American Muslims' Plot to Bomb NY Synagogues/Schools Foiled

[epicSocialism4tw]

Most people will never understand how big of a deal this is.

The arrests came after a nearly yearlong undercover operation that began in Newburgh. The defendants bought a digital camera at Wal-Mart to take pictures of targets, they spoke in code, and they expressed their hatred of Jews on several occasions, according to a criminal complaint.




http://www.poststar.com/articles/2009/05/21/ap/us/d98ap9n00.txt

[Spider]

Most people will never understand how big of a deal this is.





http://www.poststar.com/articles/2009/05/21/ap/us/d98ap9n00.txt

why wont most people understand ?
Is this a thing only teabaggers know ?
I wonder how many people blew off McViegh as a no big deal ?
I made a thread about a state trooper in Wyoming that made plans on killing a trucker then staging an accident with the truck killing the troopers wife for Insurance money ..... would you say that is as big as this ? if not why ?

[cutthemdown]

The longer FBI and CIA work to find good operatives that can infiltrate mosques the better we will get at.

These dudes got there asses handed to them by the authorities. That's some good police work.

[epicSocialism4tw]

why wont most people understand ?
Is this a thing only teabaggers know ?
I wonder how many people blew off McViegh as a no big deal ?
I made a thread about a state trooper in Wyoming that made plans on killing a trucker then staging an accident with the truck killing the troopers wife for Insurance money ..... would you say that is as big as this ? if not why ?

Sorry dude. Them fumes must be a-gettin' to ya.

If you cant delineate between those two situations and their importance to national security, then you are drowned in the kool-aid.

[Spider]

Sorry dude. Them fumes must be a-gettin' to ya.

If you cant delineate between those two situations and their importance to national security, then you are drowned in the kool-aid.

figured you would come up with some bull**** .....
still doesnt answer the question , I asked , i didnt ask about the difference in the 2 situations , I asked if the trooper story was just as big, ..... freaking genius ..

[epicSocialism4tw]

figured you would come up with some bull**** .....
still doesnt answer the question , I asked , i didnt ask about the difference in the 2 situations , I asked if the trooper story was just as big, ..... freaking genius ..


You may want to ask someone else to explain it for you. Meanwhile, I can tell you that its probably not a good idea to continue sniffing glue.

[Spider]

You may want to ask someone else to explain it for you. Meanwhile, I can tell you that its probably not a good idea to continue sniffing glue. whats wrong texican ? to hard of a question ? wow a group of muslims plan an attack , that came out of the blue to you ?
does this news shock you ? blind sided by this ?
meanwhile you got a trooper that can pull your ass over abuse his authority and do what ever he wants , and you accuse me of sniffing glue ?
you bedwetter

[Spider]

And besides Genius I thought that the right said we need to use enhanced interrogation tactics? Only a repuke can stop a terrorist attack ...........just ask cheney

[watermock]

A random crackpot cop trying to kill his wife and make money out of it by framing an innocent employee of wal-mart, and an alleged conspiracy for terrorism are 2 different things.

4 held without bail in 'chilling' bomb plot



Enlarge AP/Reuters

Three of four bomb plot suspects are escorted from a federal building in New York Thursday. From left to right: James Cromitie, David Williams and Onta Williams.


TERROR PLOT




By Timothy O'Connor, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Four men accused of plotting to bomb a Bronx, N.Y., synagogue and shoot military aircraft out of the sky were ordered held without bail Thursday during appearances in U.S. District Court.
New York City police and FBI agents arrested the four men Wednesday night in the Bronx as they tried to carry out their plot against Riverdale Temple and Riverdale Jewish Center, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York.


LIVE VIDEO: Watch local coverage of bomb plot

undefined
READ CRIMINAL COMPLAINT: U.S. v. Cromitie, et al.

They also planned to shoot down military planes at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, just outside of the city of Newburgh, where the four men live, acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin said.

"It's hard to imagine a more chilling plot," Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said during a hearing for James Cromitie, 55, David Williams, 28, and Onta Williams, 32. A hearing for Laguerre Payen, 27, the fourth man accused, was held separately. Payen was hospitalized after the arrest and released for the later hearing. His attorney did not know why he had been hospitalized.

Three of the four testified that they are U.S. citizens. Payen's country of origin was unclear, although when U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Smith asked him if he wanted the court to inform the Haitian Embassy, he said that he did.

The men appeared in court with their hands shackled to answer charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles. They did not enter pleas and face life in prison.

Snyder described Cromitie as the leader of the plot, saying he recruited the others. He said Cromitie voiced hatred for Jews. "These were people who were eager to bring death to Jews," he said.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday night, federal officials had been aware of the plot for almost a year and had an informant working with the crew. The FBI arranged for the alleged plotters to receive a non-functioning missile and bogus C-4 explosives, according to the complaint.

Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, the head imam of the Masjid Al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh, said Cromitie and Payen were loosely affiliated with the mosque.

"I was shocked when I heard about it," said Muhammad, who described the two as poor and needy. Their economic hardship may have made them susceptible to involvement in the terror plot, he said.

Snyder recounted details of the alleged plot, including David Williams' alleged desire to shoot a gang leader from whom he bought a gun.

"These are extremely violent men," Snyder said.

At a news conference at the Riverdale Jewish Center Thursday, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly quoted one of the men as saying, "If Jews were killed in this attack … that would be all right."

Kelly said he believed the men, who had criminal records for charges including drug possession and assault, knew each other from prison.

Contributing: Hema Easley, The Journal-News; AP

© Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.



I don't really know how credible a threat this was, sounds like some morons to me.

[Spider]

A random crackpot cop trying to kill his wife and make money out of it by framing an innocent employee of wal-mart, and an alleged conspiracy for terrorism are 2 different things.



.

that really isnt the question , of course they are 2 different things ,but given the number of occurrences of rouge cops misbehaving , beating ,stealing ,killing etc,my argument is cops are becoming more of a national security threat ,then terrorist ............

[Spider]

like this as an example , you are on a lonely road get pulled over ,do you really feel safe ?

[watermock]

If I were you, my more immediate concern would be the rougue cop. BTW, can you carry a gun in your ride?

And if you can, would it be worth it to nix the asshole considering they would probably frame you anyway?

