Considerettes

Apparently, that’s where the Norwegian government thinks they come from.

Now comes a suggestion from a Norwegian official called the “Ombudsman for Children in Norway” proposing that the ancient procedure be replaced by a “symbolic, nonsurgical ritual.” Apparently in Norway it is possible to create religiously meaningful rituals overnight, which is an insight into the understanding of religion in Norwegian public life. And Norway’s “Centre Party,” which is a member of the governing coalition, has just proposed that circumcision be outlawed entirely.

Something similar is happening in the US as well. Do governments not have enough to do, that they must bother Jews about a religious tradition handed down by God thousands of years ago?

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[FYI, Part 2 of my "after-birth abortion" article will appear Monday, for both of you waiting for it. ]

Obama: ‘Drill Drill Drill won’t work. And you can thank Me that it did.’

America’s per capita debt is worse than Greece. And Greece’s credit rating is in the basement.

BBC: We’ll Mock Jesus But Never Mohammed. (Because Christians won’t cut off their head or burn things.)

For all the talk about crude names called at Sandra Fluke, the war on conservative women goes merrily unreported. Meryl Yourish refers to this as the new Exception Clause.

No wonder liberals think their unconstitutional ideas are constitutional. They don’t understand the document’s intent.

Like all generalizations, it’s not true of every single case, but James Q. Wilson asks an interesting question: Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?

Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.

And finally, the return of the political cartoon to Friday Link Wrap-ups.

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Post-war (i.e. WWII) marginal tax rates (the top individual tax bracket) have fluctuated from above 90% to below 30%, but W. Kurt Hauser noted that, in 1993, the total tax revenue, as a percentage of GDP, stayed virtually constant. Really. The data has been updated to 2007 and the observation holds. You can’t soak the rich. Raise their rates, and GDP goes down to match, in addition to the tax shelters that suddenly become very popular. Social engineers who want to use the tax code to implement what they want ought to be very disturbed, if they even know about this.

In terms of absolute dollars, federal revenues have tripled in the last 50 years (quadrupled if you consider the amount just before the recession). The problem is, federal spending has outpaced even that. Ed Morrissey has the charts to show that we don’t have a revenue problem.

Homeschooling is such a success that liberals at the NEA, in the Dept. of Education and in Congress are "troubled" and "concerned" by it, and of course consider it racist. Yes, really.

The pro-life cause continues to advance, recently in Ohio. And Americans United for Life has put out a scathing 181-page report on abuses and law-breaking at Planned Parenthood, and is taking it to Congress.

Global warming seems to have stopped. Well, Scientific American says, "Blame Asia!"

Obama, in prosecuting war, embraces his inner Dubya.

Just like the press (and the anti-war movement) has gone very quiet about wars, old and new, being prosecuted by this President, the NY Time even notices that the press has been ignoring the poor during this recession. And they’re part of the press to blame for it! What a difference a Democratic President makes!

Andres Oppenheimer says it best. "What Chavez has done in Venezuela over the last 12 years is nothing short of an economic miracle: Despite benefiting from the biggest oil boom in Venezuela’s history, he has somehow managed to turn the country into a shambles." Read the whole thing. It’s amazing to see truly how much money socialism can spend on people, only to make their lives worse.

Comparing and contrasting the economic stimulus under Clinton (that got rejected) to the economic stimulus under Obama (which passed) and which was actually better for unemployment.

If the debt ceiling is not raised by August, we would still have enough money coming in to not default on interest payments on the debt, and cover Social Security, Medicare, and "essential" defense. Don’t let Obama’s threat about withholding Grandma’s check scare you.

The ban on circumcision that will be on the San Francisco ballot in November is rife with anti-Semitism. That’s just about all you need to know about it, but here’s more.

And some more slipper slope for you. (Click for a larger image.)

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Duane Shank, a senior policy advisor for the Sojourners has this to say about bringing Christian meaning to the Jewish Seder supper.

