Islam and the West- my Facebook thread

I found this video recently courtesy of Cranmer


Cranmer begins his article like this ""When you're asked an awkward question, you can either distract and deflect as the politician does; you can ruminate and reflect as the philosopher does; you can equivocate and obfuscate as the diplomat does.Or you can answer the question explicitly and directly, as the soldier does."

A comment on Cranmer said "There are moderate Muslims but there is no such thing as moderate Islam".

A view I heartily endorse, so I posted it on Facebook. The replies came back over the next day or so, so here's the thread:

Mike started with
"Watching this video prompted me to consider the similarity between the Koran, Mein Kampf and Das Kapital. The authors of at least two of these were probably madmen, and all three authors presented a totalitarian system that can only exist i...n its own enviroment, making it an imperative to destroy any opposing system. The concept "hate the sin but love the sinner" is incomprehensible to such a system, which can only understand "hate the sin and destroy the sinner". The old adage "kill or be killed" presents a dilemma to the Christian, since if we choose to "love the sinner", the sinner will still try to kill us, so we are presented with a choice that challenges our ethics: do we pray or fight, or even do both? This calls for a great deal of wisdom and faith, and total trust in God. Is the cry of Jehoshaphat enough "we don't know what to do but our eyes are on You" ?"

My reply "Islam cannot exist without the West. Where else would the arabs go when they want to get drunk and go whoring? And they do, oh yes they do!"

Mike: "I know they go to Mecca every year, do you reckon they do more than just play bingo there, then?"

Richard chipped in with "Where's morality in the Bible though?!"

I replied "I'd be happy to sit and go through the Bible with you any day. I'm happy to point out all the inconsistencies and bits I don't agree with. I will however, also show you all the consistenies, the continuous narrative, the fulfilled prophesie...s, the bits I can't argue against, and the undeniable (to me) fact that it has the ring of truth.
Morality is an absolute. If it's not, if morality changes to suit the conditions, then it's not absolute, and it's not morality.
Which makes me a sinner in need of grace and salvation. Over to you."

Mike came back with "You could start with the 10 Commandments, Richard. And could I ask you where the immorality is in the Bible?"

Richard came back later with "I suppose you could start with "Stone disobedient children" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) and go from there really...Leviticus makes interesting reading as well. I'm no expect in these texts but I certainly don't consider the Koran to be any more immoral than the Bible."

Good point. Worthy of a response. Here it is.
"Touche. These laws belong to a different age, like "Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together" Deut 22:11. Everyone and anyone can point to the book of rules to justify their actions- look at council jobsworths for example. My beef with Islam is that there is no peace, no love, no forgiveness, and because Mohammed said so, no chance of ever changing it. The Old Testament pointed to the New- and you must study Isaiah to see where and how and why. Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah, Jews believe that he wasn't, and the Messiah is still to come, but Islam gives no hope, because Mohammed is the final revelation, and therefore there is no hope, only chaos and violence.
When your book of laws allows you to keep slaves, to deny women any rights and to kill all unbelievers, it pretty much gives you carte blanche to do anything you like. It sickens me.
However, I will add that all organised religion sickens me, not because of the truth they claim for themselves, but on their insistence that everyone must live according to rules they set. The unassailable fact is that the first duty of any organisation is to ensure its own survival, and the first casualty will ever and always be truth.
Politicians lie to ensure the survival of their party, church leaders lie to ensure the survival of their denomination or faith. It's what they do. It's genetically inbred.
Jesus never set up any organisation. He never founded a church. He lives his life as an example to us all. He was arrested on a trumped up charge because he was seen as a threat to the established religion and the rulers of the day. And they murdered him. Everyone who accepts the corrupt practices of religion, or thinks that any evil thought word or deed that keeps an organisation in power is OK are guilty by association.
The difference between Islam and Jesus teaching is that under Islam we must all die, because there is no forgiveness, but Jesus promised that all who believe in him can be forgiven, because when he was murdered on the cross, all the sins of the world were paid for in a way that I don't understand, or have to, because all I have to do is to say I'm sorry and accept that Jesus death paid for my sins, and follow him.