[SleepingTiger]

why wont most people understand ?
Is this a thing only teabaggers know ?
I wonder how many people blew off McViegh as a no big deal ?
I made a thread about a state trooper in Wyoming that made plans on killing a trucker then staging an accident with the truck killing the troopers wife for Insurance money ..... would you say that is as big as this ? if not why ?



lets compare between the 2

1. an dirty idiot cop tries foul play for some insurance money.

2. - a group of muslim americans trying to cause terror throughout the nation by ploting to bomb a Jewish temple and shoot down military aircraft.

i would say #2 is quite bigger.

[Spider]

If I were you, my more immediate concern would be the rougue cop. BTW, can you carry a gun in your ride?

And if you can, would it be worth it to nix the a-hole considering they would probably frame you anyway?

In some states you can , others you cant , but the big thing is alot of companies dont allow fire arms on their property .....what I do is this , find a crowded area , well lit , few people , security cameras etc .......

[Spider]

lets compare between the 2

1. an dirty idiot cop tries foul play for some insurance money.

2. - a group of muslim americans trying to cause terror throughout the nation by ploting to bomb a Jewish temple and shoot down military aircraft.

i would say #2 is quite bigger.

4 Muslims ......... if muslims try to pull you over do you pull over ? Besides it is more then one cop , hell 5 of them just got taped beating the **** out of some one in Alabama .........how many abuses have we seen from cops ?

[Odysseus]

These guys were stupid but if the press keeps explaining how they are getting these guys aren't they compromising our national security? A free press seems to be a sword that cuts both ways.

[Odysseus]

lets compare between the 2

1. an dirty idiot cop tries foul play for some insurance money.

2. - a group of muslim americans trying to cause terror throughout the nation by ploting to bomb a Jewish temple and shoot down military aircraft.

i would say #2 is quite bigger.

1. A problem with personal Ethics
2. A problem with National Security.


Why is it that a corrupt cop is common but a smart terrorist not? I don't want to speculate on historic levels of morality because there is no clear cut moral-ometer to gauge this stuff by but it seems to me that we not as forthright as we used to be.

[rastaman]

Most people will never understand how big of a deal this is.

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2009/05/21/ap/us/d98ap9n00.txt

Obama is proving he can keep America Safe! :thanku:

[rastaman]

These guys were stupid but if the press keeps explaining how they are getting these guys aren't they compromising our national security? A free press seems to be a sword that cuts both ways.

Well we didn't have a "Free Press" when Bush was lying to this country with his Rush To War to invade and occupy Iraq and at the Cluster Crap that was created and what must be cleaned up now.

This happened b/c the "Press"....the 4th Estate did not do or were not allowed to do their job.

[SleepingTiger]

4 Muslims ......... if muslims try to pull you over do you pull over ? Besides it is more then one cop , hell 5 of them just got taped beating the **** out of some one in Alabama .........how many abuses have we seen from cops ?


hmmmm.... how about 19 muslims hijacking 4 planes and cause over 2000 casualties, billions in damages, causing an entire nation to shut down for the day and airports for over a week. this is not a numbers issue, but the severity of the issue. Terrorist do what they do, they instill fear through violence directed at the public.

cops attacking a guy whose car chase could a major saftey issue too the general public is understandable. if i was the cops i would be pissed too, i wouldn't of sucker punched the guy while he was out, i would make him come too then punch him. j/k

[SleepingTiger]

Well we didn't have a "Free Press" when Bush was lying to this country with his Rush To War to invade and occupy Iraq and at the Cluster Crap that was created and what must be cleaned up now.

This happened b/c the "Press"....the 4th Estate did not do or were not allowed to do their job.

good post if it wasn't so freakin idiotic.

[Hotrod]

Its a religion of peace........nothing to see here Ha!

[Spider]

hmmmm.... how about 19 muslims hijacking 4 planes and cause over 2000 casualties, billions in damages, causing an entire nation to shut down for the day and airports for over a week. this is not a numbers issue, but the severity of the issue. Terrorist do what they do, they instill fear through violence directed at the public.

cops attacking a guy whose car chase could a major saftey issue too the general public is understandable. if i was the cops i would be pissed too, i wouldn't of sucker punched the guy while he was out, i would make him come too then punch him. j/k

compared to Rouge cops through out the years ........ and these are only the Cases we know about ..........Do you really believe that we know about every rouge cop ? seriously ?

[Spider]

Cops on the take allowing Drugs do how much damage ?

[TailgateNut]

compared to Rouge cops through out the years ........ and these are only the Cases we know about ..........Do you really believe that we know about every rouge cop ? seriously ?

ROUGE Cops. Are these cops of the "french persuation", or just cops which wear make-up?

!Booya! Had to do it, ya old fart!

[Spider]

ROUGE Cops. Are these cops of the "french persuation", or just cops which wear make-up?

!Booya! Had to do it, ya old fart!

;D ...........I guess my point it ,Muslims planning attacks should be expected ,Not so much from cops , and the sad part is there are some damn good cops out there

[SleepingTiger]

;D ...........I guess my point it ,Muslims planning attacks should be expected ,Not so much from cops , and the sad part is there are some damn good cops out there

actually the sad part is you're comparing terrrorist with cops.

[Spider]

actually the sad part is you're comparing terrrorist with cops.

well if the shoe fits ....... One doesnt have to be a member of a religious group to be a terrorist .......

[Rigs11]

send them to gitmo and waterboard those bastards!right?

[barryr]

People can't figure out the difference in magnitude between a terrorist attack to try to kill thousands and someone trying to kill a spouse? Truly the dumbing down of America.

[Spider]

People can't figure out the difference in magnitude between a terrorist attack to try to kill thousands and someone trying to kill a spouse? Truly the dumbing down of America.

you are as stupid as they say , I used just 1 example and he was going to kill 2 people ......... A truck Driver and his wife ......... Learn to read Barry ........

[Spider]

you know Barry , you should go on tour and tell everyone Darwin is a fraud .... you are living proof that there is a god ........ No one as stupid as you can function in society without some divine intervention

[epicSocialism4tw]

Obama is proving he can keep America Safe! :thanku:

Crikey, man. Can you read?

