Hamas legalizes crucifixion

One can condemn Hamas, criticize the Palestinian people for electing Hamas, and assert that Israel has a right to defend itself but still condemn Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians. The Hamas apologist of whom you speak is a strawman.

What Josh said. I can't find a single apologist for Hamas, well, anywhere. Care to link to some?

What Josh said. I can't find a single apologist for Hamas, well, anywhere. Care to link to some?

I think it's safe to say that Rod is the most bipolar writer that I read. Dude goes from sensible and thought-provoking, to straight up wingnut blogger, at a mind-boggling pace.

At any rate, I wouldn't hold my breath for those links.

Zaccheus Treed,
If you have to be nasty, do try to at least get the gender right.
Should you become confused again, just remember:
I'm more man than you will ever be and more woman than you will ever have.

Latin has neither articles nor does the ending in 'a' necessarily mandate femininity.

Poor Zaccheus Treed,
He is so terribly gender confused.
To help you remember, just bear in mind: I am more man than you will ever be, and more woman than you will ever have.
There, now. That should prove mnemonic enough.

Latin has neither articles nor endings to determine grammatical gender. "A" at the end of a word has no relationship or bearing on whether it is feminine, masculine or neutral in the nominative case.

Software ate my last post. Again. Sigh.

Grumpy Old Man,
Your knowledge of history is sadly deficient. Would you like for me to present the UN resolutions and Arab responses?

Nobody will ever accuse me of being a knee-jerk conservative, but how anybody can pretend that the Israelis of today should somehow suffer for actions in the late 19th through mid-20th century is beyond me.

It is 2008, soon it will be 2009. You can't change history, but you can choose whether to be a free, democratic country or a group of terrorists and murders oppressing your own citizenry. It is very clear who is the aggressor here and who the victim.

I've dealt with the Palestinians and the Israelis, thank you. The Arabs started this mess, Israel is only defending herself.

Ben

I agree that Rod is quite bipolar in his writing, calm thoughtful and incredibly insightful in one post and then he goes off the proverbial deep end. Of course, for me its his economic disaster, end of the world as we know it, the sky is falling writing that orbits Neptune counter-clockwise. However, I find my self in agreement with Rod on this however. We must remember that Islam is not just another "abrahamic" religion. Islam has always been a theocracy with no separation between mosque and state. Most Muslims are not Islamists. But in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon etc its the extremists who manage the agenda and who control events. Several thousand Bolsheviks managed to establish the Soviet Union because they managed to control events and create the agenda. Some thing in the Middle East. The Jewish settlers and their extremism and the Islamic extremists on the other side control events mainly because the people of good will on both sides of the divide in the middle east have not managed to do this. The other issue here is the immense wounding that the mere presence of Israel creates in the Arab world. Arab culture is honor based and the repeated defeats that they have experienced at the hands of the west and its proxy Israel have damages this culture at its core. Islamic civilization was once the most advanced on the planet say circa 1000 A.D. The Koran and Hadith promise that Islam will reign supreme and for a period of time this was true. Now the Islamic world i the least developed region of the globe. For some Muslims, the modern world is topsy turvy, an Alice in Wonderland reality where the teachings of their faith (which is alsoa political system) seem to be constantly contradicted and their honor is constantly being damaged. Israel's continued existence is an uncomfortable reminder that the possibility exists that many of the basic tenets of Islam might be wrong. Israel is an uncomfortable reminder of this. Islamism threatens the very core of western civilization because the success and prosperity of the west is itself an existential threat to Islam.

If Barbaric capital punishment--inspired by religious based ideas of justice--was the determining point of whether a state should exist, Texas would have been voted out of the union long ago.

Along with 30-something other states in the union.

At any rate, comparing a process replete with trials, appeals and serious efforts to limit pain to what Hamas is doing shows how emotionally imbalanced you truly are. It's amazing how eager you can be to hate your own countryman to the extent that you would equate them with thugs like Hamas.

Daniel: "If ... Texas would have been voted out of the union long ago"
As a Texan, I think that's a great idea. Can you get that petition going for me?

Murderous Hamas completely sucks. Murdering Israeli settlers completely suck. This whole region completely sucks. Can someone please explain to me why it is the interests of the US to be allied with Israel and thus right in the middle of this mess? I don't have a problem with Israel or Israelis. I don't really care about them one way or the other. I just want allies that provide more than headaches. Instead we are sending tax dollars to Israelis and Palistinians, and all that investment is yielding is more conflict. They can bomb each other to kingdom come. I want no part of it.

Right on schedule we get Daniel equating capital punishment in Texas with crucifixion, followed by Jillian using a torrent of words to tell us that Hamas is only slightly more extreme than Republicans. What is there to say after that? There are degrees of moral imbecility that can only provoke quiet awe at the amazing waste of synapses and education involved.

