Compromising Justice

President Bush and the three Republican Senators opposing his efforts to contravene the Geneva accords have reached an agreement on legislation to clarify which interrogation techniques can be used against terror suspects and to establish trial procedures for those in military custody. What that legislation actually entails remains murky, but it's virtually certain to be a compromise between Bush and the three Senators which won't contain the safeguards for habeas corpus enshrined in the Specter-Levin Amendment. Here's what you can do about it.

The Bush administration's efforts to redefine the Geneva Conventions have been met with fierce bipartisan opposition, led on the GOP side by Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner.

The President's favored proposal, the military detainee bill, sought to roll back two important decisions rendered by the Supreme Court on the legal rights and treatment of terror suspects: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush. It would have established tribunals denying most basic legal protections currently required by the Geneva Conventions, and would have allowed defendants to be convicted on the basis of hearsay, evidence obtained by coercion, and evidence they had never seen. After the Group of Three blocked this provision, the White House dropped its insistence on gutting Geneva and is currently negotiating the remainder of the bill in what the New York Times called "a showdown that could have substanatial ramifications for national security and the political climate heading toward Election Day."

Warner's alternative bill, in contrast, calls for tribunals acting in accordance with the standards set out in the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision. So it's better. But, as Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith pointed out in The Nation online, it still has major problems, including the elimination of the power of federal courts to hear the habeas corpus claims of any noncitizen detained overseas or any individual who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant. This provision--which is in both bills--would retroactively strip US courts of jurisdiction over the habeas petitions of the more than 450 men currently imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay.

Warner's bill would also amend the War Crimes Act to provide legal cover for many of the CIA's "alternative" techniques--including use of hypothermia, sleep deprivation and threats of violence against detainees and their families. Basically, Bush's bill would strip away much of what makes America a great country, while Warner's bill would strip away some of what makes America great.

Sadly, the debate around these bills misses the point that both versions eliminate the fundamental right to habeas corpus, the right to challenge detention in a court of law, not to be locked up under the President's say-so, guilty or innocent, never to be heard from again.

But there is still hope in the form of another amendment in play that could save the basic American right of due process. Numerous groups are lobbying in support of it, and momentum is growing. Check out the Center for Constitutional Rights' site to fax or email your senators in support of the Specter-Levin Amendment on habeas corpus. Passing either of the two bills without the amendment would grant an unprecedented degree of power to the presidency. Anyone in US custody, at home or abroad, must have the right to challenge their detention in court. Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy. So click here today.

(Final Argument: If for some reason, you're not convinced of the importance of the Geneva Conventions, read this open letter to Congress urging the preservation of the treaty's terms from 40 retired military leaders, including Generals H. Hugh Shelton, Colin Powell and John Vessey, all former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as General John Shalikashvili and Admiral Stansfield Turner.)

Comments (304)

1. Oh, the Great Republican Rift. How will they ever come back together for the election when two radically different groups of GOPers use different means to ensure that American justice is not administered? And yet last Sunday, the media was so enamored with the notion that three leading GOP senators disagreed slightly with the Medieval notions of justice as promoted by the administration that they failed to note Warner's, McCain's and Graham's own version of pre-Magna Carta justice. Why question such things when there's a Republican catfight to promote?

   Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 12:03am

2. 2 Thugs, despots and lunatics on the path to destroying their own economys spent the better part of today vilifying the US, our leaders,our culture, our way of life and in an all around way openly wished to see us disappear...to the applause of the UN...and all we have here is crickets...no concern for the rants of the Iranian Furher or the tin horn clown of the big V...Chavez is going to kill his oil production...invade Ven? He will colapse the place as all latin american leaders with a penchant for attention do...

   No one standing up for the US at all....you people here do hate the US, its culture and what we do here as a people. All I hear on this site is anti capitalism and anti anything American.. You offer no support or defense for your own country...maybe the far right is correct...you all here hate Bush over all and as a result hate your own country...you are blinded...I would be nervous to have you next to me to defend the US...you don't seem reliable...and it seems all anti US, all the time..all the threads..

   I think I need to leave for a while...you people are disturbing and disturbed.

   Posted by john maasch at 09/21/2006 @ 12:59am

3. JM McLoon

   You're quite wrong. We love the US and ideals it was founded on. What we abhor is a despotic President re-writing reality to his own fundy-vangenut whims of rapture bound insanity...war for war's sake to "spread freedom" (or was that due to 9/11, or WMDs, or somthing else...?) legalizing torture...feed the rich and screw the poor (and lets make sure there's lots of scared poor folks to "perpetuate the propaganda)

   So as long as you're leaving.....don't hurry back if all this thought makes your head hurt. We'll get by fine thanks.

   Posted by leftofcenter at 09/21/2006 @ 01:14am

4. "I think I need to leave for a while...you people are disturbing and disturbed."

   Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/21/2006 @ 12:59am

   Bye.

   Posted by drhammer at 09/21/2006 @ 07:15am

5. I think I need to leave for a while...you people are disturbing and disturbed.

   Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/21/2006 @ 12:59am

   That's funny, I think most of us feel the same about you and your blind support of the un-American Bush administration. It's a flaw in your thinking if you think giving up what makes this country great (upholding the Constitution, acting better than the terrorists, working towards solutions instead of creating more problems, and on and on and on...) is more American than supporting what makes this country great (upholding the Constitution, acting better than the terrorists, working towards solutions instead of creating more problems, and on and on and on...).

   Posted by Turk33 at 09/21/2006 @ 07:43am

6. The fact that so many in this country feel threatened by the words of a South American leader is point number one about our inability to serve as the leader of the free world. Either Chavez is wrong and we need to ignore him as if he were African or he's right about a few things and we need to make some changes. But we'll never know because so few people look into what he says, so enraged are they by words such as devil and sulphur. Mental infants. Take your rattles and teddy bears and go to your playpen. Just don't cry when dreams of threats at every turn occur everytime nappy time comes.

   Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 07:52am

7. John,

   I and most US progressives I know love this country and the principles it was founded on. Our Constitution, to me, still represents a "grand experiment" in self-government and self-determination that is built upon solid and laudable ideals. What we hate is not America - we hate the corruption of America by thoughtless leaders. American ideals include participatory government, equality for everyone, checks and balances in government, and an assertion of several rights of the individual that are expressed more clearly in the Bill of Rights than, perhaps, anywhere else in the world. These include the right to a trial by jury, the right to protection against illegal search and seizure, and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

   The Declaration of Independence says "all Men are Created Equal and are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Again, from the Delcaration, some of the reasons the colonists threw off the government of King George: "For depriving us, in many Cases of the Benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:" We cannot be progressive without embracing these ideals, and these ideals form the heart of what America is. There are conservatives that embrace these ideals too - all Patriots. Patriotism doesn't mean puffing out your chest and shedding a tear when the flag flies overhead, it is striving to "defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic." I love America - I hate some of the things our government does. My duty, as a Patriot, is to speak out when I think our ideals are being trampled and when the Constitution is being dragged through the mud.

   -Matt

   Posted by twocinc at 09/21/2006 @ 07:55am

8. "IMPEACHMENT: (1) For lying to us all regarding the reasons for invading Iraq. (2) For lying about administration involvement in the Valerie Plame case. (3) For flagrant disregard of existing law regarding warrantless wiretap and torture. (4) For condoning and promoting liars within the government. We the undersigned demand the impeachment & conviction of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney."

   Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 08:00am

9. Maasch confuses the current mis-administration with the United States itself. they are not identical. the mis-administration are hired hands, they work for us and when we the people feel they aren't doing a good job, something that Maasch in his more lucid moments agrees with, we have the right, no the duty to fire them.

   right about now a military coup sounds mighty attractive. I for one would rather be governed by the group of generals who wrote the anti torture letter than by George "torture" Bush.

   Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 08:06am

10. My duty, as a Patriot, is to speak out when I think our ideals are being trampled and when the Constitution is being dragged through the mud.

    -Matt

    Posted by TWOCINC 09/21/2006 @ 07:55am

    Well said!

    The problem is the neocon Bush buttmonkeys are so afraid (of being wrong about their presidential choice, of the boogeymen, of anybody different) that they can put aside certain things (freedom, responsibility, choice, principle) in order for their world to make sense. You confuse them when you use logic, and they resort to either playing the Clinton card or assaulting the messenger. It's sad, really.

    Posted by Turk33 at 09/21/2006 @ 08:06am

11. Back on-topic....The Warner Alternative will likely be what passes.

    Specter has already distanced himself from his original (Specter-Levin) and was willing to go along with the Administration proposal.

    The MS Media has lionized McCain, Graham, and of course Warner, giving him and his alternative the spotlight as the "compromise" position. Any defeat of the Administration would be "big news" and the press adoration of McCain (with spin-off love for Graham and Warner) will call the alternative a "stunning defeat for the White House"....while Dems will be forced to back it (as usual) or else come off as "trying to protect the terrorists' rights".

    The groups pushing for the original Specter-Levin will fail, being portrayed as "liberal activists and the ACLU".

    Personally, I think it's a mistake and agree with the former generals.

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 08:54am

12. Do folks that actually served our country in uniform like Powell, McCain, Warner & Graham know better than five deferments Chenney or AWOL from National Guard Bush?

    Uhmm, that's a tough one for any Bush apologist to figure!

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 09:06am

13. Posted by FREEDOMPLEASE 09/21/2006 @ 09:06am

    Mind you're careful with that praise of McCain, FREEDOM (and the put down of non-vets)....

    you might have to "take it all back", come the Fall of 2008!

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 09:11am

14. no takers on my junta argument? if the general staff had overthrown Hitler, say after the invasion and dismemberment of Poland, and made peace with England and France, would that not have been a preferred outcome?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 09:26am

15. Judges are the only thing standing in the way of fascism right now! Republicans want to torture people, Republicans want to get rid of habeus corpus! The so-called rift is just the media pandering by helping some Republicans pretend to distance themselves from George Bush before November! Americans - fascists are trying to take over! The length of time between getting these powers that "could" be used, and actually using them against Americans is not even One Second!

    Mask: Hi dear.

    Miss: Hi honey, how was work?

    Mask: It was good but I have bad news. Apparently our son plotted to do something, a policeman called and said our son has been classified as the enemy. He wouldnt say what our son is charged with, but it must have been something. Our son must be guilty of something terrible.

    Miss: But our son, why, he's never missed a day of Republican Youth meetings. Our son is a good boy - are they torturing him? Where is he being held? Will they ever let him out? Are they going to render him? What did he do?

    Mask: Oh dear, dear, dear. Stop crying, stop crying. Whatever our son did, it must have been something.

    Miss: DAMMIT YOU LITTLE WUSS, BE A MAN!!! YOU GO DOWN TO THE POLICE STATION IMMEDIATELY AND DEMAND TO KNOW, WHAT ARE THE CHARGES AGAINST OUR SON!!

    Mask: Where are you going? Why did you kick me in the balls?

    Posted by conshame at 09/21/2006 @ 10:05am

16. JM -- I don't mind if you leave. You're welcome here but I have wondered if you're obsessed with me or some of the other posters here given how much time you spend with us. But, more importantly, to your comment, the whole point of this post is to stand up for America. Things that make this country great--like the rule of law, the bill of rights, the freedoms enshrined in the constitution, etc.--and distinguish us from despotic regimes like Iran, are precisely the things that your friends in the Administration are attacking and undermining. Don't pretend that you are the one somehow defending or helping America. Real patriots need to have regard for fundamental things like habeas corpus, as the founding fathers did.

    Posted by Peter Rothberg at 09/21/2006 @ 10:13am

17. Posted by CONSHAME 09/21/2006 @ 10:05am

    Before you start your insane rants....do you actually READ what people post?

    "Personally, I think it's a mistake and agree with the former generals."----Posted by MASK 09/21/2006 @ 08:54am

    "(Final Argument: If for some reason, you're not convinced of the importance of the Geneva Conventions, read this open letter to Congress urging the preservation of the treaty's terms from 40 retired military leaders, including Generals H. Hugh Shelton, Colin Powell and John Vessey, all former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as General John Shalikashvili and Admiral Stansfield Turner.)"----PETER ROTHBERG

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 10:14am

18. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 09/21/2006 @ 09:26am

    Unless you were Polish.

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 10:16am

19. There are 3 Masked cookies in what he posted: Republican victory is certain, (all) Dems will be forced to support it, and apologetically phrasing his "personal agreement with the generals".

    My prediction is: the truth about McCains betrayal will come out, Democrats will have the victory, dammn the Conservatives for wanting to torture Americans.

    Posted by conshame at 09/21/2006 @ 10:36am

20. What's specifically allowed/not allowed under the current 'version' of the Geneva Convention?

    Posted by woodyee at 09/21/2006 @ 10:58am

21. Blackstone cites the first recorded usage of habeas corpus in 1305, in the reign of King Edward I. However, other writs were issued with the same effect as early as the reign of Henry II in the 12th century.

    from wikipedia

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 10:58am

22. CONSHAME - Conservatives for wanting to torture Americans?? Where'd you get that from? Bush Deragement Syndrome, I guess...

    Posted by woodyee at 09/21/2006 @ 11:00am

23. The USA now has more than 13,000 uncharged detainee's in detention. Mostly in Iraq.

    Would we be rightly outraged if Iran had 13,000 uncharged prisoners in offshore facilities?

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 11:04am

24. STATEMENT:

    There is no moral equivalent to the USA. The USA is morally superior to all other countries.

    Apologists,

    Do you still believe the above statement? Is it important to you to be able to believe the above statement?

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 11:07am

25. and to add to what the new york times stated in their Sunday op-ed:

    there simply is no urgency to passing either bill. it's an election season, hence the illusion of urgency. but this bill is far too important to rush through.

    bush has repeatedly used this tactic throughout his presidency, and even went to so far as to claim that "american lives depend on it."

    what can americans do when their leader constantly tells them, "you could die at any moment" and "you should trust me to do everything i think i need to do" (even though i have lied repeatedly for almost 5 years and two different judicial courts have said so).

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 11:13am

26. matthews is a hypocrite, one day it talks with his heart, and the next day he talks with the indifference of a sports bookies ("i'll bet bush's poll numbers sore into the 50s by november")....

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 11:15am

27. I think I need to leave for a while...you people are disturbing and disturbed. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/21/2006 @ 12:59am

    We have heard his boo-hooing and sobbing of these very words before, but let's hope this time around he actually means it.

    HairyTitBoy JOHN MAASCH has nothing to offer but stupidly asserting that deeply patriotic people who disagree with him -- AND SOUDLY OUT-ARGUE HIM, AD NASEUM -- are terrorists. Putting aside the fact that, almost without exception, none of these ditto-heads have ever lifted a finger to help anyone (American or otherwise) besides their dim-witted selves, it is at once boring and disgusting to even skim over MAASCH's ignorant posts. MAASCH's only utility is as a punching bag and even that gets dull since he is not remotely intelligent and is as verbal as a tiolet seat (in contrast with, say, MASK).

    I hope that the time MAASCH devotes to his repulsive, GOP-approved pap and drivel on this blog will now be devoted to physical exercise that (by his own account) he desperately needs.

    So: Don't say "bye", no "Buts...", close the door when you leave, & good riddance...

    Posted by Glenn Lemon at 09/21/2006 @ 11:15am

28. but i'm glad he's speaking up now....

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 11:17am

29. JROLF,

    Are you from Thailand today?

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 11:50am

30. Freedomplease, no. I am playing a little game we call devil's advocate. no not AG Gonzalez. and didn't we love the John Yoo op ed, where he argues FOR emperor Bush. in the signing statement Bush reserves the right not to enforce "unconstitutional" laws passed by congress and he claims to have this right by the constitution. nothing could be further from the truth. there is only ONE entity that decides what is constitutional or not, and that is the courts, and the supremes above all. that alone violates his oath of office and that is why he should be removed. he MUST be repudiated, it is not enough for him to serve out his term and go quietly into the night.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 11:56am

31. Ah but your opponents would simply state that the Constitution has remedies to curtail Executive despotism. You are demanding an extra-constitutional remedy, thereby rendering the country into constitional crisis.

    From your perspective (and mine) the Constitutional remedies are not working because we have multiple branches complicit in the hijacking of the country.....but in the end those were the choices of the people (or the choices of the voting machine manufactureers and that's a totally different story).

    In other words, your opinion and my opinion has been railroaded by the opinions of more....and that's just tough shit baby!

    Of course, what I don't understand from the apologist perspective is how THEY think it can be a good thing to concentrate so much power into the executive when even they are convinced that Hillary will be our next President. All she has to do is carry on the charade that we are at "war" either in Iraq or against a battle tactic and she'll be allowed to do whatever the hell she likes. I can't believe the apologists are helping her!

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 12:12pm

32. I believe the next election will either be a first or the last.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 12:18pm

33. With very little objections from the people or the U.S. congress, this country is rapidly descending into facist structure of laws and institutions where everybody is carefully watched, political dissent is monitored, dissenters punished ad ultimately they can be declared as enemy combatant by the administration without any protection. That is equivalent to corrupt dictator's police coming into house and dragging you away.

    Posted by kevin99999 at 09/21/2006 @ 12:25pm

34. Posted by CONSHAME 09/21/2006 @ 10:36am

    Okay...so it's psychosis, huh?

    One can never oppose something AND say it's likely to be passed anyway, without "supporting it"??!?!?!?

    So, two years ago, I would have had to have said "John Kerry WILL win, in a massive landslide"...as well as voted for him....otherwise I'm a "Republican"!??!?!

    You know, occasionally, I think...RESE and PLUNGER aren't the craziest guys in the room!

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 12:51pm

35. Posted by KEVIN99999 09/21/2006 @ 12:25am

    When?....seriously, as of now, "Hitler Bush" has 28 months left in office....so when does the FBI start rounding up Cindy Sheehan and Code: Pink and start shipping them off to Gitmo?

    Dec. 2006?....4th of July 2007?....after the Iowa primaries in 2008?

    How about it doesn't, and January 20, 2009 rolls around, and nutty paranoids like you start posting "Oh, well...it WOULD have happened...if we hadn't called them on it back in 2006!"

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 12:56pm

36. "Bush strongly supports Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president who took power in a military coup, and plans to meet with him at the White House twice in the next week. Bush will also host Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, at the end of next week despite the suppression of opposition parties, newspapers and human rights groups in the oil-rich Central Asian republic."

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 1:03pm

37. Why havn't we done something about the attack on our embassy in Syria?

    It was Clinton's complacency about attacks on offshore US targets that were the cause of 9/11.....how can we let September 2006 Syrian embassy attacks go unpunished?

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 1:26pm

38. Why did the CIA recently disband its OBL intel team?

    Is this what the overwhelming majority of Americans would want?

    Other than GWB, is there a single American that doesn't want OBL's head on a stick in the worst way?

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 1:28pm

39. Posted by FREEDOMPLEASE 09/21/2006 @ 1:26pm

    Shhhhh. The focus is Iran. Well, that, and some Latin guy dissing our president.

    Focus, FREEDOMPLEASE, focus.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 1:29pm

40. i don't want bin laden's head on a stick!!

    just the mere image of bin laden's head on a stick will inflame the most vitriolic passions in all extremists, and they gladly take that opportunity for revenge.

    let's just arrest him, try him, and imprison him for life, assuming, that is, he is guilty of something.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 1:34pm

41. can someone tell me what bin laden has done that warrants his head "on a stick"?

    seriously, tell me, cuz i don't know.

    he apparently wasn't responsible for 9.11, khaled sheik mohammed was. and we know he didn't do the cole or the sudan bombings. so what DID he organize?

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 1:35pm

42. TJ,

    Iran would be worth talking about....by the way, breaking news over at Raw Story is that the Joint Chiefs have now moved into phase II of the Iran War preperation.

    Chavez is not really news. Whoop de do a South American leader that hates America....join the long line Hugo!

    But "news" is obsessed with spinach!!!!! Other than Popeye does anyone care.....eat Brocolli Rabe for a few days!

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 1:38pm

43. Hey Mask,

    You're obsessed with talk radio. I listened to Rush for 20 minutes today......has he gone completely illogical or did I just catch him on a bad day? He made circular arguments that essentially proved himself wrong.....arguing against himself!!!

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 1:41pm

44. "I think I need to leave for a while...you people are disturbing and disturbed."

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/21/2006 @ 12:59am

    Thanks everyone for letting me know MAASCH is leaving. I would never have known otherwise.

    Posted by fromredbird at 09/21/2006 @ 1:42pm

45. yeah, chavez's comments are nothing compared to what a large majority of south american lefties would say about bush, or hell, even some european lefties.

    and this doesn't even come close to what the radical islamic crew would say!

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 1:43pm

46. Other than GWB, is there a single American that doesn't want OBL's head on a stick in the worst way?

    moi.

    I would prefer to see him in prison, kind of like Rudolf Hess in Spandau prison.that head on a pike thing is a bit too medieval for me.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 1:44pm

47. oh, maasch is just upset because his entire "conservative" worldview is imploding.....

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 1:44pm

48. A President vs. His Country

    it's NOT HIS country, it's ours. he just works for us.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 1:46pm

49. johannes, you are right, he does work for us.

    and this is what is MORE appalling, and nobody seems to notice or care:

    since when does the white house press secretary (unabashedly) insulate and defend the president AND his party? isn't the job of the press secretary to inform the media, and the public?

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 1:49pm

50. JR,

    Thanks for your honesty.

    I doubt OBL is going to be taken alive though given the Tora Bora incident. Had we devoted sufficient resouces he'd have been killed in that battle. But we "outsourced" and OBL gets to fight another day.....but I don't think he'll let himself get taken alive.

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 2:10pm

51. LVL,

    I'd point out the flaws in your logic....but it isn't worth trying to mix it up with you anymore as you simply ignore repeated requests to continue arguments that you've lost. In other words....I'll spend 30 minutes finding links and writing and then I won't hear from you again for 3 days. So as far as I'm concerned you'll have to stay clueless on this topic.

    Posted by freedomplease at 09/21/2006 @ 2:14pm

52. "Only in the twisted minds of leftists can an effort to actually define a vague phrase be termed as "trying to allow torture"."

    --only in the twisted mind of an administration supporter would exist the thought that bush is simply trying to clarify a "phrase", which bush cites as "outrages against human dignity."

    --what bush is most certainly trying to re-write are the guidelines for torture. bush thinks that 'hypothermia', wherein a prisoner is placed in a 50 degree cell and underneath a faucet pouring cold water on him for up to 72 hour, is "too vague". uh, how is this vague?

    --he is also trying to re-write the rules for 'long standing' torture, wherein a prisoner is handcuffed, from beneath, while standing upright, for up to 56 hours (or something close). how is this vague? again, seems pretty clear to me.

    --liberty, you are totally, completely, and irrevocably out of your mind. you need help, dude.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 2:17pm

53. just how marginalized they are to the vast majority of the American people. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/21/2006

    AYATOLLAH AL-LIBERTI,

    How many of the "American people" of whom you are self-appointed defender and vioce-box will be whooshed out of their clothes along with you toward heaven during The Rapture that you assure is a coming attraction? 1%? 0.5%? 32 total? Please explain.

    And, as the self-nominated spokesperson of Main Street, USA can you also clarify another point (perhaps drawing on the Carl Everett/Mel Gibson School of "Theology" from which you mail-ordered your "doctorate"): We know all the Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and atheist Americans will be barbecued during the rapture. That is a given for these wrong-headed Americans who brazenly refuse your/god's will.

    But wither Roman Catholics? Will Satan be applying the barbacue sauce to them as well?

    Posted by Glenn Lemon at 09/21/2006 @ 2:17pm

54. "There is no doubt that many leftists here have been celebrating the rantings of Chavez and Ahmadinejad"

    chavez's speech was mostly outrageous, but ahmadinejad's was fairly accurate. i don't "celebrate" them, but you can't blame them for pointing out that, yup, the united states pretty much wants to dominate the world. is there anything surprising about this?

    liberty, on the ignore list. bye bye!

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 2:19pm

55. Posted by FREEDOMPLEASE 09/21/2006 @ 1:41pm

    I usually listen to Air America...they're funnier. (in an ironic way, that is)

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 2:26pm

56. liberty, on the ignore list. bye bye!

    Posted by DARLADOON 09/21/2006 @ 2:19pm

    At this point, do you think DD even knows IF there is anybody on "The Nation" blog that disagrees with her?

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 2:28pm

57. liberty:"There is no doubt that many leftists here have been celebrating the rantings of Chavez and Ahmadinejad;; At least even the Democratic Party understood that the American people have no tolerance for attacks like this on our own soil.

    these were rhetorical attacks, in a place that was designed for talking. the guy who really did attack us on our soil, is still at large. your sainted Bush has been a great failure in capturing that perp, and don't think the american people don't know it.

    I think both of the speeches by the Iranian and Venezuelan heads of state must be seen in the context of two american secretaries of state going before the UN with a pack of lies.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 2:28pm

58. DARLA,

    Don't tell AYATOLLAH AL-LIBERTI since it may trigger yet another psychotic epiosode, but Ahmadinejad recently went on a tirade about keeping liberals out of Iran's universities. Remind you of anyone or anything in this part of the world?

    Anyone who knows their ass from their elbow knows that Ahmadinejad is a hard-core traditionalist conservative. He is one of THEM. But AYATOLLAH AL-LIBERTI and his pathetic rightwing crew disavow their fellow travellors in women-hating, modernity-refusing fanaticism.

    The AYATOLLAH knows that he and his type are a joke to all normal, rational people; hence AYATOLLAH AL-LIBERTI's sick, sick phantasy of everyone normal in the US being mass-murdered during the (cough, ahem) Rapture. The AYATOLLAH is really telling everyone what he would like to have happen since he hates America -- and has ever since losing the Vietnam War, probably single-handedly -- and dressing it up like a real-life Norman Bates in the wig and makeup of (cough, cough) "Theology".

    Posted by Glenn Lemon at 09/21/2006 @ 2:35pm

59. anyone with psychic powers knew that powell was lying back in '03. you could see it all over his face, and body.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 2:36pm

60. i know full well, glenn, about ahmadinejad. i don't care about what he does, who he is, and what he stands for, right now.....i care about what he said, yesterday. the details.

    a lot of his points were not that far off the mark, regarding the US....

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 2:38pm

61. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 09/21/2006 @ 2:28pm

    Why did Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) hold a press conference chastising Chavez and telling him that he doesn't want foreign leaders coming to his district (Harlem) and denouncing "his President"?

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 2:45pm

62. (Little commentary from the future Speaker of the US House)--

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of President George W. Bush's fiercest political opponents at home took his side on Thursday, calling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a "thug" for his remark that Bush is like the devil.

    "Hugo Chavez fancies himself a modern day Simon Bolivar but all he is an everyday thug," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference, referring to Chavez' comments in a U.N. General Assembly speech on Wednesday.

    "Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had, speaking at the United Nations," said Pelosi, a frequent Bush critic. "He demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela."

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 2:46pm

63. Ah, but what does she say about KOS/Nation/AirAmerica/DemocraticUnderground/blah/blah/blah? I really thought Hugo was reading something mild that was stolen off one of these websites.

    Posted by woodyee at 09/21/2006 @ 2:52pm

64. Zero - The administration appears to be seeking clarification for legal reasons, not to change the conventions per se.

    Posted by woodyee at 09/21/2006 @ 2:54pm

65. good points, Zero. I think holocaust deniers are ridiculous rather than scary. I mean the perps of these historic crimes never denied them.

    one more question, how many Iranians were on the planes on 9/11?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 3:01pm

66. it seems that a lot of recent developments (torture, wiretapping, egregious tax cuts, etc) are increasingly to the liking of many of the conservatives on this thread. what type of egregious presidential overstepping would it take (and i ask honestly) for these conservatives to feel, at a minimum, reluctant to support?

    and zero, i've already mentioned how many of MA's comments were worthy of attention. and i too am curious why the media has paid scant attention to deconstructing them.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 3:04pm

67. and this is coming from a jew's point of view, too....