1. The investigation started before Obama got into office.

2. The investigation had nothing to do with the executive office.

[alkemical]

These guys were stupid but if the press keeps explaining how they are getting these guys aren't they compromising our national security? A free press seems to be a sword that cuts both ways.

Not to mention - if we had a true open gov't - where the people were also..responsible and aware - maybe it would be harder for "terrorists" to hide.

[Odysseus]

Its a religion of peace........nothing to see here Ha!

Most Muslims are pretty much calm as Buddhists. This is radical Islam. That is kind of like radical Christian. The Ku Klux Klan is a radical Christian organization.

[Odysseus]

Not to mention - if we had a true open gov't - where the people were also..responsible and aware - maybe it would be harder for "terrorists" to hide.

If we actually took time to listen there would be no terrorists. I am not saying butter over bullets but we don't know ourselves much less our friends or enemies. We spend a lot of time whistling in the dark and calling it singing.

[epicSocialism4tw]

Most Muslims are pretty much calm as Buddhists. This is radical Islam. That is kind of like radical Christian. The Ku Klux Klan is a radical Christian organization.

That is ridiculous.

[Odysseus]

Well we didn't have a "Free Press" when Bush was lying to this country with his Rush To War to invade and occupy Iraq and at the Cluster Crap that was created and what must be cleaned up now.

This happened b/c the "Press"....the 4th Estate did not do or were not allowed to do their job.

The press has not done it's job in years. They abdicated this when ownership of the press was centralized and a few voices are deciding what we are allowed to here. Our real freedoms exist but is limited.

[Odysseus]

That is ridiculous.

Are you saying that you think the Klan is a peaceful fraternity or that you personally know violent Muslims?

My statements are clear, historically accurate and provable. If you want to have a discussion that would involve you either saying something of relevance or refuting my statement with something resembling specifics.


Let me repeat myself....
Originally Posted by quiettiger
Most Muslims are pretty much calm as Buddhists. This is radical Islam. That is kind of like radical Christian. The Ku Klux Klan is a radical Christian organization.

[watermock]

They were also called "progressive democrats".

[watermock]

Most Muslims are pretty much calm as Buddhists.

That is possibly he most ignorant post of all time.

[Odysseus]

That is possibly he most ignorant post of all time.

I guess you don't know any Buddhists either.

I think I have been exposed to more people in and from the Middle East than you have. Let's assume I was not talking about only the Middle East but perhaps some of the other globally affiliated Muslims who are not directly involved in our current Middle East conflict.

I am not asking you to read the Koran. (Which I have) I am not asking you to defend your complete lack of exposure to Muslims. (Which you don't have) I am asking to accept that MAYBE I might know more Muslims than you and that MAYBE the Muslims I know might not be Radical murderers of a bad faith like we have here locally in the Ku Klux Klan.

Did you need a copy of the Kloran? I have read that as well. I don't know if you need a copy...I'm just asking is all.

[Odysseus]

They were also called "progressive democrats".

Are you sure you are spelling this right?

[watermock]

Hooded Progressivism
The secret reformist history of the Ku Klux Klan
Jesse Walker | December 2, 2005

It didn't take long for America's first blockbuster feature film to produce its first creepy fan subculture. Right before the Atlanta debut of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, an epic that glorified the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan, William Joseph Simmons and 11 others celebrated Thanksgiving by burning a cross atop Stone Mountain and declaring the KKK reborn. A week later, on December 4, 1915, they received a charter from the state of Georgia for their new organization, dubbed The Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc.

In 2005, most people are barely aware that there has been more than one KKK, let alone that the most notable Invisible Empire would have turned 90 years old this weekend. But the second Klan was radically different from both the Klan that emerged after the Civil War and the Klan that battled the civil rights movement in the '60s. It had its greatest strength outside the South, and approximately half its followers lived not in the countryside but in cities. Most of its members eschewed illicit violence, and when it was violent its victims often as not were white. (In some communities, violence was more likely to be wielded against the Klan than by it.) As you'd expect, it was racist, nativist, prohibitionist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Catholic, but its worldview wasn't always consistent or coherent: It may have been a united organization, something that was only barely true of the first Klan and was never true of the third, but it adopted different issues and tactics in different parts of the country, making it much harder to stereotype than its predecessor and its successors.

Above all, it was a fundamentally modern movement. It was inspired by a movie, advanced through advertising, and organized with techniques that might have been employed by a corporate sales force. In the early '20s it had between 1.5 and 5 million members, many of them at the center of political power. The Klan controlled the governments of Indiana, Oregon, and Colorado, elected other politicians across the country, and played a major role in the Democratic convention of 1924; its members included future president Harry Truman and future Supreme Court justice Hugo Black. Early scholars assumed that the secret society was overwhelmingly rural, fundamentalist, and driven—in one sociologist's words—by the "petty impotence of the small-town mind." Two waves of revisionist scholarship have destroyed those assumptions.

The first came in the 1960s, with Kenneth Jackson's book The Ku Klux Klan in the City (1967) and Charles Alexander's Crusade for Conformity (1962) and The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (1965). (The latter's title is misleading, since its discussion doesn't venture west of Texas.) The Klan that emerged in those books was urban, national, and largely concerned with enforcing an authoritarian moral order. Race may have been paramount in other parts of the South, but in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, wrote Alexander, the Klan's activities "indicated a strikingly small amount of hostility to Negroes." Instead, the "Klansman's conception of reform encompassed efforts to preserve premarital chastity, marital fidelity, and respect for parental authority; to compel obedience of state and national prohibition laws; to fight the postwar crime wave; and to rid state and local governments of dishonest politicians." These Klansmen were more likely to flog you for bootlegging or breaking your marriage vows than for being black or Jewish.