Scott, crucifiixion is capital punishment. Sticking electrodes on someone in an electric chair or pumping drugs in them while strapped down to a gurney is only a step or two removed from hanging somebody and driving spikes into them. The brutality and barbarism are the same.

Yes, there are more guarantees of due process in the U.S., although there has been so much evidence that due process fails many people who are sentenced to death and that it is disproportionately applied to certain people in our society for specific crimes. By no standard is capital punishment moral or just in our society, but it is justified based on a certain interpretation of Christian natural law.

Yet Hamas is a slightly more extreme version of the anti-Modern Republican Party elites of 1998 to 2005ish

A last minute addition to the compendium of inane comments made in the Crunchy Con comboxes during 2008.

Winston Churchill on Islam

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is a fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exists wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.
The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

This is why he stopped the woman accused of Adultery from being stoned to death. He told her she was forgiven and told her to "go and sin no more."

Yes, He said, "Go and sin no more." He didn't say, "Go and celebrate your alternative lifestyle." The forgiveness carries with it the admonition to "sin no more". And at least the woman seemed to recognize that she was a sinner; she didn't assert that she was simply practicing an alternative lifestyle, or that she was justified because "God made me this way."

A society that won't kill is like a wife who lets herself go to pot. Both encourage people to stray.

Really? I can name literally hundreds of societies that went to pot, all of them killed at whim. Can you name one that did not kill? I cannot, which begs this question: How on God's green earth do you know this? Where's the historical record that proves the point? Name the society that went to pot because it failed to kill. Please, educate poor stupid Chris.

Z.T., maybe I bought it from Jacko the whako.
Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I'm 6'2", built like the proverbial brick outhouse and my freshmen students quake in fear of me...I look more like a serious dock worker than the mild-mannered, timid, slightly effeminate professor which I suspect is the mental image of me many here have.
Suits me fine, besides, I just can not walk in heels.

Ok, enough camp. The question of my gender has come up six times in the last three weeks here on beliefnet; I couldn't resist. Glad you have a sense of humor. Don't let the others know, I suspect it is more something that long-haired Jewish Rabi who kept running around preaching joy in the Lord's salvation would approve of than Paul. Gosh, what was his name again? Started with Son of God or so...

Rod,
You ask an interesting question, one I will try to answer as openly and clearly as possible.
Do I believe every single, solitary Southern Baptist is 'out to get me'? No.

Do I believe that there is a very strong tendency towards violence, torture and, yes, murder among many conservative American Christians? Yes, absolutely. Do I think the US Constitution and the rule of law in this country - largely imposed by courts - is the only thing preventing many of these people from attacking even more of us? Yes.

Please consider, for a minute, the Bush administration and the abridgment of human rights' conventions. The institution of torture. The usurpation of power from the other Constitutional organs in order to wage illegal war, to invade the privacy of American citizens at unprecedented levels. The refusal to sign even such a non-binding document as the recent statement by the UN opposing torture and murder of homosexuals. The only other major civilizations to share these principles were pretty nasty people, especially the Islamic countries.

This is the same mentality as we see in these conservative Christians. They are deaf to what science and medicine have told us about homosexuality, they demand their view of marriage be the State view for this country. It has been pointed out here before that roughly once a week, a transgender person is murdered or severely beaten, raped and or tortured. The number of hate-motivated attacks on homosexuals over the last weeks of this discussion can not be dismissed, they are documented fact. It is horribly ironic that the very same day as one of the conservatives here was telling me I was hysterical and no homosexuals were physically threatened in this country, a young man was beaten to death because he was seen walking arm in arm with his brother...in New York. The murderers thought they were a gay couple.

What I see when I look at many of the conservatives here - is an absolute rejection of any aspect of reality apart from that which their 'faith' has shown them. It is not an abstract question whether they would tear my marriage apart or take my children from me, they showed in California that they were perfectly willing to strip me of my existing civil rights. In Arkansas, they actually forbade me to adopt and raise children. In Florida, they are fighting every step of the way to strip children from their gay adoptive parents. There is even a strong legal attempt being waged now in California to have existing gay marriages rendered null and void.

Such activities are mirrors of the tactics the Nazis used. They echo the fundamentalism and intolerance of the Islamic world.

I am sorry to have to come to this conclusion. What frightens me most about these people is their black and white rendering of Christianity. Because I am gay, nothing else matters. My monogamous, committed relationship ranks as nothing. My firm commitment to all the 10 commandments, to Jesus insistence that we love and forgive and be charitable...all are as naught. To them I am the same as a pedophile, my relationship is as evil as incest...

In a word, yes, I am very very concerned. And I think you are, too, tho' your motivations are not those of one who is under attack. You would not be attempting this dialog if you were not very aware of the risks and trends in American conservative Christianity.

