Posts Made By: James Lacey

Koran burning has been in the news in the recent past and one thing that I noticed about the controversy is how Westerners have such a hard time understanding why Muslims get so upset about desecrating the Koran. Even a front page poll on this site had the vast majority of people responding that they should just "get over it."

So, whey do they get so upset? Well in Islam the Koran is the most sacred thing in their religion. It is as sacred to them as Jesus is to Christians. The Koran is more sacred than even Mohammed who was after all just a man. Muslims believe that the Koran is the inspired word of God delivered to Mohammed in Arabic and they went to great lengths through the ages to preserve it in its original form which included not allowing it to be translated to other languages. In fact translating it into different languages is a theological mine field in Islam. Many believe it can only be correctly read and interpreted in its original Arabic. Contrast this with the original manuscripts of the NT which were modified by well-meaning scribes and theologians over the early centuries of Christianity. Christians don't even have a common bible; catholics, protestants and also orthodox Christians all use a different Bible. Of course the Bible has been translated into literally hundreds of languages and into hundreds of different versions. If some group were to burn a Bible in protest most Christians would say, "Meh. There are hundreds more at the local book store." On the other hand, if an artist constructed a sculpture of Jesus being defecated on, most Christians would be uproariously angry (and this is exactly what happened in real life). So, if you look at desecrating the Koran as if Muslims were desecrating Jesus, then you might start to understand why they get so upset.

From 2009 but still a goodie: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/08/dark_passages/

But in terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Koran often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races - of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted. One cherished psalm (137) begins with the lovely line, "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept"; it ends by blessing anyone who would seize Babylon's infants and smash their skulls against the rocks.

So, if it's not the religious texts that fuel the terrorism, then what is it? Culture, poverty, injustice?

Just in case like Juan Williams you worry when you see Muslims on planes, you'll want to brush up on what they may dress like.

http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/

My favorite:

http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/post/1376147929/prince-abdullah-now-king-abdullah-ii-of-jordan#notes

http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/anti-suffrage-propoganda

These anti suffrage propoganda posters are awesome to look at and underscore how the advances of equality and liberty are always a struggle because there are always some knuckle-heads out there who are on the wrong side of history.

Awesome flickr photostream that includes translations of propaganda murals and cultural commentary. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbeisser/4501793563/in/photostream/

Currently, the DPRK is constructing a new road between Anju and Sinuiju. Construction is done by forced labourers (which the regime prefers to call “volunteers”) equipped with the most primitive tools only. Many of them are women. These labourers live in primitive huts built from wood and straw next to the road they are building. Typically, such labourers are tired and demotivated, so they just hang around the construction site chatting and trying to dodge the hard and dirty work.
It is not really surprising to see the DPRK regime practising such slave labour but it still came as a surprise to me that a regime which in its mendacious propaganda boasts of a “breakthrough to high-tech” still relies on Stone Age methods even in a part of the country where foreigners frequently travel.

If there will be a sea battle tomorrow, then that fact is true today and has always been true. Our future is thus inevitable. What freedom is left to us?

On the other hand, if statements about the future are neither true nor false today, then how can God have perfect foreknowledge of the future?

This press photo of Obama's return from vacation made me chuckle. Of course I had to add my own caption.

God was behind Big Bang, universe no accident: Pope

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110106/ts_nm/us_pope_bigbang

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – God's mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said on Thursday.

Money quote at the end.

...the Church now also accepts evolution as a scientific theory and sees no reason why God could not have used a natural evolutionary process in the forming of the human species.

The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism -- the belief that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible -- and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way God created the world.

But it objects to using evolution to back an atheist philosophy that denies God's existence or any divine role in creation. It also objects to using Genesis as a scientific text.

From evangelical, David Bercott’s book, “Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up”

http://www.amazon.com/Will-Real-Heretics-Please-Stand/dp/0924722002

Chapter 11

Who Better Under¬stands The Apostles?

We evangelical Christians today generally think that we are following apostolic Christianity. The early Christians thought they were too, Yet, as we've seen, our beliefs and practices vary considerably from theirs. So how can we know which one of us is more closely following the pattern set by the apostles?