The second wave of scholarship has been ongoing since the mid-'70s, as social historians poured through census data and, where possible, newly uncovered records of individual klaverns. The result was a series of detailed studies of the Klan's activities, ideologies, and social class in cities ranging from Buffalo to Anaheim. Many of these writers, notably Leonard Moore and Shawn Lay, espouse what's come to be called the "civic activist" interpretation of the second Klan, arguing, in Moore's words, "that the Klan served different purposes in different communities, but that in general, it represented mainstream social and political concerns, not those of a disaffected fringe group....To varying degrees, each [study] found that the Klan focused a good deal of energy on community business elites who stood in the way of popular social and political reforms." Lay's study of the Klan's activities in El Paso was a counterpoint not just to the organization's original image but to Alexander's portrait of its efforts elsewhere in Texas. "If, in fact, the Klan was composed largely of unrestrained racists, bigots, and moral authoritarians," Lay later wrote, "then El Paso would have been one of the most likely places for the order to engage in roughshod tactics. But such was not the case. The El Paso klavern largely ignored the Hispanic majority, never employed violence, and spent most of its time challenging the policies of fellow Anglos who dominated city government, focusing on such issues as better public education, honest elections, and road construction." The El Paso Klan, he concluded, was "quite similar to earlier reform efforts in El Paso's history."

The key word in the above paragraph is "unrestrained." Lay isn't arguing that the Klan wasn't racist, but that, as he put it in his study of the Klan in Buffalo, "the intolerance that characterised the KKK pervaded all levels of white society during the 1920s." In much of the country, it attempted to advance its ends not through covert violence but through the organized, legal violence of the state. (In Oregon, for example, it attempted to outlaw parochial schools.) Still, the civic-activist interpretation has provoked a backlash—writing in the Alabama Review in 1998, the historian Glenn Feldman complained that "the Twenties Klan is currently portrayed, by some scholars, almost as an innocuous, garden-variety civic and philanthropical agency."

It would be more accurate to say it's portrayed as an organization that adopted different forms in different places, and two relatively recent books about the KKK's activities in the southeast—Feldman's Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama (1999) and Nancy MacLean's Behind the Mask of Chivalry (1994)—stressed the racial violence of that region's klaverns even while reiterating many of the civic-activist school's ideas. MacLean's book, unfortunately, attempted to generalize Georgia's experience to describe the entire national organization, an effort that not only contradicted the findings of other scholars but overlooked the extent to which the Georgia Klan was influenced by specifically local factors itself. (The klansmen of Salt Lake City did not enjoy a close relationship with the old southern Populist Tom Watson, for example, just as the Georgia kluxers had no reason to fret about Utah's Mormon power structure.) But she offered one of the best summations of the second Klan when she rejected the "specious dichotomies" of the debate. The Klan of the '20s, she wrote, "was at once mainstream and extreme, hostile to big business and antagonistic to labor unions, anti-elitist and hateful of blacks and immigrants, pro-law and order and prone to extralegal violence. If scholars have viewed these attributes as incompatible, Klansmen themselves did not." If anything, that understates the complexity of the organization, which in some places aided rather than opposed strikers. There's even a report of a labor-oriented Klan in West Virginia that had two black members.

The second Klan's popularity declined in the late '20s, as a series of scandals undercut its image as the defender of traditional morality and as its more mainstream members grew disillusioned with the group's ability to deliver on its promises. The remnants of the organization adopted a more familiar far-right orientation, including an alliance with the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, before finally dissolving in 1944. But from around 1921 to 1925, it was a significant force in American society—an ugly echo, not just of longstanding prejudices, but of the just-concluded Progressive Era.

Progressivism, like the Klan, came in many flavors: There were east coast reformers who wanted business and government to work as partners and mountain state populists who distrusted such centralized power, white supremacists in the Wilson administration who did so much for segregation and anti-racists in the NAACP who wanted to censor The Birth of a Nation. You could write a book on how much of that the Klan reflected or rejected, but I'll highlight just a few areas of overlap:

1. Progressivism had roots in the Protestant pietist tradition, and its partisans were frequently interested in reforming individuals as well as institutions. It's a quick jump from there to the moral authoritarianism described in Charles Alexander's books. Jane Addams, the Social Gospel activist who played such a big role in passing protective labor regulations and compulsory schooling laws, was also a critic of the "debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar type of music" that a young person might find in the five-cent theaters, writing that it was "astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill their impressionable minds with these absurdities." Prohibition, that Klan kause kelebre, reached its height as a cause during the Progressive Era, complete with muckraking exposés of the "whiskey ring" and culminating with the passage of the eighteenth amendment in 1919.

2. Racism also had a foothold among the progressives. It might be tempting to argue that bigots like Woodrow Wilson, who introduced Jim Crow rules to the federal government, were merely progressive in some areas and reactionary in others. But the American eugenics movement was tied closely to the progressives' drive for "scientific" reform, and its heyday covered both the Progressive Era and the '20s. Politicians offered eugenic arguments not just for laws that banned miscegenation and allowed authorities to sterilize the allegedly unfit, but for restrictions on immigration from southern and central Europe.

3. The progressives and the Klan shared an interest in mandating public education and eliminating urban political machines. The civic-activist historians tell us that the rank-and-file Klansman's interest in such reforms was frequently a sincere response to corruption and inadequate schooling, though it's clear that their urban proposals owed at least something to their fear of immigrants, and that their education proposals were transparantly anti-Catholic. If the Klan's motives were not purely nativist, then neither were the progressives' purely benign: Just as the Klansmen sometimes shared the progressives' hopes, the latter sometimes shared the Klansmen's fears.

4. In the late 1910s the Klan was a small regional organization. In the early '20s it was large and national. There's a number of reasons why it made this leap, but the biggest may be the effects of World War I. This too marked a connection with progressivism.

As the historian William Leuchtenburg and the economist Murray Rothbard have argued, Wilson's wartime policies were an outgrowth, not a negation, of Progressive Era politics. During the conflict, government planners and "enlightened" corporate leaders replaced a relatively free market with a heavily regimented economy, while intellectuals hoped, in Leuchtenburg's words, to adopt "the same sort of centralized directing now employed to kill their enemies abroad for the new purpose of reconstructing their own life at home."

The repression and nationalism of this period is well-known: Dissidents were arrested, newspapers banned, potentially seditious immigrants deported. There was also a propaganda blitz, described by Alexander in The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest:

During the war the American people had been subjected to the first systematic, nationwide propaganda campaign in the history of the Republic. From both official and unofficial sources poured a torrent of material having the objective of teaching Americans to hate—specifically to hate Germans but, more broadly, everything that did not conform to a formalized conception of "100 percent Americanism." In the fall of 1918, just as the indoctrination process was reaching its peak, as patriotic feeling was mounting to frenzy, the war came abruptly to an end. Americans who had stored up an enormous volume of superpatriotic zeal now no longer had an official enemy on whom to concentrate this fervor.
One result was the red scare and race riots of 1919. Another, arguably, was to enlarge the number of people primed to join an organization like the Klan. The fact that the original Klan had resisted the idea of a united nation didn't matter, any more than the fact that The Birth of a Nation was overtly antiwar.