I'm cutting this pretty short, as I have a dinner to cook. No rest for the wicked...or was it, idle hands are the Devil's workshop?

Grumpy Old Man,

Having your country taken, having your people half-starved, doesn't usually give rise to an enlightened response. That's an explanation, not an excuse.

Then take it up with the U.N., because they consented to the creation of Israel. The Palestinians, at the urging of their Arab bretheren, rejected the two-state solution in 1948. It’s their fault and it’s their problem.

Yes, Islamism can be horrific. But Zionism poisons everything.

Are you sure that your sentence shouldn’t read:

“But Jews poison everything.”

Because that’s what I get from your sentence.

Interesting viewpoint, Scott.

It seems to me that the most absolute statements i read are in support of Israel's right to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to. Indeed, President Bush cited Israel's "success" at dealing with terrorism (as if Israel had ended its terrorist threat) in explaining why he wanted the USA to follow Israel's lead. Could it be that Israel's conservative Christian supporters really hate Jews? Maybe a "give 'em enough rope" thing? That would explain a lot.

Rombald, I find your comments highly offensive. Do not feel that because we are a "majority" living in America gives you an excuse to malign our beliefs. The OT highly informs my Christianity-- in fact, I am a Christian more because of it than the NT. It may, I admit, record evil deeds by evil people, but it is no more evil itself than Herodotus is.

Despite your claims of Religious Mania, for us Israel is the fulfillment of a promise. I may not be one, but Jews and Israelis have my full support whether they want it or not. It may not be the popular or convenient belief for you in Europe, but that doesn't mean its wrong.

I think we should move all 5 million Israeli jews to the United States and give them land in Texas or New York or New Mexico or someplace. Then we'd be done with the middle east mess, and let the barbarians there devour each other. We'd get the intelligence and productivity of 5 million Israeli-Americans, who would be much safer in North America than in the middle east surrounded by barbarians.

panthera: "A" at the end of a word has no relationship or bearing on whether it is feminine, masculine or neutral in the nominative case.

The correct terminology is "neuter". It means "neither masculine nor feminine." The original speakers of Latin were far from "neutral" about gender rôles.

By supporting Israel, they hope to immanentize the eschaton.

I have never understood people who yearn for the end of the world, especially Christians. Yet there's that group down through history pining away for the destruction of all God created and the humanity that God saved. That, it seems to me, is the ne plus ultra of ingratitude.

Roland, is it not also true that the term "gender" has been stripped of its meaning in our time? Gender properly refers to masculine/feminine -- not male/female -- distinctions. There's a difference, and it's an essential one. The word we seem to be Big-Brothering out of the lexicon for this usage is ... sex. Odd development, that.

SAW, we don't say "What gender is your dog?" The dog is not masculine or feminine. It's either male or female. That's its sex. Why, then, do we say "We don't discriminate on the basis of race, age or gender"?

Odd.

Tried to post this last night, but the software was being more evil than usual...oh, well.

On a non-Hamas note: Panthera: Latin has neither articles nor endings to determine grammatical gender. "A" at the end of a word has no relationship or bearing on whether it is feminine, masculine or neutral in the nominative case. Not correct. It is true that Latin lacks articles. However as to the rest of it, the endings do determine the grammatical gender, as opposed to sex. E.g. first declension nouns ending in -a are, in fact, feminine in terms of grammatical gender (with a few exceptions, such as agricola, "farmer", and nauta, "sailor", and Greek proper-noun loanwords ending in -as, such as "Aeneas"). Second declension nouns in -us or -er are masculine, and in -um are neuter. Third, fourth, and fifth declension nouns can be any gender, with no clear patterns (except for some of the neuters). I checked my copy of The New College Latin and English Dictionary, and panthera, "panther" (the "th" is pronounced as plain "t" in Classical Latin) is indeed grammatically feminine. I think the concept of grammatical gender confuses English speakers. It has nothing whatsoever to do with physiological sex, sexual preference, or any such thing. All it means is that any associated adjectives must agree with it in gender number and case. E.g. vir bonus, "(the) good man", mulier bona, "(the) good woman", ferrum bonum, "good iron", calicis boni, "of (the) good cup", puero bono, "to (the) good boy", and so on and so on. As you can see, though the genders and cases agree, the endings don't necessarily do so. Actual biological sex is by no means implied by grammatical gender. Ager, the Latin for "field", is grammatically masculine; tunica, "tunic" or "robe" is grammatically feminine. This does not by any means indicate that the Romans thought fields were boys and robes were girls! Manus, "hand", is feminine, whether possessed by a man or woman, and cor, "heart" is neuter, despite the fact that all human hearts contain XX or XY chromosome sets! This is true with animals, too. If you were speaking of a bear in general, you'd say ursus, which is masculine, regardless of the gender of the actual bear in question. Only if you knew the bear was female and wanted to specify or emphasize this would you say ursa, "she-bear". Panthera is grammatically feminine, but no one in his right mind thought that all panthers were female. In any case, it was a common name for Roman men, not women. In such a situation, the noun would take a masculine adjective. Thus, Panthera bona est means, "(The) panther (of either sex) is good," whereas Panthera bonus est means "(The man named) Panther is good." Perhaps this is what Panthera meant by saying ""A" at the end of a word has no relationship or bearing on whether it is feminine, masculine or neutral in the nominative case," but it's confusingly phrased. He should have said that while -a at the end of a word does determine the grammatical gender, it indeed has no relationship to biological gender. In any case, having said all that, I leave with a hearty Felix sit Annus Novus! (Happy New Year!)

