Three weeks in Pakistan

Our would-be Commander-in-Chief Obama made a private trip to Pakistan in 1981. He was an adult, not a child traveling at the whim of his parents.

When you hear of American or European men going to Pakistan, what is usually the reason they go?

Let's review B. Hussein O.'s Muslim ties:

-at least a year of Muslim education in Indonesia where he engaged in Qur'anic studies and learned to recite properly Allah's death chant,

-a number of Muslim family members,

-ties to a monster in Kenya allied to Muslims,

-ties to an American criminal associated with a wealthy Muslim donor,

-Farrakhan-loving Irreverend Wright as 20-year spiritual mentor,

-wanting to talk with the latest Muslim Hitler in Iran,

-sympathizing with Hamas' "legitimate" concerns,

-having his Muslim outreach advisor resign over his ties to terrorism

-the DNC hosting, among others, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism trial

-first affirming and then denying Israel's right to its own capital, and now,

-close friends from Pakistan (I know lots of Baptists named "Mohammed"),

-a trip to their homeland, and all wrapped up in a nice bow of secrecy.

Three weeks in Hawaii's called a "vacation." Three weeks in Pakistan? That's boot camp.

Traveling with a friend to visit his family? In light of the political situation in Pakistan at the time and Obama's other ties to Allah, it seems much more likely that rather than being a citizen of the world, Obama's a sleeper.

From here:

While at Occidental college he became close friends with two Pakistanis, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid. In 1981 he traveled with Mohammad Hasan Chandoo to Pakistan and stayed there for about three weeks. It is rather unusual for a less-than-wealthy college kid to choose far-away Pakistan as a summer break destination, but not necessarily suspicious. For some reason however, Obama has never publicly cited these relationships or his time in Pakistan. Why not?

In his book 'Dreams from My Father,' Obama does talk of having a different Pakistani roommate when he later moved to New York, a man he calls Sadik who 'had overstayed his tourist visa and now made a living in New York’s high-turnover, illegal immigrant work force, waiting on tables.' Strangely, Mr. Obama, the campaign and his publisher have not provided any details about the identity of Sadik.

Jews Against Obama offers some important additional information (by way of Daily Musings):

Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and ruled of martial law. Millions of Afghan refugees were living in Pakistan, while the Afghan Mujahedeen operated from bases inside Pakistan in their war with the Soviets. One of the leaders that based his operation in Quetta, Pakistan was Usama Bin Laden . . . .

Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US Citizens at the time and all non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy for official business.

The would be only a few reasons a young Westerner of the Muslim faith would travel to Pakistan in 1981:

To Participate in Jihad, which is the duty of every “True Believer”.

For religious education in a Wahabbi sect, Saudi funded, Madrassa.

In order to purchase drugs from the drug marketplace.

Pakistan was not a tourist stop nor the place to hang out with someone’s family in 1981.

End the jizya in blood and money

President Bush was right to take out Saddam. He's been right in sending our warriors to exterminate mujahideen.

Unfortunately, the President has demonstrated no understanding of Islam.

We ought to be exploiting the natural blood rivalries within Islam, rather than funding the jihad against us. All Infidel dollars/aid to Muslims should be cut off immediately.

Pull our forces to the outer edges of Dar al-Islam and clean up whatever tries to escape.

No more American blood or treasure wasted glutting the avarice of Allah.

When "proof" for macroevolution isn't, it's probably time to rethink one's position

It's interesting. I've been having a little discussion with one person in particular at another site over Darwinism. I've pointed out that no empirical (observable) evidence exists demonstrating either abiogenesis (Life arising from non-life by only random, natural processes) or one aspect of macroevolution (random, minor genetic mutations resulting in newer, more complex program, structure, and function; for this I use the term "vertical speciation") to be true.

He admitted that no one can observe macroevolution occur (in this case, a light-sensitive spot evolving eventually into a human eye). He also offered numerous links to evidence of microevolution (minor changes within species) and lateral speciation (changes in an organism that result in it being unable to reproduce with its cousins, but still being the same kind of animal).

Following is some of that proof showing "exactly . . . how" macroevolution (vertical speciation) has no empirical support.

Admissions of no evidence for macroevolution occurring, ridiculous leaps in logic, and mistaking correlation for causation, from here:

In summary, there is no barrier to species forming. This may not be enough to show that large-scale macroevolution occurs . . . For if there is enough change to form new species, and each species is slightly different from its ancestor, then simple addition shows that many speciation events can cause large-scale evolution over enough time . . . .

We can test a particular claim of macroevolution. We can test, for example, if weasels are more closely related to red pandas than bears are (Flynn and Nedbal 1998, Flynn et al. 2000). This is a test of a particular evolutionary tree or scenario. It tests a historical reconstruction. If shown, on the basis of the evidence and the best data, to be wrong, then that history has indeed been falsified. But can we test the idea of common descent? It is not possible to show that something never occurred, but it is very easy to show that where it ought to occur, it either has or it hasn't. Science will not retain a bad idea when it is shown repeatedly not to explain what we have a right to expect it to explain (this is one reason why creationism was dropped from science back in the 1850s). If macroevolution persistently were shown to run counter to the data, then science would drop it and look for another solution.

Moreover, science has to an extent falsified the initial conception of macroevolution. The original idea was that evolution formed only tree-like patterns – species split like branches. A growing consensus has argued that both hybridisation (species recombining) and lateral genetic transfer (genes crossing the taxonomic boundaries individually or as part of symbiotic organisms that are taken into the "host" taxon's cellular machinery) are more common than we had previously thought. Macroevolution of species is still regarded as the most common way that the diversity of life has developed, but the "tree" now has "vines" that hang across the branches of single celled organisms (Fig. 4).

From here:

The researchers conclude that the presence of the full three-component signaling system may have played a role in the development of metazoan organisms whose cells could communicate with each other in complex ways.

"It shows how evolution might work," says Wendell Lim, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was one of the authors of the paper. "Probably there was an ancestor to these organisms that first developed these chemicals."

From here:

Nothing—not even the Plague—has posed a more persistent threat to humanity than viral diseases: yellow fever, measles, and smallpox have been causing epidemics for thousands of years. At the end of the First World War, fifty million people died of the Spanish flu; smallpox may have killed half a billion during the twentieth century alone. Those viruses were highly infectious, yet their impact was limited by their ferocity: a virus may destroy an entire culture, but if we die it dies, too. As a result, not even smallpox possessed the evolutionary power to influence humans as a species—to alter our genetic structure. That would require an organism to insinuate itself into the critical cells we need in order to reproduce: our germ cells. Only retroviruses, which reverse the usual flow of genetic code from DNA to RNA, are capable of that. A retrovirus stores its genetic information in a single-stranded molecule of RNA, instead of the more common double-stranded DNA. When it infects a cell, the virus deploys a special enzyme, called reverse transcriptase, that enables it to copy itself and then paste its own genes into the new cell’s DNA. It then becomes part of that cell forever; when the cell divides, the virus goes with it. Scientists have long suspected that if a retrovirus happens to infect a human sperm cell or egg, which is rare, and if that embryo survives—which is rarer still—the retrovirus could take its place in the blueprint of our species, passed from mother to child, and from one generation to the next, much like a gene for eye color or asthma.

When the sequence of the human genome was fully mapped, in 2003, researchers also discovered something they had not anticipated: our bodies are littered with the shards of such retroviruses, fragments of the chemical code from which all genetic material is made. It takes less than two per cent of our genome to create all the proteins necessary for us to live. Eight per cent, however, is composed of broken and disabled retroviruses, which, millions of years ago, managed to embed themselves in the DNA of our ancestors. They are called endogenous retroviruses, because once they infect the DNA of a species they become part of that species. One by one, though, after molecular battles that raged for thousands of generations, they have been defeated by evolution. Like dinosaur bones, these viral fragments are fossils. Instead of having been buried in sand, they reside within each of us, carrying a record that goes back millions of years. Because they no longer seem to serve a purpose or cause harm, these remnants have often been referred to as “junk DNA.” Many still manage to generate proteins, but scientists have never found one that functions properly in humans or that could make us sick.