Some progressives had been antiwar as well, of course, among them the Wisconsin senator Robert LaFollette, and any argument connecting the Klan to the progressive impulse should take account of the fact that it opposed him strenuously when he ran for president on a third-party ticket in 1924. In fact, the 1924 election indicates the extent to which the Klan was entangled with the progressives. For that was the year of the Democrats' infamous "klanbake" convention, when Klansmen participated heavily as delegates and blocked a platform plank that would have condemned their order. They also entered the presidential race, mostly to oppose the candidacy of Al Smith, who as an anti-prohibitionist and a Catholic was anathema to the group, but also to back a candidate of their own. There was a southern conservative in the race, Sen. Oscar Underwood of Alabama, but he was a critic of the Klan. Instead they endorsed the Californian William McAdoo, son-in-law to the late President Wilson. The convention was deadlocked, and the Democrats wound up picking a compromise candidate, John Davis, whose other claim to fame would be to argue the segregationist side in Brown v. Board of Education three decades later.

But the important thing is McAdoo, the man the Klan actively campaigned for both before and during the convention. What were the man's most notable accomplishments? He had been one of the architects of Wilson's war collectivism, helping create the Council of National Defense and serving as head of the Railroad Administration. And as secretary of the treasury, he had been instrumental in creating one of the Progressive Era's most substantial new interventions in the economy: the Federal Reserve system.

Today the Federal Reserve is more likely to be the object of a Klan conspiracy theory than the source of its favored candidate for president. Today, for that matter, when a movie inspires people to create odd organizations and dress up in costume, they're more likely to end up at a convention devoted to Star Trek than a convention devoted to nominating a presidential candidate. A lot can change in 90 years.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/34134.html

[Odysseus]

You left out "hooded". I like the reference to Star Trek. I didn't realize how closely related those concepts really could be. Interesting.

[Rohirrim]

Only libertarians could equate the Klan and the American progressive movement with a straight face.

[epicSocialism4tw]

Are you saying that you think the Klan is a peaceful fraternity or that you personally know violent Muslims?

My statements are clear, historically accurate and provable. If you want to have a discussion that would involve you either saying something of relevance or refuting my statement with something resembling specifics.


Let me repeat myself....
Originally Posted by quiettiger
Most Muslims are pretty much calm as Buddhists. This is radical Islam. That is kind of like radical Christian. The Ku Klux Klan is a radical Christian organization.


It is ridiculous.

What it tells me is that you know very little about Christianity or about Christian organizations to make such an incongruency into a likeness between two ideologies that are in complete opposition.

Just quit while you are behind. Crikey.

[Spider]

It is ridiculous.

What it tells me is that you know very little about Christianity or about Christian organizations to make such an incongruency into a likeness between two ideologies that are in complete opposition.

Just quit while you are behind. Crikey.

Abortion clinic bombings ........ WACO , Siege at Marion, should I go on ?

[watermock]

I know plenty about the "prophet" Mohammed, and his "Koran", which is basically self justification for various attrocities in the name of Allah.

Perhaps I should re-link his bio.

[Spider]

I know plenty about the "prophet" Mohammed.

Perhaps I should re-link his bio.

Violence is Violence , doesnt matter if Ghandi did something violent .....

[watermock]

In the Third Part of this series on Mohammed's life, I will be focusing on three events that define the nature of Islam's foundations. At this stage, Mohammed had gained power through his assassinations, looting, massacares and raping. The Jewish Tribes of Medinah had been inhabitants of that city for centuries before the Prophet decided to make it the headquarters of his criminal activities. All the Jews were becoming increasingly dissatisfied and angered at the deeds of the Muslims. The Jewish Tribes were peace-loving, hard working tradespeople, whose purpose in life was to earn a decent living through honest means and hard effort. They were perfectly content with the religion of their forefathers and had never anticipated that the man to whom they had given shelter so graciously, would turn into the power crazed monster who was now turning around to attack them. Mohammed was in the position to carry out his hidden ambitions, which became clear soon enough.

With the utmost disregard for all human morality, ethics, or respect for human life, the Prophet of Islam systematically targeted and slaughtered the very Jews of Medinah who had helped him when everyone else in Arabia was kicking him like a dog. He was motivated by these primary reasons


His fanatic greed for all the wealth that had been created by the blood, sweat and toil of the Jews
His maniacal craving for power at any cost. The Jews were the biggest obstacle in his plan to subjugate all of Medinah, so they had to be removed, by any means possible
His fear of all other religions. Mohammed was a delusional Megalomaniac, meaning he believed that he was the Supreme Ruler of the world. Anything that threatened this sick fantasy of his, had to be exterminated. Since, the religion of the Jews rejected his pathetic claims to Divine rule, they were the targeted victims in Medinah, just as the Polytheistic Arabs had been his victims in Mecca.

The incidents narrated below demonstrate the horrific depth of Mohammed's atrocities. Keep in mind that Mohammed is the Model of Good Islamic behaviour and you will realise how Islam advocates genocide in the name of religion.