It's when the church and state gets involved that it all goes wrong.
But back to your point. Because Mohammed "married" his 9 year old cousin and had sex with her, does that mean that paedos can claim that they were only following his teachings?"

I expect there will be more.....But for now, the fact that we are able to have this conversation speaks volumes about the freedom we currently enjoy. I suspect it will not last for long. We are rushing headlong towards a totalitarian society (wrong word, try world) where children are encouraged to spy on their parents, where everything is illegal unless it is permitted, and people like me will have the knock on the door in the middle of the night to look forward to.

Non religious Christianity

Faith is defined as believing in something that you can't see.
Everyone has faith. You can't see radio signals, but you believe that by plugging a radio into the mains and switching the electricity on (something else that you can't see), you will hear music or speech. We believe that a red light will stop the traffic, although it has no actual power to do so.
People will tell me that science can explain all these things and avowed atheists will also tell me how the world began- with a big bang apparently, but without explaining who pressed the button or flipped the switch to start it off.
Some people will say that science has done away with the need for a god, a creator. Knowing how something works somehow relegates god to the margins, to the unknown. As someone said, he has become the god of the gaps (in our knowledge).

As I write this, a survey has found that over 70% of the population would consider themselves to be christian (with a small c.)
Anti-christians seize on the fact that as less than 10% attend a church regularly, the Christian faith should somehow be marginalised or even discriminated against. People no longer join organisations. They don't join trade unions or political parties. Some still belong to clubs and societies based on a particular pasttime, but on the whole we in the UK are not joiners of anything. Churches will always remind us that more people attend church on a Sunday than go to football matches on a Saturday by the way.

I used to attend church regularly. Not any more. My Christian friends wonder why, and it's hard to tell them without sounding anti-christian. I'm not anti-Christian, just anti-church. I don't enjoy doing churchy things anymore.

I've pondered this for a few years. People tell me that being in a church gives you a sense of belonging, of community.

But what if you're a loner by nature? Or a recluse? Someone who doesn't enjoy being in a crowd?

When Jesus needed spiritual refreshment he went off by himself. Yes, he went to the Temple to fulfil a religious obligation, but on arrival he chased the money lenders out. What was his opinion of church?

St Francis of Assisi was a loner, yet they made him a saint and a whole religious order was named after him.

So what is it that requires Christians to attend a church or to belong in one?

I've been a member of a church, several in fact. It was the great Victorian preacher Charles Henry Hadden Spurgeon who said "If you find the perfect church, don't join it because you'll only spoil it".

So I won't be joining any church any time soon. Joining a church won't make me a good person, so will not joining a church make me a bad person?

And what if I were to look for a church? Which one? It's not that simple. At the last count there were over 40,000 denominations worldwide. Each one claims to be THE true church. Each one claims that the others have it all wrong. So how does one choose? Do you have to go down the lists of theological points and tick the ones you like? I know of churches in the UK that draw people from upwards of fifty miles away. What does that tell me? That they serve great coffee?

Or that people will travel miles in order to have their religious prejudices legitimised?

What does God say? In one famous Old Testament passage he speaks through the prophet Amos (Amos 5:21-24)

21 The Lord says, "I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! 22 When you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me as offerings. 23 Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen to your harps. 24 Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry. (Good News version)

That's pretty clear I'd say.

I grew up in Cornwall in the 1950s. It was still a Christian country. We ate fish every Friday and my parents packed us off to Sunday school, partly, I suspect, to have the house to themselves for a while. The chapel was just down the road next to a short terrace of victorian houses. Before our estate was built, it must have looked a solitary sight, next to the old main road that ran up the high ground from Penzance to Camborne and beyond. When they built the causeway and opened up the road from Penpol to Copperhouse, thus creating the town of Hayle, it became ever more isolated. I always wondered why they built such a large chapel for such a small settlement, but then I realised that it was built to serve the tin mines that were everywhere. Once they failed, the population emigrated to Canada, the US, Mexico and Australia, and the dwellings fell down or were demolished, leaving an isolated and decaying chapel.

The chapel was built by the Bible Christians, and it's worth studying this aspect in order to understand why we have so many denominations.