Then, last year, Thierry Heidmann brought one back to life. Combining the tools of genomics, virology, and evolutionary biology, he and his colleagues took a virus that had been extinct for hundreds of thousands of years, figured out how the broken parts were originally aligned, and then pieced them together. After resurrecting the virus, the team placed it in human cells and found that their creation did indeed insert itself into the DNA of those cells. They also mixed the virus with cells taken from hamsters and cats. It quickly infected them all, offering the first evidence that the broken parts could once again be made infectious. The experiment could provide vital clues about how viruses like H.I.V. work. Inevitably, though, it also conjures images of Frankenstein’s monster and Jurassic Park.

From here, a short video purported to show "exactly . . . how" the eye evolved from a light-sensitive spot into a human eye, but in actuality offering only a chart showing a progression in the complexity of various organism's eyes and a bit of "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," a discredited evolutionary propaganda piece.

Also offered was Lenski's experiments with E. coli. Though noteworthy for showing over twenty years that the bacteria developed the ability to consume citrate without the help of plasmids, it was still just E. coli, not a newer, more complex eukaryote.

Will you be slaves, or free?

Essential reflections on Liberty, and what it means to be an American from James Riley.

Every American-born, college-"educated" liberal needs to learn the same truths.

Americans Made Here

By James Riley

As I have told dozens of the teachers who visit our farm, when we first began conducting Revolutionary War field trips on Riley's Farm, I thought we would perform--if we were lucky--perhaps 10 or 20 tours a year. I thought my own passion for 18th century history, and the whole story of universal human rights on display in the story of Lexington and Concord, would have--at best--a limited audience. I thought, in other words, I would be preaching to the choir for a few kindred souls who knew Sam Adams was more than a beer label.

I could not have been more wrong.

From January to the end of June and from October to the middle of December, we are performing the Revolutionary War Adventure for hundreds of visitors a day, five days a week. I had my first inkling of the story's universal appeal one day when I was leading a group of Korean American boys through the orchard, in military formation, and I heard one of them shout it out behind me, "this is COOL!"

The simple truths are universal. They transcend all cultural, economic, and ethnic boundaries. An Italian American and an African American an Asian American a Mexican American and an Irish American and a Greek American all applaud long and loud when they hear Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" When they stand on the battle line and I shout out the rallying cry, "will you be free or slaves?" they all respond, without hesitation, "free!" When I strike up the tune that was once "God Save the King," but that is now "My country 'tis of thee," the voices start in, and they begin to swell, and some afternoons you can hear hundreds of American voices singing, with deep conviction, "from every mountain side, let freedom ring."

Again, the simple truths are universal. No one wants to be a slave. No one wants to have their parents rounded up and put in cattle cars. No one wants to be told who or where to worship. No one wants to have their earnings, their homes, their children stolen from them, by arbitrary, arrogant, un-bridled authority.

Thomas Jefferson had it right. We are endowed by our "Creator with certain unalienable rights." This isn't just an outdated baroque English notion--it's a universal conviction--a granite pillar at the center of our souls. Tyrants can't stand the notion that we--as Americans--derive our rights not from neighborhood committees, not from academic studies, not from tepid consensus, but from God Himself--from our "Creator." Tyrants hate this conviction with a passion. That's why China rounded up another 80 Christian pastors this week. That's why Stalin and Hitler and Castro and Pol Pot had to subjugate their churches before they could subjugate and torture their own people.

Americans HATE tyranny and whether it takes the form of an English aristocrat or a Taliban zealot, they will--as Jefferson predicted--water the tree of liberty with the blood of the tyrant every time. Freedom is what we have in common as Americans, and that is what we teach here. I'm struck--over and over again--by how completely universal that notion is. Left, right, or middle of the road-- Americans lock arms on the story of liberty.

We spend a lot of time these days talking about--and even celebrating our differences, and I love some of those differences. I married a Greek girl and she feeds me well--with foods that I never grew up with as a child. I love Mariachi bands and German Oktoberfests and Irish music. I am fiercely proud of my pioneer stock--of ancestors who braved the wilderness in four different American centuries. I love New England architecture, but I also love Spanish courtyards and Swedish log cabins and Irish stone walls.

I will tell you, though, that--as Americans--there is one difference we should NOT celebrate. There is nothing particularly joyful about Castro's Cuba or the moral lethargy of modern day France. I see no real cause for celebration in pondering Saudi Arabia's total lack of religious tolerance or the brutal rape squads of the Sudanese Muslims. The canine appetite for power demonstrated by China's political leaders isn't something I quietly celebrate whenever I order--and thoroughly enjoy--Mushu Pork. America's immigrants should be taught that their cultural traditions are valuable, but their political assumptions should be left at the border. They left slaves; they arrive sons and daughters of Liberty. It isn't about the differences between the cultures and the ethnicities; it's about people who believe in freedom and those who don't.

And, perhaps just as important, they need to know that Americans fight for that liberty. A friend of mine has a ministry to recently arrived Christians from the middle east. These are folks who have endured tyrannical Muslim majorities most of their lives, and some of them don't really believe any government will ever truly honor freedom and promote justice, but immigrants from all nations need to know that Americans will gladly lock arms with people of every color to protect what their ancestors have purchased with blood. Americans don't stand quivering at the door, asking quietly for their God given rights. They demand them. As one commentator put it, liberty is not really ever given. It is taken.

Well, at Riley's Farm, we teach that story. Along with their teachers, and their parents, we are happy to be teaching a new generation of children the most vital of American truths, and in so doing, we are proud to be, literally, making new Americans every day.

More on Darwin's creation myth

In response to this comment from Slumbering Behemoth:

All very interesting conjecture, but it does nothing to disprove scientific theory that has been worked at and proven for over a century.

Well said, and that is exactly why creation myths, any creation myths, will forever remain unprovable mythology.

Ironically, I'm not the one offering guesswork. I'm offering fact -- what we can observe and therefore know is true. It is Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary theorists who just makes things up.

Darwin's explanations have not been "proven for over a century."

Some of his earliest and staunchest opponents were paleontologists. They knew the fossil record didn't support his theory. Darwin admitted he needed such evidence to materialize.

Instead of Darwin's slow, gradual, random mutations, the fossil record shows a sudden explosion in the diversity of life, a fact for which Darwinists couldn't account, so they came up with Punctuated Equilibrium.

Darwin himself acknowledged that his explanation for something as complex as an eye was preposterous:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible."

(And no, our misunderstanding of the movement of the planets around the Ssun is not analogous: We have been able to observe that in fact, we orbit it. No one has demonstrated -- as Darwin confessed someone would need to do -- that an eye can arise from non-life by only random, natural processes.

Since Darwin brought it up: Just as a quasi-religious body fought vigorously centuries ago to protect its authority by defending its erroneous understanding of Nature, so today a quasi-religious body defends vehemently its power and its own false doctrine. Now that's ironic!)

Finally, Darwin knew nothing of genetics. If he had, I doubt he would have uttered a word about complex genetic program arising by accident.

And as for "creation myths . . . unprovable mythology"? Scientifically-speaking, since no scientist was present to observe and record abiogenesis, and since no scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis and macroevolution can even occur, I would agree that it is beyond Science's ability to speak definitively on how Life began and developed.

However, to which explanation of Life's beginnings does evidence and experience offer support? To the one that claims Life arises apart from Life and its programs, or the one that speaks of a great Intellect designing and programming that Life?

A last thought: Science is not omniscient. It is not the only way of determining truth.

Darwin's creation myth

Here's another brief analysis of Darwin's creation myth. Couple it with the false dichotomy between the Word of Christ and Science, and you've got not only a great excuse for blasphemy, but ugly, anti-Christian bigotry also.

And nothing says, "Intelligent" like making things up to look down on Christians.

Posted in response to Charles's post here:

It's sad and ironic that one demanding truth of others would promote uncritically the pseudoscience of Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory.

Abiogenesis and macroevolution are not only unsupported by the empirical (scientific) evidence we possess, they're contradicted by it.

"Science" is not the untestable assertions of fallible men, it is a process by which we study natural phenomena. It is a process that is testable and repeatable.

In other words, if you cannot observe the subject, test it, and repeat that process, it isn't Science.

What do you know is actually true about Evolution?

Apart from the random, minor genetic mutations occurring within organisms (usually resulting in severe illness and death, but never newer, more complex genetic program, structure, and function), what can be demonstrated to be true about Darwin's explanations for the origin of Life?

No scientist has observed abiogenesis or macroevolution occur.

We know empirically that Life arises only from Life and Life's programs. No scientist has ever observed otherwise.