Turmarion,
I guess how we study Latin is partially determined by the language in which we interface with the grammar and syntax.
My language has a very strong feminine, masculine and neuter concept, thus our Latin is taught purely on the basis of four easy declensions and one extremely exotic catch-all. (Sorry 'bout 'neutral', when I am trying to do two or three things at once my English suffers. Not my primary language.)

It certainly makes more sense to me to remember how to decline the -a declension than trying to figure out why farmers are 'female' except when they are not. In any case, Latin grammar, as with every single other topic here, is a wonderful opportunity to learn, discuss and encounter someone (and there is always a someone, who will take something as a grave offense.)

I think, with your permission, I will keep your posting for my freshmen. I don't teach Latin, but we have enough vocabulary from the language in our courses that it would be useful for my students. May edit a bit...

Charles Atlas, I was commenting on a posting from a previous thread on a related blog here. Keep up or go play in your own sandbox.

Panthera in my culture is also frequently a man's name - as was quite correctly observed.

Isn't it astounding how we can reduce even the most important topic Rod or Erin posts to utter nonsense?

3. Israel is not a proper country. It is propped up by US aid, and mainly supported by US Evangelicals on the basis of eschatological fantasies. It's more of biblical theme park for US Jews and Evangelicals than a real country. If the USA lost interest, it would simply cease to exist.

Rombald, in the past, I can't recall any of your comments bothering me in the least. (I admit I am mainly a lurker and can understand pro/cons of most situations)...but really? Are you serious? Do you know any Israelis?

The Israeli technology sector is very advanced, and that benefits America, too. Offhand, I know of EMC in Hopkinton, MA, that benefits a great deal from an Israeli staff. ICQ was started in Israel.

When I worked at a medical library, some of our most requested medical articles were written by Israelis...in Israel.

Again, I am stunned. I hope you were being sarcastic on #3, but I don't have much hope.

I'm not an "apologists for Hamas" nor have a ever met such a straw man, but when I read this, I was instantly reminded of the Iranian-Jews-forced-to-wear-yellow-badges hoax from a few years back, that I debunked on my old blog — Axis of Yellow Journalism?

It looks like the Hamas-crucifixion story is of a similar vein, as I posted above — The Islamic Law That Wasn't. Author Nathan Brown, "an expert on Arab constitutional law, Palestinian politics, and Islamic movements at George Washington University," notes that a "combination of old and new media can sometimes create an echo chamber that magnifies inaccuracy rather than corrects it" and shows how the story was misreported.

At the time of the Iranian-Jews-forced-to-wear-yellow-badges story, I challenged the Catholic blogosphere's most prominent woman-married-to-a-laicized-priest to update a post in which she had reported the story as fact. I pointed out that such fabrications lead to increased sentiment for war, in which innocent people, including women and children, are killed. She was unmoved. I never visited her blog again.

I challenge you to update this post.

Need we be reminded of how the Iraqi-soldiers-killing-Kuwaiti-incubator-babies story, itself a replay of the the German-soldiers-killing-Belgian-incubator-babies story, was a hoax, with the Kuwait ambassador's daughter playing the role of nurse before the American congress?

PRETRIB RAPTURE - HIDDEN FACTS !‏

How can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He is now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. Since Jesus must personally participate in the rapture, and since He can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends, the rapture therefore cannot take place before the end of the trib! Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) (which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening - Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who would be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the posttrib end of “death” (15:54)! (Will death be ended before or during the trib?) If anyone wonders how long pretrib rapturism has been taught, he or she can Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards.” Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 it was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen - the height of desperation!). Other Google articles throwing light on long-covered-up facts about the 178-year-old pretrib rapture view include “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “X-Raying Margaret,” “Revisers of Pretrib Rapture History,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “Pretrib Rapture Desperados” and “Deceiving and Being Deceived” - all by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” which is available at Armageddon Books online. Just my two cents’ worth. Todd (This article of mine will hopefully help prepare believers for even worse things than crucifixion!)

Hamas are bloodthirsty barbarians, plain and simple. Hey im tottally agree with this.