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 3:07pm

68. thanks for posting that for the wingnuts here zero....

    many of those statements should be applauded.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 3:09pm

69. Zero - You left off the best part. You know; at the end of the speech when he prayed for the 12 Ahman and the end of the world or something.

    Posted by woodyee at 09/21/2006 @ 3:14pm

70. well, they obviously don't want people to know the truth. or, they are as deluded as......

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 3:21pm

71. that deal with Iran was one of the most shameful episodes of an administration whose shamelessness was only exceeded by that of Nixon and of course Bush. neither Israel nor Iran, nor Iraq for that matter are essential to the security of the US. there are far bigger threats. the stockpile of nukes in Russia being one. I am also at least as worried by Pakistan having a nuke, than by Iran some day getting one.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/21/2006 @ 3:27pm

72. Hugo Chavez was being polite, as Republicans try to obtain the right to torture and start another war based on lies in Iran.

    Posted by LiberalPride at 09/21/2006 @ 3:50pm

73. in a way, 15,000 nuclear weapons is merely the military extension of a very rich society (the united states), whereas on the other hand, a decentralized network of guerrilla militants is the military extension of far less rich societies (iran, syria, pakistan).

    weapons are weapons, they are always used for coercion, no matter the size or capacity.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 4:00pm

74. "a decentralized network of guerrilla militants is the military extension of far less rich societies (iran, syria, pakistan)."

    Posted by DARLADOON 09/21/2006 @ 4:00pm

    I know DD is off in her own little "ZERO point Echo Chamber" (i.e. has everybody who says something disagreeable to her on "Ignore)....but she's full of crap on this.

    The Iranian military industry sells about $100 MILLION dollars of material a year, to 57 countries. They retro-engineered numerous American, Soviet, and French vehicles and aircraft.

    The Syrians have an active troop count of 319,000!!!! And are ranked 14th in active troops in the WORLD. They have an estimated 4,700 battle tanks and a yearly military expenditure of $858 MILLION dollars.

    And the Pakistanis have nearly as much...PLUS a few atomic bombs!

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 4:14pm

75. Posted by LIBERALPRIDE 09/21/2006 @ 3:50pm

    Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel seem to disagree.

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 4:15pm

76. George Bush disagrees with Hugo Chavez - George Bush is in favor of torturing his citizens and Hugo Chavez is opposed.

    Posted by LiberalPride at 09/21/2006 @ 4:44pm

77. Posted by LIBERALPRIDE 09/21/2006 @ 4:44pm

    Hmmm....Rangel, liberal Dem, from Harlem distances himself from Chavez.

    Pelosi, liberal Dem, from San Fran distances herself A LOT from Chavez.

    Hard-core "Nation" lefties heap mounds of praise on Chavez (less CRABWALK I guess).

    Now....what do Nance and Charlie know that LIBERALPRIDE and DARLADOON don't about the way this will "play" with the voters?

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 5:00pm

78. What's the big deal about Chávez stirring the stagnant air of the UN with some choice contumelies specially confeccioned for Mr. Danger? If you Americanos could just stop counting the number of times "el diablo" was used and actually heard the issues Mr. Chávez touched on, you may actually learned something about the growing sentiment taking route in that thing called "the world", ie, NOT your decaying empire. If only you people knew what it feels like to have to hide behind the Canadian flag throughout Latin America on a regular basis, even here in Colombia which sadly, is your best ally on the entire continent of South America, you may begin to get it through your gourds that your leadership sucks, plain and simple.

    Though this region is far from being free of endemic corruption, cronyism, racism and the other shit you guys claim to be untouched by (in your dreams), there are a lot of people who see the world without the jaundiced eyes you little Yankee Doodles possess. Funny how you concentrate on how many times the word devil was hurled by Chávez while forgetting that only 25-30 years ago a performance like that by a leader of Latin America would have gotten him overthrown if not killed. More than a few went down that road for less severe infractions...

    Posted by chimichenga at 09/21/2006 @ 5:09pm

79. most of chavez's comments were so incredibly true!

    bush, on the other hand, how opaque, convoluted, confusing, obfuscated....argh! the guy is a frigging nut!

    Posted by darladoon at 09/21/2006 @ 5:10pm

80. ...o sea you know-nothings no longer have the Big Stick you once carried, for Chávez can't be touched and you know it, nor can Morales. So much money and so much power down the drain. And what great achievements do you have to show for it? Constant fear and a decreasing standard of living. And let's not even mention quality of life, which is what really matters. The entire Caribbean outranks the US when it comes to being happy. How is that big 'ol American Dream delivering these days?

    Posted by chimichenga at 09/21/2006 @ 5:13pm

81. So much time and effort debating on how to treat people who are utterly disdainful of you.....the irony makes it funny.

    Chavez's rant? what can one say...he made himself look ridiculous..... like a petulant child.

    Posted by CPT at 09/21/2006 @ 6:08pm

82. Bush, is making himself look ridiculous, by begging, please lemme torture, I gotta torture, please lemme torture. Republicans are disgracing themselves, wanting to torture Americans, wanting American POWs to be tortured.

    The Republican version of Democracy is torturing people. The Republican version of morality is starting wars based on lies. The Republican version of being a maverick is to support a torture compromise.

    You dont compromise with people who hate America, like George Bush. You dont compromise with terrorists like George Bush, who kills tens of thousands of people who never attacked him, never did anything to him. Torturers are a disgrace. Torture is wrong, torture is evil, torture is anti-American. Republicans are evil, sick, disgusting people.

    Hugo Chavez doesnt torture Venezuealans, but George Bush wants to torture Americans. WANTS TO TORTURE AMERICANS!! REPUBLICANS ARE NAZIS - REPUBLICANS ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF HITLER WANNA-BEs! Wanting to torture Americans! Wanting Americans to be kidnapped in the middle of the night, hooded, blindfolded, taken to secret detention centers, stacked up in naked human pyramids, hung upside down for days on end. Saying sign this confession and we'll stop torturing you. Just sign here where it says youre a terrorist and we'll stop torturing you. FOLKS, REPUBLICANS ARE SICK, EVIL, DISGUSTING, ANTI-AMERICAN DEMONS!!

    Posted by LiberalPride at 09/21/2006 @ 6:36pm

83. i've already mentioned how many of MA's comments were worthy of attention. and i too am curious why the media has paid scant attention to deconstructing them.

    Posted by DARLADOON 09/21/2006 @ 3:04pm

    Whether unraveling the substance and bullshit in the recent talks by MA or Chavez, look at CPT's 6:08 post for an example of the brains that the media target: those who live by the creed that there are but two stances on any issue and one of them must be wrong. Since the major media are too involved in lost children, pregnant celebrities, and fee-good stories, that leaves them scant time or space for a major discourse that might explain complexities or explain anything at all. Foreign leaders are either good or bad until they are the other or, like Britney's latest faux pas or the second most recent lost little girl, fade from our view.

    The best we can hope for is that this still very, very new resource will continue to open up new avenues of information. And thoughtless folks like CPT, those able to choose sides but unable to explain why, will be shoved aside or become too embarrassed by their own inarticulateness to waste our time.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 6:37pm

84. I apologize - I didnt mean to demean any demons.

    Posted by LiberalPride at 09/21/2006 @ 6:38pm

85. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/21/2006 @ 5:57pm

    What's next on the list for your boys? We've obliterated centuries of the most basic human rights within the legal system. May I suggest a return to Inquisitions to make certain all Iraqis are saved? Perhaps, as victors over Saddam we should hand over all the young Iraqi women to our boys in uniform?

    If you're not going to stand for the basics, you've pretty well peed on the whole system.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 6:42pm

86. Republicans should all be marched down the streets of Baghdad, wearing shorts and carrying I love Bush signs. The Iraqi government tortures people - hangs people up, breaks their arms, drills holes in people - George Bushs state department said so - but it wasnt criticism.

    Every day in Iraq people are found in the streets tortured, burned, holes drilled in them - that is George Bushs model for America - the Republicans want to do that to Americans!!! Republicans support of torture is a disgrace!

    Must we wait until the fruits of torture bear out? What would it be like in America, when people are being tortured, but if you try to expose the torture you get tortured yourself? What would it be like in America, when the Secret Police are rounding people up, torturing people till they sign confessions?

    Once the Supreme Court blesses George Bushs torture plans, it will not even be one second, before Americans are being tortured. The Supreme Court, formerly Conservative Justice Kennedy, 5-4, is all that stands in the way of George Bush torturing Americans. Republicans are fascists, folks, Republicans are fascists. Change the subject - Hugo Chavez - whatever. Dont talk about what Republicans are doing - trying to get rid of Freedom here in America. Get rid of Justice.

    Dont be proud that America doesnt torture people. Dont be proud that America gives people a day in court. Just be proud that America is a fundamentalist Christian country. Despite our technological advances, the Christian torturers of the dark ages who hate science and freedom, want to bring back the rack, bring back the strappado, bring back the days where priests torture you for pleasure, backed up by the insane religious horror of the Bible.

    Is it not enough that God tortures people for eternity, why do these so-called Christians want to get rid of the worlds leading sanctuary against torture, where there is justice, where there is some secularity, some defense against fascism. Why do Christians uphold wars based on lies as something to be proud of, WHY DO SO-CALLED FOLLOWERS OF JESUS WANT TO STAND IN FRONT OF THE CAMERAS LIKE GEORGE BUSH AND BEG, PLEASE LEMME TORTURE, I GOTTA TORTURE!

    Posted by LiberalPride at 09/21/2006 @ 6:55pm

87. Posted by CONSHAME 09/21/2006 @ 10:05am

    The real problem is the disappearing without a clue as to what or why or where or even if it was the gov that was the one that absconded with your kid.

    Yep it does indeed take one back to 'the disappeared' of cold war south america 1980's.

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title= Imperial_terror_in_South_America

    http://www.counterpunch.org/hylton07052004.html

    http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid= 05/02/18/157206

    http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/305724.html

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/21/2006 @ 7:21pm

88. Mask: Hi honey.

    Wife: Hi honey, how was work?

    Mask: Ok. You know our son, who's been missing for the last 6 months? Well, the dammn liberals at the ACLU helped the terrorists today by leaking that our son was labeled an enemy by our leader. Fortunately, they didnt say what our son was plotting, but it must have been something.

    Wife: But, our son was at school 7 hours a day, and another 3 hours a day at Republican Youth meetings, and he was in Church all day Saturday and Sunday.

    Mask: Nevermind dear, stop crying, lets talk about Hugo Chavez.

    Wife: Hugo Chavez? What does that have to do with our son? My god, what is he charged with?

    Mask: Look, I said I was against torture. Lets talk about Hugo Chavez.

    Wife: FORGET ABOUT HUGO CHAVEZ. YOU AND I ARE GOING DOWN RIGHT NOW TO THE POLICE STATION AND DEMAND WHAT ARE THE CHARGES AGAINST OUR SON!

    Mask: Hey, I said I'm against torture. Can you believe Hugo Chavez? Hugo Chavez wont even torture his own citizens.

    Posted by LiberalPride at 09/21/2006 @ 7:31pm

89. What has you and pretty much the rest of the left becoming more and more unglued is that Bush continues to come out on top with every so called controversy.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/21/2006 @ 7:51pm

    No, we are not so addleminded as you think. Who gives a poopie how the political scene shifts or does not shift when we are talking about parsing syllables over TORTURE? Go ahead. Relax and rejoice that the safety net separating us from the barbaric countries above which we purportedly place ourselves is being snipped away.

    The problem is that so many of your kind, like the numb-minded hatebushers or the disconnected like MASK, view the world through winners and losers, without a trace of pity for those on the sidelines. I honestly don't know what kind of delusional rationalizations keep you going through the day.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 8:03pm

90. Peter writes

    What that legislation actually entails remains murky but it's virtually certain that it doesn't currently contain the safeguards for habeas corpus enshrined in the Specter-Levin Amendment So, now read on and see what you can do about it.

    What also is not murky is that Pelosi said on The News Hour tonight that the agreement is virtually indistingishable from the Dems' original proposal.

    So the question is: have we elected anyone in the last six years willing to stand up for human rights and legal justice? If they exist, they are doing their best Casper impression right now.

    Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/21/2006 @ 8:06pm

91. Back on-topic....The Warner Alternative will likely be what passes.

    Posted by MASK 09/21/2006 @ 08:54am |

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 10:21pm

92. That is unfortunate for my children and grandchildren, but it is in line with Bible prophecy.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/21/2006 @ 7:51pm

    Oh, so the Bible talks about Republicans and Democrats, who knew?

    LL, why is it that you become more of a freak the more Bush seems to keep "coming out on top?" I think you are becoming dilusional. Some folks turn to drugs to escape reality, apparently you have taken up a heavy dose of self-deception. I hope you continue to deceive yourself, so in Novemeber you'll be able to cope with the balance of power shifting back to us "socialist."

    Posted by BlueTexan at 09/21/2006 @ 10:22pm

93. Posted by LIBERALPRIDE 09/21/2006 @ 7:31pm

    "I" didn't raise the Hugo Chavez subject....check the posts.

    I merely noted when it came up, that Rangel and Pelosi are saying Chavez is a nut and they want him to shut up (because linking what he says to the American Left is DISASTEROUS).

    Meanwhile the Hard Core Lefties here want to embrace it in a suicidal manner of Heaven's Gate'ists.

    Posted by Mask at 09/21/2006 @ 10:23pm

94. The left is "unglued" - from someone in the same post talking about Biblical prophesies.

    Posted by Hman23 at 09/21/2006 @ 11:40pm

95. I am not aware of nor have seen anyone on the left cite any specific so-called "prisoner of war" that we have put on trial and violated this provision.

    Maybe that's because we haven't put any of them on anything resembling a proper trial in the first place--the only reason Bush is talking about it now is that the SCOTUS finally chased him into it. Regarding whether Bush wants torture, well bear in mind that his man Cheney tried to get McCain to exempt the CIA from his anti-torture bill.

    The far left has continued to lose and will continue to lose. Now even the sense that the House might be won back by the Dems is fading as the polls are moving back in the direction of Bush and Republicans.

    You mean that his approval is all the way to the low-forties, or that Tennesee and Virginia, which had been leaning Republican, are now horse races (although I do grant that Kean has edged ahead of Menendez)?

    BTW to everyone, is there a pool on whose end-of-the-world comes first, the 12th Iman or the Second Coming?

    Darla, KSMohammed was the one-time number three man in al-Qaida. You don't think that OBL wasn't being kept up to speed?

    Posted by brunowe at 09/21/2006 @ 11:41pm

96. Let me get this 'right'. Someone here believes Americans should be getting all worked up about Chavez's diatribe before the UN rather than the dismantling of the greatness of this country. Well then, I guess the evidence shows that the right wing propaganda machine has finally taken the leap and started saying that things that are patently up are down, vice versa, and are actually convincing people of it. Wow, I wish I had such talent, but I think I am just too attached to truth.

    Posted by Dezaad at 09/22/2006 @ 01:58am

97. MEL SEMBLER HOSTED A FUNDRAISER FOR JOE LIEBERMAN???

    WHAT'S THE DEAL...REALLY?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/09/21/top-republican-hosts-fund_n_299 69.html?p=1#comments

    .

    WHY DOES LIEBERMAN FAVOR WAR?

    Just follow the trail of the money!

    MEL SEMBLER:

    Mel Sembler---U.S. Ambassador to Italy, although he can't speak Italian. Election Fraud specialist. Owns the Bay Point School in Florida allegedly used for testing election fraud devices in 1999.

    Involved in creating the forged yellowcake documents that led to the War in Iraq. National Finance Chairman Republican Party, head of finance for Bush presidential campaign. Past hon. Pres. Republican Jewish Coalition.

    The United States has given Israel over 90 billion dollars in foreign aid. In 2003, Israel received $53.4 Million dollars a day from the traitors in Congress. That's a very solid return on the AIPAC contributions that Israel pays out to U.S. Congressmen.

    ISRAEL RECEIVED up to $75 billion as emergency aid, directly connected to the war on Iraq. This amounts to 2500% increase in aid to support Israel in a war that they have claimed they are not involved in. Who is benefiting from the war on Iraq?

    Follow the trail of the money!

    Iraqi oil flowing to Israel….

    http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

    WHO IS MEL SEMBLER???

    WHY IS HE HEADING UP THE SCOOTER LIBBY LEGAL DEFENSE FUND?

    HERE'S WHY:

    WHEN was he Ambassador to Italy? Does 2002 ring any bells in your head? Well it should-- remember all the secret meetings in Italy involving Ledeen et al, and the forged documents about uranium from Africa that turned up at the US Embassy that October? Yes, THAT October 2002.... So we have Sembler at the scene of the crime related to the crime Scooter is being investigated for.

    WHO ELSE HAS RUSHED TO LIBBY'S DEFENSE?

    Sounds like a PNAC Picnic roster…

    http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/4299

    WHY DID ISRAEL WANT THE US TO INVADE IRAQ, AND INVENT FALSE INTELLIGENCE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?

    http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

    MEL SEMBLER:

    The Washington Post gave him its "Narcissism Run Amok" award for buying a monument to himself.

    As a Bush supporter since 1979, Sembler capped nearly 10 years of campaigning on November 8, 1988, when Bush won the bid for the presidency.

    In February 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Sembler United States Ambassador to Australia and Nauru, where he served for three and a half years

    Sembler has been a Republican fundraiser since 1979, raising a record $21.3m at a single dinner in April 2000.

    Mel Sembler was appointed by President Bush as Ambassador to Italy and was sworn in by Vice President Cheney on November 16, 2001.

    In February 2005 Sembler had an annex to the US Embassy in Rome named after him (the Mel Sembler Building) - an unheard of honour for a sitting diplomat. The naming was due to an amendment by Rep. Bill Young to an appropriations bill.

    Bush thought this unusual. "And he said," Young recalled, " 'We don't do that, do we? We don't name buildings for ambassadors where they have served.' And I said, 'Mr. President, I introduced the bill and you signed it.' "

    But there was more. If you go, as you should, to the Web site to look at the stunning photo display, you'll come to a gorgeous photo (shown above) of the frescoed ceiling of the C.W. Bill Young Conference Center right there in the Mel Sembler Building. And there are a couple of fine bronze plaques naming the center that go on the walls there.

    And so it is only fitting that, despite this being only early March, the coveted In the Loop Narcissism Run Amok Award for 2005 goes to Sembler and Young for their efforts to establish an excellent new trend in American diplomacy.

    Sembler is an Honorary Chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5165-2005Mar3.html?sub=AR

    http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2005/03/757886.php

    His Own Private Abu Ghraib

    He created a system to reprogram bad kids. He modeled STRAIGHT after another program, creepily named "The Seed," shut down after the U.S. Congress literally issued a report in 1974 comparing it to "the highly refined 'brainwashing' techniques employed by the North Koreans." Sembler's imitation wasn't shut down until 1993 for illegal child abuse: beatings and sexual humiliation.

    Gov. Jeb Bush once named a "Betty Sembler Day" in Florida to honor his wife's ongoing, taxpayer-funded campaigns on behalf of workplace urine tests.

    http://media.orkut.com/articles/0145.html

    OH, YOU MEAN THAT MEL SEMBLER?

    SEMBLER & LIEBERMAN ARE JUST PART OF THE MACHINE THAT RESULTS IN THIS:

    Israel has acquired three Dolphin class diesel submarines in 2002 that it is arming with newly designed cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. According to Pentagon and Israeli officials, Israel now has a triad of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear weapons for the first time. Now, Germany has agreed to sell Israel another two Dolphin-class submarines.

    THIS STORY WAS SLIPPED OUT INTO THE MEDIA AT THE HEIGHT OF KARL ROVE'S PHONY LONDON LIQUID BOMB TERROR SCARE:

    Recently the mainstream media has kept the stories of Ariel Weinmann and Adam Pearlman out of the news. Weinmann was a Navy Petty Officer arrested approximately four months ago for passing extremely sensitive national security information relating to nuclear submarines to the Israelis – ever heard of him? Adam Pearlman is an Al Qaeda terrorist by the name of "Azzam the American." It isn't that the media is keeping Azzam out of the news, hardly, he made the front page, and prime time on every network, but not a single network has mentioned the fact that he's in reality a Californian Jew named Adam Pearlman, whose grandfather was a sitting Board Member on the Anti-Defamation League.

    WHO CONTROLS THE MEDIA???

    Zionist forces are in control of the United States. When Ariel Sharon said:

    "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

    Ariel Sharon to Shimon Peres, October 3rd, 2001, as reported on Kol Yisrael

    it was no idle chatter. He was telling the truth.

    Nary a single network has mentioned an Israeli by the name of Asher Karni that was arrested at Denver International airport in January of 2004 for having sold Pakistan nuclear weapon detonators known as "spark gap igniters,"

    Not one network has told you about a New York Orthodox Jew named Yehuda Abraham, who was arrested for having sold shoulder fired surface to air missiles to FBI agents posing as Al Qaeda operatives, with the understanding that they were to be used against non-Jewish Americans.

    Zionist media seeks to suppress uncomfortable facts, like the indisputable fact that Israel intentionally attacked an American Intelligence ship, the USS Liberty, in 1967 killing more than fifty sailors, and then compelled the United States government to cover that fact up.

    The MSM censors any thing to do with the infamous Lavon Affair, where Israeli's attempted to bomb American assets in Egypt in the 1950s and frame the Egyptians for the attack.

    The establishment media struggles to keep all [and there is a great deal] of the damning evidence implicating the United States government and the Mossad in the attacks of September 11, 2001

    In conclusion the evidence that Israel is behind the invasion on Iraq is more than circumstantial. You just need to look at who stands to gain from all this. Those that can't understand why Dubya is so determined to attack Iraq, probably haven't considered that Israel is running the show. If you just look at who stands to gain from Iraqi oil you see the picture but it doesn't seem to be the whole thing. But when you add the dancing Israelis and Senator Graham's statements about foreign governments involvement in 911 and Sharon's orders on who Bush is to attack next, the whole picture begins to get in focus.

    WANT TO UNDERSTAND?

    READ THIS SITE:

    http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

    IRAN IS NEXT...THE OCTOBER SURPRISE...

    WILL CHENEY NUKE THE US TO PROVIDE THE PRETEXT?

    ASK JOE LIEBERMAN.

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/22/2006 @ 07:17am

98. Yes, Dezaad, that is correct. It is far more important to worry about the words of the Venezuelan president than it is to worry about the actions of our president. Actions that are against the LAW you fcking freakhead neo-cons. I mean really now, Luvvy has the split personality that allows him to read the bible while defending torture. How much more wacked can one be? And he wants to rant about the "far left" being out of touch?

    "From the Cheney "energy" conspiracy at the beginning of the Bush presidency, to the attempts by the left to prevent the Iraq war in 2002/2003, through the Bush is going down in 2004, Cindy Sheehan, "Plamegate" and the supposed arrest of Rove, Katrina being "Bush's fault", gas prices, NSA surveillance, SCOTUS justices-IHATELIBERTY1

    Energy- so did this secret energy conference, followed by oil CEO's LYING to congress, really help our energy situation, Luvvy? Seems like the economy took a hit from fuel costs, I know it hurt me. but then again you like to prop up the Saudis and Iran.

    War- yes the left tried to stop an illegal war, a war that has done NOTHING to protect us from WMD's or the evil nexus of Saddam/Usama. a war that has caused us to borrow millions from the Saudis and the communists in China. more lies that the Jesus Man supported.

    Plamegate- once more luvvy would rather see a republican lose her job than the truth be told about the "childlike" forgeries chimpy relied on to frighten his Qaida(base), he would rather Iran and Iraq get nukes than have dumbya exposed as a lying fraud.

    gas prices-hey Jesus man, have you noticed that gas prices have plummeted before the election? Any reason? Nope. Just an election approaching. Watch for the terror level to rise again. DO you know that Padilla was in jail for at least a month before Ashcroft told you about him? Why did he wait? Politics, moron. Things were going wrong and chimpy needed a lift. And speaking of Padilla, what ever happened to the dirty bomb plot?

    Yep, that evil left wing, bringing down America again with truth and honest questioning of those in power.

    And I see ONCE again chimpy got bitch slapped by the Supremes. How many cases has he lost now? Are we paying the solicitor general?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/22/2006 @ 08:03am

99. IHATELIBERTY- who ever said Katrina was bushes "fault". that would be bringing false witness, now wouldn't it Preacher? That would be a SIN, wouldn't it?

    Who Would Jesus Torture? WWJT. WWJBomb? WWJkeepinCubafor years?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/22/2006 @ 08:08am

100. It's unfortunate so many posters refuse to focus on the thread's topic.

     Hamdan v. Rumsfeld is at most a minor win for Hamdan and other detainees. Hamdan will never be tried by court-martial or in a federal court. If he is tried, it will be in a compromised military tribunal. The back-and-forth between the President and certain Congressional members now will end out creating a trial system that is fundamentally unfair. Allowing someone to be tried and convicted while refusing to let them see even some of the evidence used against him is unjust. Why even try someone if you're not going to do it right?

     Which brings me to my second point. Even if the long-shot happens and Hamdan actually wins a compromised military trial, the President can hold Hamdan for as long as the United States is involved in active battle with al-Qaeda. All the President has to do is continue to call Hamdan an "unlawful enemy combatant" and refuse to release him. The President has stated ad nauseum that this war will not end any time soon.

     So what's all this about justice?

     Posted by urmygyro at 09/22/2006 @ 08:19am

101. Sad indeed that they capitualte...."Let's settle on Torture Light"

     On brighter news (AP) Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 3:11am

     Christian conservatives, traditionally a reliable Republican constituency, aren't necessarily a GOP gimme this time around. There is an undercurrent of concern that some evangelicals, unhappy that the GOP-led Congress and President Bush haven't paid more attention to gay marriage and other "values" issues, may stay home on Election Day or even vote Democratic.

     and off of MSNBC

     Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 3:11am

     SUNNYVALE, California - California's governor and New York's mayor have agreed to collaborate on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission, saying they can no longer wait for Washington to act on global warming.

     [and both Republicans I might add....]

     and unsurprisingly

     MSNBC News Services Updated: 9:20AM CST

     WASHINGTON - The White House said Friday it was not U.S. policy to threaten Pakistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, challenging an accusation by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that Washington warned it would bomb his country "back to the Stone Age" if it did not cooperate.

     ---so we ARE the schoolyard bully!

     Posted by leftofcenter at 09/22/2006 @ 10:38am

102. SUNNYVALE, California - California's governor and New York's mayor have agreed to collaborate on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission, saying they can no longer wait for Washington to act on global warming.

     [and both Republicans I might add....]

     Posted by LEFTOFCENTER 09/22/2006 @ 10:38am

     Sort of undercutting the whole "All Repubs are evil" thing, aren't ya, LOC?

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 10:52am

103. Never said they were.... You think the GOP might take away their "evil bastards" union cards now?

     Posted by leftofcenter at 09/22/2006 @ 11:10am

104. Posted by LEFTOFCENTER 09/22/2006 @ 11:10am

     I know YOU didn't....referring to our friends like CONSHAME and LIBERALPRIDE who seem to belong to the "Fundamentalist Church of Democrats."

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 11:17am

105. I'm reading this thread while listening to Devo's "Whip it". Come on, people! Dance with me!!!

     Posted by woodyee at 09/22/2006 @ 11:27am

106. "The Bible does say that the world will get worse and worse, morality will worsen, and that peace will not come to all mankind."

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 11:35am

     Is the world WORSE than it was ...when the Bible was written?

     Slavery for huge populations of the Earth? Women sold as chattel by their families? Few, if any democracies or democratic institutions? NO limitations of the conduct of war, nor a open society and communications to show those thing that are abhorent? Witches burnt....HERETICS burnt?

     Seems your starting point is rather recent?

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 12:17pm

107. Some great posts here by Behrens, Rolf, LoC, Matt, and many others.

     I have never in my 58 years been so deeply disturbed by a political administration. (Nixon, as I now think back, appears as a man of eloquence and reason.) It makes me think of what life must have been like for the sane residents of Germany in the thirties.