This week I saw an article written last spring on Jews’ concerns over Christians celebrating Passover.  It seems that more Christian churches are using “Christianized” versions of the seder, reinterpreting the meal’s symbols to reflect Christian beliefs.  Said one rabbi, “They take our symbols, our holiday, our ritual and start investing them in Christian meaning.”

This is a concern that I share. Infusing the traditional text with Christian meaning is both dishonest and disrespectful.

Um, didn’t the writers of the Gospels infuse the traditional text of the Old Testament with Christian meaning?

For myself, I’ve participated in many Christian seders, and it is truly amazing to see how, in this celebration of the escape from Egypt by the Israelites, how much New Testament symbolism is actually in there. We see it in the Bible, of course, but also in the traditional remembrance of it that the Jews have written. Remarkable.

If you have had any experiences with Christian Seders you’d like to share, or if you feel they cheapen the actual Jewish tradition, let’s hear in the comments.

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Shire Network News #159 has been released. The feature interview is with Dr. Richard Cravatts, director of Boston University’s Program in Publishing at the Center for Professional Education, who is currently writing a book  entitled "Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel". Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

I did not have a segment this week.

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An Israeli researcher, Benny Shanon, claims that Moses was doing drugs on Mount Sinai when he heard God tell him the Ten Commandments.  We find the crux of the matter in paragraph 3.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Essentially, this "research" started from a conclusion and worked its way back to the explanation.  It’s "very probable" because the researcher dismisses everything else out of hand.  No evidence, just inference based on his own presuppositions.

Oh, and there’s also a bit of projection going on there, too.

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil’s Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He did drugs, so Moses must have.  There’s "research" for you.

Technorati Tags: Moses, Mount Sinai, drugs, Benny Shanon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Judaism, Christianity

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One of the podcasts I listen to is Heading Right Radio with Ed Morrissey of “Captain’s Quarters”. He gets some great interviews, and last week (I’m behind in my podcast listening) he got Dinesh D’Souza and they talked about D’Souza’s book “What’s So Great About Christianity”. Fresh from his debate at King’s College with Christopher Hitchens, D’Souza covers a number of interesting topics from his book, including the truth about the Gallileo’s persecution, the limits of reason, why the recent increase in atheist apologetics, the supposed “war” between science and religion, thank-you letters to Portugese inquisitors, and other light topics. >grin<

Click here to listen to any of Captain Ed’s shows, and stick it in your podcatcher.

Technorati Tags: Ed Morrissey, Dinesh D’Souza, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, atheism

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Maimon Schwarzschild put up a thought-provoking post last week about charity in the world. It starts thusly:

The New York Times ran a front-page story recently about an elderly man who starved to death in Japan, having been denied help by the welfare bureaucracy. The man kept a diary as he died: heartbreaking to read. The Japanese welfare bureaucracy seems to have been notably heartless, and not only in this case. There are other, similar cases of starvation in the past year or two in Japan, according to the Times.

There is this brief throwaway in the lengthy Times story:

With no religious tradition of charity, Japan has few soup kitchens or other places for the indigent. Those that exist — run frequently by Christian missionaries from South Korea or Japan’s tiny Christian population — cater mostly to the homeless.

Say what you will about the “Abrahamic” religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - can there be any doubt that they have brought an ethic of charity into a world that would otherwise be a crueler place?

The ancient, pagan world, for all its brilliance, was coldly cruel. The Hebrew Bible put enormous emphasis on charity, which was something radically new.

Some of the commenters have their own issues with Muslim charity (little at all, or only to other Muslims).

Maimon winds up with this thought to chew on.

If the Christian world is on its way to being post-Christian, will the tradition of Christian charity persist?

Or is the ethic of charity liable to go down with the faith that inspired it?

Technorati Tags: Maimon Schwarzschild, Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, paganism, charity

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Might be.

Remains of the Jewish second temple may have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Israeli television reported Thursday.

Israeli television broadcast footage of a mechanical digger at the site which Israeli archaeologists visited on Thursday.

Gaby Barkai, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, urged the Israeli government to stop the pipework after the discovery of what he said is “a massive seven metre-long wall.”