We know that no machine or program has ever arisen apart from a designer or programmer, but a living cell is a complex, metabolic, Von Neumann-type machine. And according to one state university's biology textbook, one human cell contains enough program to fill hundreds of such textbooks (all text, no pictures).

The fundamental logical error into which Darwinism falls is mistaking similarities in design for a chain of causation.

What Darwinism asks us to believe -- despite Reason and experience to the contrary -- is not only that the first abacus appeared spontaneously by only random, natural processes, but that somehow that abacus replicated and naturally (accidentally!) developed new structure and function and that this process occurred over and over again for billions of years until the computer with which you're reading this comment appeared. (This analogy is a bit weak: A human being is much more sophisticated than any computer.)

Asserting truths beyond Science's ability to test -- or worse, contrary to what Science, Reason, and experience shows us -- results in science fiction, not Science.

A malevolent and capricious god

Allah owns no monopoly on heresy or blasphemy (though it's pretty much cornered the market on "religious" genocide, pedophilia, rape, and slavery).

John Calvin's god -- though he and his followers use the language of the Reformation and associate themselves with Luther at every opportunity -- is blasphemous, capricious, and malevolent.

How else can one describe a god that calls itself "Christ" but is His antithesis? The Scriptures state clearly that YHWH loves all humanity, that Christ's death was for all people, that He takes delight in the death of no one, that God wants all to trust in Him and to live. But Calvin's god?

According to the false reformer, Christ died for only those who would believe (Limited Atonement). How does one determine who these true believers are? Worse yet, how does one know if he or she is one of them? Calvinists make up nonsense about knowing that they possess saving faith by their works, but even then, what about those who fall away from the faith? What about their works? And how does one know he or she is not one of them?

Calvinists say they never were a true believer. Under Calvinism, no one can know that their good works are indicative of saving faith and not just makeup on a corpse hiding future apostasy. This does not reflect the language of Scripture, which warns Christ's people against unbelief and shows us that our confidence is not to be placed in our own works, but in the person and work of Christ, Who loved us all and gave Himself to take away all people's sins.

Calvin also taught Double Predestination, another vile doctrine contrary to Scripture. The Bible speaks only of believers being predestined to eternal life; nowhere does the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob speak of creating people for hell. Such a lie makes Him a capricious monster, which may be why Jefferson confessed that he could never believe in Calvin's god.

Both blasphemies, Limited Atonement and Double Predestination, teach and preach a false Christ. A false christ means necessarily also a false gospel. The Apostle Paul declares bluntly of anyone who preaches such a message: "Let him be eternally condemned (anathema)!"

There are other problems with Calvinism besides a mutant works righteousness and false god. It also makes the Means of Grace -- Baptism and the Lord's Supper -- into nothing more than symbols, which denies the power, immediacy, and incarnation of the Son of God.

I had recently the opportunity to observe elements of a children's program offered by a local, generic community church. It turns out that in addition to what appeared to be Decision Theology, the undershepherd responsible for this congregation's instruction also believes in Limited Atonement and Double Predestination.

I wrote to him of my concerns. As of this this writing, he has not replied. While it is possible that he has been busy, the Internet ate my note, or some other event has prevented him from replying, perhaps it is just that he has no satisfactory answers for the problems inherent to his theology.

My original note:

Hello, Pastor . . . ,

. . . I'd like to share with you a concern.

I noticed that Monday's thought of the day was "Choose to believe."

My concern is that many . . . will internalize the understanding that an unbeliever can choose to believe in Christ. Is that the message you intended?

The Scriptures state that we do nothing to save ourselves; even faith is the gift of God, which the Holy Spirit creates in us through the Gospel.

Christ told His apostles, "You did not choose Me, I chose you . . . ." John 1 states that believers are born again not of a "human decision," but "born of God." Paul states that we are "dead in trespasses," that while we were God's enemies Christ died for us, and that the Holy Spirit works in us "to will and to do."

When Christ says in Revelation that, "I stand at the door and knock," He's speaking to Christians, not unbelievers.

Looking forward to your reply . . . .

And here that is:

. . . The issue of salvation that you brought up seems to be one side of a two-sided coin.

The age old question is... "is one converted because of God's work of regeneration within, or does God regenerate the individual because of his or her repentance and belief"? I am assuming by your email, that you would hold that the many- especially children- are converted because of God's work of regeneration within. In other words, you hold that predestination is the act of God regenerating one from a consequence of sin (an inability to choose God or anything good...AKA total depravity). As a result of that regeneration (a work of God), the individual can not resist that call and will be saved. I am not trying to put words in your mouth... this is more of a restatement to make sure I understand your concern.

I believe in predestination... that God chooses those whom He will save. However, it also seems evident in Scripture that there is a need for a response.

Paul's response to the Philippian jailor was "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved-- you and your household" (Acts 16:31). Peter makes a similar statement in Acts 2:38 where he says "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the the Holy Spirit."

Your question... "can an unbeliever choose to believe in Christ?" My answer... "I believe we are all unbelievers when we choose to believe in Christ... however, those of us who repent and have faith have been elected by God (an inner working of God on the hearts of those whom He chose) prior to that decision".

As I started with... this is a question that has been discussed and argued by men much smarter than I for generations. I hope this issue is not one that places us as competitors, but as partners aiming to serve the same Lord and submit our lives to the same Savior.

To which I responded:

Hi, Pastor . . . ,

We have not met . . . .

My concern was that the message "Choose to believe" (and now, "Choose Christ") gives the false impression that we have something to do with our salvation.

A new concern is the idea that "the individual cannot resist that call and will be saved." Are you implying that God does not call all people? For if His call is irresistible, but only a few are saved, then He must call only those few.

Where do the Scriptures define "predestination" as "God choosing whom He will save"?

Are you implying that Christ only wants some people to be saved? Where does He say that?

Would you say also that Christ died only for some people?

What of those who fall away from faith?

Would you say that God predestined to hell those who end up there?

Cordially . . . .

Believers are commanded to teach and preach all of and only the Word of God. Anything else comes from the evil one.

Essential points on Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory

In response to an debate on Evolution here:

The proper questions to ask are: Where's your proof? How do you know?

The fundamental weakness in Darwin's theory (besides the fact that it went against all reason, experience, and the Word of Christ) is that he based it on nothing more than the observation of some minor variations within a species. If you add to that his admission that the idea of a system as complex as an eye arising by chance was ridiculous, that he had no support from the fossil record, and that he knew nothing of genetics, it is clear that his explanation of Life's origins has always been science fiction, not Science.

Not only are abiogenesis (Life arising from non-life) and macroevolution (the sudden appearance of newer, more complex genetic program, structure, and function) unsupported by actual empirical evidence, they are contradicted by what we know.

For example, no evidence exists whatsoever that life arises apart from Life and Life's programs. Neither has anyone demonstrated that a genetic soup containing all the ingredients necessary for life can produce it by solely random, natural processes. And no, simulations don't count here, because a simulation is only as representative of reality as are the assumptions of its programmer(s).

Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory mistakes similarity in concept/design/function for evidence of descent. It is asking us to believe that Von Neumann-type metabolic machines containing enough program to fill hundreds and hundreds of college-level biology textbooks (all text, no pictures) arose by chance, apart from a Designer. It's asking us to believe that an Xbox evolved accidentally into an Xbox 360 with its new program, hardware, and function. It's asking us to believe that a wheel arose accidentally and evolved eventually into the space shuttle by only random, natural processes.

Every machine is the work of a designer. Every program has at its origin a programmer.

On the other hand, microevolution (the minor, random genetic mutations that occur within living things) is something that is observable and testable. It is therefore a scientifically-valid concept. It is important to remember, however, that such changes usually kill an organism (or make it really, really sick), they don't create new, more complex program, structure, and function.

The fact that microevolution occurs is not evidence of macroevolution having occurred.

In the matter of religion, the same questions apply: Where's your proof? How do you know?

The resurrection of Christ is the best attested-to fact of ancient history.

Modern, moderate, and most populace Muslim nation on Earth Indonesia persecuting Christians

Just as Mohammed commanded.

Instead of bombing Christians to aid Muslims (President Clinton) and establishing shari'a in Afghanistan and Iraq -- along with its concomitant persecution and purging of Christians and other non-Muslims -- (President Bush), why do not America's so-called leaders tell the truth about Islam, do everything possible to protect We the People, and help fellow non-Muslims escape Dar al-Islam?