8) Murder of a Jewish Elder from Khaybar
Date: Late April 626 A.D.
Place: The Jewish Oasis of Khyber
Victims: Abu Rafi

The Muslims who had murdered Kaab Ibn Al Ashraf the famous poet of the Banu-N-Nair (See Prophet of Terror & the "Religion of Peace" Part 2) were considered as heroes by Mohammed and his followers. Murderers were considered as ideal Muslims. A group of Muslims from the Khazraj Tribe decided to prove their loyalty to their Prophet by killing off a respectable member of the Jewish Community. Abu Rafi was an elderly man who had never done anything against Mohammed or the Muslims. He just happened to be the unfortunate target of Mohammed's plot to terrorize the Jews. The Prophet wanted to send out a message to the Jews, which spelt out clearly that Mohammed was in control of their lives. The "expedition" to kill the poor old helpless man had the specific blessings of the "Merciful" Prophet. About Six of them broke into the Old man's house in the middle of the night and slashed him to ribbons as he slept. The cowardly Muslims always assassinated people in this way, while the victim slept, obviously because they had neither the courage nor the strength to fight even a solitary, aged Jewish Man while he was awake. After their crime, the Muslims fled back home into the arms of their expectant Prophet. There was a fight among them as to who had actually killed Abu Rafi. At this, the Prophet smiled beatifically and started checking their swords. Finally, it was decided that the person who owned the sword which still had traces of food in it, was the winner. Apparently Abu Rafi had just finished his dinner before falling asleep and the sword had slashed through his stomach spilling its contents. Indeed how Benevolent was the Apostle of Peace!

9) Massacre, Rape and Plunder of Banu-L-Mustaliq
Date: December 626 A.D.
Place: The well of Muraysi near Red Sea
Victims: The Tribe of Banu-L-Mustaliq

Mohammed attacked the Banu-L-Mustaliq because of their wealth. In a surprise raid, the Muslims drove them to the Sea. They slaughtered many members of the Banu-N-Mustaliq Tribe and looted away a booty of 2000 Camels, 5000 Sheep and 500 Women! 500 women were captured screaming and crying after they had watched their husbands and sons being slaughtered. The most beautiful captive was Juwayriyya, daughter of the chief of the Banu-L-Mustaliq. Mohammed snatched her to satisfy his own animal lust. The captured women were supposed to be returned by the Muslims upon payment of a ransom. But the night after the battle itself, Mohammed and his army raped each and every one of them. One of the men Abu Sa'id Khudri of Mohammed's army reported :

"We were lusting after women and chastity had become too hard for us, but we wanted to get the ransom money for our prisoners. So we wanted to use the "Azl" (Coitus Interruptus- where the man withdraws before ejaculating)...We asked the Prophet about it and he said: "You are not under any obligation to stop yourselves from doing it like that.." Later on the women and children were given for ransom to their envoys. They all went away to their country and not One wanted to stay although they had the choice.."

So the Great Prophet of Peace told his men it was perfectly FINE to rape women as long as you didn't ejaculate inside them (which made them pregnant). What supreme logic! Any human being with the slightest shred of morality has to be nauseated by this Man and the religion he preached. Mohammed, the supreme religious figurehead of Islam sanctions RAPE, pure and simple. Not only did the Muslims commit this horrifying crime, they decieved the Tribesmen into paying Ransom for their womenfolk, who only paid the money in a desperate attempt to save their women's honor. To call such a Prophet and his followers the epitome of Evil is probably an understatement.

10) Massacre of the Banu -Qurayza
Date: April-May 627 A.D.
Place: Medinah
Victims: The Last Jewish Tribe left in Medinah The Banu-Qurayza.

By this time, Mohammed had murdered or driven out all of the Jewish Tribes of Medinah, except the Banu Qurayza. It was time to eliminate this last thorn in his flesh. The Banu Qurayza had been reluctant in helping Mohammed against the Quraysh. Conveniently once again, Mohammed claimed that he had divine knowledge about a conspiracy by the Banu-Qurayza to kill him. He beseiged their fortress for Twenty-Five days. When the starving Tribe surrendered, Mohammed forced an old man from their own Tribe to pronounce Mohammed's sentence. The sentence was death to every male member of the Tribe, Slavery for every woman and child and Plunder of all their property.

The Prophet had an immense trench dug around the main market of Medinah. The men of the Banu Qurayza were rounded up & their hands twisted tightly behind them. Then one by one, they were shoved to the edge of the trench and forced to kneel. They were offered a last chance to convert to "The True Faith" and if they refused, had their heads chopped off. As soon as one head would roll off, the corpse would be kicked into the ditch, and so it went. By the time Dawn had colored the sky red in Medinah, hundreds of corpses piled up in a heap in a tangled cesspool of blood, hair and shreds of flesh. Despite the horrific end in front of their eyes, none of the Jews chose to convert to Islam and faced death valiantly. The blood of 900 innocent Jews stained Mohammed's hands on that black day.

Their only crime was that they chose to retain their fundamental human right, of choosing their own God and the religion of their ancestors. Hysterical women & children screamed as they watched their fathers, husbands & sons die. The majority of them were raped savagely and then bundled off to be sold as "used goods". The Prophet had the husband of the Jewess Raihana Bint Amr hacked to pieces before her very eyes, hours after he had murdered her father. No doubt this was the Prophet's perverted version of a wedding present, because after these atrocities he raped the mortified girl and tried to force her to convert to Islam.

Muslim historians still describe the savage rape of Raihana Bint Amr as her "willing submission to Islam and wifehood to the Prophet"

Apparently according to them it is very natural to imagine that a woman who has just seen her husband, father, brothers and Tribe slaughtered violently before her very eyes, would CHOOSE to convert to the religion of the murderer and marry him! In actual fact Raihana REFUSED to convert to Islam and also refused to marry Mohammed the murderer of her family. He kept her as a lowly concubine all his life. So much for the "Apostle of Peace" and his unbounded RESPECT for women. Mohammed was nothing but a serial rapist, who acquired his victims by killing their families first.

Allah as usual has provided yet another timeless Divine revelation which gives his Prophet the Right to rape and torture women of other religions.

Koran 4:24
"And all married women are forbidden unto you EXCEPT those captives whom your right hand possesses. It is a decree of Allah for you. Lawful unto you are all beyond those mentioned, so that you seek them with your wealth in honest wedlock, not debauchery..."



In short Allah the All Merciful is saying "Hey Muslims, it's a crime to go after married women, but IF they happen to be your captives (which obviously all the non-Muslim women were) feel free to indulge yourself in rape and sexual torture of them. "lawful unto you are all beyond those mentioned" Allah is making it LEGAL for Muslims to go ahead and rape Non-Muslim women by Divine Law!

One shudders to imagine what kind of minds invented such utterly sadistic and disgusting ideas.