     We have a president whose principal passion is the right to torture his enemies - and a congress and populace largely disinclined to oppose him. His ratings, so I understand, are actually improving over all this.

     Let's pray that the longer arc of history will make this sordid mess clear to our progeny, at least.

     B.

     Posted by Blinky at 09/22/2006 @ 12:21pm

108. LVL,

     I have to thank you. For my entire life I've been agnostic but after reading your latest posting I now see that I must become a Christian!

     Seriously dude, the fire and brimstone approach to recruiting to your cult??? Do you people still think that works?

     Posted by freedomplease at 09/22/2006 @ 1:06pm

109. Maasch,

     I pity you if you think that criticism of the president means hatred of one's coutry. Clearly you don't understand what love of country is about. Why would men like General Powell and Admiral Stansfield Turner hate their country because they oppose President Bush's torture bill? These men put their lives at risk for this country and believe in it but strongly disagree with the president. Do they too hate their country because they think the president is wrong?

     And as far as equating anti-capitalist sentiment with hatred of one's country, since when did a person have to love capitalism in order to love the United States? You might want to reconsider your thoughts and feelings about patriotism. Criticism usually means respect and a desire to see one's country turn out the best way possible. It is only in dictatorships and totalitarian states that criticism is not tolerated and critiques of a country's leadership are labeled treachery or hatred. This is a democracy and one loves his country all the more by participating in democracy and enjoying the rights and privilege he is entitled to by law. That is love not hate.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:09pm

110. LvLiberty wrote:

     "The Bible does say that the world will get worse and worse, morality will worsen, and that peace will not come to all mankind. It is from that perspective that I made my statement."

     Yes, and the Gospel according to Thomas also says that "The Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it." (Logion 113:17)

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:13pm

111. It makes me think of what life must have been like for the sane residents of Germany in the thirties.

     Posted by BLINKY 09/22/2006 @ 12:21am

     Seriously, now....somebody run the numbers.

     Just a guess, but....if I got $0.01 (a penny) for every "Nazi" reference by somebody on the Left, over an administration that will won a democratic election (ATLEAST 2004...3 million votes "stolen" has NEVER been explained, even by the nuttiest "Diebold" conspiracists)....and that will be...OUT OF OFFICE in 28 months.....

     I think I could buy out Bill Gates and the Sam Walton family!

     Get over yourselves guys, Bush isn't "Hitler" and you're not the Sophie or Hans Scholl and the "White Rose"!

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 1:15pm

112. Or, LvLiberty, you might note that Thomas also writes that Jesus said:

     "Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find me there." (Logion 77:26-27) So, apparently, in some intepretations Jesus is here now, on this earth and that men, if they choose, can put themselves in accord with Jesus and the horrors that you speak of are merely temporal forms that hide the wonder of the eternal.

     Something tells me that is not what you are getting at at all, but it is worth noting.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:16pm

113. Looks like Old Man Chimpy Sr. is getting some new airplay over his role in the terrorist attacks that killed a Chilean dissendent in DC. Orlando Letelier was an opponet of the American puppet Pinochet. He was killed on US soil, evidently with a nod from Bush41 whiile he headed the liberal CIA.

     Damn those appeasers!

     Once again secrecy wins out over truth with Pres. McFlightsuit.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/22/2006 @ 1:16pm

114. Mask,

     You are probably right about that. But I would remind you that Senator Santorum has spoken out about the "Holocaust" of abortion on the senate floor and has referred to people who are pro-choice as Nazis.

     This kind of loose talk is common across the spectrum, Left and Right.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:18pm

115. Mask,

     You are probably right about that. But I would remind you that Senator Santorum has spoken out about the "Holocaust" of abortion on the senate floor and has referred to people who are pro-choice as Nazis.

     This kind of loose talk is common across the spectrum, Left and Right.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:18pm

116. LvLiberty, you wrote the following:

     "While I do indeed enjoy the fact that the level of Christian morality and the desire by the majority of Americans to retain some semblance of moral integrity remains for the immediate future, I am under no illusions that this will remain the character of our nation. I am one who does see this country slipping further each year into the moral relativity of Europe and a decreasing desire to know and serve God."

     There is nothing wrong with moral relativity when you accept the idea that ethical inflections on temporal judgments that cannot describe or account for the eternal. Not all religions have an ethical inflection like Christianity and the world has not gone to pieces over it. Moral relativity is what everyone engages in because there is no one true perspective that is provable and visible to all. You may think you know the moral order but you do not. The moral order is one mere reflection of the mystery of the eternal. We cannot know the eternal only its reflections in the universe. And in the field of time we live with pairs of opposites and all opposites are relative. So, moral relativism is the way of the world and there is nothing to be done about it except to accept it and move on.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:22pm

117. Besides, LvLiberty, as Goethe said, "Everything transitory is but a metaphor." And, as Nietzsche said, "Everything eternal is but a metaphor."

     God is a metaphor.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:23pm

118. So much for moral certainties and ethics.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:24pm

119. LvLiberty,

     Speaking of "relativity," where did you get this little gem?

     "The far left has continued to lose and will continue to lose. Now even the sense that the House might be won back by the Dems is fading as the polls are moving back in the direction of Bush and Republicans."

     Now you are just making things up. Go back to quoting the Bible, at least there you have some text to refer to.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:26pm

120. LvLiberty,

     Why don't you look at Zogby or Rasmussen for your poll data.

     But then again, since you know that we are moving further and further away from morality, how is a GOP victory going to help anything? Can they stanch the flow of immorality? Doubtful.

     Your attachment to the GOP is like one's attachment to a sports team. Even though their winning may not have any spiritual significance for you and it cannot "save the world" they still must win because you are rooting for them.

     You also don't realize that the history of political parties in this country shows that there is no such thing as one party winning forever. The GOP will lose. Maybe not in November but you must come to terms with the fact they cannot "win" forever. Besides, what does it matter anyway? According to you we just keep slipping further and further down the rabbit hole of immorality. . . .

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:29pm

121. Maybe all of those GOPers like Ralph Reed, Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich and Duke Cunningham ought to worship God and not Mammon, right LvLiberty? They love their gold more than their God.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:31pm

122. And I will throw Democrat William Jefferson (D-LA) in there too for good measure too.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 1:31pm

123. Posted by HHEMWM 09/22/2006 @ 1:09pm

     How many times, and in how many ways has this most basic of concepts been articulated on this site, (as well as others)?

     How many more will say it before we come to the realization that it can never be processed by a mind as twisted as lovehypocrisy's?

     Posted by drhammer at 09/22/2006 @ 1:35pm

124. Posted by HHEMWM 09/22/2006 @ 1:18pm |

     I'll call Santorum an idiot, too, for such hyperbole.

     But come on, the lion's share of "Nazi" references DEFINITELY comes from the American Left. Anybody Right of Lincoln Chaffee is a "fascist"...even a few Democrats. "We're living in a fascist dictatorship" (usually followed by the contradictory statement "We progressives will take back this country in 2006/2008!"...odd thing to happen in a "dictatorship", huh?)

     McCarthyism destroyed the legitimacy of calling your political opponent on the Left a "Commie"...we need something similar on the use of "Nazi". Lotta people who are descendents or are Holocaust survivors (or even just those of us who are intellectually honest) find it not only disgusting, but ...inaccurate.

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 1:53pm

125. Posted by HHEMWM 09/22/2006 @ 1:16pm

     BTW, I don't think it's going to do much good quoting the "Gospel of Thomas" to LVLIB....don't you know?

     Not only were the Hebrew scholars and the Apostles "divinely inspired" (and therefore "perfect, complete, and inerrant')....so was the Council of Rome and the translators of King James.

     If it's not KJV...it don't count!

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 2:00pm

126. LVLIBERTY 9/21 2:03 pm

     Bush isn't trying to re-write the Geneva Convention to allow torture because he doesn't have to. As of yesterday he'll be able to issue his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an Executive Order.

     In effect, the agreement means that the US violations of internation human right's law can continue as long as Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent.

     He's still The Decider, LVLIBERTY, so not to worry. He'll probably even include the torture he used to apply to fellow frat boys. He'd get a metal coat-hanger red hot and then "brand" the poor little boys on their bare butts. When questioned as to this perhaps too cruel hazing, his reply was, "It's no worse than a cigarette burn."

     Some of his fellow frat boys went to Nam. But not Georgie. He was agraid he might get hurt, I guess.

     Posted by felicity at 09/22/2006 @ 2:38pm

127. "on numerous occasions is that I have said that America is no longer a Christian nation and I do not expect it to become one again."

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 11:35am

     Well that explains everything! You don't even understand the history behind the founding of our country. By saying "again" I guess you mean to imply the U.S. once was a Christian nation. I guess someone was snoozing through history class, or maybe that's what you learned in neo-Nazi homeschool.

     No wonder you have have such a hard time with reality...you don't operate in it. Have fun in la la land.

     Posted by BlueTexan at 09/22/2006 @ 2:45pm

128. I'm too busy tickling myself as I read Chomsky so I'm afraid I have nothing witty to add at the moment.

     Signed,

     Your "Excellency" The Liberal Surfer

     Posted by libsurf at 09/22/2006 @ 3:11pm

129. LVL,

     Do you think that the USA is a morally superior country to all other countries?

     Posted by freedomplease at 09/22/2006 @ 3:18pm

130. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 3:15pm

     Unless you're a pacifist who gives all his money to the poor....you can't claim to be a "Christian" and NOT be somewhat "morally relativistic".

     I assume you believe in the "just war" concept of St. Augustine. Yet, nothing Scriptural supports the idea that Jesus would have supported war...ergo, you make a "morally relative" argument for war (no matter what war it is....from generally-considered "necessary" ones like World War-2...to more dubious ones like Vietnam or the Spanish-American War).

     Even your stance on homosexuality and abortion is "morally relative". You want abortion banned, based on your faith...but won't call for the outlawing of homosexuality (unless in the Fred Phelps' camp), because you know it wouldn't "sell" with the majority of Americans.

     Therefore, you're "playing down" some sins over others, when you deal with what "morality" you want imposed by legislation.

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 3:21pm

131. Moral Relativism is merely man's attempt to become "god". It is the oldest sin and predates mankind itself.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 3:15pm

     Making up definitions again. Actually, moral relativism is the name of the game of your secular gods, the Republican leadership (at least, they're somewhat secular). While they and you toss around moral relativism to attack liberals, it is nothing but moral relativism which allows for us to condone the behavior of our government and the military it oversees that we not stand for were such behavior conducted by other nations. Similarly, when we decry the treatment of those kidnapped or imprisoned by The Enemy while voting "Yes" for any and all skirtings of our legal system to employ heretofore inhumane methods for treating our prisoners, well, what is it other than moral relativism that allows for this?

     You have absolute beliefs that you are incapable of applying consistently to different sectors of human civilization. This is relativism. Virtually none of us are so ethical as to be beyond such inconsistency and there might not even be any value in such absolutism. But don't for a minute think you are able to be so ethically consistent.

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/22/2006 @ 3:25pm

132. from the nyt:

     Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession.

     About the only thing that Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham had to show for their defiance was Mr. Bush's agreement to drop his insistence on allowing prosecutors of suspected terrorists to introduce classified evidence kept secret from the defendant. The White House agreed to abide by the rules of courts-martial, which bar secret evidence. (Although the administration's supporters continually claim this means giving classified information to terrorists, the rules actually provide for reviewing, editing and summarizing classified material. Evidence that cannot be safely declassified cannot be introduced.)

     This is a critical point. As Senator Graham keeps noting, the United States would never stand for any other country's convicting an American citizen with undisclosed, secret evidence. So it seemed like a significant concession - until Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, briefed reporters yesterday evening. He said that while the White House wants to honor this deal, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, still wants to permit secret evidence and should certainly have his say. To accept this spin requires believing that Mr. Hunter, who railroaded Mr. Bush's original bill through his committee, is going to take any action not blessed by the White House.

     On other issues, the three rebel senators achieved only modest improvements on the White House's original positions. They wanted to bar evidence obtained through coercion. Now, they have agreed to allow it if a judge finds it reliable (which coerced evidence hardly can be) and relevant to guilt or innocence. The way coercion is measured in the bill, even those protections would not apply to the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

     The deal does next to nothing to stop the president from reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. While the White House agreed to a list of "grave breaches" of the conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible. It's not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific interrogation techniques will remain secret.

     Even before the compromises began to emerge, the overall bill prepared by the three senators had fatal flaws. It allows the president to declare any foreigner, anywhere, an "illegal enemy combatant" using a dangerously broad definition, and detain him without any trial. It not only fails to deal with the fact that many of the Guantánamo detainees are not terrorists and will never be charged, but it also chokes off any judicial review.

     The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It's time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election. The American people expect their leaders to clean up this mess without endangering U.S. troops, eviscerating American standards of justice, or further harming the nation's severely damaged reputation.

     Posted by darladoon at 09/22/2006 @ 3:49pm

133. The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It's time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election.

     Posted by DARLADOON 09/22/2006 @ 3:49pm

     Will stick with my prediction....the McCain-Graham-Warner compromise gets passed by 20-25 Democrats in the Senate.

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 4:04pm

134. As Senator Graham keeps noting, the United States would never stand for any other country's convicting an American citizen with undisclosed, secret evidence.

     From Darladoon's paste of the NYT article.

     Repasted as an example of someone trying to avoid moral relativism.

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/22/2006 @ 4:29pm

135. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 4:39pm

     How did the United States get formed as a "Christian nation", LVLIB?

     If the Bible says that "the world will get worse", how did it suddenly IMPROVE around 1776, 1789?

     Also, at what point in American history would you like to "return to"...IOW- When we were MOST "Christian" as a nation?

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 4:42pm

136. there are bound to be those who would instantly reject NYT's position on the story, without closely surveying the facts.

     but the truth remains: the united states just publicly admitted: we now utilize torture, we have been utilizing torture, we will continue to use torture, AND the geneva conventions are entirely up for interpretation----meaning: you (read: any nation) may now torture. further meaning: we now truly live in an age of moral relativism.

     liberty, you got your wish, though in a way you probably didn't want to receive it.

     Posted by darladoon at 09/22/2006 @ 5:09pm

137. William and Mary, 1691 - The College of William and Mary was started mainly due to the efforts of Rev. James Blair in order, according to its charter of 1691, "that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of ministers of the gospel, and that the youth may be piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian religion may be propagated among the Western Indians to the glory of Almighty God."

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 4:39pm

     Uh huh. That lasted a long time. The "Alma Mater of a Nation" graduated great American leaders in the olden times (and not so great contemporary pinheads like TJ). Now, while I'm flattered that the founding of William and Mary (by the way, did you note the name?--this was a bloody ROYAL school, not exactly a place to learn American values) is on your list, I might actually accept a few less kudos for the school and a little more interest paid to the work of its fine former students.

     Say, Thomas Jefferson who wrote grand essays about the necessity of a Christian doctrine to guide this country throughout its history. Or James Monroe who believed that we should be engaged at the highest possible level in any war occurring around the globe--even start them if we can. Or Jon Stewart who just isn't funny at all.

     Or not.

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/22/2006 @ 5:13pm

138. To deny the shaping of American Democracy and our national character by our Christian heritage is to ignore history and reality

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 4:39pm | ignore this person ____________________________________________________________

     Hmmm. Let's see what we can find on the subject.

     "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." "Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." "The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible." Thomas Jefferson

     "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." "In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people." James Madison

     "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." "The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity." John Adams

     Some volumes against Deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the Deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word, I soon became a thorough Deist." "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." Benjamin Franklin

     "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of....Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and of my own part, I disbelieve them all." "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity." Thomas Paine

     "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them." "It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity." Abraham Lincoln

     "Faith is believing something you know ain't true." "'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true." "It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." "Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of." Mark Twain

     That's just for starters.

     Posted by cliffy at 09/22/2006 @ 5:25pm

139. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 4:39pm

     LL, you need to read "The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness" by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore.

     From Publishers Weekly: "While neither a full nor a particularly sophisticated treatment of the issue of church/state separation, this is a compelling rebuttal to those who claim that America is a Christian nation. The authors don't address the many recent judicial controversies about public expression of religion. Instead, they explore the Constitution's origins and its "intentionally secular base." They point out that even the religious men among those who ratified the Constitution wanted to distance religion from government. Also, they discuss the views of Roger Williams, who wanted to keep the church pure and thus separate; of John Locke, whose liberalism limited the role of the state; and of Thomas Jefferson, who incorporated Locke's ideas in America. Indeed, the authors note that the godless Constitutional structure was undermined only later, when God entered U.S. currency, in 1863, and in such institutions as the Pledge of Allegiance. The authors believe that while the Constitution does not exclude religion from the public square, it offers no special privileges; thus, they say, religious faith should not be a litmus test for political leaders. Kramnick teaches government at Cornell University; Moore teaches history there."

     All those lovely little sidenotes and tibits of history you quote have nothing to do with the basis of the Constitution and the principles entailed in the Declaration of Independence.

     You are living in a dream world, Luvy.

     Posted by BlueTexan at 09/22/2006 @ 5:34pm

140. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 5:18pm

     "Jesus didn't SPECIFICALLY say anything against war...therefore it's 'okay"???

     Well, he didn't SPECIFICALLY say anything against gays or abortion either, did he?

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 5:38pm

141. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 5:31pm |

     again, what date or decade was America "good" for you?....pre-1963?...pre-50s?

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 5:41pm

142. you feel free to also dispute the facts about our Christian practices in Government.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 5:37pm

     And he followed, "Meanwhile, I stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes, and sing Onward, Christian Soldiers in an Ethel Merman volume."

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/22/2006 @ 5:45pm

143. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 5:37pm

     Those things are simply traditional artifacts and practices. Just as we raise and lower American flags on Capital Hill (or is that worshiping a false god?), just as we sing a national anthem before events, play taps at a miltary funeral, have a State of the Union address, just as the justices wear black robes, just as so many other nonsensical things that we do at different points in the year. Doing these things makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, without them everyone would feel less important.

     If those specific occurances that you cite are all you have to "prove" we were "once a Christian nation" then your running pretty slim on "facts".

     Hope all is well in loony land!

     Posted by BlueTexan at 09/22/2006 @ 5:46pm

144. LvLiberty,

     You said: Moral Relativism is merely man's attempt to become "god". It is the oldest sin and predates mankind itself.

     That is one definition, yes. But again, you are falling back on the notion of ethical inflections. If you get beyond the idea that the universe is ethical or not you can see that judgments are ridiculous, like comparisons.

     Now, just because you don't believe in moral absolutes doesn't mean you have to engage in bestiality, murder, mass murder, theft, deviancy or what have you. When you choose to behave in a morally responsible manner you are doing this because you recognize in your own being that it profits you not to engage in those activities. It is not because God wills it or because the law tells you. If you think God wills it, okay. But the fact is that you are making a choice out of your own potentiality.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:38pm

145. As to the United States being a Christian country, that is another interesting interpretation.

     Is it Christian because Christians make up the majority of the population? Is it Christian because it follows Christian imperatives? What type of Christian nation is it? Protestant, Catholic, Gnostic, Baptist?

     Define your terms.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:40pm

146. LvLiberty,

     If we take our lead from Christian tradition it might not be unreasonable to look at what Christian tradition has been led by.

     Are you familiar with the Greek origin of the "Virgin Birth"? Christians did not come up with the virgin birth of Jesus, that idea comes from various mythologies like the Greek birth of Athena from the head of Zeus. Or, if you look at ancient Hindu mythology there are virgin births. Why, the Buddha himself had a virgin birth.

     But you have to view these things as metaphor to get at that,

     So, I am all for our Christian tradition just so long as you look at where the Christian tradition comes from.

     Until you can pinpoint "First Causes" as Kant was getting at, you don't have any origin of the human race and human morality. What you have is human mythology.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:43pm

147. And here comes the "heresy", Love Liberty:

     The Bible is mythology.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:44pm

148. BUT! It is myths to live by.

     You can live by the Bible and be a moral person. You also can be an ethical relativist too and still live a moral life. It is possible, you just have to consider it.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:45pm

149. LvLiberty, you wrote:

     "In Romans 1:18-32 Paul describes those who are giving over to debased minds, obeying their lusts rather than God and includes homesexual behavior of both men and women."

     The Hindu and Buddhist traditions do not believe in a personal God nor do the accept the idea of God as a "fact." And each deals with men transcending their "lusts." That is what is known as a "virgin birth."

     The virgin birth is the birth of spirit from matter, the transcendence of earthly concerns to move into the field of the eternal.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:48pm

150. As to homosexuality; if you want to offer you ethical viewpoint on it and quote the Bible in support, you can. But homosexuality is in Nature and if spirit is born from Nature, if spirit is the flowering of Nature and Nature is a reflection of the eternal, your rejection of homosexuality is a rejection of one more reflection of the eternal.

     You can not say "No" to anything in the world. You can choose not to do it, not associate with it, turn away from it if you want. But it exists and no matter what one's tradition may say of it, it is part of the world and the world if part of the eternal.

     So, as they say in the East, "you must say yes."

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:51pm

151. NEOSANSCONSERVATIVE

     Nixon keeps coming up as the closest definition of an exec that fits this current one as a model; all the same problems are there getting dredged up again. It's easy to be distrustful of the hsuB admin and its substantially incompetent and corrupt administration of everything nonprofit oriented. True conservatives should be the ones the most outraged and yelling bloody murder the loudest every time a soldier dies in Iraq, every time a vote to up the deficit ceiling comes up, every time a no bid contract is given without over sight, every time the constitution is violated, every time we step closer to redefining what evil isn't.

     Face it the neo cons have tortured character out of the conservative ideal-- they're not re-repub's, they're new and void, neo-sans-conservative.

     Neosansconservatism, think about it. hsuB, being the neosansco decider, is the leader of tortured techniques: language (mangled, sometimes beyond recognition), history (WWII=Iraq

     It's the Rovian neosansco's that seem to be off their rocker. I'd go so far as to say that they have effectively figured out how to even muffle the right/left debate, which was meant to allow for restraint and create wise decisions. However without this the neosanscos are basing they direction on nothing other than the easiest marketing ploy, as there isn't or wasn't (per the election is so close) any debate, checks and balances, nor oversight. No wonder they're screwing everything up so badly. Decisions aren't base on knowledge of history and experience, they're based on means to an end-- and that end being greed. (Same if the liberal side was left unrestrained without a modicum of fiscal responsibility.)

     Perhaps dems are stifled from the debate the same way 'real' conservatives have been stifled-- because I don't hear the outrage about the budget deficits or lack of oversight or the adventurous war(s) or unsecured borders or the k-street corruption or violating of the constitution or ‘any' of the traditional conservative values, nada, just the lowly wedge issues. I used to know conservatives that would fight tooth and nail to the bitter end to trim fat off bills, argue until they were blue in the face against using our troops for foreign adventurism, would go insane if there was a Delay or Ney in their ranks. Not anymore. Only recently Frist, one of the 20 most corrupt in congress, got up to propose a border plan, and now there's little opposition to the detainee adherence to the Geneva Conventions.

     Making ‘tortured' definitions up as you go while only really worrying about creating the right ‘tortured' marketing images up just before another election in November with ‘tortured' election voting machines to say what you want them too. With no 'real' conservative belief system, except for ‘tortured' bloody profits for the rich-- as the rich get richer and the middle class and poor get even poorer. Is it really that far a stretch to conceive of the fact that the hsuB admin's deceitful fascination for dismantling a butterfly one wing at a time also applies to everyone of us and every single thing we do-- not just Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, 9/11, our Constitution, education, social security, health care, our economy, energy, pollution, privacy, security, … but most of all, our perception of the truth.

     Is this what our congress has agreed to let the hsuB admin to do to us too:

     http://clearharmony.net/articles/200406/20143.html

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/22/2006 @ 6:51pm

152. Christianity also tells us to "do unto others as you would be done by." That is an ethical judgment that requires that men listen to their hearts. If their hearts council hate, the world is at war. If their hearts council love, the world is peace. Jesus counciled love and spoke of peace. We should keep that in mind. Love is acceptance.

     Again, according to Thomas Jesus said "he who drinks from my mouth shall become me and I shall be as he." That is not rejection, that is love.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:54pm

153. Re-edited in:

     Neosansconservatism, think about it. hsuB, being the neosansco decider, is the leader of tortured techniques: language (mangled, sometimes beyond recognition), history (WWII=Iraq//Vietnam), laws (ignoring the Constitution, FISA, Geneva Conventions), redefining conservatism (budget busting economy, ‘tortured' war info gathering, unsecured borders, Katrina disaster neglect, etc.), which then stifles dems per there's really no counter to a tortured and weakened non-conservative ideal, which isn't based on an understood history, functional language, or practicing laws,...

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/22/2006 @ 6:56pm

154. LVLiberty,

     If all men stand in relation to the eternal that their perspectives on it are, by definition, relative. If we do not know by more than metaphor or analogy the origin of the universe we are left with a "First Cause" we can only infer. That inference is relative to what each of our minds can understand and perceive. The temporal shuts out the eternal in our minds so what we have is our senses, our inferences, the urges of our heart. But we don't have fact. Not about such things as God.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:56pm

155. LvLiberty,

     You wrote: "Your moral relativism is what causes a pedophile to state that he believes he is doing good for little boys to introduce them to sex."

     No, it is not MY moral relativity that another uses as an excuse for behavior. By that definition I am responsible for everyone's actions. Men kill in the name of the Church too. But do I blame the Church for what men do in its name? Of course not.

     Think about that. If you blame moral relativity for the depravity in the world because people use it as an excuse you then have to blame Islam for the actions of a Bin Laden or the Church for the Crusades or for that matter not speaking out on behalf of all those millions Hitler was putting to death.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 6:59pm

156. You want to place blame. Why?

     Societies are not built on the principle of blame placing. If they were there would only be war. But we know there is a lot more than that in the world and religion is about opening men to more than blame placing or fear. You can't open men's hearts by telling them that everything they do is wrong, there must be more than that or they have nothing to live for. Their lives become untenable.

     You can't judge. I believe it was Christianity that said "judge not lest ye be judged."

     Let men make excuses, it is not your problem and it is not the problem of your faith. It is their problem.

     And if they commit a crime, let the law punish them. Punishment and judgement are not the same thing.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 7:02pm

157. You think moral relativity means the condoning of vice. No. It is not a man's place to condone or the condemn. But if you want to stop something awful from happening in the world, you can.

     Think of the Samurai who went to avenge the death of his master. When he had cornered the man who had killed his master he was prepared to avenge him by killing the assassin. But upon drawing his sword the man he was to kill spit in his face. He sheathed his sword and walked away. Why? Because he did not want to kill the man out of anger. He was to avenge his master's death out of duty. Duty is one's potentiality, one's becoming. Anger is an emotion that leads to judgment. Judgement is a misunderstanding of the nature of the act.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 7:05pm

158. It is not about emotion and judgment is an emotional response. A person must move beyond emotion because emotion is an obstruction to what is true or eternal. And the truth exists beyond the ability of men to see it. All faiths get to this, do they not?

     Who knows the face of God? No one. We can infer its existence but we do not and cannot see it. It is beyond us. And who may judge? God may judge. Men, no.

     As to the Bible, it is lessons and laws in a temporal inflection. Live those laws and honor them but do not make yourself a judge because even with the laws behind you it is left to God, the eternal, the being of beings to judge. Moral relativity accepts that.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 7:07pm

159. You cannot assume you know a man by his faith. You know a man by his actions. Not what he thinks but what he does. If you cannot read his thoughts or truly "see into his heart," how may you know him other than by what he does?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 7:09pm

160. And if you only know what him by what he does, you cannot judge the nature of his moral position.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 7:09pm

161. However, as Paul says he was taught personally by Jesus. Since you have no proof otherwise, you (or others) would be on shaky grounds with that approach.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 6:44pm

     Interesting...same standard for Muhammed?

     Otherwise, interesting you bemoan "moral relativism" and yet cite "Jesus didn't SPECIFICALLY condemn war, therefore it's okay...in fact, he even predicted wars (by the way, thereby saying that Christianity would still be a only marginally successful religion 2000 years later...since obviously Christians wouldn't fight Christians...or would they?)