Notice the "requisite permission from neighbors and civil authorities." Dhimmi regulations, perhaps?

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. In fact, your neighborhood, courtesy of the nescient and craven politicians we continue to elect.

Islamic "tolerance" on display in Indonesia.

Quiet now.

Good dhimmi.

From here:

INDONESIA: PASTOR BATTLING ORDER TO DEMOLISH HOME

Neighbors threaten his family, demand destruction of house used for church services.

JAKARTA, July 24 (Compass Direct News) – Officials in Cipayung district, East Jakarta, have ordered Pastor Chris Ambessa of the Protestant Church of Indonesia to dismantle the newly constructed second floor of his home and to cease all religious activity in the area.

Ambessa’s lawyer, August Pasaribu, told Compass on Monday (July 21) that he planned to submit a letter to the Cipayung civil engineering department asking it to cancel the July 3 order to dismantle the second floor of the home, since the demand was in breach of local regulations. Authorities’ order to cease area religious activity for an indefinite period followed on July 13.

Pasaribu said he also hoped to file a report with the East Jakarta police department regarding an incident on May 21, in which Ambessa’s neighbors forced him to sign a document agreeing to cease religious activity.

Ambessa, however, is still weighing the likely consequences of legal action for his family and congregation.

The pastor’s home in Pondok Rangon village has functioned as a legally recognized house church for the past 12 years.

On June 6, authorities sent a letter ordering him to cease work on the second-floor extension. Construction, however, had already been completed on May 17.

When church services continued, approximately 20 young men led by a local resident approached the Cipayung district offices on June 25, demanding that Ambessa’s house be demolished.

On May 21, a similar neighborhood group had threatened Ambessa and forced him to sign a document stating that he would cease holding church services in his home. Ambessa told Compass that he had signed the document under duress, fearing attacks on his wife and daughters.

Having established his small congregation in 1996 with the requisite permission from neighbors and civic authorities, Ambessa said he was determined to protect the right of his church members to worship freely.

Christ gives His own Body and Blood for the life of the world

He offers Himself as the sacrifice that seals the New Covenant with YHWH. He makes us righteous through trusting in Him. And even that trust is God's gift to us.

We see also our ultimate end: Despite our sinful flesh, satan, and the world and all the evil they conjure, we will see God and live with Him forever.

We are victorious, because Christ has conquered all.

From Life Of The World:

John 6:47-51

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

Revelation 7:9-17

"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'

"All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: 'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.'

"Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?'

"And I said to him, 'Sir, you know.'

"So he said to me, 'These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'"

An implausible interpretation of 300

Sent to Brandon Fibbs in response to a comment in his review of 300, here:

In reading your review of 300, I am struck by your assertion that interpretations for and against the war in Iraq are supported by the film.

In 300, you have the West defending Life and Liberty against a totalitarianism that enslaves or slaughters those who resist it.

Its relevance to today's conflict -- not only in Iraq, but Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sudan, and increasingly, the countries of western Europe -- is obvious.

As you note, "the demarcation line between good and evil is vibrantly clear."

Americans continue to support politicians who rob them blind

Politicians use rhetoric about defending "average" Americans while they make themselves rich -- and protect their wealthy friends from their own poor choices -- on the backs of taxpayers.

Barack Hussein Obama and Chris Dodd put the lie to the story that they're for the "little guy." They're looking out for themselves.

On Obama and Dodd, by way of Michelle Malkin.

First, the man who would be president:

Today, The Washington Post Reported That Obama Received A Sweetheart Mortgage Deal For His Chicago Mansion:

Obama Received A Discounted Rate On His $1.32 Million Mortgage For His Georgian Mansion In Chicago. “Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago.” (Joe Stephens, “Obama Got Discount On Home Loan,” The Washington Post, 7/2/08)

* “The Loan Was Unusually Large, Known In Banker Lingo As A ‘Super Super Jumbo.’ Obama Paid No Origination Fee Or Discount Points, As Some Consumers Do To Reduce Their Interest Rates.” (Joe Stephens, “Obama Got Discount On Home Loan,” The Washington Post, 7/2/08)

Obama’s Discounted Rate Could Have Saved Him More Than $300 Per Month. “Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama’s rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.” (Joe Stephens, “Obama Got Discount On Home Loan,” The Washington Post, 7/2/08)

The Obamas Secured Their Discounted Home Loan Despite The Fact That They Had “No Prior Relationship With Northern Trust When They Applied For The Loan.” “The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan. They received an oral commitment on Feb. 4, 2005, and locked in the rate of 5.625 percent, the campaign said. On that date, HSH data show, the average rate in Chicago for a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo loan with no points was about 5.94 percent.” (Joe Stephens, “Obama Got Discount On Home Loan,” The Washington Post, 7/2/08)

NOTE: Obama Also Has Received $71,000 In Campaign Contributions From Northern Trust Employees. “Since 1990, Northern Trust employees have donated more than $739,000 to federal campaigns, including $71,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.” (Joe Stephens, “Obama Got Discount On Home Loan,” The Washington Post, 7/2/08)

FLASHBACK: Obama Paid $300,000 Less Than The Asking Price For His Mansion, While Tony Rezko’s Wife Paid Full Price For A Vacant Lot Next Door On The Very Same Day. “Two years ago, Obama bought a mansion on the South Side, in the Kenwood neighborhood, from a doctor. On the same day, [Antoin 'Tony'] Rezko’s wife, Rita Rezko, bought the vacant lot next door from the same seller. The doctor had listed the properties for sale together. He sold the house to Obama for $300,000 below the asking price. The doctor got his asking price on the lot from Rezko’s wife.” (Tim Novak, “Obama And His Rezko Ties,” Chicago Sun-Times, 4/23/07)

* The Seller Of Obama’s Home “Wanted To Sell Both Properties At The Same Time.” “On the same day Obama closed on his house, Rezko’s wife bought the adjacent empty lot, meeting the condition of the seller who wanted to sell both properties at the same time.” (Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, “The Rezko Connection,” ABC News’ “The Blotter” Blog, abcnews.go.com, 1/10/08)

* Obama Later Purchased A Portion Of Rezko’s Land For $104,500; It Was Valued At $40,500. “Later, the Obamas bought a 10-foot-by-150-foot piece of the lot for $104,500. An appraisal put the value of the strip at $40,500, a spokesman said, but Obama considered it fair to pay one-sixth of the original price for one-sixth of the lot.” (Peter Slevin, “Obama Says He Regrets Land Deal With Fundraiser,” The Washington Post, 12/17/06)

Jim Johnson, A Former CEO Of Fannie Mae And Former Top Campaign Adviser, Also Received Sweetheart Housing Deal:

Obama’s Former Top Adviser, Jim Johnson, Resigned “After His Favorable Countrywide Loan Became Public.” “Within Obama’s presidential campaign organization, former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson resigned abruptly as head of the vice presidential search committee after his favorable Countrywide loan became public.” (Joe Stephens, “Obama Got Discount On Home Loan,” The Washington Post, 7/2/08)

Johnson Received Special Loans From Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. “Countrywide Financial Corp. makes mortgage loans through a vast network of offices, brokers and call centers. But a few customers have gotten their loans a special way: through Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo. These borrowers, known internally as ‘friends of Angelo’ or FoA, include two former CEOs of Fannie Mae, the biggest buyer of Countrywide’s mortgages, say people familiar with the matter. One was James Johnson, a longtime Democratic Party power and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign, who this past week was named to a panel that is vetting running-mate possibilities for the presumed nominee.” (Glenn R. Simpson and James R. Hagerty, “Countrywide Friends Got Good Loans,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/7/08)

* While CEO Of Fannie Mae, Johnson And Mozilo Worked Closely And Maintained A “Close Friendship.” “From 1991 to 1998, Mr. Johnson served as CEO of the Federal National Mortgage Association, also known as Fannie Mae, which worked closely with Countrywide, one of the nation’s leading lenders and loan servicing companies. In 1996, Mr. Johnson named Mr. Mozilo as chairman of Fannie Mae’s national advisory council. A 1999 article in the American Banker said the two men had a ‘close friendship.’” (Josh Gerstein, “Top Talent Scout For Obama Tied To Subprime Lender,” The New York Sun, 6/9/08)