Mohammed justified all his crimes against the Jews with more of Allah's revelations. Although the following Surahs were not revealed at the same time as the Massacre of Banu Quraizyah, they nevertheless give a general idea of the Prophet's views on Jews and why it is perfectly fine to kill, loot and rape them.

Koran 5:51
O you who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is one of them. Lo allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.

Koran 5:64
The Jews say: "Allah's hand is fettered." It is THEIR hands that are fettered and they are ACCURSED for saying so. Nay, but both his (Allah's) hands are spread in bounty. He bestoweth as he will. That which hath been revealed unto thee from thy Lord is certain to increase the contumacy and belief of many of them, And We have cast among them (The Jews) Enmity and Hatred till the day of Resurrection. As often as they light a fire for war, Allah extinguishes it!

The above verses clearly demonstrate the Muslim's hatred of Jews as prescribed by their Prophet. They also expose the hollow claims of Muslims, about Islam being a peaceful religion that always co-existed with Judaism and Christanity. The innumerable, unwarranted massacres of Jews by Mohammed, tell this story in the clearest terms. These historical events form the basis of the Islamic code of behaviour. Therefore the recent genocide of Hindus, Christians and Jews by Muslims all over the world should come as no surprise whatsoever.

Next week we will explore more such exploits of the "Apostle of Peace" and assess the depth of the darkness into which he had flung the Land of Arabia.

The Works "The Glorious Quran" by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, "The Meaning of the Glorious Quran" by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, "Mohammed" by Maxime Rodinson, and "Muhammad" by Martin Lings have been used to compose this article.
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/mohwar3.html

[watermock]

And as far as "progressive Deocrats, their roots are indeed intermingled with the KKK.

It dates as far as the carpetbagging north, which Lincoln tried to at least, resist.

Lee surrendered, but the war really hasn't ended to this day.

[Spider]

No the KKK root are deep with Dixiecrats , and in Indiana .

[epicSocialism4tw]

Abortion clinic bombings ........ WACO , Siege at Marion, should I go on ?

Maybe you can go on and, just as one person wins the lottery by chance out of nearly impossible odds, you can stumble upon a more specific answer than the nearsighted stereotypical cognitive surrenders that you usually throw out there unimpeded by better sense.

[gyldenlove]

Crikey, man. Can you read?

1. The investigation started before Obama got into office.

2. The investigation had nothing to do with the executive office.

It is crazy, it seems that you can foil terrorrism with good old police work and investigation.

[barryr]

Or dumb luck like the truck bomb not doing the damage intended back in '93 in NY with Clinton in charge.

[Spider]

Maybe you can go on and, just as one person wins the lottery by chance out of nearly impossible odds, you can stumble upon a more specific answer than the nearsighted stereotypical cognitive surrenders that you usually throw out there unimpeded by better sense.It is so simple , since Muslims didnt do those things , they really dont count ....... All Christians would never engage in this kind of activity , Christians would never ever invade or support an invasion of a country that wasnt democratic ......

[alkemical]

If we actually took time to listen there would be no terrorists. I am not saying butter over bullets but we don't know ourselves much less our friends or enemies. We spend a lot of time whistling in the dark and calling it singing.


I agree... there are some interesting papers on 4th Generation Warfare and 5GW - and we still keep using 3rd generation warfare - which keeps perpetuating the same results time and time again.

It's obsolete.

[Odysseus]

It is ridiculous.

What it tells me is that you know very little about Christianity or about Christian organizations to make such an incongruency into a likeness between two ideologies that are in complete opposition.

Just quit while you are behind. Crikey.

Catholic and Protestants killed each other for years. In the 1960's it was considered radical to have a Christian president. Jim Crow laws were popularly supported by Christian leaders. Martin Luther King was hated in parts of this country by conservative Christian leaders.

I am talking about historical context and where things come from. Christianity has been divided since Martin Luther (1500s) started the Protestant reformation. It is not exclusively a right wing religion and yet when you talk about religion now days that is all that is worthy discussing. I think that is a little self serving. How can Christian religion be so divided and yet all Muslims are the same? Irony how those we disagree with are "them" and "we" in our rightness have no willingness to listen. It is a tragedy in spiritual context.

The incongruity is that religion continues to defile spirituality rather enhance it. The bible is nothing more than a mirror. A mule looks in and as a rule a mule will always look out. My point was directed to the mules which are of late many.

[Odysseus]

I agree... there are some interesting papers on 4th Generation Warfare and 5GW - and we still keep using 3rd generation warfare - which keeps perpetuating the same results time and time again.

It's obsolete.

When we first went into Afghanistan I used to quote "The Art of War" in my signature which at that time was not popular. The jokes at the time we were going to create a lake out of Afghanistan and build a Club Med. Gas would be down to .15 per gallon and life would be wonderful.

What has actually happened? What have we learned? We still victimize ourselves with our own inability to listen, learn or react. We are one year away from collapsing both wars and walking away bloodied, tired, and beaten.

There is no technology we have that can fix Pakistan. If we don't learn to listen, to dialog and be open to other approaches we will continue to miss our real opportunity to eliminate mistakes and move forward.

[Odysseus]

No the KKK root are deep with Dixiecrats , and in Indiana .

Why anyone would dispute this is amazing.

[alkemical]

When we first went into Afghanistan I used to quote "The Art of War" in my signature which at that time was not popular. The jokes at the time we were going to create a lake out of Afghanistan and build a Club Med. Gas would be down to .15 per gallon and life would be wonderful.

What has actually happened? What have we learned? We still victimize ourselves with our own inability to listen, learn or react. We are one year away from collapsing both wars and walking away bloodied, tired, and beaten.

There is no technology we have that can fix Pakistan. If we don't learn to listen, to dialog and be open to other approaches we will continue to miss our real opportunity to eliminate mistakes and move forward.

Agreed. This is why moving out of the ages of the digital age-era of thinking (binary) - into the new quantum world we are faced with (we recognize more and more our connections to everything - our actions, the probabilities/possibilities of our outcomes, etc). You can see the hemorrhage start to happen. People are beginning to see the ramifications of things...but they aren't quite there yet. They still don't want to take that long look in the mirror.

So right now, you see the rationality and morality of children. The "get mines" philosophies is old and IMO, i see a large part of that coming to an end - but what bothers me - is there is a choice:

To do it by will and make the change now

or

Wait until everything is so f'd up that someone/circumstance/etc puts you in a position that you learn that's not working.