     So, what ELSE did Jesus not specifically condemn that only "seems" like a sin, like war?

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 7:23pm

162. dude, ignore him already! only a total lunatic would say something like the following:

     Your moral relativism is what causes a pedophile to state that he believes he is doing good for little boys to introduce them to sex

     Posted by darladoon at 09/22/2006 @ 7:37pm

163. here's a deal:

     why doesn't every left winger finally IGNORE every single right winger on this site. then we can finally get somewhere with our discussions. this is just a ridiculous waste of time, responding to people who think that pedophiles believe have some sort of social function, and not a disease.

     Posted by darladoon at 09/22/2006 @ 7:38pm

164. Surprise, surprise. Pathological nutcase LVLIBERTY1 expounding on how "liberals" cause pedophilia. On a thread about Bush's evisceration of the Constitution. You can see where his mind is.

     Don't us dimwits know that there was no pedophilia in Colonial America? Now, those were the good old days, weren't they? The damned witches and other deviants got what they had coming, didn't they LUVCHILD?

     It's surprising that everyone didn't put him on the ignore list a long time ago. Maybe there's a certain amount of disturbing fascination in watching him blabbering on about how Jesus Christ wrote the Old Testament and other such demented rantings.

     Posted by fromredbird at 09/22/2006 @ 8:19pm

165. Moral Relativism is merely man's attempt to become "god". It is the oldest sin and predates mankind itself.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 3:15pm

     Listen, jackanape- you're the most outstanding example around here of someone who makes no differentiation between right and wrong and attempts to employ wrought up excisings from the bible to sanctify moral depravity. If the bible has any relevance then you are satan. Any questions?

     Posted by fromredbird at 09/22/2006 @ 8:26pm

166. On second thought, LUVCHILD, if there are any questions ask someone else. I've had you on the ignore list since one of your spastic I-am-the-one-and-only-truth bible harangues about three months ago.

     Posted by fromredbird at 09/22/2006 @ 8:34pm

167. LL

     Please elucidate for his how Christian theology was responsible for: Mixed government (composing democratic, aristocratic and monarchial elements), federalism, separation of powers, enumerated rights such as freedom of speech, the press, etc.

     Incidentally, Hitler wasn't a moral relativist. He believe absolutely in his morality, twisted and fanatical as it was.

     Posted by brunowe at 09/22/2006 @ 8:36pm

168. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 7:25pm

     Why do you believe what Paul says...and not Muhammed?

     as you said "Since you have no proof otherwise, you (or others) would be on shaky grounds with that approach."

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 8:40pm

169. This is not God's desire to see the hatred and the wars.

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 7:39pm

     Then why didn't Jesus come out against them???

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 8:41pm

170. LvLiberty you first said this:

     "Your moral relativism is what causes a pedophile to state that he believes he is doing good for little boys to introduce them to sex."

     Then you said this:

     "Now you are taking statements totally out of context. How can you even presume that I or anyone else can attribute moral relativism to one individual like yourself. Don't try and be so intellectually dishonest in a debate."

     When you say "Your moral relativism" what am I to think? I don't presume to own it, but when you say "Your" it sounds like you are attributing it to me. And that is fine if you are because I gladly accept it.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 9:06pm

171. LvLiberty,

     You wrote:

     "I realize that New Agers like to quote the "Gospel of Thomas" but it is nothing more than a gnostic heresy written around 200 AD in Egypt.

     "It has no relevance to Christians or Christianity."

     No relevance? Says who? You? How can you call it "gnostic heresy"? Because it has a different message than the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and does not appear in the King James Bible? Are we to assume that that which is not of the King James Bible is heresy?

     Furthermore, since when did you start speaking for all Christians? No relevance? And as to "New Agers", whoever they are, are they not Christian either? Who exactly is a Christian then, a Presbyterian who follows the King James version of the Bible? What about a Catholic, is he not a Christian?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 9:09pm

172. LvLiberty, you also said:

     "This is not God's desire to see the hatred and the wars."

     Again, how on earth can you know such a thing? I recall that in Mark 13 there is something called "the end of the world." And with the end of the world comes the destruction of the earth. The God of the Old and New Testament can destroy worlds. And of course God can. What couldn't God do? God could even be immoral, couldn't he? For after all, God exists beyond morality, does he not?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 9:11pm

173. It is ludicrous to try to speak of God as moral or immoral. Was the creation of the universe a moral act? How about the very earth that sustains Christians? Mustn't the creation of that Earth be moral?

     But I thought the earth was to be despised? That the earth was where God was not. God was absent. So why would God want to put men far apart from him? Or, when Jesus came to redeem man, why then did Jesus have to be put to death in order to prove to man that it is immortal life that matters? Why put men through trials that are so painful? Well, because it is what God did and we cannot question God's motives or intentions. . . nor can we interpret them either I'd imagine.

     So, if God can make people suffer surely hatred and war are but more examples of man's capacity to suffer in God's universe. See? War and suffering are reflections of the eternal and cannot be rejected. You cannot reject what is eternal because you and everything else comes from it.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 9:15pm

174. Now, having said all of that, I am no cynic. I ask these questions of you honestly. Not because I have contempt for your faith, I have great respect for Christianity. I just don't understand how one can assume that the universe is an ethical creation. For if everything is to be compartmentalized into ethical/unethical what is the meaning of anything?

     Is a flower ethical? Should we not kill any flowers because to kill is unethical or the flower itself is God's creation and is alive and in a "culture of life" we eschew death and violence? These things don't make any sense when thought of as thou shalt this and thou shalt not that.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 9:17pm

175. LL is completely dull. I posted on page three of this thread earlier today. I come back now expecting some interesting points or debate - about the actual top Peter discussed. Nope. Instead, people on both sides talking religion. Ugh.

     Posted by urmygyro at 09/22/2006 @ 9:49pm

176. LvLiberty,

     You still have not addressed the "immaculate conception." It is evident in religions around the world. It is not literal. If different faiths want to use it differently, why not? If Muslims made a political decision to try and discredit the Christian faith your issue is with those who did that and not Islam.

     As to one religion trying to devaluate another, I seem to recall that Christianity did not take too kindly to pagans. Worse, in the Roman Empire the study of the Torah and the Talmud was banned and and he who violated this law was put to death. And this happened after Constantine converted the Roman Empire to Christianity! I also recall Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand expelling Muslims and Jews alike from Spain in 1492. This included the murder of thousands of Jews at the city of Toledo near Madrid. And let us not forget the Crusades. . . but I know you know all of this, you just don't want to face it.

     Now, i Christianity responsible for the sins of Christians or are Christians themselves responsible? Is it Islam you say is a religion of lies or do you take issues with Muslims who lie? You need to be clear on what you are saying.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 10:06pm

177. Again LvLiberty, religion is not a team sport. The actions of its "players" are not equivalent to the value of its teachings.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 10:08pm

178. You may have religion but I am not sure you found God.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 10:08pm

179. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 9:43pm

     Paul, by your own admission, can be seen as adding his "own prejudices" to the question of homosexuality (Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 6:44pm), since there is nothing concerning homosexuality in the teachings of Jesus, just marriage.

     It's late, so I'll make my point....you don't "believe in God" (for such a thing is impossible, given "infinite mind" and the impossibility of understanding it).

     What you believe in is....ultimately...a book....written by Men. And the ONLY way you can grant it "divine nature" is by granting divine nature to the Men who wrote it.

     You have faith in Luke, Matthew, John, etc....not "God".

     If the Apostles and Paul were not "perfect in nature" when writing the NT, then it could not be perfect and inerrant.

     But if they were (even for the briefest moments of setting quill to parchment), then that denies the "inherent evil nature of Man" as stated in the "perfect" Bible....it's a paradox.

     Posted by Mask at 09/22/2006 @ 10:10pm

180. "You cannot bring forth truth from a foundation of lies."

     But you can bring it forth from mythology. It just is a "small T" truth. By your own definition the "virgin birth" must be literal and so you then must assume that everything else in your faith is literal. You are reading mythology! Goethe had it right, everything is metaphor. And when it is metaphor the ephemeral matters of who knows the correct spelling of the name of God remains just that, ephemeral and peripheral.

     Read Kant. When you speak of truth you are attributing something literal to something that cannot be interpreted literally. Religion cannot be literal because the creation of the world has no First Cause. We know it by analogy, it is not revealed literally. The revealed truth of the Bible is the truth of the eternal through metaphor.

     So rail against Islam all you like. It is not going anywhere because it is but one more manifestation of the eternal. Just like Christianity.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 10:12pm

181. HHEMWM, Tearin' it up! Reason vs Faith.

     Nothing wrong with arguing religion.

     The loaded question is, why are there so many denominations? If The Truth is The Truth it should be free of fracture. Humanities frailities cannot account for the variety, can it? And what, pray tell, makes one person so cock sure he has the whole universe figured? A book comprised of mythological handmedowns, transcribed by illiterate acolytes, modified to fit the "relative morality" of each that passed it down? One mans heretic is anothers prophet, best to leave faith out of government. Thats what the Owners Manual says.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/22/2006 @ 10:12pm

182. Crabwalk,

     I agree with you. The eternal is fractured in our minds. And for that I think all faiths have value. Why not? I may not believe as LVLiberty does but I can respect his faith. He is showing us the world as he sees it. Who can do more than that?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 10:15pm

183. Well, it is late, do need to go. You would think that with all of my postings of late I actually live here. But believe it or not I do have other things to do! :-)

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/22/2006 @ 10:18pm

184. I guess I could respect his faith if it did not have so many holes in it. His is a morally twisted logc that I cannot follow. Preach the gospel, but buy Chinese goods to piss of anybody left of Scalia? accept the torture of gods children because he is afraid? condone presidential lies?

     I have some Christodelphian friends that tell me they stay out of politics because man cannot influence Gods Plan, what will be will be. i think IHATELIBERTY was writing about that earlier. I wish he would follow my friends path, it is one I can have more respect for. Like Mormons and Bishop Spong, though, the Christodelphians are heretics. Say La Vee.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/22/2006 @ 10:26pm

185. Ya know, one of these days I am going to break down and get me one of those Ordained Minister By Mail cards. then I can play it on the "God Told Me So" space.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/22/2006 @ 10:30pm

186. MASK,

     You have done well today. But it goes even farther. As you have written, those who put their faith in the Good Book put their faith, in reality, in the names of the authors (or, we could really get into it, with the whole who edited whom in and whom out thing). Beyond the fact that LL's faith is not in God, but in an ancient notion of applying supernatural myth to socio-historical situations is the fact that, as a Christian, he must go out of his way to avoid quoting what is written of Christ's opinions on a host of his favorite hate this or hate that rants. Inevitably he relies on Paul. He has done so since his entry to this site, so it would seem he has done so for years prior to this.

     And so we come to this, LL, as representative of his breed of hateful, distorted Christian wannabes, is just one of many Paulians who get their saliva flowing when he discusses those juicy and salacious eccentricities of humanity. What other religion fails to follow its leader more than Christianity?

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/23/2006 @ 12:33am

187. .

     LOSING THE IRAQ WAR ON PURPOSE:

     The following takes a few twists and turns to prove my point, but once you read through it, you will be hard pressed to conclude that Donald Rumsfeld ever had any intention to WIN & LEAVE Iraq.

     It's time to view the global strategic game with fresh eyes, and realize that our assumptions about traditional victory and success run completely contrary to those of the GLOBALISTS who have stolen our country from us – and reside in our White House.

     First there is this:

     September 18, 2006 at 09:49:22

     U.S.-Israel-Iran Alliance: The Great Game Updated

     Excerpts:

     "The public leadership is put in place by power brokers with unlimited global access to high-level military, intelligence, economic, and strategic analysts, policy-makers, influence brokers, and puppet-masters. The broader objective of extending the power of the military/industrial elite without regard to national interest.

     The ideology of a ruling elite both determines and reinforces favored decision-making algorithms that, despite their complexity, generally result in the same rather obvious determinations: exploitation of labor, strategic use of military force, allocation of resources for purposes of social control rather than social empowerment, and even choosing which party and candidates can best represent the elite's interests in national elections.

     This kind of strategic chess game has been going on for centuries unabated. Manipulating a few dozen national entities and a few core industries simply does not require a unique brand of "smarts".

     Iraq is in ruins, U.S. corporate interests have taken the U.S. taxpayer debt incurred by the war and destruction and converted it into windfall profits, the U.S. has control of Iraqi oil, the country is in the midst of a violent conflagration that creates a power vacuum that strengthens both Israel and Iran, and we're building massive military bases and the world's largest and most heavily fortified embassy as a governor's mansion for our new 51st state. Of course, 3,000 U.S. troops have died with many more severely wounded, and who knows how many Iraqis. U.S. casualties are especially tendered by Americans as proof of the catastrophic handling of the war. But this concern represents a total misreading of the mindset of military command.

     Perhaps it's time to get this straight: 3,000, even 10,000, dead soldiers means nothing to the Pentagon or the Defense Department. When will Americans get that through their heads?

     Barton Kunstler, Ph.D

     http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_barton_k_060918_u_s__israel_iran _all.htm

     More of my own thoughts follow:

     I was told directly by someone with intimate knowledge that the State Department had learned that Rumsfeld planned to FOMENT CHAOS in Iraq from the outset…and that literally all of the apparent failures in Iraq were part of Rumsfeld's goal prior to the invasion of Iraq. If ETERNAL OCCUPATION and PERMANENT BASES are your ultimate goal, this strategy makes sense – as peace and stability would eliminate the justification for US boots on the ground.

     The recent revelation that Rumsfeld actually threatened to fire any General who continued to work on the planning for the aftermath of the invasion ("The future Of Iraq Project") makes total sense when you consider that the actual goal of Donald Rumsfeld was to "AVOID WINNING."

     THE FUTURE OF IRAQ PROJECT:

     Washington, DC, September 1, 2006 - The National Security Archive is today posting State Department documents from 2002 tracing the inception of the "Future of Iraq Project," alongside the final, mammoth 13-volume study, previously obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. "The Future of Iraq Project" was one of the most comprehensive U.S. government planning efforts for raising that country out of the ashes of combat and establishing a functioning democracy. The new materials complement previous postings on the Archive's site relating to the United States' complex relationship with Iraq during the years leading up to the 2003 invasion:

     http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/index.htm

     http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Future_of_Iraq_Project

     RUMSFELD HAD THIS ADVICE, AND NOT ONLY CHOSE TO IGNORE IT, BUT THREATENED TO FIRE ANYONE WHO CONTINUE TO WORK ON IT IN THE LEAD UP THE WAR.

     http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009469.php

     Our troops, and the citizens of Iraq, are dying needlessly as the direct result of a dishonest strategy, intentionally designed to result in quagmire. They got the best advice the State Department had to offer, then intentionally chose to do EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE in order to guarantee failure, which in their view, meant success.

     The Rumsfeld / Bush / Cheney plan from the outset, contrary to ALL LOGIC, was to both allow for the complete destruction of this civil society AND to stay there with troops in place forever.

     IMPEACHABLE LIES REVEALED:

     The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's newly-issued chapters showed that top Administration officials, including the President, Vice President, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, repeatedly misrepresented intelligence community findings, to support the Iraq invasion with lies that Iraq was tied to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, and had advanced WMD programs.

     RUMSFELD'S EVIL REVEALED…

     HOW RUMSFELD STEAMROLLED THE STATE DEPARTMENT IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE UTTER DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ AND THE QUAGMIRE – WHICH WAS ALWAYS HIS GOAL:

     INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD HAASS ADVISOR TO COLIN POWELL ON IRAQ WAR PLANNING

     Q. Why did we go to war?

     A. I think the first thing to say about this war is that it was an elective war. It was a war of choice. We didn't have to go to war against Iraq; certainly not when we did, certainly not how we did it. It wasn't as though the Iraqis were poised to suddenly do something or break out. So the decision to go to war -- which obviously was the president's decision -- like everything else about this war, was an elective decision.

     Q. Did we do enough to plan for the postwar?

     Q. Is it fair to say that the Pentagon were too optimistic about the postwar situation?

     A. I'll let you make the judgment and characterizations. I would just simply say that the aftermath has proven to be far more expensive in every sense of the word, in terms of human expense, in terms of the financial expense. I think in part, it was based upon some planning assumptions. I think part also, what made it a lot more difficult was in the immediate aftermath of the war, the degree of looting that took place. Looting doesn't really capture the degree of physical destruction that took place. [It] meant that the job suddenly grew in magnitude and some precious time was lost. So the entire undertaking became far more demanding because of what happened in the initial days and weeks afterwards. …

     The question that I think is legitimate to ask is, should we have had more forces ready to deal with the so-called peace stabilization side of things? Should we perhaps have been more sober in our expectations of how the Iraqis would react once the thumb of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen was lifted? So one can argue that the coalition forces at that point, there simply weren't enough of them and they weren't involved enough to deal with it. Or to put it another way, there was too long of a lag between war fighting and then dealing with the war's aftermath.

     Q. Your view on that would be that we didn't have enough troops on the ground.

     A. In part number, in part mission; we were slow to transition from war fighting to dealing with the afterward. That either would have argued for additional forces or a more rapid transition from one mission to another. Though to be fair, it was a difficult call to make -- how fast to make that transition -- because you still had the reality or the possibility of residual resistance from the Iraqis.

     Q. You were making recommendations about the postwar period while you were in the State Department. You made recommendations to Secretary Powell. What were your recommendations as to what that situation was going to look at and what it was going to require?

     A. I'm not going to go into every detail of what sort of advice or recommendations I made. What I simply did was look at the history of these situations, really going back to Germany and Japan and looking back over the more than one dozen experiences the United States had had since the German and Japanese occupations after World War II and ask questions. What it was we could likely expect? What is it we needed to be prepared for?

     My view was that we should be thinking very large; that we were talking about a situation that would be very demanding; that we should try to use local forces as much as possible; that while we should dismantle the upper level of those, say, who had been involved in the Ba'ath Party, we should try to take advantage of the lion's share of the army and police.

     Interestingly enough, after World War II, the initial thinking about de-Nazification was to get rid of lots of people. But very quickly on, the United States and others realized that we really needed to work with the existing German forces and only get rid of the top level. So that was a lesson that I thought we should apply here.

     But essentially, also I was arguing that we should make this as international as possible. There was no reason to hoard this to ourselves in some "victor gets the spoils" mentality, but rather that we should see this as something to be shared with others -- for two reasons.

     ACTUALLY THERE WAS ONE REASON…THE PERSONAL GREED OF THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE.

     "We did not want this to drain the human and financial resources of the United States."

     YOU FAILED – IT DID.

     Q. When did you hear Chalabi being flown into Nasiriyah?

     A. Pretty much when everybody else heard about it. When it became public. …

     Q. But you're in charge of policy, I mean, you're at a high level. Presumably, you would have known.

     A. I learn never to use the word "presumably" when it comes to government. All I can tell you is, I didn't know about it in advance, and I don't know who of my colleagues might have known about it. … I don't know that anyone knew about it in advance. All I can say is, in my own view, such initiatives were and are unwise, because they're an attempt to get too involved in the internal politics of Iraq. I just don't think that's the sort of thing that's wise or sustainable.

     Q. I spoke to General Garner. He told me that he was instructed by Secretary Rumsfeld to shelve the "Future of Iraq Project."

     A. I can't speak to that. I don't know what sort of instructions or communications went on within the Pentagon. I would just simply hope it's not true, because I thought a lot of good work went into that project.

     Q. That's what he said. He said that he looked at the papers. He talked to the some of the people in the State Department. He thought it was good work. He wanted to use the work. But then he was instructed not to. Does that surprise you?

     A. Yes.

     RUMSFELD & CHENEY TOOK THE BONE-HEADED INITIATIVE TO FLY IN CHALABI ON THEIR OWN, AND IN SO DOING, DESTROYED US CREDIBILITY WITHIN IRAQ.

     HERE IS A POLICY EXPERT WHO FORMULATED POLICY FOR COLIN POWELL. HIS ADVICE WAS

     A. TO KEEP THE POLICE AND MILITARY IN PLACE TO ENSURE LAW AND ORDER.

     B. TO ALLOW THE IRAQIS TO DETERMINE THEIR OWN FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND ELECT THEIR OWN LEADERS WITH NO OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE.

     C. TO BRING IN THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF FOREIGN PARTNERS TO SHARE IN THE JOB OF SECURING THE COUNTRY, AND IN SO DOING, TO SHARE IN THE "SPOILS OF WAR."

     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/haass.htm l

     THE FAILURE IN IRAQ IS THE DIRECT RESULT OF THE PERSONAL HUBRIS AND GREED OF RUMSFELD AND CHENEY AND BUSH.

     Posted by plunger at 09/23/2006 @ 07:22am

188. Morning, all...

     "As to the perfection of the Word of God given through imperfect men, you seem ignorant of the doctrine of infallibility or inerrancy (depends on whether you are talking to a Protestant or a Catholic)."

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 11:32pm

     No, LL....that was my point. Infallibility is granted to the Apostles and Paul. That is a "trait of God" being granted to Men.

     Now...what do we call it when we grant the power of God to men?

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 07:22am

189. RESE....just give it a rest, huh?

     Nobody serious in the Democratic Party buys you and your friends' nutty theories or is going to hold hearings on them if they win Congress.

     So...10, 20, 30 years from now, you'll still be plugging away and still have the 5-7% of the population who buy it.

     And NONE of that stuff will actually help Americans with health care, jobs, education, the environment, taxes, etc.

     or do you really not care about those kind of "small issues"?

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 07:36am

190. quick logic lesson, LUVVY and Usama sit in a cave debating. We have a few choices as they cannot both be right. Either one of them is wrong or both are wrong. Neither can offer anything but scripture, scripture that has been polluted by mans inherent flaws. therefore, in my book, Neither can offer the real Truth. It follows that both are wrong.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 07:51am

191. Hey, RESE...if the Catholics control everything and are out to get us...

     why didn't they get John Kerry (Catholic) elected President instead of George Bush (Protestant)?

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 08:11am

192. US death toll (combat only, not civilian) has reached that of 9/11. Feel better?

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 08:12am

193. Posted by CRABWALK 09/23/2006 @ 07:51am |

     The paradox of Bible inerrancy...it means the infallibility (or perfection, if momentarily) of Man.

     Yet the same Bible says that Man CANNOT EVER be perfect.

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 08:13am

194. And on the "We will bring accountibility back to government " page:

     Department of Education officials violated conflict of interest rules when awarding grants to states under President Bush's billion-dollar reading initiative, and steered contracts to favored textbook publishers, the department's inspector general said yesterday.

     Related Text of the Report (pdf) In a searing report that concludes the first in a series of investigations into complaints of political favoritism in the reading initiative, known as Reading First, the report said officials improperly selected the members of review panels that awarded large grants to states, often failing to detect conflicts of interest. The money was used to buy reading textbooks and curriculum for public schools nationwide.

     Also, 4 auditors from the Interior Dpet filed lawsuits alleging that political higher ups told them to not collect revenue due the American people. Millions were not paid out, when the energy companies were making record profits. Hmmm, Secret Energy Policy?

     Yep, religion leads to morality.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 08:18am

195. Yet the same Bible says that Man CANNOT EVER be perfect.

     Posted by MASK 09/23/2006 @ 08:13am

     But Chimpy is perfect. Just ask Rio and Luvvy.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 08:19am

196. WWJ say about income disparity in HIs America?

     For the first time, all 400 Gotbucks on the Forbes tally are billionaires, from Gates (worth $53 billion) down to the bottom, Los Angeles semiconductor magnate Sehat Sutardja ($1 billion).

     It's not just the accumulated wealth that draws attention to the list; it's the eye-popping numbers that show the speed with which wealth is gained -- and lost -- at the dawn of this millennium. For instance, according to Forbes:

     · Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (No. 3, $20.5 billion) has made $1 million per hour over the past two years.

     · Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin (No. 12, $14.1 billion) and Larry Page (No. 13, $14 billion) have each made $13 million per day over the past two years.

     · Martha Stewart dropped off the list after losing nearly $400 million over the past year.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 08:27am

197. .

     9/11 WHISTLEBLOWER BOMBSHELL!!!

     Military Sergeant Reveals The TRUTH OF 9/11:

     http://www.v911t.org/SergeantLauroChavez.php

     Honestly I could care less what is done with this letter, but I feel that I should speak my mind and Ill tell you some things that I have not told many people at all. From 1995 till 2002 I was a Sergeant in the United States Army. Not only this, but I was stationed at United States Central Command, which is located at MacDill AFB in Tampa Florida. I was on active duty when 9-11 happened. In the days prior to the tragedies, we were involved in many exercises. Some of these exercises included the scenarios of hijacked planes crashing into, our building the world trade center, the White House, Sears Tower, and the Pentagon. These drills or exercises as we called them, where classified Top Secret. Having a Top Secret rated clearance I was dumbfounded that they would ever push a training exercise above the level of Secret. Over my 8 years in the Army, I had participated in many exercises around the world, none of which were ever classified over the Secret level.

     Ill start by saying a few months prior it was announced by President Bush that Dick Cheney would be heading up operations over NORAD our North American Aerospace Defense Command. Along with many of my peers, we were shocked. Over the years, if you research NORAD, it has always been under the command of a Military officer. It was done this way because the defense of this country has always been in the hands of such. Prior to the months before 9-11 this was all of the sudden changed. Like I said, if you research NORAD and the command structure you will find that it was imposed long ago that the military should be in control of the order to scramble planes in the defense of American air space. For some strange reason, Bush changed this and gave that power to a civilian person on his Staff team yes I know, very interesting.

     Back to the morning of 9-11; the command was busy with this training exercise. We were instructed to bring all our gear in to prep for a mock (staged) deployment to the Middle East. On the morning of 9-11 I had been on base prepped and ready to go since about 0400am. During my time at the base that morning, they were setting up barriers around the command and placing gun posts on the roofs. When I questioned one of the security officers about the machine gun and shoulder fired rockets on the roof I was given the answer its a precaution for a plane attempting to crash into this building.

     So, I was standing in the SCIF (Secure Compartmented Information Facility), which is basically this underground bunker command post for USCENTCOM, when the first plane hit. We were watching the fly patterns of all the planes on the aerospace grid. This contained not only all commercial flights at the time, but all military flights, and fake enemy planes that were supposedly put on there for the exercise. Many of the planes sent to intercept the fake blips were scrambled from Andrews which is an air defense AFB for the East Coast. They were sent across the US and left very few planes to defend the capital. After the first plane hit the tower we were all in disbelief. After the initial shock was over, our questions were what are the odds this could happen for real, during a training exercise that's covering the same scenario? We were all at wits end. Then to top all of this off, Cheney gave NORAD the order to stand down scrambling jets to intercept. A few moments later tower 2 was hit. Only after the Pentagon was hit, did he give the orders to scramble the jets to intercept the plane bound for the White House.

     All of this is very interesting to me it sickened me so that I left the Army after coming back from an 8 month deployment to Afghanistan. There were just too many questions that no one could answer, too many things that did not make sense. How is it possible to have a training exercise about planes hitting the WTC and then actually have planes hit the WTC? This kind of thing just does not happen unless its pre-planned. What reason would there be to have this type of exercise on that morning, Ill tell you if you are placing fake planes all over the north American aerospace grid then you have no way of knowing which planes are real and which are fake. Then to thicken the plot you put a civilian in charge of NORAD so that the military does not have the power to initiate the order for jets to be scrambled to intercept. If the military would have still commanded power over NORAD they would have scrambled jets because they would have simply followed the procedures that had been in place for this type of situation for years and years and scrambled jets.

     To delve even further, as Im standing there watching the towers collapse, next to me is one of my good friends and a former commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. He is a demolitions expert. He was even more surprised than me. When the towers collapsed he kept saying this isnt right, this isnt right. When I asked him what he was talking about he told me that steel buildings dont fall down that way. Even if they are struck by objects; he went on to say that in theory if the top 10 floors were hit, then possibly just that part of the building would fall over and off, but the rest would remain standing. When I asked him, not understanding the implications of demolitions, he told me that it looked as if they were brought down by controlled demolitions. I was utterly amazed, but after he said that it did sort of appear that way.