It all goes back to the mid 18th century, when John & Charles Wesley visited Cornwall and Methodism was born. While Wesley was alive, he considered himself to be an Anglican, but on his death his followers adopted the nickname that was given them by their detractors and became Methodists in 1795. By 1811, it had become bogged down with building churches, employing full time professional ministers, pension schemes, foreign missions, etc etc, and many believe it had deserted the poor and illiterate. In short, it had become middle class and conservative.
The Methodists split over this, and the Primitive Methodists were formed, adding to the other post-Wesley Methodist denominations like the Wesleyans and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion.
You see how complicated it has become?
Within 20 years of Wesley's death there were different denominations, each with their fiercely protected emphases. As well as the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christians were formed in 1815, and were to be found mostly in North Cornwall, Kent and on the Isle of Wight. Their membership was drawn mainly from farm labourers and miners, and was distinctive in that they allowed female preachers, which the Methodists had condemned/banned in 1803.
So my old chapel was built on or around 1850 by a breakaway group of Methodists, who themselves had broken away from the Anglican church just over half a century earlier.

Is it any wonder that people get confused?

So no, I won't be joining a church anytime soon thank you. If I found one that ticked all my boxes, it'd have a congregation of precisely....one.

And I'd only attend ever now and then.

I think this sums it up nicely...

Guilt and Fear

Guilt and Fear. The two main weapons used to keep the people under control.
Guilt- make people feel bad
Fear- make people afraid.

It works every time. Choose which one you want to emphasise and the ratio of one to the other and off you go.

Advertising. Mostly fear based. Prey on the consumer's fear that their washing isn't as white as it could be, their kitchen isn't as clean as it could be, that their breath may smell, or they may have body odour. Add in the guilt factor that by choosing brandX you are somehow depriving your loved ones of the very best.
No-one wants to be out of step (except me), so advertising is a great way to get people to conform.

The Environment/recycling. Guilt and fear again. You drive a car so you're a filthy polluter. It matters not that it's impossible to get anywhere and back in a day without one. You use a car. You're guilty of harming the planet.
You're made/forced to recycle your rubbish. If you don't you get fined. So you comply out of fear. It doesn't matter that your local council isn't interested in recycling commercial waste. They just dump that in landfill.
You use electricity? The power stations are polluters, so you're aiding and abetting them.
You smoke? You're an evil polluter. It doesn't matter that cigarette ends are biodegradable. They will make you feel guilty by saying that cigarette filters contain every harmful chemical known to man and therefore they're harmful to the environment. Oh Yeah? If they're so harmful why do you allow people to put them in their mouths?

Law and order. People have a wrong impression of how dangerous our streets are. The Police do nothing to change that perception. If people are safely in their homes watching TV adverts then we know where they are and they're no threat.
Terrorism is another area where the fear factor is played up. Conspiracy theorists subscribe to the idea that some attacks are "false flag", that is, carried out by our own side in order to heighten the perception of danger. The government is then able to pass laws "for our protection" that stifle our liberty, all based on a lie.

Governments rule by a mixture of guilt and fear.
Organised religion is based on a mixture of guilt and fear.
Whether it be Islam or Roman Catholicism, the adherents are kept in line through a mixture of guilt and fear. Everything we do is a sin. It's wrong. We're made to feel guily. If we step out of line we are punished, so the fear of punishment keeps the people in line. Whether it be excommunication (the Pope claims that he alone holds the keys to heaven and if he withdraws his blessing and prevents you from attending Mass (excommunication), he condemns you to purgatory)
Islam claims that anyone who kills an infidel in Allah's name will have a special place in heaven, waited on by countless virgins. It's the threat of death for apostacy and the promise of heaven for anyone who kills unbelievers that aids the spread of this religion. Guilt and Fear.

I've read the Bible from cover to cover. The first thing that Jesus said to his disciples when they saw him perform a miracle or following his resurrection was this "Do not fear".
These words are repeated throughout the Bible. Trust me. Do not fear.
To the woman caught in adultery and under sentence of death by stoning he said " go and sin no more. Your sins are forgiven." Another time he assures those listening that he has the power to forgive sin.

So why feel guilty?
And why be fearful?