“Property Records Show Mr. Johnson Has Received More Than $7 Million In Loans From Countrywide Since 1998, The First Coming In The Waning Days Of His Fannie Mae Tenure.” (Glenn R. Simpson and James R. Hagerty, “Countrywide Friends Got Good Loans,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/7/08)

* At Least Two Of The Mortgages Were At Rates “Below Market Averages.” “The Journal said at least two of the mortgages, among a series of loans made available to people Countrywide officials called ‘friends of Angelo,’ were at rates below market averages, though it is difficult to predict a market rate without access to nonpublic information about a borrower’s credit history and other factors that can reduce interest charges on a loan.” (Josh Gerstein, “Top Talent Scout For Obama Tied To Subprime Lender,” The New York Sun, 6/9/08)

NOTE: Penny Pritzker, Obama’s National Finance Chair And Campaign Bundler, Owned A Failed Bank That Specialized In Subprime Lending:

Penny Pritzker Is The National Finance Chairman For Barack Obama. “And Penny Pritzker, a Chicago philanthropist, serves as Mr. Obama’s national finance chairman even as her brother, Jay Robert, holds fund-raisers across town for Mrs. Clinton.” (Jodi Kantor, “In Democratic Families, Politics Makes For Estranged Bedfellows,” The New York Times, 2/4/08)

* Pritzker Is A Bundler For Obama’s Presidential Campaign And Has Committed To Raising Over $200,000. (Obama For America Website, www.barackobama.com, Accessed 5/19 /08)

The Pritzker Family Co-Owned Superior Bank FSB. “Ms. Pritzker, who declined to be interviewed, has confronted other challenges, including the 2001 collapse of Superior Bank FSB, which the Pritzker family co-owned, resulting in a $460-million payment to federal regulators, and a rift over family assets that settled out of court in 2005. She oversees the Pritzker family’s non-hotel real estate interests and chairs its TransUnion LLC credit bureau.” (Steven R. Strahler, “Penny Pritzker,” Chicago Crain’s Business, 5/7/07)

“Superior Bank Specialized In ‘Sub-Prime Lending,’ Which Is Making Loans To Underserved Borrowers, Who Are Often Poor Minorities.” (Kathleen Day, “Regulators Probe Bank Loan To Co-Owner,” The Washington Post, 7/31/01)

On Dodd:

Two weeks ago, the Banking Committee chairman was busy introducing a $300 billion rescue package for the subprime mortgage industry and its victims when news broke that Countywide Financial - subprime’s Enron - had given Dodd special “VIP” mortgage rates on homes in Connecticut and Washington, saving him $75,000 over the life of the mortgages. Dodd’s initial reaction was wounded outrage. How could anyone think that he’d done something wrong? After it became clear he’d known he was getting VIP handling (on orders from Angelo Mozilo, the chairman-founder of Countrywide), Dodd backtracked, insisting he hadn’t realized what “VIP” meant.

With 8,000 US families facing foreclosure daily, the $200 per month Dodd’s been saving doesn’t sound so small - and Mozilo’s own toxic reputation, especially after he admitted pocketing $142 million last year just as Countrywide started sinking like the Titanic, hasn’t helped.

Dodd hasn’t been the only one caught up in the scandal. Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, also got Countrywide’s VIP treatment - as did former Clinton-era heavyweights Donna Shalala, Alphonso Jackson, Richard Holbrooke, and Jim Johnson. Conrad quickly mailed off a check for the estimated value of his VIP treatment to Habitat for Humanity, and announced he was taking out new mortgages. Shalala, Jackson, and Johnson meanwhile have ducked the press - though Johnson, who was heading the search for Obama’s vice presidential candidate, had to hastily resign that role.

Dodd, however, keeps insisting - despite growing statewide criticism and a sharp drop in his poll ratings - that he has no plans to give up his VIP benefits, because he has done nothing wrong.

…The $300 billion subprime rescues package Dodd is now managing may be in trouble, with critics tarring it as the “Dodd Countrywide bill.” We voters in turn need to do a little remembering ourselves here, because this bill is the latest “rescue package” in a long ignominious history that includes corporate bailouts such as the Chrysler and Lockheed salvage operations; the savings and loan rescue; the two Mexican rescues, the Asian rescue; the airline rescue after 9/11; the ongoing bailout of agribusiness; and lest we forget, the bailout of Wall Street and Bear Stearns just two months ago.

A chief beneficiary of the Dodd bill is Bank of America, which has just bought Countrywide. If Dodd’s bill passes, taxpayers will take on much of the Bank of America’s risk of further portfolio default - a move worth billions to the bank.

Washington desperately needs to stanch the forced liquidation of millions of American homeowners. Yet once again, the benefits of its rescue efforts will accrue unequally - stacked heavily in favor of the wealthy and the powerful - because in American politics, as in Orwell’s “1984,” some are more equal than others.

Especially the VIPs.

Our political, media, and academic elites affirm, "Je pense que oui."

When will the West use its overwhelming military, technical, financial, and moral superiority to defend itself against all who would impose on us the tyranny of Allah?

Here is Thomas Sowell on Western weakness:

Are We France?
Moral paralysis.

“Moral paralysis” is a term that has been used to describe the inaction of France, England, and other European democracies in the 1930s, as they watched Hitler build up the military forces that he later used to attack them.

It is a term that may be painfully relevant to our own times.

Back in the 1930s, the governments of the democratic countries knew what Hitler was doing — and they knew that they had enough military superiority at that point to stop his military buildup in its tracks. But they did nothing to stop him.

Instead, they turned to what is still the magic mantra today — “negotiations.”

No leader of a democratic nation was ever more popular than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain — wildly cheered in the House of Commons by opposition parties as well as his own — when he returned from negotiations in Munich in 1938, waving an agreement and declaring that it meant “peace in our time.”

We know now how short that time was. Less than a year later, World War II began in Europe and spread across the planet, killing tens of millions of people and reducing many cities to rubble in Europe and Asia.

Looking back after that war, Winston Churchill said, “There was never a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action.” The earlier it was done, the less it would have cost.

At one point, Hitler could have been stopped in his tracks “without the firing of a single shot,” Churchill said.

That point came in 1936 — three years before World War II began — when Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, in violation of two international treaties.

At that point, France alone was so much more powerful than Germany that the German generals had secret orders to retreat immediately at the first sign of French intervention.

As Hitler himself confided, the Germans would have had to retreat “with our tail between our legs,” because they did not yet have enough military force to put up even a token resistance.

Why did the French not act and spare themselves and the world the years of horror that Hitler’s aggressions would bring? The French had the means but not the will.

“Moral paralysis” came from many things. The death of a million French soldiers in the First World War and disillusionment with the peace that followed cast a pall over a whole generation.

Pacifism became vogue among the intelligentsia and spread into educational institutions. As early as 1932, Winston Churchill said: “France, though armed to the teeth, is pacifist to the core.”

It was morally paralyzed.

History may be interesting but it is the present and the future that pose the crucial question: Is America today the France of yesterday?

We know that Iran is moving swiftly toward nuclear weapons while the United Nations is moving slowly — or not at all — toward doing anything to stop them.

It is a sign of our irresponsible Utopianism that anyone would even expect the U.N. to do anything that would make any real difference.

Not only the history of the U.N., but the history of the League of Nations before it, demonstrates again and again that going to such places is a way for weak-kneed leaders of democracies to look like they are doing something when in fact they are doing nothing.

The Iranian leaders are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And, like Hitler, they don’t think we have the guts to stop them.

Incidentally, Hitler made some of the best antiwar statements of the 1930s. He knew that this was what the Western democracies wanted to hear — and that it would keep them morally paralyzed while he continued building up his military machine to attack them.

Iranian leaders today make only the most token and transparent claims that they are building “peaceful” nuclear facilities — in one of the biggest oil-producing countries in the world, which has no need for nuclear power to generate electricity.

Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and its international terrorist allies will be a worst threat than Hitler ever was. But, before that happens, the big question is: Are we France? Are we morally paralyzed, perhaps fatally?

"The evidence comes all from the lips and the pens of Mohammed's own devoted adherents"

Which has been one of my essential arguments: It is neither dishonest, racist, hateful, nor "Islamophobic" to condemn Mohammed for what he said and did (who can defend open-ended, universal commands for genocide and systematic rape, slavery, and terrorism on the basis of religion?), since we have his crimes against God and Nature recorded by his own people in Qur'an, ahadith, and Sira, Islam's "sacred" texts.