     Ill tell you what gave this whole thing away was building 7. If they would not have brought this building down, then they probably could have gotten away with it all. It was the most amazing site I have ever seen. Not only was it amazing, it bore reality to the truth of the situation something was not right here. Now, Im going to tell you all I have learned, but I urge anyone to just spend 1hr reading about this incident on the internet and learning the facts. There have been numerous scholars, numerous physicists that have analyzed this over and over and over again. And they all come to the same conclusion, something does not add up. Building 7 was never directly hit by a plane. Now it was stated that a piece of one of the towers fell onto the side of building 7 and caught one of the floors on fire. A few moments later we all witnessed the most perfect example of controlled demolitions to ever be caught on camera. It could not be proved that building 7 fell due to fire. My friend and I standing there in the SCIF watching in uninterruptible awe with all those other military members; watching building 7 fall perfectly onto its footprint; my friend stating that it was beautifully done.

     We all knew then we all realized that this was not some group of unorganized cave dwellers from Afghanistan orchestrating a perfect hit on American soil. It was impossible. Shortly after the Pentagon was struck I called my close friend that I went to Basic Training with. All civilian lines were down and I had to contact him via STU which is a black line classified phone system. He did not answer, but one of his soldiers did. I asked if SGT Worthington was ok and he said yes. I asked if the plane did severe damage and he told me I didn't see any plane. Then when I finally got to speak to my friend, he started acting strange saying he could not talk about the incident over this line. He was shipped off overseas a few weeks later and I never to this day have had the chance to speak with him.

     The Pentagon crash tape was released a few months back after 5 years. You need to watch that tape no where can you see a plane strike the Pentagon. This is because it was not a plane. I cannot tell you exactly what hit the Pentagon, but its unanimous; it was definitely not a plane. I can assure you that there is more than one CCTV camera around the Pentagon. On September 25, 4 days before my 25th birthday, I deployed to Afghanistan. Over the 8months I was there I had never seen one intelligent Afghani soldier. They were all tattered and scrawny and could barely shoot their weapons straight. This does not mean that there were not men that could fly a plane, but after what I saw it was extremely hard to believe they could be taught to fly a sophisticated piece of aeronautical equipment.

     My point Mr. Editor is that I spent 8 months in combat watching my brothers die in the name of Freedom. I killed, in the name of Freedom and to this day my brothers are still being killed for this illusionary war we call the War on Terror. Where the enemy has no face where there is no clear objective. In this War, anyone with ill thoughts toward this country can be defined as a terrorist. Well, I guess that includes me in this group as well as everyone else who questions the events of 911, because we all hold ill thoughts toward the leadership of this country and I say the real terrorists in this world sit right in the heart of its capital.

     I have bled for this country and would do so again in a heart beat but only to protect its people, the true Americans that live here. I would never again offer my life under the leadership whose real goal is oil and money. The same ones who staged the most perfect illusionary tactic in our history that was a pretext to a war on terror that would never again go away. Their goal was to scare the American public into submission making it easier for the world powers to do their evil and get away with it.

     Now that may sound like a typical conspiracy theorist I guess, but how many do you actually talk to? Im not here saying that Aliens came down and used laser beams to bring the towers down or control the planes that were flown; Im telling you as a sane, logical and intelligent individual, something does not add up about this. Earlier this year I was watching the Discovery channel. They have a PBS program called Rebuilding America. This particular episode was about the WTC building 7. They interviewed Larry Silverstein (the owner) about building 7. He stated on national TV the following which is the direct quote and can be found here: http://www.wtc7.net/pullit.html

     I remember getting a call from the, ER, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it." And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.

     I actually have the program recorded and you are more than welcome to come by my house and watch it. He actually stated this on national TV. I was so amazed that I almost shat myself. I could not believe he actually stated this on a nationally broadcasted TV program. You can ask any person who has done controlled demolitions please interview someone they will tell you it takes weeks of planning to do this. We are expected to believe that this was facilitated and planned in a matter of hours for building 7, while the damn thing was on fire you have got to be kidding me. If that is not enough to make you believe something was fishy well then nothing will ever do.

     Since that time there have been numerous scholars, some of which have actually been publicly broadcasted on CSPAN. The latest program was called: Theories about 9-11. American Perspectives and you can watch this (which I advise you do) per this link: Theories about 9-11 (American Perspectives) or you can go to www.c-span.org and look under their video/audio section to find this title. Its an outstanding video and encompasses the thoughts of not only the American public, but also Dr Steven Jones from Brigham Young University a physics professor that actually received a piece of the rubble from the WTC. Not only does he profoundly agree that building 7 was a controlled demolition he can prove it. After he analyzed the piece of debris they found; there were large traces of sulfur and Thermite found. If you did not know, Thermite is a chemical compound found in many explosives including C4 which I have used many times in the Army. It leaves a distinct smell and identifiable residue upon explosion. Dr Jones found large traces of this from the rubble.

     Sir, there are many things that I never wanted to know for one that the government that is supposed to be caring for the American people could be corrupt. This was the last thing that I ever wanted to be true but its time we wake up and smell the bullshit because its permeating throughout the American public and we are all starting to realize whats really going on. If your news station actually did a similar Zogby type poll here in Cincinnati, I think you would find that a lot more than 1/3 of the people believe this. I know tons just in this area.

     I could literally write you 100 pages of truths that could prove that 9-11 was an inside job, but Id probably just be passed off as some crazy conspiracy theorist. Instead I want to give you the tools to look for yourself because the quest for wisdom is a journey we must all take alone. So, to you I add the following links and if you just spend a small portion of your day reading and watching some of this footage, who knows you may wake up and stand along side the rest of us in utter amazement.

     Respectfully,

     SGT Lauro Chavez United States Central Command

     Thanks to the Internet, one of the few freedoms we have left, these truths can be sent to the public. Thank God we dont have to rely on news media to get this information out to everyone!

     This is only about a 10th of my list of sites. Enjoy; and when you are sick with the truth of things, let me know and Ill buy you a beer to ease your nerves.

     Loose Change Volume 2 (An outstanding documentary done about 911 that includes news reports and live footage of the tragedy and finds that some things are not what they seem) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1519312457137943386&q=loose+chan ge

     Official Pentagon Plane Crash Video (You tell me where the plane is) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5658198482624505213

     Silverstein saying we decided to pull the building The collapse of building 7 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6455428412411043437&q=WTC+build ing+7

     Another video of bldg 7 (In this you can see the widely noticeable crinkle that is common in controlled demolitions) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9184329400593634920&q=wtc+7

     Watch the following in sequence:

     1. Showing the Thermite at work. (In this video you can see the molten concrete and metal spewing out of the WTC. This is what happens when a Thermite type explosive is used to cut down steel pillars) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=545886459853896774&q=thermite

     2. Then watch this video (it shows the spot where the molten metal is coming out the same spot where the building crinkles and collapses) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4763320529356355623&q=wtc+7

     Misc Links for research:

     http://www.911truth.org/

     http://www.st911.org/

     http://www.infowars.com/

     http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/020806tapesintensify.htm

     Zogby Poll Results http://www.911truth.org/images/911TruthZogbyPollFinalReport.htm

     As you can see, I'm not your typical conspiracy theorist I actually have a good job! I thought at first I might send you this from an anonymous email address, but you know what now you know I'm not just some stupid kid.

     Thanks for taking the time to read.

     Respectfully,

     Lauro "LJ" Chavez Director of Information Security Domin-8 Enterprise Solutions 513-492-5831 lchavez@domin-8.com www.domin-8.com

     As the guardians of technology; security shall be our shield and vigilance our sword

     http://www.v911t.org/SergeantLauroChavez.php

     Posted by plunger at 09/23/2006 @ 08:41am

198. Posted by FRANKGRITS 09/23/2006 @ 09:43am

     He smacked them down and showed everyone how stupid they are. And he didn't mince words about his new-found friend George H.W. Bush's son, either. Why does anyone but Republican reprobates bother to appear there, anyway? It just helps them.

     Posted by fromredbird at 09/23/2006 @ 10:49am

199. MOre on the cronyism of the Bush Admin. From DC to Baghdad, they have left no program untouched by cronyism, deception, fraud and law breaking.

     " The investigation, conducted by the Department of Education's Inspector General, found that the Department of Education made states' funding under the federal Reading First program contingent on their using a reading curriculum developed by McGraw-Hill, Inc. or one from a short list of commercial reading programs. The report concluded that the Department of Education had stacked peer review panels, ignored federal statutes, and manipulated state and local reading curriculum selection procedures to steer grants to its favored venders. More than $5 billion has been spent on Reading First since 2002.

     McGraw-Hill's Chairman and CEO, Harold McGraw III, and its Chairman Emeritus, Harold McGraw Jr., contributed a total of over $23,000 to the Republican National Committee and to President Bush's campaigns between 1999 and 2006. The Bush and McGraw families have been personally and professionally close since the 1930's, according to published reports."

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 11:10am

200. Posted by FRANKGRITS 09/23/2006 @ 09:43am

     Thanks Frank.

     One of the unanswered questions btought up by Willy, if there was so much info on Bin Laden, why didn'y chimpy do something with it instead of CUTTING funding.

     Why was the right soo pissed at the Somalia incident? One helicopter gets shot down and they went apeshit over US troops being sent on a fools errand. Why were they more concerned with cum in the Oval Office than Bin Laden. Sorry, 3 questions. Any neo-cons got answers for me?

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 11:15am

201. more from the previous article, found at Truthout,

     "The scathing IG report was released just as another IG report, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, concluded that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson had instructed department employees to direct federal grants and contracts to organizations politically friendly to the Bush administration. And it comes one day after the New York Times reported that the Interior Department prevented four federal auditors from collecting royalties from oil companies that had been cheating US taxpayers. The Interior Department's Inspector General recently told Congress that "Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior."

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 11:18am

202. ATTN NATION STAFF!!!

     Could you do a story on all of the lost court cases, times Inspector Generals, auditors etc have found illegal activities, the number of Bush appointees that have pled guilty and those that are under indictment. I cannot keep track of it all anymore. It would be nice to see a chart/list all in one place.

     Posted by crabwalk at 09/23/2006 @ 11:21am

203. FRANK

     Clinton has dumb timing. This stuff has been out there in Limbaugh-land for a while. He should have come out earlier and forcefully to refute it.

     Now "Path to 9/11" is the Right-Wing version of Oliver Stone's "JFK" and IS the "history".

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 11:36am

204. LVLIBERTY1:

     1. In order to establish Islam and not Judaism as God's chosen, Mohammed changed history and said that Abraham took Ishmael and not Isaac up on the mountain to sacrifice when ordered by God (Surah 37:100-107).

     A lie. That passage of the Quran says no such thing. It refers only to Abraham's "son". However, immediately following in verse 112 it implies that it was Isaac by saying, "So we gave him the good news of Isaac, apostle, who is among the righteous." The Quran also does not anywhere imply that the Jews were not a chosen people of God. It in fact criticizes those among the Jews who repudiated and shunned God's Jewish prophets.

     2. In order to devalue Jesus and Christianity, Mohammed again changed history and said that Jesus did not die on the cross, but as a murderer and deceiver caused another man to look like him and take his place on the cross (Surah 4:157.

     An absolutely atrocious lie. Accusing Muslims of attributing to Jesus an act of murderous deception has to qualify as a new peak in craven bigotry. Muslims speak with reverence of Jesus and some even carry out pilgrimages to shrines glorifying Jesus. The passage: "And for saying: 'We killed the Christ, Jesus, son of Mary, who was an apostle of God;' but they neither killed nor crucified him, though it so appeared to them. Those who disagree in the matter are only lost in doubt. They have no knowledge about it other than conjecture, for surely they did not kill him. But God raised him up and closer to Himself; and God is all-mighty and all-wise."

     3. Islam also rewrites the immaculate conception by suggesting that rather than the Holy Spirit, it was the Angel Gabriel who impregnated Mary. This is another attempt to take away any suggestion that Jesus was divine.

     What an ass. He says Islam rewrites by "suggesting" but he doesn't say where or give any reference. So after the two previous lies someone is supposed to accept his valueless words? Getting impregnated by an angel would probably sound pretty divine to a lot of women, anyway, you hate-mongering dimwit.

     Islam is a religion founded on lies to take away the truth of the God of Israel who manifested Himself in the person of Jesus to provide the free gift of life to all who would receive it.

     You cannot bring forth truth from a foundation of lies.

     Unfortunately for you hypocrisy is not yet an Olympic sport. Otherwise you would own several Gold Medals.

     And then you append your links to vicious Jewish zionist and "Christian" zionist hate sites. If there is a Jesus in a heaven he will personally fling a heteful person such as yourself into hell according to the Bible.

     http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ [url]

     http://www.carm.org/islam.htm [url]

     http://www.answering-islam.org.uk/Index/index.html

     Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/22/2006 @ 9:43pm

     Posted by fromredbird at 09/23/2006 @ 11:41am

205. A Christian is one who believes in and adheres to the fundamentals of the faith which have been unchanging since the resurrection.

     unchanging? hahahahahahahahah.what a joke. not a chance.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/23/2006 @ 12:42pm

206. liberty:"you lovers of jihad.

     you are a shameful slime, piling lie upon lie. it must be hell to be in your skin.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/23/2006 @ 12:45pm

207. Now there's the rising hsuB's poll numbers. Why are they even rising? What has he accomplished in the last month or so to warrant them to rise? The same disastrous policies are there and have gotten worse via the allowance of Geneva Conventions free from following the rule of law as they do with our Constitution, Forbes just showed us where our economy has been going countering our knowledge that more children in the US are in poverty than before, educational funding is a scam literally, the ‘war' is getting worse, and it goes on and on like that down the list. So again-- why are his job approval numbers going up? He's gone out and given speeches before with little change in his job approval rating even when also killing Zarqawi. So again, what has changed ‘that' drastically that his numbers are inching up? What indeed. Oh please, what's worse is the alternative to the two other possible answers.

     First what we're being led to believe-- that hsuB is such a great orator that he's swaying us simply with his golden tongue. Being that nothing he said so far matches reality, and we citizens, perceived by the media as so stupid as to believe hsuB-- when our minds and our eyes say different. So I'll only grant that answer as very remote and possibly the reason for 5-10% of of the approval. It's a fringe that will always believe just about anything and explains messiah worship of Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, and now hsuB. Ok, but that's only maybe 10%; what about the other possible 90% of hsuB's current 35-40% job approval rating?

     Well, one of the other two possibilities is that it's simply oil. What was hitting the middle and lower income increasingly worse every time we had to fill-up in order to go to work, get home, pick-up our kids, shop,… gasoline at the pump. Why in 2000 did oil start to consistently move upward to a point where Clinton had to tap the reserve before November to calm nerves of our citizenry. Repub's at the time did a quick dress change ala Carter to insolate the increase as a failed Clinton/Gore energy policy. It wasn't. Freedom, my friends, at its most basic, is experienced as the ability to move around at will, thus it's agonizing to be bound up; especially torturous for long periods of time and in ‘unusual' positions. Just thinking about not being able to move from point A to point B when you need to, is a major paradigm shift for most and extremely upsetting. So when you focus all your attention on the top of your list of problems, sometimes the others don't seem as bad when the top one is getting worse every day, i.e. price of gasoline ‘doubles' in a year, quadruples in the last five; especially when real income is going down for most middle and lower income families-- a ‘major' budget buster.

     (The most stable and lowest average price for gasoline in the US during the last 36 years was just before hsuB took office via Clinton. I remember paying 82¢ a gallon in 2000 in Austin, Texas. After that it steadily moved up to over $3 a gallon: http://zfacts.com/p/35.html ) Is it not curious that it had to be forced down in 2000, but not in 2002, 2004, 2006!

     But then when that biggest problem is removed-- other problems next on the list follow along within the 2-3 week euphoria; thus the perception that the other problems are getting better too. Well they're not, but that's not the perception of ‘right now'. If the prices at the pump level off long enough, people's emotions do catch up with reality and hsuB's rating go back down. Thus the larger need to lower the price in ‘November' or to manipulate perception enough to have large segments of the population think they're coming down as they vote to give the advantage to the incumbents, i.e. things aren't really ‘that' bad and it's a time of ‘war'… So I'd say that this is a highly plausible explanation and I give it 65% towards hsuB's current and ‘temporary' job approval rating improvement. But that's only 75%-- what about the other 25?

     Ok, lets look at the current research coming out of Princeton illustrating how easy it was and is to hack the Diebold voting machines to produce preordained election counting outcomes. Now these machines' integrity is of major importance as they decide who we elect to run our government and we were told that this wasn't possible and were assured the vote was legit; much like the Iraq pre-war intel… So really, how difficult would it be to hack into some--not all, but just a few of the poll gathering systems? Not that hard to do-- if just enough controls are accessible, but harder to prove unless one ‘tries' to investigate it. Barring that, what if we just look at the polls as they stand and accept their ‘possible' hacked bias? And given the fact that where voting machines were used they predominately favored repub vote count and wins and hsub's need to up his numbers to help congressional incumbents--major discrepancies in the current pollsters numbers should raise eyebrows.

     There are six pollsters that show hsuB having moved up to 40% job approval rating or over; the highest at 45: LA Times 45, USA Today 44, NBC/WSJ 42, ABC 42, CNN 41, and Faux 40. Then there are nine that show hsuB inching up, but still below 40%; the lowest two still at 36: Newsweek 36, CBS/NYT 36, PEW 37, Time 38, AP-ipsos 39, Gallup 39, Cook 39, Quinnipiac 39, Diago/Hotline 39. Yet still, when you look at the +/- 3 margin of error, most have not moved up from their previous poll; the one, just 2 points. But then again the CNN poll actual went down by one point! The discrepancy then is consistency of some to always poll higher and move quicker by as much as 10 points than the others when it's the most convenient for the hsuB admin. Thus to be fair, I suggest that those with the time and means, to research those polls consistently polling the highest and lowest to connect the trend with possible policy ‘marketing' manipulation, i.e. torture scandal, SC repudiation, Iraq/Afghanistan situation going south, congressional record going into campaigning mode, etc., definitely needed peppier presentation packaging--it is the fall after all. I lay odds on there being a lot of manipulation here in order to stave off unpopular reaction to failed policies and/or exposure of incompetence or corruption, i.e. one can make an argument carry more weight if the outrage is viewed as one held by most, than one held by few or fewer.

     http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/23/2006 @ 2:09pm

208. To quote the AntiChrist:

     "Islam is a religion founded on lies to take away the truth of the God of Israel who manifested Himself in the person of Jesus to provide the free gift of life to all who would receive it.

     (1)However as someone who is bright and obviously well read, the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy is perhaps the best scholarly attempt that I have seen. It was produced by 300 Evangelical Scholars in 1978."

     Once again the great AntiChrist lvl is spouting his anally retentive rhetoric.

     Question if Christ was around when "his" take on what is in the scriptures was written would he agree or condemn the use of his name with the portentous manipulations created in his name?

     After all "his" word has been rewritten how many times per lvl's statement above (1) this is just another example of reinterpretation of Christ's word. Which version is right or are any of the versions from those created by Constantine to todays "scholars" real, especially when you compare them with the basic teachings Christ propounded on from his gatherings on the mound.

     But the real hypocrisies is the support to those who claim to be pious and the fact that they favor death, misery, destruction in the name of protecting the views of "their god" with their trusted lists of their contrived scriptures.

     If you get HBO check out Bill Maher's Real Time W/ show Friday night, Sandy Rios's example of conservative logic is hilarious and is a great example of conservative anally retentive confusion we see here from the Wanker squad (lvl,massch,cpt,and the rest).

     Posted by dycel8r at 09/23/2006 @ 2:13pm

209. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 09/23/2006 @ 2:09pm

     Risking the usual charges against me, HSUB, I don't think the "torture debate" is ringing home with Joe Six-pack or even Joseph Gin-enTonic. In fact, with the success of McCain, Warner and Graham, to them it probably seems "fixed" and a "compromise reached"...while anything more liberal will appear as "them damn lefties trying to work for the terrorists' rights and now protecting us!"

     But seeing gas go to $1.98 again before Halloween....does.

     Ugly truth or just plain fact. 80% of America is too busy trying to figure out how to keep the gasoline credit card paid off more than they are how some CIA operative in Kreplachistan treats Muhammad-ibn-Muhammed.

     Maybe you and I would like it to be otherwise...but that's the way it is.

     That being said, I stick with my prediction....Dems take House by 2-3 seats, Repubs hold Senate.

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 2:19pm

210. LvLiberty,

     How do you account for this:

     "A Christian is one who believes in and adheres to the fundamentals of the faith which have been unchanging since the resurrection."

     That is not true. For one thing after Vatican II the Catholic Church removed reference to the Jews killing Christ from the Easter Mass. That in and of itself is a pretty significant change. And, in your dismissal of the Gospel according to Thomas you are writing off a gnostic text that challenges the notion that God and man are separate and that does not conform to the synoptics. But since it does not conform you can throw it out? I suppose the tenets of the faith do not change if you throw out what might challenge it. . .

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 2:29pm

211. If by faith you mean that one's faith in the divinity of Christ has not changed then, yes, that is true. But the rules and practices, rituals and laws have changed. And additionally, how can you a Protestant say that? Don't you recall the Reformation?

     If the Reformation was not a challenge to the fundamentals of Catholic doctrine that what precisely is a challenge?

     And you don't account for the East-West split in the church that brought about Catholicism in the West and Eastern Orthodoxy in the East in 1170.

     Do you know your history? You speak of Christianity as though it has never changed. All of these events were changes that altered men's perceptions of the truth of the Christian faith.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 2:33pm

212. Theologians like St. Abelard or Mesiter Echardt do not share the same fundamental values as a Martin Luther or a Savanarola. And Billy Graham's explanation does not account for that nor is an answer to the diversity of the Christian faith.

     What you are getting that is that the Christian faith returns to the image of Jesus as the central image. But that does not account for the way Quakers and Unitarians perceive God.

     And don't say Unitarians are "New Age" because, as you should know, their church has been around for centuries.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 2:35pm

213. Fair analysis Mask.

     What ever happened to the SEC antitrust investigation into BP investment program in the energy futures market. I believe this may be another reason for the decline in energy prices, of course the old election year manipulation is probably the real reason.

     Add in the lack of war coverage and the affront to our constitutional legal rights by those who abuse their majority and we are once again stuck in the quagmire again.

     Posted by dycel8r at 09/23/2006 @ 2:36pm

214. Posted by MASK 09/23/2006 @ 2:19pm

     I think the public need to see the pictures of what the proposal says is permissible torture and then put pictures of their kids in uniform in those positions-- that'll shock them into reality. Wake up folks-- this hsuB admin is putting your kids and all future troops at greater risk of being mutilated and having a very painful and excruciatingly horrible death.

     How long before it's ok to do it to Joe public even?

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/23/2006 @ 2:36pm

215. But I don't think you can group all members of the Christian faith into one unchanging category because there are Christians like Mesiter Eckhardt who thought that the image of Jesus (or of God) was the final obstruction in knowing God.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 2:36pm

216. LvLiberty,

     You keep falling back on some "unchanging" aspect of Christianity. What is unchanging is your piety or fealty to your faith. Fine. There is an eternal principle in the universe, no argument here. But you are looking at things literally and are not willing to address the challenges that arise from your literalism.

     Drop the literalism and faith lives.

     There is nothing wrong with faith but why be so literalist?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 2:39pm

217. Posted by DYCEL8R 09/23/2006 @ 2:36pm | ignore this person

     Nobody cares HOW it happens, just that it doesn't cost $75 to fill up their Expedition anymore.

     Posted by HSUBFOOLS 09/23/2006 @ 2:36pm

     Never happen...unless another "Abu Ghraib" hits, but the lid has been nailed shut on most of those kind of leaks.

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 7:34pm

218. Drop the literalism and faith lives.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/23/2006 @ 2:39pm |

     I disagree. LVLIB and fundies are right about that. If EVERY WORD of the Bible isn't literally true...then the Resurrection can be given an askance look as well.

     No Noah, No Rock Rolled Away From the Tomb.

     So, I reject both....working out a compromise is tough metaphysical work.

     Posted by Mask at 09/23/2006 @ 7:36pm

219. jesus was crucified three times. once by the jews. the second time by his biographers. and the third time by his followers. that time is the most devastating.

     translated and paraphrased from Multatuli.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/23/2006 @ 7:51pm

220. "I disagree. LVLIB and fundies are right about that. If EVERY WORD of the Bible isn't literally true...then the Resurrection can be given an askance look as well."

     Mask,

     That is quite a task they have given themselves then. It would seem to me they are robbing themselves of the joy of faith if they think that faith -which is not reason- must come from reason.

     If everything has to be taken literally then what is the point of faith in the first place? After all, if God is a personal God then God must also exist to men by proof. But if God is truly beyond proof, that is beyond matter and being and non-being and all of the pairs of opposites of temporality, God becomes universal. The personal is our own relationship to that universality. And you can keep that personal connection if you drop the literalism. If it is not literal God is about love and not about revenge and smoting one's enemies. If something is provable then it need not be taken on faith but can be taken as fact. God cannot be proven so God does not work as fact. But God by faith, that works! And with it you don't have to keep a hold on all of the fear and the hatred that is expressed in the Bible and instead the effulgence of creation (that actually is God) comes through. And why wouldn't it? The beauty of Genesis is that it reminds us that the "word was made flesh." From nothingness came man and with it all of those bounteous things we experience. And it did not happen in six days because the experience of time (temporality) is man's experience, not God's. So, you can accept the creation that is spoken of in the Bible and not get caught up in the literal definition of how that creation was made. After all, we don't know how the earth was created at the point of inception, we can all infer by analogy. And that is what the Bible is: metaphor and analogy.

     Besides, the end of the world is a metaphor, is it not? The world does end when you die but if you have faith, then death is nothing more than one more passage in the mystery of being.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 10:50pm

221. The "Love" that Christianity speaks of in the world is the love of creation. God loves us because he gave us life. He gave all of us life. And if you love God you also have love for everything in the world because God so loved it that he gave it life. Or, God so loved it that he sent his son to redeem it. And what is that redemption? Remembering that God loved the world and give it life. The beauty of it, for me, is that it all refers back to itself, that is, refers back to the source. God is the source of the universe (if you believe the Christian view that God is the source of power) and with that universe, the life in it that can be sustained by this creation we have been allowed to participate in it. If we weren't loved we could not survive. So, therefore, all of us are loved. Everyone. Because we have our life. And if you believe in a "Culture of Life" then you too love all the world.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 10:53pm

222. Sorry about the repetition. If only I were more eloquent. . .

     I guess my "tautology" is meant to express the fact that I see it as all folding back on itself.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/23/2006 @ 10:55pm

223. Posted by HHEMWM 09/23/2006 @ 10:55pm

     Mortimer Adler had a good argument for natural theology ("How To Think About God") and the existance of a "supreme creative intelligence".

     But the idea that "He" cares about us (as a species) or as individuals requires "sacred theology".

     Frankly, given free will, God doesn't really matter, I think. He can't "do" anything, or violate free will...so what good is He?

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 07:37am

224. I call on every thinking and reasoning person reading and writing here to repudiate the poster who takes this platform to run down another's religion, while puffing himself up as a man of god. ignore the motherfucker.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/24/2006 @ 08:21am

225. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 09/24/2006 @ 08:21am

     That's the "ZERO" path, JOHANN. Putting people whose opinions you don't like on "Ignore" isn't what free debate and discussion is about.

     I have only two types on my Ignore list...one, ORWELL2005, who simply answers with personal insults and immediate vitriole. The other are RESE and PLUNGER, but only because of SPACE and the fact they can't seem to have a discussion (just 4000 word cut&pastes from www.jesuitmindcontrol.com...hehe).

     Listening to LVLIB might be more important, because it gives us an insight into the mind of the Religious Right and their dogma.