Organised religion can't save you.
Government can't save you.
Buying the right product can't save you.
Wearing the latest fashion can't save you
Recycling your drinks cans can't save you.

So I won't be afraid, though I have much to fear.
And I won't feel guilty, though I have much to ask forgiveness for.

Guilt and Fear? No thanks.

Vested Interests

Vested Interests

What do Islington Council and the Church of Rome have in common? What do the University of East Anglia HADCRUT Unit and HMRC have in common? This answer is simple. They are all organisations who have been involved in controversy in the recent past. More than that, they all employ the standard tactic when one or more of their number comes under public scrutiny. They close ranks to protect the organisation.
It’s what organisations do.
MPs close ranks when some of their members fiddle their expenses. Banks and financial dealers close ranks when accused of sharp practice, and yes, doctors close ranks when one of their number is accused of malpractice. It’s what they do.

All organisations put their reputation before the truth- even churches. And not just the Catholics, because Protestant Evangelical Christian churches also have their share of scandals that they try to suppress. My mother used to say to me “Be sure your sins will find you out” and she’s not wrong.

I’m a Christian- a follower of Jesus, and yet I don’t attend church for many reasons.

The three main world religions portray God as one who requires that everyone should pay for the things they’ve done wrong. Each religion interprets this differently. Moslems have a strict regime of praying and fasting, plus pilgrimage to atone for their sins while the Jews require a sacrifice of an unblemished lamb to appease a god who required that blood be spilt. About six centuries BC, Jewish prophets began to forecast the coming of a Saviour, one who would take the place of the sacrificial lambs. This Messiah would also save the Jews from oppression and lead them to victory.
The Jews believe that their Messiah’s arrival is still awaited, while Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah that was foretold in ancient writings.

That doesn’t seem enough to make people go to war against each other does it?

Most, if not all mainstream Trinitarian Churches have a core set of beliefs that all Christians can accept. These are very few: Jesus is the Son of God, was born to a virgin in fulfilment of earlier prophesies, was crucified, died and rose from the dead. They all agree that his death was atonement for our sins.
But each Christian sect, denomination or sub-division has other beliefs that mark them out as different from the others. I won’t bore you with all the differences, or why they matter, but once again they are enough to make people go to war with one another. Islam also has different strains that regularly go to war against one another. No wonder unbelievers despair!

And yet many of these unbelievers support a football team and swear allegiance to them. These teams all play the same game, to the same set of rules and yet their followers are willing to fight each other. In one famous incident, two South American countries declared war following a game of football, so wanting to fight for one’s beliefs isn’t so strange.
People want to believe in something. How else can you explain horoscopes or crystal healing?

For many years I travelled the UK as a worship leader/preacher and my wife and I were invited into churches of every denomination to minister. I was welcomed into one Catholic church as a member of another faith (which made me smile), and I met and spoke with ministers from every denomination. It was an eye opener to hear these professional Christians assert that what they each believed was the truth, and that what all the others believed wasn’t.

I thought long and hard about this. Which of these different versions of the faith was correct? They couldn’t all be right, could they? Not when their beliefs were so different?
This coincided with a period of illness and unemployment. I spiralled into depression that found expression in cynicism.

They couldn’t all be right- but they could all be wrong.

The church that I was attending (when not out visiting other churches) split into different factions. In despair, I returned to the church where I’d come to faith. I was older, wiser, with a lot of experience and a lot to offer. That made me a threat to the established leadership and his followers. My offers of help were received warmly, but never taken up. I was reduced to sitting in the pew, listening to bad preaching and lousy musicianship. The reason there are so many denominations is because people line up behind personalities. They get frustrated over points of theology, emphasis, leadership and so they leave and form a new church.
All too often the Gospel gets pushed to the background while personalities struggle for power (in the name of God, of course).
I wasn’t going to cause this church to split by stomping off with my circle of fans, so I just stopped going.
And my depression lifted.

These days I’m happy not to attend a church. I won’t bore you with my many experiences- of indoctrination verging on brainwashing in one church I attended briefly; of “heavy shepherding” in another, where any and every life decision had to be brought to the leadership for their approval; of sitting in pews while lies were told in the name of Jesus; and so on.