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jewish temple, Gaby Barkai, Bar Ilan University, Judaism

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Shire Network News #98 has been released. The feature interview is the second half of a conversation with Professor Deborah Lipstadt about the resurgence of anti-semitism worldwide, and why it’s not just Jews who should be afraid. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary segment.

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Hi, this is Doug Payton with Shire Network News, asking you to “Consider This”.

This week, we take a run through headlines of the recent past, starting with this Associated Press headline, “Shuttle crew practice countdown”.

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…0

See, I knew I was astronaut material!

Next up, we have a story from the NY Times, discussing the progress in the war in the area of Ramadi in Anbar Province. You don’t hear much about Anbar these days, probably because it’s going so well there. Here’s a clip from that story.

Now, a pact between local tribal sheiks and American commanders has sent thousands of young Iraqis from Anbar Province into the fight against extremists linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The deal has all but ended the fighting in Ramadi and recast the city as a symbol of hope that the tide of the war may yet be reversed to favor the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Oddly, the story appears to be invisible to the editorial writers who wrote these sentiments on the very same day.

“It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit. . . . Milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. . . . Whatever [President’s Bush’s] cause was, it is lost. . . . Keeping troops in Iraq will only make things worse.”

It’s like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is writing. If these folks do indeed read their own newspaper, what does it say about the quality of reporting if even their own editorial writers don’t believe it?

Also from the terrorism front comes this headline atop an article from ABC New’s Investigative Team; “Exclusive: Terror Commander: New Attack Will Dwarf Failed Bomb Plot”. OK, maybe something big is indeed coming, but how big does it have to be to dwarf a “failed bomb plot”? Sounds like the Taliban are setting the bar rather low for the future.

CNN is reporting that the United States wants ex-Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega, extradited to France. This sounds like some sort of prisoner rendition. Isn’t there a law against torture?

And finally we have an assurance from Senator John Kerry that our knowledge of history, of 165,000 dead in Vietnam and 2 million in Cambodia, was not as bad as we thought it was. (Click here for the video.) He responds to a caller to CSPAN who wants us to leave Iraq but is concerned that the aftermath in Iraq might mirror Vietnam.

Let me just say to the first part of your question with respect to boat people and killing, everybody predicted a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There was not a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There were reeducation camps, and they weren’t pretty and, you know, nobody, you know, likes that kind of outcome. But on the other hand, I’ve met lot of people today who were in those education camps, who are thriving in the Vietnam of today.

So there you have it. While reeducation camps aren’t pretty and generally distasteful, the fact that some survived it means that they couldn’t have been all that bad. One wonders if they were pretty, if a little more attention had been paid to the decor, they might have been just marvelous. Next week on CSPAN, Senator Kerry brings an Auschwitz survivor in to show how they’re thriving.

And those are the headlines from “Consider This”. Back to you, Brian.

Technorati Tags: Shire Network News, podcast, space shuttle, Ramadi, Anbar, New York Times, Taliban, France, Manuel Noriega, John Kerry, Vietnam, Cambodia

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Shire Network News #97 has been released. The feature interview is with American academic, Professor Deborah Lipstadt, about the resurgence of anti-semitism worldwide, and why it’s not just Jews who should be afraid.. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary segment.

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Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to “Consider This”.  In a recent video, Al Qaeda’s number 2 guy, Ayman Zawahiri, warned of impending doom, praised jihadi fighters, offered his “reflections” on the status of Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere, and even cracked a joke. Looks like he’s trying to connect more with the common man while still bolstering his jihad creds. More of a kinder, gentler hate, or, if you will, compassionate crusaderism.This was a well-produced video, with Zawahiri sitting in front of a studio background rather than the typical camouflage sheet. But however good it looked, it wasn’t professional. A piece of paper on the desk in front of him was easily visible and what video experts have been able to pull from that shows that this is not the last we’ll see of a softer presentation and more engaging content. So then, from the home office in Camillus, New York, and avoiding any copyright violations, here are the top 9 ideas Ayman Zawahiri has for the next Al Qaeda video!