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 10:58am

226. Johannesrolf,

     You have a point but I wonder sometimes if one of the reasons LvLiberty keeps posting here is because part of him half believes all of these things he derides.

     Of course he just may want to egg us on because that is what he finds entertaining. Oh well. I am not worried about it either way.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 12:24pm

227. Mask,

     I just think it is interesting that people think that without God you have complete moral anarchy. It's a funny thing but if you look in the world what you do see is moral anarchy anyway. But you also see something else too.

     I find it is easier to think about it outside of narrow terms. But that does not mean I condone barbarity. Why people think that recognizing relativity makes one prone to barbarity is something worth looking at. I just read C.S. Lewis' Abolition of Man and was very disappointed. He tries to make the case that without reason man cannot accept The Tao (the way). But he confuses Natural Law with Ethical Law and so, from what I can tell, the work really doesn't lead you anywhere other than in circles.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 12:26pm

228. HH, I have been swinging back and forth between engaging this poster and ignoring him. what I have found is that both intellect and faith are useless without moral compass, something lacking in that person. piety is not the same as righteousness, in fact they are not often both found in the same person, I think jesus said that.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/24/2006 @ 12:32pm

229. That's the "ZERO" path, JOHANN. Putting people whose opinions you don't like on "Ignore" isn't what free debate and discussion is about.

     I have only two types on my Ignore list...

     Posted by MASK 09/24/2006 @ 10:58am

     it's not suprising that it's perfectly acceptable... when you do it

     Posted by Will C. at 09/24/2006 @ 1:04pm

230. I get to choose with whom I engage in free debate and discussion, and my choice is to ignore the satanic preacher and yes, Mask, though for entirely different reasons.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/24/2006 @ 1:20pm

231. one because he's evil, the other because he's rude.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/24/2006 @ 1:44pm

232. Posted by HHEMWM 09/24/2006 @ 12:26am

     Lewis' flaw is still his belief in the Bible as "gospel Truth", historically as well as metaphysically.

     His old (much mis-used) "liar, lunatic, or Lord" statement is flawed because if fails to "step back" and consider that NONE of the Bible was actually written by Jesus, but by his revolutionary friends seeking to overthrow both Rome and the Sanhedrin.

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 2:38pm

233. Posted by WILL C. 09/24/2006 @ 1:04pm

     WILL....I don't Ignore you.

     And besides ORWELL2005 for sheer vitriole and personal attacks, nobody else on the Left (unless you put the conspiracy nuts like RESE/PLUNGE on the Left).

     In fact, the rest are RIGHT-wing guys like BUSHMAN and LIBZSUK.

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 2:39pm

234. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 09/24/2006 @ 1:44pm

     Your choice, of course. I just hope you don't go down the DARLA (and ZERO) path of Ignoring EVERYBODY who says something you basically "don't want to hear"!

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 2:40pm

235. His old (much mis-used) "liar, lunatic, or Lord" statement is flawed because if fails to "step back" and consider that NONE of the Bible was actually written by Jesus, but by his revolutionary friends seeking to overthrow both Rome and the Sanhedrin.

     That's not a flaw with the argument, both because it isn't true, and because the argument doesn't need it to be true.

     First and foremost, the claim that the Bible was written by people wanting what effectively amounts to a revolution is untrue. In fact, if the Matthew who is said to have written the Gospel of Matthew is the same Matthew who was one of Jesus' disciples, this definitely isn't true because the disciple Matthew was a tax collector! Moreover, when do you ever see the early Christian movement calling for a political revolt? Where are the all the apostles who were apparently organizing resistance cells? In short, where is all of this revolutionary fervor? It seems like the people who wrote Gospels in which a man says "give to Caesar what belongs to Caeasar" weren't political revolutionaries after all.

     But what if they were? It still wouldn't affect the argument. The argument starts with the idea that Jesus did and said what the Gospels claim he did, and offer an exhaustive list of reasonable conclusions that one could draw about him. This list isn't dependent on Jesus himself having written anything, so even if you were right, it wouldn't matter. Here's the argument itself, in Lewis' own words:

     "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/24/2006 @ 3:59pm

236. Posted by THRAWN 09/24/2006 @ 3:59pm

     Same mistake as Lewis...Jesus didnt write his own material....his friends "quoted" him, likely prejudicially.

     BTW, I meant "revolutionaries" in a religious sense, not political....which they were.

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 5:09pm

237. to run down Islam is racism pure and simple-minded. I think the readers would never permit rants against african americans,. why would anyone tolerate these rants against muslims and Islam? I ask you.

     Posted by johannesrolf at 09/24/2006 @ 7:44pm

238. WILL....I don't Ignore you.

     And besides ORWELL2005 for sheer vitriole and personal attacks, nobody else on the Left (unless you put the conspiracy nuts like RESE/PLUNGE on the Left).

     In fact, the rest are RIGHT-wing guys like BUSHMAN and LIBZSUK.

     Posted by MASK 09/24/2006 @ 2:39pm

     yeah yeah yeah. you're reasons are more pure and forthright. Sure

     and they just makes your hypocracy that much more illuminating

     Posted by Will C. at 09/24/2006 @ 8:17pm

239. Same mistake as Lewis...Jesus didnt write his own material....his friends "quoted" him, likely prejudicially.

     OK...precisely which mistake is that? The only direction I can see this argument going is toward something like "the picture the Gospels paint of Jesus is inaccurate." Just so we're clear, is that the argument you're making?

     BTW, I meant "revolutionaries" in a religious sense, not political....which they were.

     That's fair; I guess this just confused me a bit:

     NONE of the Bible was actually written by Jesus, but by his revolutionary friends seeking to overthrow both Rome and the Sanhedrin.

     With that clarification, though, yeah, they were revolutionaries. As such, especially when speaking to people who would have been in a position to contradict their radical empirical claims, they would have to take special care that their claims were supported by the facts. Otherwise, the movement could have died within a day when someone went "wait, that's not true, I went to the tomb and saw the body myself!"

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/24/2006 @ 9:00pm

240. Posted by WILL C. 09/24/2006 @ 8:17pm

     WILL, I predict the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow morning.

     (standby for his counter-argument....LOL)

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 9:14pm

241. Posted by THRAWN 09/24/2006 @ 9:00pm

     My argument is simply the fact that the Guys (Apostles) had to "sell" the new religion...."love thy neighbor", etc. and the only way in the Bronze Age to get a good religion going, was to make the Founder a "demi-god" (like even "God's son").

     Plus there may have been elements that were "played down" or even eliminated, because they were so radical that Luke and the boys didn't think they could "sell" them.

     In the end...ALL of Christianity is merely what The Guys decided to tell the rest of us about it.

     And since I won't make those guys deities...I can't be a "Christian", without actually meeting The Big Guy in person.

     God, Jesus, whoever ...wants to show up at my house for a chat (and not as some 17 year old Mormon kid...hehe)

     Posted by Mask at 09/24/2006 @ 9:22pm

242. I am glad so many people responded to my posting about Lewis. I was actually quite disappointed when I read The Abolition of Man because I was expecting something more rigorous and exacting. It is interesting that he says that the intellect is the source of our knowing the "Tao" because that is precisely what the Tao says not to do. And also, Will Durant's great book The Story of Philosophy goes into a great discussion of how Schopenhauer repudiated the notion of the intellect as the primary driver in man when it really is our Will that drives us. The intellect is a filter for the Will and is secondary and not of first importance like Lewis says. I wonder if Lewis read Schopenhauer or just decided to ignore him entirely. Either way, it seems to me Lewis is trying to act as though there is no philosophy post Descartes.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 9:34pm

243. But what is perhaps most telling in Lewis' book is that in the Appendix there is a collection of sayings from various religious texts around the world. Their is Lao Tzu, Jesus, Paul, Moses, etc. And yes, there are common themes expressed in all of them BUT the Eastern religions say that man must surrender to his Will and that the stories of mythology are reflections of man's experience. The historical is not relevant but it is the wisdom in the stories that are to be assimilated. In the West ethical monotheism says historical events matter and that the experiences of Jesus, Moses, Abraham can not be replicated in modern man. This is a 180 degree turn from the Tao, from Buddhism and Hinduism. How Lewis missed this is beyond me, he was an extremely learned man. It really is mystifying to me.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 9:38pm

244. Thrawn, you posted this:

     "Where are the all the apostles who were apparently organizing resistance cells? In short, where is all of this revolutionary fervor? It seems like the people who wrote Gospels in which a man says "give to Caesar what belongs to Caeasar" weren't political revolutionaries after all."

     You raise a great point. I think we confuse historical revolution with metaphysical revolution. After all, Descartes and Newton were revolutionaries who effectively changed the way we all live. They did not have fervor but they did have the rigor of their epistemology and their methods. This rigor can create a fervor when me seek to prove the veracity of their ideas.

     With early Christians there was a revolution, one that I think most theologians would acknowledge. Monotheism itself was a revolt against paganism; isn't this why Abraham smashes the idols and goes out into the desert?

     Nietzsche talked about the revolutionary ideas involved in Christianity and one above all the others was the notion that the meek shall inherit the earth. Well, how would a revolutionary affect such a change if a meek man cannot overcome the strong by force? Simple: You spread the Gospel; you evangelize. That is what Christianity did. Christianity did not become a religion of wars until it had the seat of power in its possession, namely Constantine in 321 AD. So the revolution occurred in getting the ideas of the "meek" onto the throne of Rome.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 9:44pm

245. My argument is simply the fact that the Guys (Apostles) had to "sell" the new religion...."love thy neighbor", etc. and the only way in the Bronze Age to get a good religion going, was to make the Founder a "demi-god" (like even "God's son").

     Plus there may have been elements that were "played down" or even eliminated, because they were so radical that Luke and the boys didn't think they could "sell" them.

     In the end...ALL of Christianity is merely what The Guys decided to tell the rest of us about it.

     And since I won't make those guys deities...I can't be a "Christian", without actually meeting The Big Guy in person.

     God, Jesus, whoever ...wants to show up at my house for a chat (and not as some 17 year old Mormon kid...hehe)

     Posted by MASK 09/24/2006 @ 9:22pm

     There are a number of problems with this line of argument. First, it isn't responsive to the crucial argument that I made in my last post, namely that if the followers of Jesus were going to convince anyone, they had to get their facts straight. Otherwise, people who had been around during Jesus' life and seen the kinds of things that he had done and said would be able to contradict them and destroy the movement early on. Second, I think this is falsified by the extent to which many of the Gospel accounts actually use material that would already be embarrassing. To have women, who had no credibility as witnesses, be the first to see the empty tomb, was revolutionary, as were the admissions of the disciples' own fallibility, greed and short-sightedness. Third, even though the gospel writers certainly didn't write about every single detail of Jesus' life, this isn't a reason to neglect the things that they did write about. At that point, Lewis' dillema still applies, because it is only dependent on the particular things that the Gospel writers did include. If you're going to challenge his argument, you have to argue that the accounts the Gospel writers themselves provide are inaccurate, and thus call into question the three independent reasons I've given as to why that isn't the case.

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/24/2006 @ 9:47pm

246. I think where a lot of modern evangelists miss the point is when they think that God can be on anyone's side in a temporal conflict. The idea that a nation can have "God on its side" in a war is belied by the notion that God's love is a love for all life and not for the crusading of the strong against the weak.

     "God on our side" is a dangerous argument because it actually works counter to the very principles upon which Christianity was founded. If Christianity seeks to protect the meek (in other words, to protect life) against the strong you are engaging in Social Darwinism when you say those who are strong are clearly favored and therefore if favored, will triumph. Christianity rebelled against this very idea, did it not? Jesus was a revolutionary when he reminded the kingdoms of the world that all men are loved by God if they accept His covenant. That is a king and a pauper are equal in His eyes.

     We can debate what Jesus said a great deal but what does come through (at least to me) is that Christianity was a great egalitarian religion in the metaphysical sense. And if you read Nietzsche he says this is the revolution that effectively ruined mankind.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 9:49pm

247. Some "conservative" Christians like to argue that if a man is poor it is God's will and the State should not interfere. This is an odd interpretation to me because it seems to say that on the one hand being meek is perfectly okay (and it is) but on the other hand engaging in charity toward your fellow man is a violation of the way of God. Why? If men have the will to charity what stops them from coming to the aid of their fellows? Where does God ever intercede to stave a man's hand from commiting a charitable act?

     Furthermore, how can you reconcile a "this is how it is" mentality with the evangelical message of charity? Even if you believe that everything as it must be that certainly does not preclude you from trying to do what you feel is right. After all, how can a man be called to a higher power if he has no conscience?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 9:54pm

248. To me it all keeps pointing back to what Goethe said, that everyhing is a metaphor after all.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 9:55pm

249. Thrawn, you posted:

     "If you're going to challenge his argument, you have to argue that the accounts the Gospel writers themselves provide are inaccurate, and thus call into question the three independent reasons I've given as to why that isn't the case."

     I disagree. You are arguing history and I am arguing ontology. Lewis' dilemma is that he believes that Reason triumphs over Will and that position is not born out by modern philosophy. Whether the Gospels are historically accurate is not my concern with Lewis at all. Assuming they are correct in their historical details (and many scholars claim they are not), history is not where their values lie. The Gospels are valuable for their message and Lewis is not wrong to value them. But he argues for an Objective Reality and that just can't be proven.

     Kant and Schopenhauer dismantled the idea that their is a provable Objective Reality because all things are phenomena (Kant) or Ideas (Schopenhauer) that refer to a Subject or a "thing-in-itself." This is THE philosophical problem and Lewis ignores it. He thinks that a consensus on how to live in harmony is somehow Objective Reality. No it is not and his readings in the "Tao" do not bear him out.

     The Eastern religions are not "ethically inflected" but focus on the supernatural as a correlative of the human experience. Lewis seems to get that part but then infers that through Reason we know what is right and is of value. But Buddhism in particular rejects that idea. After all, what is the value of a flower? What is the value of the universe? Formulate whatever argument you like, who will ever agree on one permanent and everlasting definition?

     The problem with The Abolition of Man is in its formulation. He starts with an examination of rhetoric and then decides that from poor rhetoric we become incapable of seeing what is True in nature. No. He is right that men can be "without chests" but that does not mean that men are missing out on the value of the universe. There is no value to the universe it just is. If you have beautiful language to describe it then you can help a man get closer to the experience of the great mystery of being but that is not the same thing as achieving a consensus on its meaning. Lewis even makes the matter more muddled by talking about why men should be able to know objectively why dying for your country is Objective Truth. What? Did he not know of pacifism? Of Quakers? Of the Boddhisatva's rejection of the temporality of the world? He is stuck in temporality. Only in temporality can we find ethical value and from that, the social consensus Lewis thinks he can then project on the universe.

     Lewis thinks the universe is a projection of men's minds. No. The universe is the experience of a man's Will and how he lives in accord with his experience of the universe cannot be objectively judged. So discussing rhetoric as the basis of values is doomed to get lost in a discussion of the values projected in the words we utter. Language is an extension of men's minds, it is not handed down to men by God to prove that the universe is ethical. And I think this is where Lewis is fundamentally mistaken. He reads the Bible literally and believes it is historical fact. So, because he believes this he thinks everything must be proven literally including the Resurrection. That is impossible. It cannot be done. So, he is stuck believing the Truth is revealed to men by God in Objective terms. That is a matter of Faith and not Reason. His work is ontologically flawed and collapses on itself.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 10:08pm

250. Correction:

     The Boddhisatva did not "reject" the universe, he just does not get caught up in "ethical" matters.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/24/2006 @ 10:14pm

251. WILL, I predict the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow morning.

     (standby for his counter-argument....LOL)

     Posted by MASK 09/24/2006 @ 9:14pm

     now you are predicting certainties.

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     that's the smokescreen you're blowing to try to hide your hypocracy?

     in addition to hypocrit, that action would make you a coward too

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 09/24/2006 @ 10:23pm

252. I think where a lot of modern evangelists miss the point is when they think that God can be on anyone's side in a temporal conflict. The idea that a nation can have "God on its side" in a war is belied by the notion that God's love is a love for all life and not for the crusading of the strong against the weak.

     "God on our side" is a dangerous argument because it actually works counter to the very principles upon which Christianity was founded. If Christianity seeks to protect the meek (in other words, to protect life) against the strong you are engaging in Social Darwinism when you say those who are strong are clearly favored and therefore if favored, will triumph. Christianity rebelled against this very idea, did it not? Jesus was a revolutionary when he reminded the kingdoms of the world that all men are loved by God if they accept His covenant. That is a king and a pauper are equal in His eyes.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/24/2006 @ 9:49pm

     I think that you are absolutely right, and have to ask whether you've read the work of a theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr. He makes arguments very similar to the one you make here, and they seem very compelling. You could also add that this kind of justification removes the perceived need for considering opposing points of view and for considering the outcome of your actions; after all, if God is necessarily on your side, why do those concerns matter?

     Some "conservative" Christians like to argue that if a man is poor it is God's will and the State should not interfere. This is an odd interpretation to me because it seems to say that on the one hand being meek is perfectly okay (and it is) but on the other hand engaging in charity toward your fellow man is a violation of the way of God. Why? If men have the will to charity what stops them from coming to the aid of their fellows? Where does God ever intercede to stave a man's hand from commiting a charitable act?

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/24/2006 @ 9:54pm

     I think this point neglects a key dichotomy that needs to be made. There's a difference between you reaching out to help someone else, and using the state (and therefore the money of other people) to help others. Of course, the argument isn't that the state shouldn't make any effort to help those least-well-off in society (since the large-scale actions the state can take can often be critical), but rather that it's simply not the same as you reaching out to help other people. To rely on the state is to neglect this important aspect of caring for others, because you're giving other people's money as a substitute for actually helping people yourself.

     Thrawn, you posted:

     "If you're going to challenge his argument, you have to argue that the accounts the Gospel writers themselves provide are inaccurate, and thus call into question the three independent reasons I've given as to why that isn't the case."

     I disagree. You are arguing history and I am arguing ontology. Lewis' dilemma is that he believes that Reason triumphs over Will and that position is not born out by modern philosophy. Whether the Gospels are historically accurate is not my concern with Lewis at all. Assuming they are correct in their historical details (and many scholars claim they are not), history is not where their values lie. The Gospels are valuable for their message and Lewis is not wrong to value them. But he argues for an Objective Reality and that just can't be proven.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/24/2006 @ 10:08pm

     If I understand your argument correctly, you're not clashing all that much with the argumentation that I'm making. What I'm defending is the "trilemma" that Lewis draws regarding the identity of Jesus.

     In fact, I'm not all that certain where your claims contradict mine. The only direct conflict I can see is your claim that no objective reality exists (a claim that has been asserted since at least the time of the ancient Greek skeptics). This conflict only exists if you're contesting the existence of the external world and our ability to know its history, but this position is really not very strong at all. What specific problem is there with the notion of an Objective Reality, particularly given that the lack of such a reality would make virtually all of our discourse meaningless because our claims would have absolutely no referents. The fact that we disagree about particular aspects of reality, as Bloom points out, suggests rather than refutes the idea of an objective reality.

     If your position is not attempting to call the existence of an external world into question, what precisely is your argument against my position?

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/25/2006 @ 01:49am

253. Thrawn, you posted:

     "In fact, I'm not all that certain where your claims contradict mine. The only direct conflict I can see is your claim that no objective reality exists (a claim that has been asserted since at least the time of the ancient Greek skeptics). This conflict only exists if you're contesting the existence of the external world and our ability to know its history, but this position is really not very strong at all. What specific problem is there with the notion of an Objective Reality, particularly given that the lack of such a reality would make virtually all of our discourse meaningless because our claims would have absolutely no referents."

     You could say that I am offering the idea that no Objective Reality exists and it certainly is not a novel one, as you pointed out. But this would not preclude me from being able to know "the existence of the external world and our ability to know its history" because studying history is studying the "effect" of unknown causes. It is my belief (and I owe this to Schopenhauer in large part) that all of the world is but the foreground of an ultimate reality that exists beyond the pairs of opposites of temporality. Well, what does that mean? It means that the processes of history, of the world we live in can be debated, discussed, examined and agreed upon as actually having happened but that does not mean that their CAUSE can be known. No historian will ever tell you there is a definitive cause for any event and this is because it cannot be proven. Now for language, I would offer that Bloom is also incorrect (I am bold, aren't I? All these brilliant men I take issue with!) when he says that because we dispute events they must actually exist as reality. No. They exist but as reality? This will sound silly perhaps, but what is reality precisely? It is an experience that we have in the moment and then it is gone. We remember it and we then order it in our minds in a discerning matter so it can become a priori knowledge that is then applicable in a new situation to be applied as abstract reason. But does that get to Cause? Not at all. And if we do not know Cause we cannot know reality as anything more than a sensory experience. We all may be present at the same event but do we experience it the same way? No.

     So history and the Gospels have this in common; each has an unknown Cause. Was Jesus Resurrected? According to the Gospels, yes. But how was he resurrected? He ascended to Heaven but without eye witnesses. But say there were eye witnesses, would we know for sure why he ascended? Again, no we would not. But those who say Jesus ascended have given us reason why he ascended. There is an ontological difference between Cause and Effect. The Effect we learn is that Jesus ascended.

     Schopenhauer says that the closest we can get to the "thing-in-itself" is a characteristic called "qualitus occultus" (if I am telling you things you already know, forgive me. I don't mean to sound didactic) where the thing we observe or know a priori reaches a state where the mind cannot reduce it any further. Example: 2+2=4. Is that Objective Reality? No. We don't know the Cause of 2+2=4 but what we do know is that it represents things in the world we can count. So I can use 2 to approximate a quantity of anything Cause of that thing is. Again, this is the same problem with reading the Gospels historically. We do not know their cause, all we know is the event they are trying to describe.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 02:53am

254. Thrawn, you also posted this:

     "I think this point neglects a key dichotomy that needs to be made. There's a difference between you reaching out to help someone else, and using the state (and therefore the money of other people) to help others. Of course, the argument isn't that the state shouldn't make any effort to help those least-well-off in society (since the large-scale actions the state can take can often be critical), but rather that it's simply not the same as you reaching out to help other people. To rely on the state is to neglect this important aspect of caring for others, because you're giving other people's money as a substitute for actually helping people yourself."

     This is a great point but, in my opinion, it overlooks something. Society, the State, civilization is but a metonym for an essential relationship between two people (call it a contract). If the universe consists of atoms (Heraclitus) or Ideas (Schopenhauer) everything is acting in concert with everything else. When people are brought together under the State they have delegated a level of authority to the State to act on their behalf. The State, using the power at its discretion, ostensibly acts on the consent of its citizens. Should the state use tax dollars to help others? Why not? Of course the State could self-regulate and pass a law saying that it cannot. The people could force the State to regulate its authority and demand that all charity be confined to a man-to-man relationship. Men have that power and can and should use it to choose what they feel is the best course of action. They could consent to a State that uses tax dollars with impunity. Each decision will have an effect and the people will choose to act in accordance with their wishes or dismantle a disobedient State.

     I am not arguing that the State SHOULD do this, I am merely making the point that it is strange to say that it Should Not because the way of the world is God's Will. We cannot know God's will so to make such a statement is to assume Cause. It can't be done. And this is the problem of the Resurrection. God's Will cannot be read historically. It cannot be read literally because to read something literally is to assume that what is happening or happened confirms with the intent of its Cause.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 03:02am

255. Finally, you posted:

     "If your position is not attempting to call the existence of an external world into question, what precisely is your argument against my position?"

     I am not explicitly calling the existence of an external world into question but I am also not accepting its existence because I do not know and cannot know what existence actually is. So I am left with a world of metaphors.

     Now, this does not mean that I think nothing has meaning. I recognize that meaning is personal, subjective and based upon a relativity that stems from the experience of our senses. It is for this reason that I am not afraid to say that I am a moral relativist. But that does not mean I do not believe in morality. Too often people think that if you are a relativist you condone all kinds of barbarity. I don't condone anything, I simply have my perceptions of what is going on around me. Who am I to judge? Who am I to offer a firm definition to anything? I cannot. And it is for this reason that I think Lewis is wrong. He believes that through Reason you can discern an objective standard in the universe. You cannot and philosophy has demonstrated that.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 03:07am

256. I follow in the Hindu/Buddhist tradition that you have to say "Yes" to all life.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 03:08am

257. By the way, I have read some Neibuhr. He is very interesting but there is something that he does say that troubles me. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, Niebuhr and Walter Lippman both believed in the idea that an elite segment of the population should control what the general public has access to. That elite should make the decisions for the public and in keeping with its decisions, only reveal to the public what it (the elite) feels is germinal at that time. Chomsky refers to a passage in Moral Man and Immoral Society that goes into this, I am sorry I don't have it on me to quote.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 03:11am

258. Posted by THRAWN 09/24/2006 @ 9:47pm

     I don't think they DID "get the facts straight", hence we find Gnostic or apochryphal gospels like "Thomas'", which have a different take on key aspects of Jesus' philosophy.

     Plus, you're still not taking "a step back". Between the 70s CE and 500 CE, there were a few "councils" involved as well. We have NO IDEA what was edited, deleted, etc.....CENTURIES after Luke, John, Mark, Matthew AND Paul had died.

     After all, what IS the earliest, physically existing list of the Gospels?...the Muratorian fragment. "Luke" both states that he was not an eyewitness, but "investigated" and talked to eyewitnesses....and was apparently writing, not to non-Christians, but to those who already believed.

     I think what we had was a "Cola War"....with the original idea of "carbonated sugar water" starting in 30-40 CE...with RC, Pepsi, Dr. Brown's, and of course Coke...but in the end, by Nicea and Constatine, one (or maybe two) had beaten out the competition.

     So....does that mean that "Coke" is the "best drink" or even the best cola?...nope, just that it won the market.

     Posted by Mask at 09/25/2006 @ 09:00am

259. Posted by MASK 09/25/2006 @ 09:00am

     If we have learned one thing in recent decades, it is that Jesus approved of capitalism. Therefore, I would watch yourself when claiming that the market does not dictate what is best. Religion is not about what is right. It is about what the most people are willing to believe. Markets. Democracy. America. Jesus. Coca-Cola.

     Posted by tjbehrens1 at 09/25/2006 @ 09:10am

260. Posted by TJBEHRENS1 09/25/2006 @ 09:10am |

     I think that was my point, TJ.

     The socialist pacifism of Jesus (which LVLIB has to jump through hoops to deny)....didn't "sell". Just as it doesn't sell when it's sold by secularists.

     A product, service, or even an IDEA only succeeds, when the majority of people want it, like it, or approve of it. And if it's not selling, the vendors change it or modify it or modify their sales techniques.

     Hence, Council of Rome, Council of Nicea....also didn't hurt to have the political structure (i.e. Emperor Constantine) back your "product".

     Posted by Mask at 09/25/2006 @ 10:01am

261. By the way, I have read some Neibuhr. He is very interesting but there is something that he does say that troubles me. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, Niebuhr and Walter Lippman both believed in the idea that an elite segment of the population should control what the general public has access to. That elite should make the decisions for the public and in keeping with its decisions, only reveal to the public what it (the elite) feels is germinal at that time. Chomsky refers to a passage in Moral Man and Immoral Society that goes into this, I am sorry I don't have it on me to quote.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/25/2006 @ 03:11am

     In all fairness, Niebuhr's thought evolved substantially after Moral Man and Immoral Society; it was one of his earlier works. He also moved away from the near-Marxist viewpoint that he espoused in MMIS.

     It is my belief (and I owe this to Schopenhauer in large part) that all of the world is but the foreground of an ultimate reality that exists beyond the pairs of opposites of temporality. Well, what does that mean? It means that the processes of history, of the world we live in can be debated, discussed, examined and agreed upon as actually having happened but that does not mean that their CAUSE can be known.

     This is very interesting, actually, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it seems to lean very much in support of a theistic account, which holds precisely that the world we live in is indeed a pale shadow of "ultimate reality." Second of all, your argument now seems to be that we can't really assess causes of events that we observe. Why not? It seems like we manage to reasonably do this all the time. Sure, we mess up a fair number of times, but that almost seems to be an argument for "not assessing causes the dumb way."