A tempting, but simplistic solution is to say, "Let's simply compare their beliefs and ours to what the Bible teaches." The problem is that the early Christians based their beliefs on the Bible-the same as we do. They quoted Scriptures to support their beliefs, the same as we do. The real issue is one of Bible interpretation. The most we can do is to compare their interpretations of Scripture with our interpretations of Scripture. And that in itself doesn't prove very much. So the question becomes: Whose interpretation is more likely to be correct-ours or theirs?

The Advantage Of Time

Interestingly, the early church faced a stand-off with the gnostics that was similar to our stalemate with the early Chris¬tians. Both the church and the gnostics claimed they had the True gospel. Tertullian wrote, "I say that my gospel is the true one. Marcion [a leading gnostic teacher] says that his is. I say, "Marcion's gospel is adulterated, He says mine is. Now, how can we settle this stand-off, unless we use the principle of time. According to this principle, authority lies with the one who is prior in time. It's based on the elemental truth that corruption (of doctrine) lies with the one who is shown to have originated later in time. Since error is falsification of truth,, truth must necessarily precede error." 1 Tertullian's "principle of time" is one of the main criteria modern historians use to evaluate conflicting historical ac¬counts. The one written closest to the actual events is normally given credence over one written much later.
After all, how much confidence would you have in a New Testament manuscript that differed from others and yet was produced 1400 years after the apostles had died? particularly if you had available a New Testament manuscript that was compiled within a few decades after the apostles had died? Why then do we choose doctrines that were first taught 1,400 years or more after the deaths of the apostles over ones that were taught within a few decades of their lives?

The Cumulative Effect Of Small Changes

A copy of anything is rarely a perfect duplication of the original. As Christianity has been duplicated from generation to generation, it has undergone many changes. From generation to generation, most of these changes have been very small, almost imperceptible. However; the cumulative effect of small changes over hundreds of years can be significant. Take for example the English language", From generation to generation, our language changes very slowly. The change is so slow that we can barely discern any difference between the way we speak and the way our grandparents spoke, except for slang. Howev¬er, over hundreds of years, the accumulation of these small changes is quite noticeable. For example, when we try to read thirteenth century medieval English, it's almost like trying to read a foreign language.
The same is true of Christianity. I'm sure that second century Christianity wasn't a perfect duplication of apostolic Christianty. But the second century Christians were basically only one generation away from the apostles. We're nineteen centuries away! How reasonable is it for us to argue that, after nineteen hundred years, evangelical Christianity is basically unchanged from that of the apostles? Particularly when, at the same time, we claim that orthodox Christianity had radically changed only 50 years after the apostles died?

The Advantages of Language And Culture

But the element of time is not the only advantage that the early Christians had over us. They were also in a much better position to accurately interpret the apostles' writings.

To begin with, the early Christians could read the New Testament Scriptures in the original Greek of the apostles. How many of us can say the same? Our pastors have to study ancient Greek for several years as part of their seminary training. Yet very few of them can speak ancient Greek fluently. Most can't even read and comprehend a Greek text without the aid of a Greek-English lexicon. The early Christians, however, didn't have to study ancient Greek; it was their native language. They not only spoke in Greek, they thought in it.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsion on October 14, 1912 an attempt was made on Theodore Roosevelt's life right before he was to give a campaign speech. The bullet passed through the rather thick manuscript of his planned lengthy speech. Most likely it saved his life and he went on to give a rather lengthy speech anyway with a bullet lodged in his body. This speech became known as "The Bull Moose" speech because after the shooting Roosevelt famously said "It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Below is an excerpt from that speech that I found to be interesting.

As an aside, there is a fantastic book about Roosevelt's adventure in the Amazon jungle after he lost his third-party bid for the Presidency which The Bull Moose speech was part of called "The River of Doubt." It chronicles a laregely unknown part of his life that is incredibly fascinating. Highly recommended.

Now, friends, of course, I do not know, as I say, anything about him; but it is a very natural thing that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers in the interest of not only Mr. Debs but of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Taft.

Friends, I will disown and repudiate any man of my party who attacks with such foul slander and abuse any opponent of any other party; and now I wish to say seriously to all the daily newspapers, to the Republicans, the Democrat, and Socialist parties, that they cannot, month in month out and year in and year out, make the kind of untruthful, of bitter assault that they have made and not expect that brutal, violent natures, or brutal and violent characters, especially when the brutality is accompanied by a not very strong mind; they cannot expect that such natures will be unaffected by it.