on the first day of a lunar month, when the moon is at its slimmest.

Later, when the Ottoman Empire conquered the city (then called Constantinople) around the year 1450, they adopted the city’s flag and its symbol. The story continues that Osman, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, had a dream in which a crescent moon filled the sky from one end to the other. He took the dream as an omen that his kingdom would stretch across the earth, and adopted the symbol as his own. And since, for centuries, the Ottomans ruled much of the Muslim world, the symbol became associated with the religion as a whole.

Listen with Odiogo

Source: Stars And Stripes

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888 - I win :)

Oh, wrong thread; sorry...

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Qur'an 2:268
Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to commit evil deeds, illegal sex, and sins; whereas God promises you forgiveness from Himself and bounty, and God is All-Sufficient for His creatures' needs, All-Knower. ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. "

George Carlin

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Qur'an 2:268
Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to commit evil deeds, illegal sex, and sins; whereas God promises you forgiveness from Himself and bounty, and God is All-Sufficient for His creatures' needs, All-Knower.

And, of course, you should commit shining deeds of light, such as committing suicide while murdering as many children, women and men as you can. At least, so say many Imams and even some Ayatollahs.
Tell me, Jeffery, when those Imams and Ayatollahs urge young men of Islam to commit murder by suicide are they following Allah or Satan?

Qur'an 2:268
Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to commit evil deeds, illegal sex, and sins; whereas God promises you forgiveness from Himself and bounty, and God is All-Sufficient for His creatures' needs, All-Knower.

And, of course, you should commit shining deeds of light, such as committing suicide while murdering as many children, women and men as you can. At least, so say many Imams and even some Ayatollahs.
Tell me, Jeffery, when those Imams and Ayatollahs urge young men of Islam to commit murder by suicide are they following Allah or Satan?

Oh, be careful here Jeffery!

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