I read that Ghandi almost became a Christian. The only thing that stopped him following Jesus was the behaviour of his followers. I’m with him on that. The Christian faith is easy to understand but hard to live out. Churches are human organisations with all too human failings. Ambitions, jealousies, personalities all cloud the fundamental purpose of what church should be about.

When church becomes yet another human organisation that is more concerned with perpetuating itself, then it has lost all relevance. Watching wall-to-wall coverage of the Pope and other religious leaders in all their splendour is about as far from the Gospel as it could be.
Mother Teresa worked single handed in the slums of India for over 30 years without coming to the world’s notice. Her selfless devotion to duty away from the glare of the world’s media was closer to Jesus’ intentions than any stage managed showbiz spectacle that we’ve witnessed this week.

Giving aid to terrorists

Nick Clegg is keeping Callmedave's seat warm while he has a holiday and today he described the West's level of donation to the Pakistan flood disaster as "lamentable".
So far the bulk of money raised has come from UK citizens and that is understandable as many thousands if not millions have settled in the UK since the Indian partition in the late 40s. The act of helping one's relatives is entirely laudable.

So why should any Western government be giving aid to Pakistan at all? For a start they are wealthy enough to have nuclear weapons. If they can afford those then surely they could build flood defences and a decent infrastructure?
Secondly the government of Pakistan is corrupt on a scale that is breathtaking. Last year it slipped from number 47 to number 42 in the list of the world's most corrupt nation. So there is no certainty that any money aid given will actually reach its target. And don't get me started about their president, Asif Ali Zardari, who has amassed a huge fortune at a time when the average wage of the population is tiny.Indeed, he and his huge entourage were swanning around Europe at the Pakistani taxpeyer's expense while the worst of the floods were drowning the country.

The Pakistan opposition leader Nawaz Sharif says that Pakistan does not need international relief and that the country could easily raise the money to repair the damage. read it here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7946687/Pakistan-does-not-need-western-aid-opposition-leader-claims.html
Of course that is unlikely to happen, because there are so many fingers in the pie that nothing can be done unless the West stumps up.
And why the West? Pakistan is a fundamentalist Islamic country. Where is the aid from the rich Arab/Islamic countries. Surely Islam would look after its own?
Don't hold your breath.
And can Pakistan be called a country anyway? Like it's neighbour to the North and West, Afghanistan, Pakistan is a loose coalition of tribal areas. Indeed, each area of Pakistan speaks a different dialect and seems to swear allegiance only to itself. Can political boundaries exist in this part of the world? There is currently unrest in Kashmir where the Islamic population is in revolt against the Indian government.
There appears to be little loyalty to any concept of nationhood among the tribes of this part of Asia.
In a country where kidnap is seen as a legitimate occupation, can giving money be a wise thing?

Next there is the indeniable fact that Pakistan exports terrorism. We've all seen the effects of allowing Pakistani Imams into the country to teach in the UK's mosques. All the recent terrorist atrocities in the UK, India and the US had links to Pakistan.
There are Islamic extremists in Pakistan who hate the west and want to kill us all and destroy us. And Clegg wonders why no-one wants to help them?

Christians may argue that Jesus commands his followers to love those who hate you, bless those who curse you.(matt 5:44).
I have two comments to make. The Christian faith is a private and personal faith. Jesus was speaking to the individual, not the nation. If as an individual I am wronged, then I am commanded to love those who wish me ill. That is a personal matter between the individual and God. It is not and can never be a basis for diplomatic policy.
Secondly and far more importantly- the ability to forgive is considered a strength in the Christian world.
However, it is seen as a weakness in the Islamic world. Showing weakness is unthinkable to an Afghan or Pakistani tribesman. Forgiving your agressor causes him to lose face, and to lose face is unthinkable. Instead of showing him love/care/concern for his well being, you have deeply insulted him and he will vow revenge.

I will not be giving any aid to the Pakistani people, and I strongly advise you not to either. Their opposition leader has said that he doesn't want it, that the country can sort its own problems out. Their worldview is such that to accept aid would be demeaning and they would lose face. And then honour would have to be satisfied.
They really would bite the hand that feeds it.