     So history and the Gospels have this in common; each has an unknown Cause. Was Jesus Resurrected? According to the Gospels, yes. But how was he resurrected? He ascended to Heaven but without eye witnesses. But say there were eye witnesses, would we know for sure why he ascended? Again, no we would not. But those who say Jesus ascended have given us reason why he ascended. There is an ontological difference between Cause and Effect. The Effect we learn is that Jesus ascended.

     First and foremost, at least according the Gospel sources, there were eyewitness to what's referred to as the Ascension. Moreover, once you accept the account that the Gospels provide, you're back to the dilemma that Lewis posits. If Jesus claimed to be God, he either believed it and was right (Lord), believed it and was wrong (Lunatic), or didn't believe it at all (evil deceiver).

     I recognize that meaning is personal, subjective and based upon a relativity that stems from the experience of our senses. It is for this reason that I am not afraid to say that I am a moral relativist. But that does not mean I do not believe in morality. Too often people think that if you are a relativist you condone all kinds of barbarity. I don't condone anything, I simply have my perceptions of what is going on around me. Who am I to judge? Who am I to offer a firm definition to anything? I cannot. And it is for this reason that I think Lewis is wrong. He believes that through Reason you can discern an objective standard in the universe. You cannot and philosophy has demonstrated that.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/25/2006 @ 03:07am

     As far as an objective standard of morality is concerned, I'll agree that one is often very difficult to discern. One could spend long Saturday night car rides debating whether such a standard exists without coming to a decisive outcome. This doesn't mean, however, that we can't ever make judgments at all; in fact, to do so is to make a judgment about the world. At some point, objective judgments are going to creep in, which means that the only question is what the content of those judgments will be.

     Posted by THRAWN 09/24/2006 @ 9:47pm

     I don't think they DID "get the facts straight", hence we find Gnostic or apochryphal gospels like "Thomas'", which have a different take on key aspects of Jesus' philosophy.

     Plus, you're still not taking "a step back". Between the 70s CE and 500 CE, there were a few "councils" involved as well. We have NO IDEA what was edited, deleted, etc.....CENTURIES after Luke, John, Mark, Matthew AND Paul had died.

     After all, what IS the earliest, physically existing list of the Gospels?...the Muratorian fragment. "Luke" both states that he was not an eyewitness, but "investigated" and talked to eyewitnesses....and was apparently writing, not to non-Christians, but to those who already believed.

     I think what we had was a "Cola War"....with the original idea of "carbonated sugar water" starting in 30-40 CE...with RC, Pepsi, Dr. Brown's, and of course Coke...but in the end, by Nicea and Constatine, one (or maybe two) had beaten out the competition.

     So....does that mean that "Coke" is the "best drink" or even the best cola?...nope, just that it won the market.

     Posted by MASK 09/25/2006 @ 09:00am

     Sure; the question then becomes how far back our copies of the Gospels and such actually go. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that we actually have copies from the first or second century, which would enable us to actually check them against any revisions.

     The mere fact that other gospels exist doesn't call into question the ones that we have, especially since virtually all of these apocryphal gospels were written much later than the ones that we consider to be orthodox.

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/25/2006 @ 12:26pm

262. Posted by THRAWN 09/25/2006 @ 12:26am

     Dating of texts alone isn't the problem. (Though I'd STILL like to see an ORIGINAL hand-written Gospel).

     Most scholars place the writing of the Gospels DECADES after the events as well. "True believers" can start "enlarging the myth" quite rapidly and there's no telling that the Apostles that were disciples didn't do that with Jesus.

     It reminds me of a story I heard when Richard Attenborough was making "Gandhi". Indians were writing him, outraged that a man (Ben Kingsley) would be playing Gandhi. They felt that a "glowing ball of light" should play the part (via special effects of course), because "Gandhi was more than a mere man". (and that was a mere 30 years after his death).

     Posted by Mask at 09/25/2006 @ 4:43pm

263. Thrawn,

     You posted:

     "This doesn't mean, however, that we can't ever make judgments at all; in fact, to do so is to make a judgment about the world."

     What type of judgement do you mean? We can make informed decisions but that is not the same thing as passing off an ethical judgement. We have to make informed decisions or judgements all of the time but to make a moral statement is something else.

     As to the Gospels, even if one is willing to believe that the Resurrection of Jesus was witnessed literally (of which there is no proof) this still would not explain its cause. You have to believe it was a literal act and that God appeared and explained it to the disciples of Jesus. And if that is so, there is nothing else in all of creation that could ever be explained in that way again. So, I suppose this is the tautology of the Resurrection, if you believe in it literally it of course conflicts with everything else that is in the universe for it was a unique historical event. But the problem remains, who can account for a literal Cause leading to the Resurrection.

     Furthermore, how is the Resurrection described? If we go to the language itself are we sure that it is denotative? Is Resurrection something that can be described denotatively?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 9:49pm

264. Thrawn, you also posted:

     "Sure; the question then becomes how far back our copies of the Gospels and such actually go. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that we actually have copies from the first or second century, which would enable us to actually check them against any revisions."

     But that does not really work either because not one of the Gospels was written until at least thirty years after the death (and Resurrection) of Jesus. It is a historical problem (again) when it is treated literally. We can check again "revisions" but the revisions are an account and is that account denotative or connotative?

     When you read Otto Rank's book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero you find that a story like the life of Moses comes from countless other myths and is repeated from then on in countless other myths. The story of Moses was not the first account of a young boy drawn from the reeds who becomes Pharoah and then throw it off to redeem his people. That myth is everywhere. The virgin birth and the resurrection are not different. These ideas appear everywhere but are they literal? Why do they have to be literal? Why does the Resurrection of Jesus have to be literal? None of it adds up historically or otherwise. Faith does not need literal proof, the act of proving starts to make the act of having faith look absurd to the mind. And it is absurd to the mind after all. But the mind is not the same thing as the Will to Faith. Or the Will to Power either. The mind and its rationalizing is secondary to the life potentiality of the human being. Having faith goes beyond believing in reason or literal proof.

     You can make judgements about how to live a good life but those judgements can never encompass the complexity that is the world. When you try to make life conform to your idea of it your reason will prove itself to be incomplete as it must be. Faith, divinity and eternity transcend thought therefore historical depictions/accounting are too weak to get at the truth of them.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 9:56pm

265. Making ethical judgements is a trap that confirms what Carl Jung once said; Religion is a defense against a religious experience. (I get this version of it from Joseph Campbell) Why? Becuase it reduces everything to concepts.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 9:58pm

266. Faith may be a concept but it is about engaging something or trying to reach something that is beyond description entirely and when we try and describe it within the aesthetic confines of our language or the ethical structure of our Judeo-Christian theology, we lose it.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/25/2006 @ 10:00pm

267. BTW, for PETER ROTHBERG's edification...

     I think the reason this thread has "degenerated" into a discussion of Bible literalism and Christian mythos is....because (as I predicted earlier) the vote on the McCain/Warner/Graham compromise (or "compromise" if you like)...is a foregone conclusion, with atleast 20 Dems onboard.

     Posted by Mask at 09/26/2006 @ 10:34am

268. THRAWN, HHEMWM:

     Great conversation. Now that is the level of discourse I have missed. Very good from you both, indeed. Keep it up.

     Posted by jorcheim at 09/26/2006 @ 1:30pm

269. Jorcheim,

     Thank you for your compliments. It is thanks to Thrawn that I have the chance to do this sort of thing.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/26/2006 @ 4:40pm

270. THRAWN, HHEMWM:

     Great conversation. Now that is the level of discourse I have missed. Very good from you both, indeed. Keep it up.

     Posted by JORCHEIM 09/26/2006 @ 1:30pm

     Jorcheim,

     Thank you for your compliments. It is thanks to Thrawn that I have the chance to do this sort of thing.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/26/2006 @ 4:40pm

     Thanks to both of you guys; I really enjoy it when we can have these kinds of conversations. Sadly, I've been gone for a little while, so it looks like I have a lot to get through. Instead of going straight down the line by time, I'll go ahead and group my responses by person.

     First, Mask

     Dating of texts alone isn't the problem. (Though I'd STILL like to see an ORIGINAL hand-written Gospel).

     Most scholars place the writing of the Gospels DECADES after the events as well. "True believers" can start "enlarging the myth" quite rapidly and there's no telling that the Apostles that were disciples didn't do that with Jesus.

     It reminds me of a story I heard when Richard Attenborough was making "Gandhi". Indians were writing him, outraged that a man (Ben Kingsley) would be playing Gandhi. They felt that a "glowing ball of light" should play the part (via special effects of course), because "Gandhi was more than a mere man". (and that was a mere 30 years after his death).

     Posted by MASK 09/25/2006 @ 4:43pm

     A couple of responses. First of all, I don't think your Gandhi analysis really works here, for a number of reasons. For one thing, I don't know of any substantial movement that actually deifies Gandhi. Assuming that your evidence here is accurate, there isn't any clear reason to believe that they saw him as a god, nor that he ever claimed to be one. In addition, the analogy fails at the point where you consider early first-century Judaism, which explicitly affirmed the idea of one God, and for which an acceptance of Jesus as God, and of many of the ideas that he preached, would ultimately require a break with many of the institutions and practices that they saw as fundamental to their identity.

     Let's say that's not good enough, though. Even if you believe that the Gospels could have arisen from legends, if you want evidence that's even earlier than the Gospels, back within 10-15 years of the crucifixion at least, then you can look at Paul. His works were extremely early, and even though there are some questions as to which letters he actually wrote, 1 Corinthians was not one of them. There is a near-universal consensus that 1 Corinthians was written by Paul, and 1 Corinthians 15 provides some fantastic evidence for the resurrection. It is both extremely contemporary and provides a number of eyewitness attestations, from a source who used to be a Pharisee, no less.

     Next, HHEMWM

     What type of judgement do you mean? We can make informed decisions but that is not the same thing as passing off an ethical judgement. We have to make informed decisions or judgements all of the time but to make a moral statement is something else.

     Sure, but the basic ideas that I'm defending don't require affirmation of moral claims. All that they require is an acceptance of particular historical events and the causes that produced them.

     As to the Gospels, even if one is willing to believe that the Resurrection of Jesus was witnessed literally (of which there is no proof) this still would not explain its cause. You have to believe it was a literal act and that God appeared and explained it to the disciples of Jesus. And if that is so, there is nothing else in all of creation that could ever be explained in that way again. So, I suppose this is the tautology of the Resurrection, if you believe in it literally it of course conflicts with everything else that is in the universe for it was a unique historical event. But the problem remains, who can account for a literal Cause leading to the Resurrection.

     First, your claim that no evidence exists for the Resurrection is false. One can contest the evidence that exists, but you can't argue that it is in fact there. The Gospels provide independent attestation of the Resurrection, as does Paul. Even if you don't believe that people witnessed the Resurrection, there are numerous accounts of people encountering Jesus after he was incontestably killed, and his tomb was found empty.

     I do think that you bring up a difficult problem, though; if you don't have any prior basis to believe that the existence of God is plausible, the Resurrection evidence becomes much less significant. I think Hume would argue, with some legitimacy, that if you have no reason to believe that the existence of God is even plausible, any non-miraculous explanation of particular events will always be more reasonable than a miraculous one. If, one the other hand, you believe (whether by reason or by faith) that the existence of God is at least plausible, the Resurrection evidence becomes pretty compelling.

     Finally, I don't think there's any reason to think that the Resurrection was understood as anything but literal. Paul makes this theological point explicit, and the Gospel explanations involve literal eyewitness account, physical evidence to back up the notion of an empty tomb, and physical encounters with the risen Jesus. There is no reason whatsoever to suggest that the descriptions were intended in a purely metaphorical way.

     When you read Otto Rank's book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero you find that a story like the life of Moses comes from countless other myths and is repeated from then on in countless other myths. The story of Moses was not the first account of a young boy drawn from the reeds who becomes Pharoah and then throw it off to redeem his people. That myth is everywhere. The virgin birth and the resurrection are not different. These ideas appear everywhere but are they literal?

     First of all, if I have my facts right, much of the borrowing here went from Christianity to other traditions, and not the other way around.

     More importantly, though, the fact that there were elements in common does not mean that there weren't extremely important differences. In no other distinct tradition was there an idea of a suffering servant who died for the sins of mortal men, and in no other traditions was there a being who was fully man and fully God, and who entered directly into the mortal world.

     Faith does not need literal proof, the act of proving starts to make the act of having faith look absurd to the mind. And it is absurd to the mind after all. But the mind is not the same thing as the Will to Faith. Or the Will to Power either. The mind and its rationalizing is secondary to the life potentiality of the human being. Having faith goes beyond believing in reason or literal proof.

     I think this is where it gets trickier. For one thing, I think there's a difference between accepting a statement as true and being truly willing to act on the implications of that statement. I may believe that Jesus embodied moral perfection, and that he served as an example, but it becomes much more difficult to actually embrace that idea and to live it out, to actually follow the servant model that Jesus led. I think that's where faith plays a significant role; you may have good evidence that that someone can carry you over Niagara, but it takes tremendous faith to take the leap.

     This is also why I think that intellectual understanding (though it will always be limited) simply isn't enough. You try to wrap your mind around the concepts, but risk ignoring the experiential aspect of it, the idea of actively engaging the world and the God who is its origin. As such, I would argue that intellectual engagement can be an important aspect of a religious tradition, to give you confidence that your beliefs are true, but it's not sufficient by far, and (in all frankness), I think that the experiential part is the most difficult part of all.

     As a sidenote, I do realize that this discussion of religion has made somewhat of a detour from the intent of the thread. I think that it's important, however, for two reasons. First, I think that it's important to actually take religion seriously, whether you believe it or not. What I mean by this is that we should actually accept that religion is a significant force in many people's lives, and can shape their convictions about many matters, including political ones. Having serious discourse about these kinds of matters helps to achieve this by giving serious consideration to many of the ideas that a particularly influential (in America) tradition believes. Second, and related, I think there's a real need to discuss the role that religion should play in public life. This is something that seems to have been seriously downplayed in recent years, and this may be part of why religion has helped to promote the kind of polarization that we see in the status quo. I personally believe that religious traditions carry within them a strong justification for a humble and practical politics, but I don't think that this aspect is emphasized nearly as much as it should be, and I think that this kind of open discourse about religion and its implications might allow that aspect to reassert itself.

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/26/2006 @ 11:54pm

271. Thrawn, you posted:

     "I think that it's important, however, for two reasons. First, I think that it's important to actually take religion seriously, whether you believe it or not. What I mean by this is that we should actually accept that religion is a significant force in many people's lives, and can shape their convictions about many matters, including political ones. Having serious discourse about these kinds of matters helps to achieve this by giving serious consideration to many of the ideas that a particularly influential (in America) tradition believes. Second, and related, I think there's a real need to discuss the role that religion should play in public life. This is something that seems to have been seriously downplayed in recent years, and this may be part of why religion has helped to promote the kind of polarization that we see in the status quo. I personally believe that religious traditions carry within them a strong justification for a humble and practical politics, but I don't think that this aspect is emphasized nearly as much as it should be, and I think that this kind of open discourse about religion and its implications might allow that aspect to reassert itself."

     I could not agree with you more.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 12:46am

272. Thrawn,

     You posted:

     "This is also why I think that intellectual understanding (though it will always be limited) simply isn't enough. You try to wrap your mind around the concepts, but risk ignoring the experiential aspect of it, the idea of actively engaging the world and the God who is its origin. As such, I would argue that intellectual engagement can be an important aspect of a religious tradition, to give you confidence that your beliefs are true, but it's not sufficient by far, and (in all frankness), I think that the experiential part is the most difficult part of all."

     For me, this is where the Hindu/Buddhist viewpoint comes in where you identify with Jesus personally. I know that to some Christians that is heresy, but I really believe that the way to act as Jesus did is to believe that you and Jesus are one if you both act out of the same principles. This is a joining of souls and I do believe in that. I certainly think people can act ethically and be "good Christians," I just don't see the world as immoral. I identify with Jesus directly and through this, the understanding turns into assimilation rather than a didactic approach.

     I also don't believe in the Golden Rule. To me, to believe in this means that you think the world is imperfect or "fallen." I don't think it is at all so there is no need to evangelize and pass judgment on what other men are doing. This is why I strongly disagree with C.S. Lewis when he claims that the "Golden Rule" is an improvement on Rabbi Hillel's statement "Do not do unto others and you would not have them do unto you." A completely different position. It conforms more with the non-pedantic approach of the Guru who does not lecture but answers the questions of his students.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 12:51am

273. Thrawn,

     You posted:

     "First of all, if I have my facts right, much of the borrowing here went from Christianity to other traditions, and not the other way around."

     No, not according to Otto Rank. Many of the Christian "myths" (if we can call them that) are borrowed from Greek, Sumerian, Egyptian and even Hindu mythology. I am getting this from Rank and from Campbell and their "timeline." The Moses myth, for example, which predates Christianity was actually something common through the Central and East Asian world.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 12:54am

274. St. Paul even says somewhere (forgive me, I forget specifically where it is) that "the forms of other cultures are now true in our Lord." They consciously used other myths and made them "fact." After all, the Greek, Sumerian, Egyptian, Persian and Hindu cultures had been around a long time prior to the death (and resurrection) of Jesus.

     This is paraphrasing, obviously, but I believe it is in the epistles.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 12:56am

275. "Finally, I don't think there's any reason to think that the Resurrection was understood as anything but literal. Paul makes this theological point explicit, and the Gospel explanations involve literal eyewitness account, physical evidence to back up the notion of an empty tomb, and physical encounters with the risen Jesus. There is no reason whatsoever to suggest that the descriptions were intended in a purely metaphorical way."

     To this I would say that if you read metaphorically and mythologically the themes of virgin births, death and resurrecion, ascent to heaven from within the Earth they are everywhere in the ancient world. But the other cultures did not claim they were literally truth but mythologically true. That is they were true as metaphors.

     How did Jesus ascend to Heaven? Through his soul or his spirit? Why wouldn't that be adequate? Why did it have to be bodily? It even says that Mary ascended to heaven in bodily form in her sleep. Was this not also metaphorical? If it is taken as metaphor then it becomes personal and people can identify directly with Jesus and how he lived. This is also where the Gospel according to Thomas comes in and you get things along the lines of "the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth and men do not see it." Or "he who drinks from my mouth shall be like me and I shall be as he." (again, paraphrasing) That is metaphor, is it not?

     Besides, death and resurrection, end of the world, virgin births are all over mythology and they are treated mythologically. Why would Christianity have to be literal?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 01:01am

276. As to eyewitnesses, again, you get yourself into a historical bind because taking what the Gospels says as literal makes what they are saying conflict with common sense. Perhaps that is the point but it would seem that the purpose of telling this story is to get a message across and a metaphysical one at that. It is not a history lesson, right?

     Besides, historically there is much dispute over the origin date of the Gospels and when treating each narrative in the "pericope" form in which it was recorded (literally in units with key attaching phrases told orally) the events become somewhat disputed in detail. Was Jesus crucified? Yes. But the events are somewhat in dispute. This actually is raised in a book called Christian Anti-Semitism by William Nicholls, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 01:04am

277. Thrawn,

     From Nicholls book, a direct quote:

     "When the form critics began to study the New Testament Gospels in this way they made one important discovery that is likely to stand. They found that the Gospels are made up of short units of tradition, often corresponding to paragraphs in our English versions. The scholars call them pericopes. Each pericope probably constitutes a unti of oral tradition and is likely to have been transmitted separately. These blocks, or units, are linked together by fairly short phrases. Often the links are very small, phrases such as, 'immediaely,' or 'after that.'

     "If these linking phrases are removed, it turns out that all the indications of the order of events in Jesus' life have also gone. In a famous phrase, removing the linking phrases is like cutting a string of beads. Once the beads are rolling around separately, we can no longer decide in what order they should be put back together. This is strikingly true of Mark's Gospel. In this respect, however, Matthew and Luke seem to be totally dependent on Mark." (p.22, Christian Anti-Semitism)

     The last part is the kicker for me because, as the second century write Papias noted, "Mark did not write the story in order, because he did not know in what order the events had happened. The Gospel of John has a very different order but not necessairly a more (or less) reliable one. It follows that we have no way whatever of knowing about the order of events in Jesus life." (Ibid, 23)

     This is what I am getting at. There is no definitive consensus on what happened. It happened but can we really take it literally if we don't have accurate information? Additionally, stories were not all told for literal meaning but were to educate. Example: The Odyssey. A historical accounting and a fictional accounting perhaps. But the message is there and is very clear.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 01:14am

278. Why must the Bible and Koran be taken literally when the Vedas and Upanishads are not? Yet very similar stories are evident in each.

     Joseph Campbell goes into this in great detail in The Inner Reaches of Outer Space. Between that and Otto Rank's The Myth of the Birth of the Hero you get a good accounting of these things. They also speak of the German anthropoloist Bastian's work where he says that the world is full of "elementary ideas" which explains the remarkable similarity in themes in metaphyiscal stories in all of the world's cultures and religions. And then Carl Jung gets into the "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious" which extends Bastian's ideas. Everybody is working from the same set of ideas but they are inflected differently. So it need not be literal unless you want followers who are loyal to your cause. Of course, in the East, they do not take Buddhist or Hindu stories literally but as metaphors to live in accord with.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 01:22am

279. It all gets back to the idea in the Judeo-Christian tradition that the world is "fallen" and needs redemption. If you believe that then I suppose you would have to accept something like the Resurrection of Jesus because it is supposed to redeem mankind. Or, if you are a Jew, you have to accept literally that Abraham went in the desert with his son Isaac and was going to kill him because God says so. Now there is a story that requires great explanation if it is taken literally. Kierkegaard worked on it and all he could come back to was Abraham engaging in the "teleological suspension of the ethical." Prophets apparently can do this but non-believers cannot. In fact, only prophets can do it because they are prophets, if an ordinary person were to do it it would be murder.

     Jewish theologian Rabbi Martin Buber's explanation for Abraham once was that because Jews believe that God spoke to him, then what he was to do with Isaac was okay. If a Phoenician were to do something like this, not okay. That is an interesting interpretation but it addresses the issue of "you must believe as I believe." But again, how is anyone supposed to identify with Abraham? God said to do it so he did it because of his Faith? We hear about acts like that in the news and the people who do them are said to be deranged, distrubed or crazy. But if viewed metaphorically it is easier to interpret.

     Worse for the literalists, who witnesses the binding of Isaac? This matters because it is the foundation of the Jewish and Christian faiths alike. And Islam too.

     Metaphor or fact?

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 01:28am

280. Sorry about all of the posts, I know it is a lot!

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 01:30am

281. Posted by THRAWN 09/26/2006 @ 11:54pm

     THRAWN, there's a bit of a "problem" with Paul....he wasn't there.

     He CLAIMS a lot, but by his own admission...never met Jesus or the other disciples.

     We may accept Peter and the rest on face value ("they were with Jesus and knew what he said"), but Paul wasn't "at the party", in fact he wasn't around for the clean-up.

     Nothing about him or his claim to divine inspiration has any connection to Jesus personally...again, it's faith in the MAN (Paul, nee Saul of Tarsus). Endorsements by the other Apostles don't even help

     "Saint" Paul has as much claim to knowing the true nature and "word" of God....as Muhammed or Joseph Smith.

     Posted by Mask at 09/27/2006 @ 09:03am

282. Speaking of not being all there and distraction, I sense that the hsuB admin are sincere in their 'need' to use torture and to torture 'anyone and everyone'-- as that's the only solution for their own incompetance and their own lack of inteligence and most of all their own cowardice.

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/27/2006 @ 10:02am

283. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 09/27/2006 @ 10:02am

     So....how you figure the Senate vote on the McCain-Warner-Graham "compromise" is going to come down? Straight party lines?

     Posted by Mask at 09/27/2006 @ 10:12am

284. Mask,

     I bet it will be by party lines with Senator Chafee (R-RI) going with the Dems and Senator Nelson (D-NE) going with the GOP.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 7:34pm

285. Then again, maybe not. I think that because Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) is wiping the floor with Katherine Harris he will vote with the Dems. If he wasn't so far ahead I bet he would support the GOP. And I wouldn't be suprised to Senator Baucus (D-MT) straddle the fence too. As for Senator Lieberman? He has to go against Bush or he is DOA in CT in November. If it weren't for Lamont ole' Joe would stand with Bush.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/27/2006 @ 7:36pm

286. All right; I know that a political discussion has started, but I want to briefly address the points that Mask and HHEMWM have made.

     Mask

     THRAWN, there's a bit of a "problem" with Paul....he wasn't there.

     He CLAIMS a lot, but by his own admission...never met Jesus or the other disciples.

     We may accept Peter and the rest on face value ("they were with Jesus and knew what he said"), but Paul wasn't "at the party", in fact he wasn't around for the clean-up.

     Nothing about him or his claim to divine inspiration has any connection to Jesus personally...again, it's faith in the MAN (Paul, nee Saul of Tarsus). Endorsements by the other Apostles don't even help

     "Saint" Paul has as much claim to knowing the true nature and "word" of God....as Muhammed or Joseph Smith.

     This is false for a number of reasons. First of all, Paul actually did meet with many of the original disciples (including Peter), something that multiple sources attest to. This is important, because it means that many of the basic things Paul is saying about Jesus are confirmed by the people who knew him and who claimed to see him after he was crucified. That, in turn, effectively gives me the best of both worlds, an account that is confirmed by eyewitnesses and which is extremely close to the event in question. You also don't respond to the fact that Paul used to be a Pharisee, and in fact was killing Christians for some time. All of a sudden, he becomes absolutely convinced that Christianity is true, and begins to preach it instead of persecuting it. You don't get that effect from mere speculation. Finally, one thing that's interesting about Paul's letters is some of what they contain; there's near-universal consensus, from what I can tell, that many of the statements Paul makes in 1 Corinthians aren't his own rhetoric per se, but are taken from creeds espoused by the early church, which came into being several years before he even converted. That means that Paul not only provides a fairly early source himself, but that his letters contain an even earlier source attesting to a set of beliefs that were held across the board very soon after Jesus was crucified.

     You also don't respond to the other analysis I gave about the Gospels; your Gandhi analysis doesn't even come close to refuting them as sources because it simply isn't analogous. These were people who had immediate access to Jesus, and broke with Judaism at significant personal cost based on concrete evidence that he had been resurrected. The corresponding inability of people at the time to question the empty tomb or to reasonably account for it only strengthens their claims.

     HHEMWM

     I also don't believe in the Golden Rule. To me, to believe in this means that you think the world is imperfect or "fallen." I don't think it is at all so there is no need to evangelize and pass judgment on what other men are doing.

     I'm not sure I can understand this position. If your criticism is "this position assumes that human beings are morally imperfect," then my answer is "yes, it does...and this is bad...because?" If that's not what you mean by human beings being fallen, I'm not sure what you mean, unless you're criticizing the claim that human beings often tend to be self-interested, which also just seems true.

     To this I would say that if you read metaphorically and mythologically the themes of virgin births, death and resurrecion, ascent to heaven from within the Earth they are everywhere in the ancient world. But the other cultures did not claim they were literally truth but mythologically true. That is they were true as metaphors.

     How did Jesus ascend to Heaven? Through his soul or his spirit? Why wouldn't that be adequate? Why did it have to be bodily?

     A couple of responses. First of all, as I argued before, there are significant differences between prior myths and the particular story of Jesus. These were events that were clearly depicted as having actually happened within the material world, and differed significantly from the myths even if there were some common aspects. Second, the question of a bodily v. spiritual resurrection is different from the real v. metaphorical question. Regardless of whether you believe that a bodily or spiritual resurrection happened, you're still affirming that a literal resurrection happened. As such, this doesn't help your position. As a literal occurence, this is actually easier to identify with, because you're identifying with a real person and not an abstraction.

     As to eyewitnesses, again, you get yourself into a historical bind because taking what the Gospels says as literal makes what they are saying conflict with common sense. Perhaps that is the point but it would seem that the purpose of telling this story is to get a message across and a metaphysical one at that. It is not a history lesson, right?