Allowing Allah and his apostle to speak for themselves is the most damaging thing one can do to Islam.

The Catholic Encyclopedia does a good job of highlighting some of the issues all but Muslim males should (or will) have with the doctrine of Mahomet (and this in an article from 1910!).

Note the echoes of Manuel Palaeologus II, quoted by Pope Benedict:

Quoting Johnstone, Zwemer concludes by remarking that the judgment of these modern scholars, however harsh, rests on evidence which "comes all from the lips and the pens of his own devoted adherents . . . And the followers of the prophet can scarcely complain if, even on such evidence, the verdict of history goes against him".

[. . .]

What is really good in Mohammedan ethics is either commonplace or borrowed from some other religions, whereas what is characteristic is nearly always imperfect or wicked.

[. . .]

In matters political Islam is a system of despotism at home and aggression abroad. The Prophet commanded absolute submission to the imâm. In no case was the sword to be raised against him. The rights of non-Moslem subjects are of the vaguest and most limited kind, and a religious war is a sacred duty whenever there is a chance of success against the "Infidel". Medieval and modern Mohammedan, especially Turkish, persecutions of both Jews and Christians are perhaps the best illustration of this fanatical religious and political spirit.

Mohammed is 1.2 billion Muslims, or Establishing Shari'a, one family at a time

She says they "misinterpret their texts," but he says they're "fanatical." Which is it?

He defends Mohammed, right or wrong.

Quoting Mohammed's own words is insulting 1.2 billion Muslims. I thought all Muslims were not the same.

Which is it? Or does it depend on whether or not Mohammed's words and deeds are being examined? What does that say about Mohammed? What does that say about those making such an "argument"?

A Christian family cannot discuss openly religious topics. A free man in a free society (and his wife!) must face character assassination, verbal abuse, and threats of violence over a factual statement (which is, coincidentally, no different than an American during World War II lamenting, "It's too bad Hitler made our boys' sacrifices necessary").

So this is the lay of the land: A non-Muslim is forbidden from quoting Mohammed.

If I can't quote Mohammed, and I can't quote the Bible, what can I quote? A cookbook?! [Hat tip to Zell Miller.]

One of the sad ironies here is that this is exactly one of the restrictions placed historically upon dhimmis, the Jews and Christians subjugated, humiliated, and oppressed under Islamic law, just as Mohammed commanded.

-Mention Mohammed and be bullied into silence.

-Everyone falls in line because the two tyrants throw a fit.

-Essentially, it's, "Shut up dhimmi. Don't talk about Mohammed, or else!"

It's insane.

Why are only the Muslim and his spouse apoplectic over quoting Mohammed? Why are not they being pressured into tolerance of others' freedoms of speech? Why must everyone submit to the bullies' sensibilities?

If the prophet from hell was such an "ideal man," what is wrong with looking at what he said and did? Of what are they afraid? Is not such rage at a non-Muslim looking at those texts an admission of shame over his words and deeds?

Why attack me for quoting what Mohammed said and did? Why not attack Mohammed for what he said and did?

How can a decent person defend universal, open-ended commands to slaughter, rape, and enslave?

So much for the thin veneer of false Muslim civility. I've seen it vaporize in online discussions over the word of Allah and the example of Mohammed, but I've not seen it in person and not from someone who previously had seemed decent.

Insane anger. Irrationality. And this, an observation intended to make the observer look good, or a threat? "If someone was fanatical about their religion, they'd kill you."

I will not be silent. I will not submit, for this is what they defend:

"Each of us was raped by between three and six men. One woman refused to have sex with them, so they split her head into pieces with an axe in front of us." This happened in Darfur, from which Sudanese military personnel actually airlifted women to Khartoum to serve as sex slaves. Meanwhile, Indira Dzetskelova, the mother of one of the child hostages in Beslan, Russia, reports that "several 15-year-old girls were raped by terrorists." Her daughter "heard their terrible cries and screams when those monsters took them away."

This indicates that there are two things the massacre in Beslan has in common with the ongoing massacres in Darfur: both, no less than the 9/11 attacks, are examples of Islamic jihad terrorism, and both are characterized by rape. The jihadist element has been made clear by the ringleaders of both atrocities. Sudanese General Mohamed Beshir Suleiman recently declared: "The door of the jihad is still open and if it has been closed in the south it will be opened in Darfur."

[. . .]

As for Beslan, the Chechen jihadist leader Shamil Besayev warned the Russian government last winter: "Praise Allah, we are dreaming of dying in jihad, we are dreaming of dying on the way of Allah, so that we could earn paradise and mercy of Allah."

What does rape, then, have to do with these religious conflicts? Unfortunately, everything. The Islamic legal manual 'Umdat al-Salik, which carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, stipulates: "When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman's previous marriage is immediately annulled."

Why? So that they are free to become the concubines of their captors. The Qur'an permits Muslim men to have intercourse with their wives and their slave girls: "Forbidden to you are ... married women, except those whom you own as slaves" (Sura 4:23-24). After one successful battle, Muhammad tells his men, "Go and take any slave girl." He took one for himself also. After the notorious massacre of the Jewish Qurayzah tribe, he did it again. According to his earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad "went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for [the men of Banu Qurayza] and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches." After killing "600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900," the Prophet [sic] of Islam took one of the widows he had just made, Rayhana bint Amr, as another concubine. Emerging victorious in another battle, according to a generally accepted Islamic tradition, Muhammad's men present him with an ethical question: "We took women captives, and we wanted to do 'azl [coitus interruptus] with them." Muhammad told them: "It is better that you should not do it, for Allah has written whom He is going to create till the Day of Resurrection.'" When Muhammad says "it is better that you should not do it," he's referring to coitus interruptus, not to raping their captives. He takes that for granted.

With Muhammad revered throughout the Islamic world as al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man, the rapes of Darfur and Beslan are nothing surprising. What is surprising, or ought to be, is the silence from the Islamic world about the rapes in both cases.

Where are the reformers who will dare to say that Muhammad's example must not be followed in this case?

Certainly not where I was last night.

Christian children decapitated, crucified, and raped in the name of Allah, just as Mohammed commanded and practiced

Mohammed killed over religion:

"fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . " (Qur’an 9:5).

"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle . . . '" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

Mohammed commanded and practiced terrorism to advance his religion:

"Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly" (Qur'an 8:60).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror. The treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

Mohammed gave no thought to slaughtering innocents if they stood in his way:

"The Prophet passed by me at a place called Al-Abwa or Waddan, and was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans)." (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 256).

No crime was too unnatural for Mohammed:

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter . . . " (Qur'an 5:33).

This evil spreads unchecked throughout the West.

And what of all those Christians and other non-Muslims, women, and apostates tormented around the world by Allah's minions?

In Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt, Christians suffer unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Muslims, just as Allah and his false prophet demand.

Where is President Bush? He's established Sharia in several nations now, he brings in millions of Muslims without questioning whether or not they actually believe their god's commands to convert, subjugate and humiliate, or kill his fellow citizens, people he's sworn to defend, and he gives no thought to either the thousands of Americans sacrificing life and limb to protect Muslims who may or may not want them dead or to those Christians and other non-Muslims experiencing Islamic revival.

Could President Bush have done more to aid the global jihad and the persecution of the Church if he had tried?

Whose behavior more closely matches the word of Allah and the example of Mohammed, the apparently decent, secular, "moderate" Muslim, or the monsters below?

Muslim militants are crucifying children to terrorize their Christian parents into fleeing Iraq, a parliamentary committee studying the persecution of religious minorities heard yesterday.

Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents.

One infant was snatched, decapitated, burned and left on his mother's doorstep, the committee was told.

Filham Isaac, speaking for the Nineveh Advocacy Committee, told the human rights committee that Iraqi Christian churches were bombed, clergy murdered and unveiled Iraqi women raped or scarred with acid.

It's part of a systemic -- and very effective -- campaign to ethnically cleanse the area of any non-Muslims, he said. Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, known as Chaldo-Assyrians, were once the largest Christian minority in Iraq. They are also the oldest, descendants of ancient Mesopotamians who adopted Christianity in the first century.

The Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Church of the East are among the Christian churches in Iraq.

Today, about 300,000, or one in three, is a refugee, he said.

"It's at a crisis point," Mr. Isaac's colleague, Zaya Oshana, said later. "Christians will be completely annihilated."

Yet, the Chaldo-Assyrians do not want to leave their country en masse.