Politics and religion

When I was a young man my father advised me of two subjects to steer clear of when out socialising- namely politics and religion.
One of my favourite blogs of the last couple of years has been Archbishop Cranmer's.
He wrote on his blogsite
"Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’"
He's been silent for a couple of months and I hope he's ok.

Whatever my dad advised, it's certain that politics and religion hold a central position in the world today. We may have no interest in them per se, but they shape world events on a daily basis.

For those who don't know me, for many years I swore to god that I was an atheist. I'd been brought up in a christian environment and I even attended Sunday school as a child. School assemblies were Christian. I attended Scouts and Cubs, both of which were christian based organisations. Christianity is natural to me, so when I was confronted with the decision to believe or not, I had to make a choice.
People have said that Jesus was either mad, sad or bad.
I chose to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for my sins.
Does that make me mad, bad or sad? Who knows and who cares?

I have no problems accepting the reality of Jesus in my life. However, almost twenty years of being a believer have convinced me that religion should be a private matter and that religion and politics don't mix. Ever.

Look at the evidence. Bliar, Clinton and George Dubya all claimed to be evangelical Christians. Jesus famously wrote "by their fruits shall you know them" (Matt 7 v16)
and it's true that there is very little fruit to be seen from their labours.

For the uninitiated, the fruits that Jesus refers to are what Paul calls the Fruits of the Spirit, namely-
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The leaders who bombed Iraq back into the stone age can hardly be said to have demonstrated any of the above. And yet the US would claim to be a God fearing Christian country.

As I said, politics and religion don't and can't mix.
The early Christian Church was doing OK until it was adopted as the official state religion by Constantine. OK it was marginalised and persecuted and only found favour among the slave class, but it was working.
Once it came up from the catacombs and found favour the rot set in, and has continued unabated. Now what counted was power, not in heaven but here on earth. I won't bore you with any of the details but it's depressing reading.

I was involved in church life for about fifteen years. I observed everything. True, I saw miracles. I saw lives transformed. I experienced incredible spiritual highs. I saw the presence of God as described in I Kings 8:10-11, "And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD."
I've been brought to my knees in the presence of something so awesome, so powerful, so holy. I believe.

I've seen all that. But I've also seen the other side. The lust for power, the worship of money and privilege; the manipulation of congregations, the power games, the politics- the politics.

Ah yes, the politics. When politicians start doing things for spiritual or religious reasons a line has been crossed.
Just because I went somewhere and had a religious experience it does not automatically follow that if you do the same then the same thing will happen to you.
Just because a leader speaks from a deep personal conviction he should never assume that he speaks for all of us. Why?

Because faith is a personal matter. And politics should never be about one person's interests above everyone else's, should it?

The Vicar of Bray

Now that the new government is getting its feet under the table, and the Labour leadership is starting to shape up, it's surprising how many of the ex-labour Government ministers have come out to say that their policy on Iraq, Afghanistan, and now immigration were wrong. Next will be 24 hour drinking, a cornerstone of Bliar's cafe society big idea.
The whole nonsense put me in mind of the Vicar of Bray. I learned about him at grammar school, back when they used to teach history. Apparently they're offering a GCSE in Britain's Got Talent these days. That reminds me of the old joke about the Irish equivalent of GCE exams, where the questions went-
Q. Either- Explain Boyle's law
Or- name the members of Boyzone.

For those who don't know any history can I point you to this site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Bray

And here's the words to the 18th century song-

In good King Charles's golden days,
When Loyalty no harm meant;
A Zealous High-Church man I was,
And so I gain'd Preferment.
Unto my Flock I daily Preach'd,
Kings are by God appointed,
And Damn'd are those who dare resist,
Or touch the Lord's Anointed.

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!

When Royal James possest the crown,
And popery grew in fashion;
The Penal Law I shouted down,
And read the Declaration:
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my Constitution,
And I had been a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution.

And this is Law, &c.

When William our Deliverer came,
To heal the Nation's Grievance,
I turn'd the Cat in Pan again,
And swore to him Allegiance:
Old Principles I did revoke,
Set conscience at a distance,
Passive Obedience is a Joke,
A Jest is non-resistance.