Number 9: Instead of usual headgear, hire US Presidential candidate John Edwards’ celebrity hair stylist.

Number 8: Offer a free “I (heart) O B L” T-shirt to the first 5 callers to the throw-away cell phone number on the screen.

Number 7: Audition his band “Ayman and the Masked Gunmen”, singing “Global Warming from the War on Terror”, for a spot in Al Gore’s Live Earth concert.

Number 6: Appeal to conservatives by introducing “No Infidel Left Behind…Alive”.

Number 5: Appeal to liberals with their “socialized ammunition” policy.

Number 4: Get Michael Moore to produce next video. Working title: “Nutso”.

Number 3: Paris Hilton in a burka.

Number 2: Issue a fatwah against that Brian guy from the Shire Network News podcast.

And the number 1 idea Ayman Zawahiri has for the next Al Qaeda video:

Preview his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. (Heh, well, if Yassar Arafat could win one…)

And now, back to Brian.

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Richard Dawkins, scientist, atheist, and author of “The God Delusion”:

Refusing to believe that science and religion could ever be happy bedfellows, the self-confessed atheist said that professional scientists who did promote that theory needed to prove the existence of god because it was a scientific question.

Emphasis mine, to point out that there have been many scientists who indeed were very religious. For instance:

Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history’s greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law — even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters — and combing the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel for clues about the world’s end.

Any scientist who does that today would no doubt be considered a nut by Dawkins and his supporters. And yet I’m certain that Dawkins has no problem accepting the scientific conclusions of someone he’d consider a religious fanatic today.

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton wrote. However, he added, “This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.”

In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see “the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom,” he posited.

This is not someone with just a passing interest in a popular religious text of the time, this is someone who takes it seriously. Oftentimes, this sort of religious display is handwaved away as purely cultural, but I don’t think you can do that here.

Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit’s curators, said the papers show Newton’s conviction that important knowledge was hiding in ancient texts.

“He believed there was wisdom in the world that got lost. He thought it was coded, and that by studying things like the dimensions of the temple, he could decode it,” she said.

The Newton papers, Ben-Menahem said, also complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion. “These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God’s actions in the world,” she said.

They are not mutually exclusive.

Technorati Tags: religion, science, Isaac Newton, Richard Dawkins, Israel, Jerusalem, Bible, Apocalypse, Yemima Ben-Menahem

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Shire Network News #89 has been released. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary segment.

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Hi, I’m Doug Payton, and this is “Consider This” for Shire Network News.

First off, I’d like to apologize for the sound of my segment last week. I try to make it obvious when I’m quoting someone else by giving it that AM radio sound; a bit tinny. Well, apparently, I accidentally applied that to the whole segment. As an effect, tinny is OK. After a few minutes, it’s grating. Anyway, just wanted to make sure the blame was placed properly. It wasn’t Brian of London’s fault. It was Dick Cheney.

Moving on…

You know how you’re always being told to “vote your conscience”? Well, there’s a coalition of religious leaders out there that doesn’t want you to do that anymore. Well, it’s a religious coalition at least according to Reuters. You know Reuters. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”? Yeah, that Reuters. I’ll get back to that characterization in a moment, but first, here’s what the group “Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice” got Reuters to report.

“With the April 18 Supreme Court decision banning specific abortion procedures, concerns are being raised in religious communities about the ethics of denying these services,” the group said in a statement.

“They are imposing their points of view,” Barbara Kavadias, director of field services for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

I have news for these folks. Every decision by the Supreme Court is an imposition on somebody. There are two parties involved, so someone doesn’t get their way. I daresay the KKK thinks civil rights laws are an imposition on them, but I also daresay this religious coalition approves of this imposition of a point of view. Whether or not something is an imposition has no bearing at all on its fitness as a law or a legal decision.

Next we get some serious name-calling and sexism. No proper left-wing rant would be complete without it.

She noted that the five Supreme Court justices on the majority in the 5-4 decision were all Catholic men — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia.

All were appointed by conservative Republican presidents who oppose abortion, including President George W. Bush.