Instead, they are asking for help to settle the Nineveh Plains, in northwest Iraq, where they can have some independence and form their own state. The land is rich there, and there may be oil, too.

There is some support in the United States and Europe for this independent area, and international news reports indicate more than 700 police officers have begun training to protect the Christians in Iraq, but another 4,000 would be needed to fully secure the region and establish checkpoints on all highways and roads leading into the villages.

The committee also heard from the Ahmadiyya, an offshoot of Islam that began in India about 100 years ago. Ahmadi Muslims differ from mainstream Muslims on their views of Jesus, and on their interpretation of jihad, which they say must be non-violent.

However, they told the committee that they are increasingly persecuted in Pakistan, where they are told they are not Muslim at all and, therefore, their beliefs are an insult to Islam.

Nadeem Siddiq, general counsel for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Community of Canada, told the committee the Pakistani government has been capitulating to mullahs who call them a "cancer" and forbid them from carrying out their prayers, or even mentioning Allah on their wedding invitations.

"They say by 'posing' as Muslims, we hurt real Muslims. The mullahs are still not happy. They want our properties confiscated and they want us charged."

Coptic Christians from Egypt had much the same story, with young girls regularly kidnapped, raped or forced to marry Muslim men. Despite these difficulties, there is no mechanism to claim refugee status in the beleaguered countries. Sam Fanous, of the Canadian Coptic Association, told the MPs that the Canadian Embassy in Cairo needed Canadian, not area Muslim, staff to evaluate refugee claims.

The committee passed a motion to research the issue further and to call for more testimony from minorities suffering religious persecution worldwide.

What do Muslims call those who reject offensive warfare against non-Muslims to make the world Islam?

Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at are called, "heretics."

Moderate Indonesia stepped-up efforts recently to coerce them into orthodoxy; now a publisher in Texas is threatened by their non-heretical -- that is, traditional, orthodox -- coreligionists for calling the Ahmadiyya "Muslims."

In the comments on that post I note an essential distinction which must be made when discussing Islam: Muslim and non-Muslim alike attempt often to equate Islam with Christianity, either to demean Christianity or to deceive the ignorant and gullible into thinking that Islam is harmless.

It is essential that we understand the difference between the two. Clarity on this point can save not only one's neck (literally), but also one's soul.

"I appreciate your arguing against the Religion of Inveterate Sadism, but I would like to offer another perspective on what makes Christianity and Islam so different from each other.

If you approach the Biblical texts objectively and in the way in which they were intended to be taken by their authors (symbolism as symbolism, poetry as poetry, history as history, eyewitness account as eyewitness account), you find a Christ Who died for the sins of even His enemies and Who commands His people to imitate His example.

If you approach the Islamic core texts objectively and in the way in which its god and prophet intended, you find Muslims commanded to use any means necessary -- including offensive violence -- to subjugate all people to the tyranny of Allah.

Adherents of Christianity (and those who've grown up in a society influenced by it) differ from the faithful of Islam -- to the degree that both behave in ways consistent with their gods' commands -- because Allah is the moral inverse of Christ."

Great figures from history recognizing the depravity of Islam

If great men like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and his son John Quincy, George S. Patton, Jr., and Winston Churchill understood Islam, why can't their lesser successors today?

Here's John Quincy Adams observing that jihad progresses not only by violence, but also by fraud -- by preaching, demographics, economics, and the subversion of non-Muslim societal institutions from within (jihad by stealth).

". . . he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God…the faithful follower of the prophet may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force."

Following is General George S. Patton, Jr., on the retarding effects of Islam.

A few things to keep in mind: First, by "Arab" Patton clearly meant "Muslim," since many Arabs were Christian. Second, by 700 much of the West was Christian; to the degree that its people obeyed the commands of Christ, the West was already morally advanced. Finally, it's not just a lack of development, it's making "divine" the violation of Christ's commands that destroys human souls.

"One cannot but ponder the question: What if the Arabs had been Christians? To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing. Here, I think, is a text for some eloquent sermon on the virtues of Christianity."

--from War As I Knew It, by General George S. Patton, Jr., 1947

Facts do not intimidate the truthful

Only liars and tyrants fear the truth.

Throughout Western lands, Muslims, their apologists, and Useful Idiot Dhimmis work to silence more than just mockery of Mohammed, they demonize and dismiss those who cite accurately his own words and actions as recorded in Islam's core texts.

This censorship is part of the non-violent -- but still tyrannical, fascist, supremacist, and fatal -- "striving" to make the world Islam. Robert Spencer refers to these more subtle efforts as the "stealth jihad," of which using the West's own legal, social, economic, and political systems to destroy it from within are all a part.

John Quincy Adams seems to have recognized this non-violent jihad, referring to it as performing Mohammed's commands "by fraud."

Osama bin Laden erred in using violence too soon against us; exploiting the civilizational self-loathing of the West's enemies within still advances Islam and kills far fewer Muslims.

Here are two questions to ask "moderate" Muslims and those Infidels foolishly defending the prophet from hell:

1. If Mohammed was such a great guy, what's the problem with looking at his words and deeds?

2. If Islam's "sacred" texts don't command offensive warfare against non-Muslims to make the world Islam, then what have you got to hide?

Tantrums and other arguments in defense of Islam

If you kick and scream loudly enough, you may just get Shari'a.

What do you do when you're told to be quiet because you'll make an emotional tyrant upset?

In other words, you can lie about me and mine, but don't dare quote Mohammed!

Nevermind that a soul under Allah is in danger of Hell, or that non-Muslim, female, and apostate apologists for Islam will not escape the evil which they defend, the onset of which they hasten.

You find lying apologists for Islam even in the jungle

In response to several threadbare lies in defense of Islam from a "review" at Amazon.com of Robert Spencer's Religion of Peace, Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, found here.

Faruk Ekmekci is subtle. Unfortunately for him, his half-truths and other falsehoods are effective only with the ignorant and gullible, and their numbers thin every day.

In attempting to defend Mohammed, he attacks Moses and Spencer. Rather than addressing what the prophet from hell actually said and did, he engages in ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments (that seems familiar!).

Alleging that both Islam and Christianity/Judaism have "obscure sides" -- as if the commands of YHWH and His Christ are morally equivalent to the utter depravity of Mohammed and his allah -- is absurd.

He argues:

"But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.)" Exodus 14 [sic]

That was a command for Ancient Israel under Moses, not a universal, open-ended command for offensive warfare against Gentiles to make the world Hebrew, as is found in Islam (and it's not Exodus 14).

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy." Deuteronomy 7:1-2 [sic]

A judgment against those nations for their evil and limited to that time, place, and people. Again, not a universal, open-ended command for offensive warfare against Gentiles to make the world Hebrew, as is found in Islam.

"...do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them...as the Lord your God has commanded you..." Deuteronomy 20:16

Same as previous; It should be noted that Israel itself faced the same judgment for adopting the same evil practices. Still, this is not a universal, open-ended command for offensive warfare against Gentiles to make the world Hebrew, as is found in Islam.

"And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males." Numbers 31:7 (estimated 100,000 Midianites were killed in just one war)

That was war in retaliation for Midian's attacks against Israel when it was helpless. It was also to prevent future apostasy by Israel. Still no universal, open-ended command for offensive warfare against Gentiles to make the world Hebrew, as is found in Islam.

"Now king Solomon loved many foreign women, besides the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;" / "And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart." I Kings 1,3.

Recording Solomon's sin is not an endorsement of it. Clearly, his behavior was contradicted by Divine law.

The Texts also record Solomon's worshiping false gods; does that mean that the Bible wants us to worship false gods?

"If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, `Let us go and serve other gods,' . . . your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people." Deuteronomy 13:6-9

For Ancient Israel under the Mosaic Law only; not a universal, open-ended command for offensive warfare against Gentiles to make the world Hebrew, as is found in Islam.

"...and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." Genesis 3:16

Descriptive, not prescriptive, and not the institutionalized brutalization and degradation of women and girls found in Islam's core texts.

"If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall purge the evil from Israel. / "If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, / then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you." Deuteronomy 22:22-24

Again, only for Ancient Israel under the Mosaic Law, not a universal, open-ended command for offensive warfare against Gentiles to make the world Hebrew, as is found in Islam

To conclude, assuming the textual accuracy of the Bible, and even assuming the correctness of Spencer interpretations, Muhammad would still be an average Biblical prophet. It does not make sense to me, therefore, to welcome Biblical prophets and curse Muhammad.