And this is Law, &c.

When Royal Ann became our Queen,
Then Church of England's Glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory:
Occasional Conformists base
I Damn'd, and Moderation,
And thought the Church in danger was,
From such Prevarication.

And this is Law, &c.

When George in Pudding time came o'er,
And Moderate Men looked big, Sir,
My Principles I chang'd once more,
And so became a Whig, Sir.
And thus Preferment I procur'd,
From our Faith's great Defender
And almost every day abjur'd
The Pope, and the Pretender.

And this is Law, &c.

The Illustrious House of Hannover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I lustily will swear,
Whilst they can keep possession:
For in my Faith, and Loyalty,
I never once will faulter,
But George, my lawful king shall be,
Except the Times shou'd alter.

And this is Law, &c.


Ah, the benefits of a grammar school education!

Why AGW is the new religion

I've been posting on other forums recently and one topic led to a discussion where I drew comparisons between the modern day religion of global warming/climate change and the pre-reformation Catholic Church.
Both were intolerant of dissent, although AGW heretics haven't been burnt at the stake- yet. They have however been denied funding and patronage in the same way as early scientists who refused to believe the church's official stance that the sun and stars revolved around the earth, which was at the centre of the universe. Any dissent from this official view meant imprisonment.
Wikipedia states that "Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed (at least outwardly) to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture", and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest."
Nowadays the only way one can get science funding is if you accept global warming as a fact. Being a sceptic means no career.

So the first similarity between AGW and pre-reformation Christianity is to do with partonage and heresy.

The second similarity is to do with money.
Indulgences were a pardon for certain types of sin that was sold by the Catholic Church in the late medieval period. The sale of indulgences motivated Martin Luther to post the "95 Theses, which led to the Reformation.
These days they're called carbon credits. Carbon transactions is a booming market, worth $126 billion last year alone. The eureferendum.blogspot site says this "The larger part of the market actually comprises the EU's mandatory Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – and other very much smaller allowance schemes - accounting for 73 percent of trading volume in 2008.
This mechanism was formally created in 1997 by the Kyoto climate treaty and started operating in a very small way in 1998 building to 78 million "credits" (or Certified Emission Reductions, CERs, as they are formally known) to 333 million this year with a projection of 1.7 billion by the end of 2012."

Both the Christian faith and Climate Science started out as honest institutions that were gradually infiltrated and corrupted by the power hungry and greedy.
The Christian church underwent a painful and bloody reformation that resulted in many dead saints.

Science has been devalued and dragged through the mud by the corruption. Nothing less than a revolution will clean it up and put it back on track.

You couldn't make this up.

The Times is reporting that the Pope has called for Christians to “do penance” in the face of “world attacks” on the Church over the clerical abuse scandals.
At a Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican for members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission the Pope, who turns 83 tomorrow and is to make a two-day visit to Malta at the weekend, said: “I have to say that we Christians, including in recent times, have often avoided the word penance, which seemed to us too harsh.”
He added: “Now, under attack from the world, which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognise what is wrong in our lives”.
You can read it here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7098470.ece

Well excuse me Mr Ratzinger. I didn't molest the kids and cover it up. Your priests did. And they did it when you were in charge and could do something about it.

Your statement sums up what is wrong with your church.
You presume a moral authority over other Christians.
You rule your clergy by denying them the right to a normal married life.
You rule your church through guilt and fear.
You claim infallibility for yourselves.

And now you want Christians everywhere to do penance for your sins?
Jesus died for your sins. You don't need to do penance. No-one does.
And the idea of making me do it in your place reveals what a den of thieves the church has become.
The Bible says quite clearly that judgement will begin with the church.
It is beginning.

Good Friday

I'm a Christian who no longer goes to church. My faith in Jesus remains the same, but I no longer have any faith in organised religion. You've seen the papers and you don't need a sermon from me.

Isaac Watts was one of the first hymn writers. The established church at the time pilloried him for daring to write hymns. The only words that could be used in church were those written in the Bible, and any other words were sacrilege.
It's reassuring to know that nothing changes.