If this religious coalition were conservative or Republican, this would be hate speech. As it is, they can get away with this characterization.

Basically, they want Catholic men to vote the conscience of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, not their own. But I would point out that the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice does not sit on the Supreme Court. Those that do sit there were appointed by duly-elected Presidents, who themselves were elected by the people. So by extension, you are not allowed to vote your conscience, at least if it is at odds with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

And let’s not forget that this law that the Supreme Court upheld was voted for by 281 House members and 64 Senators from both parties, both genders, and a combination of religious persuasions, who themselves were elected by the people they represent. So by extension…well, OK, you know the drill.

But wait, there’s more! Not only are government officials not allowed to represent their constituents in this matter, neither are private citizens and businesses.

The group also complained about Catholic-owned hospitals that refuse to sterilize women who ask for it, refuse to let doctors perform abortions and do not provide contraception.

“Doctors, pharmacists and nurses are also increasingly exercising a so-called ‘religious or moral objection,’ refusing to provide essential services and often leaving patients without other options,” the group said in a statement.

Catholic doctors and Catholic-owned businesses should not, according to this religious coalition, be allowed to stay true to their religious convictions. Quite an ironic statement to make. If they’re so concerned about this, instead of imposing their views (sound familiar?) on others, they’re more than free to open their own “Abortions R Us” and provide those options. In the meantime, whining about religious freedom doesn’t really give much weight to their views about a court that decides constitutional issues.

OK, so about this “religious coalition”. In paragraph 11 of the story, Reuters finally gets around to telling us the make-up of this religious coalition.

The group includes ordained Protestant ministers, a Jewish activist, an expert on women’s reproductive rights and several physicians.

So we have Protestant ministers (no clue how many), one Jewish activist (so that you can call it a “coalition”), an expert on women’s reproductive rights (again, one, and not apparently representing a specific religion), and “several” (however many that is) physicians (who, again, aren’t representing a religion). Given their group’s name, and how Reuters initially refers to them as a “coalition of religious leaders”, there does seem to be two things at work here. Number 1, there’s a desire for the group to appear as though it represents a broad range of religious beliefs, when in reality it includes only left-wing Protestants and a single left-wing Jewish activist (not “leader”). Number 2, Reuters seems more than happy to promote this misconception until the very last minute, over halfway into the story, just before the point where they start talking about other groups’ reactions to these statements. Nope, no agenda there.

OK, full disclosure. I’m an evangelical, Protestant Christian who finds more in common with those 5 Catholic men than this “coalition of religious leaders”.

Brian, take it away.

Technorati Tags: Shire Network News, podcast, abortion, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Protestant, Judaism, Catholic

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People of middle-eastern descent are being increasingly targeted for hate crimes in Britian. After 9/11 here and the London bombings there, it would be understandable, although completely intolerable, that violence against Muslims might increase in reaction. Except that it’s not Muslims that are the targets.

Attacks on Britain’s Jews have risen to the highest level since records began.

A study published today shows the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents has almost tripled in 10 years, with more than half the attacks last year taking place in London.

The findings prompted the report’s authors to warn of a “wave of hatred” against Jews.

The number of incidents increased to 594 last year, up by 31 per cent on the previous year.

Violent assaults soared to 112, up by more than a third on 2005.

Incidents ranged from the unprovoked stabbing of a Jewish man in north London to the sending of hate mail and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues.

Hat tip to the Rev. Sensing, who notes that the numbers in the US, while down slightly in 2006, did hit a 10-year high in 2004. While the Anglosphere bends over backward to be sensitive to Muslims, very little anti-Semitism goes noticed.

Make no mistake, violence against either group on the basis of simply who they are is unacceptable, but one group has the West cowed into not showing cartoons and whose radical suicide bombers target civilians, while the other group can take criticism in a civilized manner and whose radical suicide bombers…well…don’t exist. I’m not saying that we should accord special protection to Jews over Muslims, but we should give at least the same sensitivity to the Jews, dontcha’ think?

Technorati Tags: Judaism, Islam, Jew, Muslim, discrimination, violence, Britian

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