That is an outright lie.

No prophet of YHWH claimed that their sin was His revelation. On the other hand, whatever perverse, reprehensible, or bloodthirsty impulse Mohammed had, he always received a convenient revelation justifying or requiring it.

We have to understand that the problem is common. Extremism in general is the enemy, not the jihad of a specific people. Let's face and address it sincerely and without bigotry.

By "bigotry," Mr. Ekmekci means "looking at the evidence," and the problem is "common" -- among Muslims, since it is Mohammed who commanded the faithful to "slay the pagans wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5).

"Extremism" following Christ would result in Christians loving their enemies, doing good to others, and truth-telling. "Extremism" following Allah gets slavery, slaughter, pedophilia, and rape. In other words, "extremism" in a religion just gets you more of what its god commands.

As a final note on Spencer besides his inconsistency, he is also a twister of facts, and convenient ignorer of counter data.

Mr. Ekmekci can provide (mostly accurate) citations of Biblical passages (even as he misrepresents their meaning), but he can't demonstrate specifically where Spencer has erred?

Just like Mohammed.

How convenient.

Fitzgerald on fun, and indispensable, learning

The good news is, more and more of us know and continue to learn about the Religion of Gratuitous Decapitation.

Reflections on knowing Islam the way Allah and the prophet from hell define it, by Hugh Fitzgerald:

Up and down the coasts of Europe one can find ruins, the remnants of ancient watchtowers and fortifications. One is seldom provided with any explanation; when something is written very occasionally in a guidebook, there is mention of "invaders." Who were these “invaders”? The history of Muslim raiders, up and down those European coasts, the pillaging and razing of villages and towns, the murders, the vandalism, the seizure and enslavement of, over time, at least a million people from Western Europe, with the raiders even getting as far as Ireland and, in one celebrated case, Iceland, is hardly known to the Western world.

Giles Milton's book White Gold focuses on one Cornishman, Thomas Pellow, who was seized and brought back to Morocco in the mid-18th century. There the vast palace complex of Moulay Ismail, which Western tourists come to admire, was built on the sites of, and making use of the stone taken from, the prior non-Muslim structures. So many of the so-called "wonders of Muslim architecture" were built in this way, including the celebrated Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, which is on the site of, and makes use of, the St. John the Baptist Church that was previously on the same site. And who do you think built the Taj Mahal? Muslim soldiers, or enslaved Hindus?

When you begin, as many Infidels have, to study Islam, and then extend your study beyond the texts, and then add the behavior of Muslims today, and then go still further and begin to study the history of Islamic conquest, and the Islamic exaggerated claims to achievement, and the Islamic treatment of all non-Muslims subjugated by Muslims and Muslim rule, all sorts of the dark past become necessarily illuminated. How many of us, a few years ago, had any idea about when the Turks arrived in Byzantium, or why Constantinople fell, or when? Who knew about the Seljuk Turks, or the Ottomans? Who was aware of where Aramaic was spoken, or that the Maronites were a non-Arab people living in present-day Lebanon long before the Arab Muslims arrived? Who knew, even -- why Tom Friedman has just in the last week or two discovered -- that there are Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, and that the difference is not a minor one, and did not originate with the Americans clumsily undoing all that splendid harmony that naturally reigned in Iraq just a few pre-Saddam years ago? This is all nonsense, of course, but it is predictable nonsense.

It is wonderful, isn't it, to begin to study the history of the Middle East, and the history of Byzantium, and the history of Europe, all because it now has an immediacy and a significance that we who were not history-haunted did not previously ascribe to it all. But now that we are menaced by those who are haunted not so much by history as their own crazed version of history, we are forced to study -- and we are forced to be quick studies.

. . . studying that history is now essential. It is necessary to learn what taqiyya is, and what constitutes an acceptable isnad-chain, and the details of Muhammad's life (as Muslims accept it). It is essential to find out that Muslims do not accept the principle of Pacta sunt servanda, but follow instead the model of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya. All this is all the more essential seeing how even the most reasonable westernized semi-truth-telling Muslim will continue to skitter around the central question . . . .

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil of Mohammed or his allah

Be deaf, dumb, and blind about Islam, or else, which makes her a tyrant and you a coward.

Ominously, one of the restrictions placed upon non-Muslims enslaved as dhimmis over centuries of Islamic conquest, annihilation, and oppression was the proscription against speaking of Allah or Mohammed. Many in the West today censor themselves voluntarily, and many out of fear.

My latest reply to one defending Mohammed at the expense of everything else. Note her use of one of the tactics employed typically by Muslims and their Useful Idiot Dhimmis against criticism of Islam -- unjustified and ugly personal attacks. If you can't refute the facts, attack the person citing them!

Perhaps it's only justifying of one's own sin.

Facts do not intimidate the truthful.

Speaking of "chasing tails," you spend many words below attacking my integrity (again), my honesty, my compassion, and my judgment, and you attribute to me positions I've never held (argumentum ad hominem and "straw man" arguments -- both are logical fallacies and inherently dishonest), but you do not address what I actually wrote.

I attributed to Mohammed responsibility for today's jihad. In support of this, I cited accurately Islam's own "sacred" texts -- documents at which you admit you've never even looked. How is it "insensitive" to quote Mohammed's own words?

Instead of addressing my words, you accuse me falsely of:

"all follow the fanatical radical ways of those Muslims"

"condemn every religion for their followers actions?"

"all catholics and Christians alike are murderers?"

"all Latin, or Hispanic males are murderers?"

"are all catholic priests pedophiles?"

"you are not more sensitive when speaking and emailing about groups of people"

"It only gives us all I'm sure insight on how you feel, truly feel about them..."

" . . . belongs to this group you speak so poorly of"

"hasn't he shown you otherwise?"

"do all the guests seem to wage holy war against you"

"My Husband and his family ( Non murderers- as you have referred to them(muslims, not specifically his family, but since they are part of that group it is equally offensive)"

"Muslims who do not wage "holy war" LOL on anyone."

"I know it's hard for you, you have never walked a mile in anyone else's shoes and see only your ways and ideas as truths, perhaps someday you will have to see others in a different light"

"WHO then are you to look down and judge anyone?"

When have I written anything negative about your husband or his family? When have I written of anything being true about "all Muslims"? You're lying about me; prove it, or apologize.

If by "the past" you are referring to old articles about Islamic murder, those were news reports. Blame Muslims who kill for Allah, not me for being able to read.

A religion's adherents are not [necessarily representative of] its god/founder. You are conflating the two, not me.

For example, a pedophile priest is not representative of Christ, since He warned that anyone who causes a little child to sin would be better off if he had a large stone tied around his neck and were thrown into the depths of the sea. On the other hand, a Muslim who begins raping his six-year-old "bride" when she's nine does imitate Mohammed's example.

Speaking of Christ, did He approve of or excuse the sin of His dinner companions? Did Christ tell them that they've just chosen alternative lifestyles and Moses was insensitive with all those Commandments? No, He told them to stop sinning.

Whom did Christ condemn? Whom did He call a "brood of vipers" and "white-washed tombs"? Liars. Christ was harsh with those who lied about their sin and used religion as a cover for evil.

Christ exposed evil. He condemned lies.

One last item. Jesus says that He is the only way to heaven. Does He have "tunnel-vision"?

Your comments to [. . . ] were not only undeserved and uncharitable, but foolish and faithless. She is honest and considerate to a fault, and she's willing to endure your pettiness and insults because she loves you.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Will you have the decency and integrity to apologize? Will you salvage your credibility, or will you persist in unfounded and scurrilous ad hominem attacks against those who love you and want the best for you and yours?

The days have gone down in the West

While some Muslims "striving in the cause of Allah" have discovered that warfare against the U.S. just gets them new and better infrastructure, billions of American tax dollars, Sharia enshrined in their new nations' constitutions, and a lot of dead mujahideen, others have found subverting American institutions from within to be more effective, safer, and a whole lot of fun.

As our politicians, academics, and media ignore (or accelerate) the collapse of the West, we ordinary citizens are doing our part. Just today, I witnessed a sure sign that the end is near. An elementary school held a Talent Show with Michael Jackson's Thriller as its theme. One of the performances was a dance routine set to "Beat It."

A pedophile singing about gang warfare is now mainstream.

We are doomed.