This is, in my opinion, the finest hymn in the English language

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died;
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

Isaac Watts 1674-1748

Happy Easter!

The lessons from history

A friend sent me a email with this message. The sad lesson we learn from history is that we never learn the lessons from history. I'm printing it in full and I hope you will read it and if your agree, let others know.


A German's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II,
owned a number of large industries and estates.
When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care.
I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.
So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.
Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up,
because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. 
 
 Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.

Believe in God- instantly

 I saw this on Dizzy's site. Priceless!

Don't you just love those TV evangelists

Many of you will know that I worked as a Christian worship leader and singer/songwriter until about five years ago. For about ten years I played every kind of church, plus open air events, festivals, conferences and prisons up and down the country. I appeared on Christian TV with my wife Sue and we also made a number of appearances on BBC and Christian radio stations. I guess you can say that I met people from every part of the Christian faith spectrum. I worked with worship leaders and preachers from every denomination and I heard every version of the gospel (with perhaps the exception of the snake cult).
The end result of all this was burnout and spiritual confusion. I heard contradictory statements based on the same passage in the Bible. I was asked to sign up to beliefs that were frankly unbelieveable. I made many observations over the years. One was this- the more "spiritual" the church claimed to be, the less willing they were to get their hands dirty.
I also learned that knowledge is not the same as wisdom.
And I heard some absolute tosh preached in the name of God.

Which brings me on to Pat Robertson. If you have satellite TV you can probably tune in to his show "the 700 Club" which is broadcast on his TV channel TBN every day.

On the January 13, 2010 broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson blamed Haiti’s 1791
Slave rebellion for the Haitian Earthquake of January 12 2010, telling viewers:
"... something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it, they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the French, true story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, and ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor." He went on to state:
"That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable."
Apart from the fact that the rebellion took place four years before Napoleon III was born, isn't this just utter rubbish?
At least he is being consistent.
On his November 10, 2005 broadcast of The 700 Club, Robertson told citizens of Dover Pennsylvania that they had rejected God by voting out of office all seven members of the school board who support intelligent design.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city", Robertson said on his broadcast.
"And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because He might not be there."
In a written statement, Robertson later clarified his comments:
"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."

In 1999 Robertson said Scotland was "a dark land" overrun by homosexuals. This caused the Bank of Scotland to drop plans for a business operation with him. Many Scottish customers were unhappy that their bank should do business with him.

I found all this out on Wiki, so take your objections up with them please.
It just shows that radical Islamic preachers aren't the only ones stirring up controversy

Jesus and Mo

Can I recommend Jesus and Mo to you? Here's the link, or hit the title to this post.
http://www.jesusandmo.net/

Jesus and Mo share a house and drink at the local pub where various theological debates are aired. It's a very clever and funny way of bringing out the differences between Christianity and Islam, and where their views coincide. Here's today's post.

Free will

A facebook friend commented today
"How can God give us free-will AND the threat of Hell? Paradox!"

I replied
"God gives you free will- and then condemns you to hell if you use it...."

Those who know me will know that I used to dabble in theology until I realised that people believed what they want to believe. How else can one reconcile the added extras that the various Christian denominations insist on? Protestants are divided into those who believe that God chose who He is to save before they were born (predestination)and those who don't. Then there is the thorny issue of what happens when believers leave the church. Some will point to their Bibles and insist that it says "once saved, always saved", while others say that if a person leaves the church he has fallen away from the faith and is condemned to hell.
So you can see why I no longer preach or indulge in theology. People believe what they want to believe. How else can one explain the green movement?
It all comes down to choice. I choose to believe that Jesus died for my sins. I choose to believe Him when he says that all who call on His name will be saved.
I choose not to believe anything any of the mainstream churches try to add to my simple belief. It's a matter of choice. My choice.

I found this quote on another website, regarding the difference between the "Common Sense" and "Pragmatism" schools of philosophy. Here's the link
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2010/01/common_sense_ve.html

"For choice is neither predetermined (for that is no choice) or random chance (for that is no choice either) - choice is what it is, neither predetermined or chance. Choice is choice." 19th Century philosopher Thomas Reid