     Do a lot of the stories about miracles conflict with common sense? Yup. That's not necessarily a reason to believe that they were intended to be metaphorical though, especially since (as Paul points out) a metaphorical resurrection would be meaningless in terms of salvation. An event that didn't actually happen can't actually have any kind of atoning or exemplar-type effect.

     Besides, historically there is much dispute over the origin date of the Gospels and when treating each narrative in the "pericope" form in which it was recorded (literally in units with key attaching phrases told orally) the events become somewhat disputed in detail. Was Jesus crucified? Yes. But the events are somewhat in dispute.

     Are there people who say the resurrection wasn't historical? Yes. The thrust of my entire argument is that they're incorrect.

     From Nicholls book, a direct quote:

     "When the form critics began to study the New Testament Gospels in this way they made one important discovery that is likely to stand. They found that the Gospels are made up of short units of tradition, often corresponding to paragraphs in our English versions. The scholars call them pericopes. Each pericope probably constitutes a unti of oral tradition and is likely to have been transmitted separately. These blocks, or units, are linked together by fairly short phrases. Often the links are very small, phrases such as, 'immediaely,' or 'after that.'

     "If these linking phrases are removed, it turns out that all the indications of the order of events in Jesus' life have also gone. In a famous phrase, removing the linking phrases is like cutting a string of beads. Once the beads are rolling around separately, we can no longer decide in what order they should be put back together. This is strikingly true of Mark's Gospel. In this respect, however, Matthew and Luke seem to be totally dependent on Mark." (p.22, Christian Anti-Semitism)

     None of this criticism is effective, however. First of all, the problem with contending that stuff from the Gospels came from oral tradition is that it forces you to date that oral tradition earlier. This actually helps Christianity's case insofar as an oral tradition would be immediately falsifiable because people who had lived while Jesus was alive would be able to correct a false tradition. This is particularly the case given that the oral tradition would almost certainly have centered around cities like Jerusalem, where the early church began.

     Also, let's say that the order of events in Jesus' life isn't perfectly known. So what? As long as the accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection remain functionally intact, the order in which earlier events happened really isn't that significant.

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/27/2006 @ 11:33pm

287. Posted by THRAWN 09/27/2006 @ 11:33pm |

     You properly corrected me on "Met with the other disciples"....was on a roll discussing the fact he never met Jesus. Yes, he did "hang out" with Peter, James, etc. at the Council of Jerusalem.

     My point though is he still was a "late-comer". He had NO first-hand contact with Jesus (the main thing, from what I've gathered...not "Pauline interpretations") and therefore his "take on things" is totally his own. And any granting of "divine truth" to him...is granting him divine status.

     Logically, if Paul's beliefs are taken as "the Word of God", then Paul, with no actual contact with the living Jesus, is just as credible as Muhammed or Joseph Smith (separated by centuries maybe...but still holding the claim that THEY (mere mortals) know what God wants and were "divinely inspired").

     So, since Paul isn't "quoting" Jesus (as the Apostles were)....what he says is "truth" is...merely his own opinion.

     The granting of divine truth to it...is granting faith in PAUL, not "God".

     Posted by Mask at 09/28/2006 @ 09:30am

288. Thrawn, you raise an interesting point here:

     "Also, let's say that the order of events in Jesus' life isn't perfectly known. So what? As long as the accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection remain functionally intact, the order in which earlier events happened really isn't that significant."

     By "functionally intact" I think you and I are in agreement but in different sense. The story makes sense metaphorically even if the historical details of Jesus' life are not clear or properly ordered. If by "functionally intact" you mean that we can follow the moral order of Jesus' life and understand the Resurrection in terms of its meaning, then yes, it is intact. But where we disagree is on the importance of its historicism. I subscribe to the idea that none of this need be looked at in historical terms but as examples for people to live by. This is is why I identify Jesus.

     But let me offer you something from Joseph Campbell and you can tell me what you think about it:

     "Now since both Judaism and Christianity are mythologically structured orders of symbol, they are susceptible to the other kind of reading [metaphorical]. And that comes breaking through every now and then with a prophet or mystic, when he suddenly sees the symbol as saying something totally different. And it's something that has to do with an immediate attitude to your life.

     "For instance with the Crucifixion, if you think of this as a calamity that is the result of your sins and Adam's sin and all that, that Jesus had to come down, the Son of the Father, give himself up on the Cross for death, and look sad there -That's one reading.

     "But you can read it another way: as the zeal of eternity for incarnation in time, which involves the breaking up of the one into the many and the acceptance of the sufferings of the will as part of the organic delights, the Wisdom Sheath and rapture, the bliss- he is in bliss. St. Augustine says this somewhere, where he says, 'Jesus went to the Cross as the bridegroom to the bride.' That's a total transformation of the idea.

     "Another one: the idea of the end of time. The end of time as a historical event. That's nonsense. And what does it matter? The importance of the end of time is a psychological event. Then you have to render and experience it that way."

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/28/2006 @ 10:22am

289. It seems to me that if you stick with the historical you lose the personal interpretations of Jesus' death and resurrection. And what is the point of recounting the story is you lose the personal by relying on the factuality of the story. Again, you can take it on Faith that the Gospels are historically accurate but scholarship says they are not. If you say the message is what counts then you have something. And the message is by no means agreed upon. There is no agreement on what Jesus' life, death and resurrection meant or mean. That is where the intepretation and identification come in.

     It seems people want to put Christianity "First" and say that its stories are an improvement of earlier myths or that somehow all other things could not have been true but this certainly is true. I know we will disagree on this but to me that is politics. Of course only Christianity can be true in history because no other faith is right. That is where all conflict comes in because nobody wants to be on the losing side.

     But in the East they do not say Buddhism or Hinduism are right, they only say that they are examples for men to follow. Why does Christianity have to be based upon a historical fact? If you look at mythology you find that the Judeo-Christian tradition becomes incredibly problematic when viewed this way. As I mentioned earlier, what about Abraham and Moses? There is no proof of their lives and the ethical judgements of the Abraham we read of in the Old Testament are incredibly problematic. But so long as Abraham had faith, they are okay. Don't you think it is better to read that tale metaphorically than historically? For if read historically, who can be as Abraham? But the fact is we are all Abraham when we are confronted with the need to move beyond the "faith of our fathers," no matter what that faith may be. We all do it in one form or another at some point in our lives because all things have to be reinterpreted through us in order to be lived.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/28/2006 @ 10:28am

290. Why not just legislate a lenchmob and get it over with. You'll either with the mob or you'll be running away from the mob... I say the rule of law and Geneva Conventions were created by better and wiser men than those fearful ones set out to tear them down.

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2006 @ 12:54pm

291. Here's some more fun....the "virgin birth".

     No mention in Mark (scholars deem older than Matthew or Luke)....passive voice mentioned in Matthew (depending on translation)....Luke, a Syrian-Antiochean, though emphasizes it, and he was from the Greek tradition of "gods born of virgin goddesses" (Eros from Aphrodite).

     Posted by Mask at 09/28/2006 @ 12:57pm

292. " say the rule of law and Geneva Conventions were created by better and wiser men than..."

     Posted by HSUBFOOLS 09/28/2006 @ 12:54am

     What an oddly CONSERVATIVE thing to say, HSUB. Do you realize that's the same rationale the "original intent" conservative Constitutional scholars use?

     Posted by Mask at 09/28/2006 @ 12:58pm

293. Posted by MASK 09/28/2006 @ 12:58am

     Context Mask, do you ever have any? Be specific. And are they connected in any way other than both ideas use words?

     Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2006 @ 1:10pm

294. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 09/28/2006 @ 1:10pm |

     What "context"?....you are applying the same standard of "wiser than us men" who wrote those documents (in your case Geneva Con) that a conservative applies to a "orginal intent" argument about the US Constitution. "Jefferson and Madison were better and wiser men than these modern 'anything goes' so-called Constitutional scholars".

     You want a strict interpretation of international law and the Geneva Convention....THEY want a strict interpretation of the US Constitution.

     I just find that interesting. Or look at it THIS way....Bush wants a "liberal" interpretation of international law and the Geneva Convention!

     Posted by Mask at 09/28/2006 @ 4:26pm

295. The Bush/McCain/Reid Right to Torture Act will pass soon. The failrue of the Democrats to filibuster this despicable Bill means it is as bi-partisan as the Iraq Quagmire. The Democrats will not filibuster and then most will vote against it, trying to attract all constituencies. Their failure to filibuster makes them complicit in giving Bush the right to interpret what is and isn't torture.

     If they won't fight torture, they're worth nothing. No one should contribute a dime to them. And in the House both Sharrod Brown and Harold Ford joined the Right-to-Torture coalition and voted to give Bush the right to torture.

     Posted by NonAmnesiac at 09/28/2006 @ 5:19pm

296. Thrawn, you posted:

     "None of this criticism is effective, however. First of all, the problem with contending that stuff from the Gospels came from oral tradition is that it forces you to date that oral tradition earlier. This actually helps Christianity's case insofar as an oral tradition would be immediately falsifiable because people who had lived while Jesus was alive would be able to correct a false tradition. This is particularly the case given that the oral tradition would almost certainly have centered around cities like Jerusalem, where the early church began."

     I don't think this is right. If one is to assume that the Gospels were written on the basis of an oral tradition stemming from the moment of the death and resurrection then adding years on it would demonstrate that in spite of the opportunity for the story tellers to collect the segments of Jesus' life and put together a definitive version they did not. It is commonplace in all oral traditions to have many versions of the same story. This does not mean that one version is superior to the others but what comes through is the particular message that is trying to be conveyed. And this, again, is why there is no consensus on the meaning of Jesus' death and Resurrection.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/28/2006 @ 7:49pm

297. But something else you posted made me think about a bit. Here is what you posted:

     "Do a lot of the stories about miracles conflict with common sense? Yup. That's not necessarily a reason to believe that they were intended to be metaphorical though, especially since (as Paul points out) a metaphorical resurrection would be meaningless in terms of salvation. An event that didn't actually happen can't actually have any kind of atoning or exemplar-type effect."

     You know that I don't think that metaphors detract from anything, especially salvation, but that is not my point here. Miracles do happen, but they are not answers to the primary question of what is "First Cause" as Kant and Schopenhauer were concerned with it. Even if you are willing to accept that the Ressurection was an observable, historical and indisputable event you still have the problem of not knowing its ultimate meaning. There is no "First Cause." The mystery of the universe, the unknowable that transcends the pairs of opposites, of temporality, of Good and Evil, the very knowledge that Man lost when driven from the Garden, that precludes us from knowing the ultimate source of being.

     Even if you believe the Resurrection is literal (and there are no eye-witness accounts, historians will dispute you on that) you do not know the intention of God. It is impossible to know God's intention and one can never prove by logic the existence of God. This is a problem all of the great theologians dealt with and not a one ever claimed to know what the crucifixtion meant. They have interpretations from Augustine to Aquinas to Abelard but no consensus. Meister Eckhardt even believed that the image of God in the Christian tradition had to be transcended to know what Jesus was about in the first place. So, with no consensus the meaning of the resurrection is unknown. So even in a historical reading of the event there is no ONE meaning.

     But let us take the problem a step further. You remarked:

     "A couple of responses. First of all, as I argued before, there are significant differences between prior myths and the particular story of Jesus. These were events that were clearly depicted as having actually happened within the material world, and differed significantly from the myths even if there were some common aspects. Second, the question of a bodily v. spiritual resurrection is different from the real v. metaphorical question. Regardless of whether you believe that a bodily or spiritual resurrection happened, you're still affirming that a literal resurrection happened. As such, this doesn't help your position. As a literal occurence, this is actually easier to identify with, because you're identifying with a real person and not an abstraction."

     The difference with prior myth is not clear. If you think the story of Jesus differs from the story of the Buddha this is based on the fact that Buddhists never claim that the Buddha was a historical figure but there is such a thing as "Buddha consciousness." The three temptations of the Buddha, the Buddha's choosing of disciples, the Buddha's throwing off of the temporality of life is also in the Jesus story and the Buddha story precedes Jesus by hundreds of years.

     Jesus was a historical figure but the intepretation of his life in mythological terms takes his life and makes it an example of how to live. It is like Buddha consciousness but in a Christian guise. Men can live as Jesus did and the crucifixion becomes a symbol of what Jesus' life is supposed to teach and that being that this life is but the foreground of a wonder and that one has to transcend the fear of death. If Jesus was caught up in the pain and agony of his death and was consumed by his own fear and suffering his story would not offer us the message that it does. You have to read motive in the telling of his death and resurrection. What is the message? The message is interpreted many different ways and this is because the ONE meaning cannot be known but it does not reduce the importance of the event.

     And if you compare this to mythologies like those of the Native Americans or Egyptians or Sumerians where animals are personified, those mythological tales were told so men learn something from the value and traits the animals possess. Frequently in the West this is dismissed as "primitive" because the message is delivered in animal form. And animals are a powerful medium in hunting cultures. Christianity arose in a planting culture where such images would not be as effective. But Jesus does use such words as "I am the vine and you are the branches," an agricultural image that could teach something to an agricultural people. Again, you have to look at HOW the message is being passed along and why.

     To say that the Resurrection was superior in its message to our mythologies is to make an ethical distinction between their theology and your own that makes sense if you accept your theology as true but ignores what the myths are used for. Faith is different than reason and faith cannot be proven through reason just as reason alone cannot discern the will of the divine.

     Metaphor transcends the denotation of the Resurrection. Clearly the story is not simply denotation. Jesus's death and resurrection are to pass along something to those who take the message into their own hearts. And there is no one literal meaning in this event and the New Testament does not give you one meaning and one meaning only.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/28/2006 @ 8:04pm

298. Thrawn,

     As to the Golden Rule, you posted:

     "I'm not sure I can understand this position. If your criticism is "this position assumes that human beings are morally imperfect," then my answer is "yes, it does...and this is bad...because?" If that's not what you mean by human beings being fallen, I'm not sure what you mean, unless you're criticizing the claim that human beings often tend to be self-interested, which also just seems true."

     I reject the Golden Rule precisely because it assumes that men are "fallen" and the world needs to be corrected. I do not accept that proposition so I take the position that to take a position of inaction is to not assume that you know what is best for others.

     But to make an ethical judgment that the world is to be corrected is, again, something that can never be proven because it has no basis in fact, it is something to be taken on faith. Now, if a person wants to be a missionary and evangelize, to live out of what they think their faith demands that is fine. But it is what they think not is so not what is and so. The position of inaction is more in accord with the viewpoint that the world is as it should be. This is often misunderstood by people who think that it means that men cannot or should not act. It is not that, it is the belief that men cannot judge other men because no man is in a position to understand the fullness of the potentiality of any other and thus cannot evaluate his life.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/28/2006 @ 8:13pm

299. Your comments make me think and reconsider. I really appreciate that, thank you.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/28/2006 @ 8:14pm

300. Your comments make me think and reconsider. I really appreciate that, thank you.

     Posted by HHEMWM 09/28/2006 @ 8:14pm

     You're welcome; I really enjoy these kinds of discussions, not only because these kinds of issues are fundamental to us as human beings, but also because they're very engaging intellectually.

     That being said, I want to go ahead and adddress Mask's arguments, then I'll address yours, with yours being broken up into historicity arguments and, for lack of a better word, bigger arguments.

     Mask

     Just like before, there are a lot of important arguments that you don't respond to. Here's what you posted:

     ou properly corrected me on "Met with the other disciples"....was on a roll discussing the fact he never met Jesus. Yes, he did "hang out" with Peter, James, etc. at the Council of Jerusalem.

     My point though is he still was a "late-comer". He had NO first-hand contact with Jesus (the main thing, from what I've gathered...not "Pauline interpretations") and therefore his "take on things" is totally his own. And any granting of "divine truth" to him...is granting him divine status.

     Logically, if Paul's beliefs are taken as "the Word of God", then Paul, with no actual contact with the living Jesus, is just as credible as Muhammed or Joseph Smith (separated by centuries maybe...but still holding the claim that THEY (mere mortals) know what God wants and were "divinely inspired").

     So, since Paul isn't "quoting" Jesus (as the Apostles were)....what he says is "truth" is...merely his own opinion.

     The granting of divine truth to it...is granting faith in PAUL, not "God".

     Posted by MASK 09/28/2006 @ 09:30am

     Again, you miss the analysis about the Gospels. Your Gandhi analogy still fails, and you still neglect to talk about the fact that these people left Judaism based on a verifiable conviction that their teacher and Lord had been resurrected by God. This provides me with multiple independent sources even if Paul isn't adequate.

     You also don't respond to any of the arguments about Paul. The creeds that I talk about are absolutely crucial, because they don't require faith at all. They derive from a tradition that was not only earlier than Paul, but was spread across the known world, starting in areas like Jerusalem where Jesus had lived, and then where he appeared to many different people after his death. He also had contact with the Apostles multiple times (as you accept), which means that they had numerous opportunities to correct him on basic points and failed to do so. All of these arguments go unresponded to, and all of them are independent historical confirmations for the resurrection. Also, there's stuff like the empty tomb.

     Here's some more fun....the "virgin birth".

     No mention in Mark (scholars deem older than Matthew or Luke)....passive voice mentioned in Matthew (depending on translation)....Luke, a Syrian-Antiochean, though emphasizes it, and he was from the Greek tradition of "gods born of virgin goddesses" (Eros from Aphrodite).

     Posted by MASK 09/28/2006 @ 12:57am

     OK...but I'm not sure why this is all that significant. First of all, you've illustrated a convenient difference already: Mary was never considered, by anyone, to be a goddess, nor were the Greek gods ever mortal in any sense. Also, I think that the idea of virgin birth was contained in prophecy that was formulated long before the Jews knew anything of Greece, even if you don't believe that the prophecy was intended to apply to Jesus. Moreover, you still concede that two different sources attest to the idea of virgin birth. In addition, it's entirely possible that Mark didn't really care all that much about it, and cared a lot more about Jesus' teachings, death and resurrrection. Those were, after all, much more central to the message that Jesus was trying to communicate. Finally, it's not even essential to his fundamental teachings and resurrection anyway, so it's not important even if the virgin birth itself is inaccurate.

     HHEMWM

     Historicity

     If one is to assume that the Gospels were written on the basis of an oral tradition stemming from the moment of the death and resurrection then adding years on it would demonstrate that in spite of the opportunity for the story tellers to collect the segments of Jesus' life and put together a definitive version they did not. It is commonplace in all oral traditions to have many versions of the same story. This does not mean that one version is superior to the others but what comes through is the particular message that is trying to be conveyed. And this, again, is why there is no consensus on the meaning of Jesus' death and Resurrection.

     I don't think it's surprising that oral tradition reigned for a while; after all, a lot of people believed that the end of the world was coming fairly soon. Even if there were differences about the meanings of particular events, there was still a lot shared. They still all affirmed the resurrection, and all affirmed many of the specific stories that are found in the Gospels. For even more support of this, you can look to the analysis I gave about Paul and the early church creeds that are buried within his letters. What's even more important is that these traditions grew up around where Jesus lived and conducted his ministry, where it could have been disconfirmed in a heartbeat. This, in turn, provides even more reason to believe that the traditions were accurate, especially since people took great care to communicate the crux of oral messages well. What this also means is that ahistoricity (as even you seem to suggest) simply isn't a credible position. Jesus did live, and the question then becomes what kind of person he was. If we don't have any reason to reject the narrative that the Gospels and Paul's letters provide, the Lewis trilemma comes right back again. If Jesus, a living, breathing human being, claimed that he was God on multiple occasions, was he telling the truth, was he deluded, or was he just lying? Only one of these can be true, and one of them logically must be.

     Also, to touch on a later point, I think that the historical question of the resurrection really does matter in terms of salvation. An event that never actually happened can't actually save anyone, unless you would argue that people are capable of saving themselves (which I think many correctly argue is a conceit).

     Miracles do happen, but they are not answers to the primary question of what is "First Cause" as Kant and Schopenhauer were concerned with it. Even if you are willing to accept that the Ressurection was an observable, historical and indisputable event you still have the problem of not knowing its ultimate meaning. There is no "First Cause." The mystery of the universe, the unknowable that transcends the pairs of opposites, of temporality, of Good and Evil, the very knowledge that Man lost when driven from the Garden, that precludes us from knowing the ultimate source of being.

     First and foremost (hah, bad pun, as you'll see), why isn't there a First Cause. Given that the universe can't have existed from infinity, it almost seems as though one is necessary.

     Moreover, I'm not sure why we can't discern the resurrection's meaning. Based on the independent accounts that I've defended, Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection for some time leading up to the actual events, so I don't think that it's too much of a stretch to think that he might have an idea what was really going on. Moreover, if he was actually God, he almost certainly had a good idea of what was going on. Given that, I don't think it's unreasonable to see what Jesus had to say about the significance of his resurrection, an event which he says was directly related to the sinful tendencies of human beings (something that I'll touch on later). I think that his testimony would probably be a reasonable indicator as to the resurrection's significance and God's intentions regarding it. Sure, there is a fair amount of disagreement about particular details, and that's fine, especially since Christianity doesn't require holding, say, an atonement as opposed to a "sacrificial exemplar" position. There's debate, but there's also a fair amount of agreement about many of the basic ideas.

     The difference with prior myth is not clear. If you think the story of Jesus differs from the story of the Buddha this is based on the fact that Buddhists never claim that the Buddha was a historical figure but there is such a thing as "Buddha consciousness." The three temptations of the Buddha, the Buddha's choosing of disciples, the Buddha's throwing off of the temporality of life is also in the Jesus story and the Buddha story precedes Jesus by hundreds of years.

     I don't think this can work as an example of borrowing, since Jews at that time had no idea that Buddhism even existed.

     I reject the Golden Rule precisely because it assumes that men are "fallen" and the world needs to be corrected. I do not accept that proposition so I take the position that to take a position of inaction is to not assume that you know what is best for others.

     But to make an ethical judgment that the world is to be corrected is, again, something that can never be proven because it has no basis in fact, it is something to be taken on faith.

     I'm still a little unclear what specifically you mean by "fallen." This could presumably apply either on a rational level (we make mistakes) or on an ethical level (ego often corrupts moral judgments). I really find it nearly impossible to believe that either of these isn't the case for human beings. We certainly make mistakes; we think things that are later found to be not true, and we make incorrect moral decisions. Unless you're willing to argue, for example, that things like the Holocaust were OK, I think it's fairly obvious that humans often act in morally unjustified ways. I realize that this is kind of an extreme example, but I think it illustrates the point that we often do make mistakes, often do act in bad ways.

     We are also often corrupted by self-interest. This happens a lot to people who find their way into power, and manifests itself even in day-to-day living. Look at a lot of the petty power struggles that show up in workplaces, in schools, even in churches. These kinds of things happen all the time, so I think the evidence for our logical and moral fallibility is all too apparent.

     Posted by Thrawn at 09/28/2006 @ 9:38pm

301. "In addition, it's entirely possible that Mark didn't really care all that much about it."

     THRAWN, I'm sorry.....Mark "didn't care" that Jesus was born of a virgin?!?!??! THE first of the major miracles of his life, and Mark just "skips" it?

     Now, does that REALLY make since? Or would it make more sense that the idea of a "virgin birth" was added LATER and Mark just wasn't "in on it"?

     Posted by Mask at 09/29/2006 @ 09:16am

302. Thrawn,

     You posted:

     "We certainly make mistakes; we think things that are later found to be not true, and we make incorrect moral decisions. Unless you're willing to argue, for example, that things like the Holocaust were OK, I think it's fairly obvious that humans often act in morally unjustified ways. I realize that this is kind of an extreme example, but I think it illustrates the point that we often do make mistakes, often do act in bad ways."

     This is an interesting point but it gets back to the issue of being stuck on the ethical intepretation. This is a very interesting discussion we are having because both of us have certain "positions" that are the bedrock, you might say, of our arguments.

     The Holocaust example might just be the best one to use. I am familiar with stories out of the Treblinka death camp where there were highly penitent Jews standing in line going to their death in the gas chambers actually "thanking God" for what was about to happen to them. Now, how do you explain that when God is ethical? Why would anyone thank God for their death? I suppose a person could say that this was morbid depression and someone could be thanking God for ending their suffering. . . but does that explanation really suffice? I don't think so. These comments were rendered with deep feeling, dedication and devotion to God. Death, as it were, is no longer a moral immoral act. Is it immoral for the Nazis to kill so many people? Yes. But is it immoral to be killed? No.

     I recognize that this argument is perhaps a little strange. Yet, if we accept the idea that death is not final but the continuation of the energy that exists within one's self, a continuation of that great mystery of being, then what is death after all? It becomes more than suffering, more than murder, more than the result of the crimes of the Nazis. Do I judge the Nazis? No. Do I think what they did was criminal? Yes. Why this distinction? Because every deed (even the most abominable) has both good and bad outcomes. For a penitent man death might not be evil. The world is so vast and there is so much that happens within it all of the time that a person could spend their entire life suffering and lamenting how things turned out wrong. That is possible and might even be justifiable if you are willing to accept the logic to it for, after all, is there not logic in everything?

     If you accept the idea that all life is suffering as your first precept, then the suffering becomes a foreground for something that exists beyond the temporal experience of suffering. This is now the crucifixtion becomes about more than whether Jesus ascended literally to Heaven. Heaven is not a place, is it? Where does it exist? If you believe it is a metaphor or, if you read it as an awakening, an extension of man's spiritual potentiality and ability to transcend the temporality of his suffering then Heaven becomes alive within. Jesus, if you are willing to accept this interpretation, went to Heaven within. If Heaven has to be literal, historical, an actual place where the apostles saw Jesus go then this interpretation is lost. However, if it has to be historical it then falls back on the realm of denotation: you are not in Heaven unless you cross the literal gates. Well, here is the problem once more: where is Heaven? Noone knows. Or you know that it is within you.

     A man gets to Heaven by transcending his suffering. If all of life is suffering in time then the suffering becomes a means to find Heaven, to be at one with God. If that is the case all suffering becomes a tool if not a gift. The penitent Jew who thanks God for carrying him to his death is saying (it seems to me), thank you for allowing me to have the means to transcend temporality and reach bliss.

     Another example of this might be "not to pluck the mote from your enemy's eye but to plant the beam from your own." This is why I don't believe in the Golden Rule. Men will not change by logic, change must come from what they experience in their lives. Two men can argue or discuss all they want but what moves men to change is what they experience. You can't expect men to reform because you think they should or because you think that what you believe is right and true and just. And to use an example of this: There is the case of the massacre of the Tibetan monks at the Guito Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet in 1959. The Chinese army went in and massacred thousands of them and drove out the Dali Lama. But the Dali Lama and other survivors have never issued one word of condemnation against the Chinese despite the horror they exoerienced in that war. Why? Well, that is the question isn't it? All life is suffering but all men have it within them to transcend their suffering and find bliss.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/29/2006 @ 11:10am

303. It should also be added that even if you are unprepared to make moral judgments you are not forced to remain a non-participant in life. I am not afraid to participate, nor am I worried that by participating I am removing myself from a position of non-action. To me, the non-action exists in the realm of judgment, the action is in the becoming of my being. I am always becoming what is within my Will. There is only one Will that I know, my own and of this Will, much remains a mystery. So I act but I do not judge.

     Posted by hhemwm at 09/29/2006 @ 11:15am

304. Posted by HHEMWM 09/29/2006 @ 11:10am

     HHEMWM, are you sure about that story?

     It sounds like a variation on an apochryphal story that was used in "The West Wing" once.

     A guy in a camp sees a fellow prisoner praying, and he says "What are you doing?" And the fellow says "I'm thanking God". And the first guy says "What for?!??! Look at this misery and death and those monsters who are doing it to us...what are thanking God FOR?"

     and the fellow says "I'm thanking God....I'm not them!"

     (Perhaps they are separate stories...both are true or both apochryphal...just wondering)

     Posted by Mask at 09/29/2006 @ 12:24pm