Back to the children comment, i don't see many people working towards the idea that everyone needs to pitch on these things. You don't see it from companies who are dicking employees on pay (record profits but you pay your workers **** - in a bad econ - is very selfish) and healthcare.

Everything is a reflection of who we are. Our gov't, our business, etc etc - it all reflects us. Right now, we keep saying how great and awesome we are - but all of our toys are breaking and nobody wants to cooperate with us...cuz well - we aren't very good on our word.

Sorry, this didn't go where i intended -so you got a rant for breakfast.

[epicSocialism4tw]

Catholic and Protestants killed each other for years. In the 1960's it was considered radical to have a Christian president. Jim Crow laws were popularly supported by Christian leaders. Martin Luther King was hated in parts of this country by conservative Christian leaders.

The entire country was in large part "Christian", and white Christians led the charge for the ending of slavery in the US. It was in churches, workplaces, and homes that the underground railroad made its stops.

I see the role of the philosophy of Christianity during that period as being one that fought to increase the amount of freedom for people of that time, and to extend slaves the grace of God despite their confused neighbors.

There were Christians on both sides of the argument, and the Christians that wanted the freedom of slaves has won out, as slavery is not espoused my any major theologian in America today.

This is yet another example of the intellectual flexibility of Christian philosophy, which has led the charge in just about every great western philosophical advance, including the most significant philosophical advance of our time: science.

I am talking about historical context and where things come from. Christianity has been divided since Martin Luther (1500s) started the Protestant reformation. It is not exclusively a right wing religion and yet when you talk about religion now days that is all that is worthy discussing. I think that is a little self serving. How can Christian religion be so divided and yet all Muslims are the same? Irony how those we disagree with are "them" and "we" in our rightness have no willingness to listen. It is a tragedy in spiritual context.

Christianity has always been divided. In the earliest days of the Church (right after Christ ascended), Peter and Paul argued incessantly about which direction Christian philosophy would go in. Peter wanted it to be legalistic and exclusive, made largely of and for converted Jews. Paul saw it as a new branch of Judaism that left alot of the old traditions behind and included non-Jewish believers.

Just because there is division doesnt make Christs impact any less powerful.

The incongruity is that religion continues to defile spirituality rather enhance it. The bible is nothing more than a mirror. A mule looks in and as a rule a mule will always look out. My point was directed to the mules which are of late many.

Well, I dont think that this is necessarily true. Every man formulates philosophy. Religious, practical, aesthetic, ontologic, epistemologic, etc. Every man filters his experience through his own philosophical matrix and comes up with a formula that he has faith in. It is from this that systematic philosophies are born. They tend to reflect culture more than anything else. The great thing about Jesusin this regard, is that he transcends culture. He went out of his way to address non-Jews. Not only that, but Paul's contribution to the canon of the bible contains quite a bit of apologetics directed towards Greeks...using their gods and philosophical meandering to illuminate Christ. He did a great job of it, too, as he himself provided much of the intellectual foundation for early Christianity in several mediterranean cultures.

Anyhow...people are people. They are flawed and they make mistakes. From HUGE mistakes to the miniscule. This is why Christianity is such a beautiful religion. It accepts this fact, and it extends God's hand out in loving forgiveness in spite of the fact that we war, enslave, and kill. Remember, in Christian belief, everyman is responsible for the crucifixion and torture of Christ. That includes me, you...everyone. We are all capable of this and live our lives like that daily. In spite of our disgusting nature, God still tries to make us right and efforts to bring us into his presence.

[Odysseus]

Agreed. This is why moving out of the ages of the digital age-era of thinking (binary) - into the new quantum world we are faced with (we recognize more and more our connections to everything - our actions, the probabilities/possibilities of our outcomes, etc). You can see the hemorrhage start to happen. People are beginning to see the ramifications of things...but they aren't quite there yet. They still don't want to take that long look in the mirror.

So right now, you see the rationality and morality of children. The "get mines" philosophies is old and IMO, i see a large part of that coming to an end - but what bothers me - is there is a choice:

To do it by will and make the change now

or

Wait until everything is so f'd up that someone/circumstance/etc puts you in a position that you learn that's not working.


Back to the children comment, i don't see many people working towards the idea that everyone needs to pitch on these things. You don't see it from companies who are dicking employees on pay (record profits but you pay your workers **** - in a bad econ - is very selfish) and healthcare.

Everything is a reflection of who we are. Our gov't, our business, etc etc - it all reflects us. Right now, we keep saying how great and awesome we are - but all of our toys are breaking and nobody wants to cooperate with us...cuz well - we aren't very good on our word.

Sorry, this didn't go where i intended -so you got a rant for breakfast.

I could not agree more.

I was listening to the audiobook Globality (Compete everywhere with everyone over everything) and realized how far behind we had become. We have mere neophytes in capitalism kicking our selfish asses at the game we created. We are so intent on freezing time and fighting change that we are missing a clear opportunity to retake leadership.

Do you ever listen to Rush Limbaugh's radio show? Listen to the commercials. It is hilarious. You will hear commercials on erectile dysfunction, balding, back ache, and every ailment or handicap based on a man's "inability" to be a man. It is a fascinating. We are, in effect, in a national debate with balding cheese dicks who fantasize about being "men".

[watermock]

Spontaneous causality has been proven but is not yet understood.

String theory/dark matter stuff...

[Odysseus]

Quote:
Originally Posted by quiettiger
Catholic and Protestants killed each other for years. In the 1960's it was considered radical to have a Christian president. Jim Crow laws were popularly supported by Christian leaders. Martin Luther King was hated in parts of this country by conservative Christian leaders.

The entire country was in large part "Christian", and white Christians led the charge for the ending of slavery in the US. It was in churches, workplaces, and homes that the underground railroad made its stops.

White Christians started slavery. White Christians stopped slavery. Ultimately, it was not the invention of the cotton gin, which should have made slave holding useless, but a bloody, selfish, soul grinding war that ended after sheer numeric superiority and National will created one nation. The Underground Railroad did not stop anything. It was a resistance movement. The war is what ended slavery.

America’s strength comes from diversity. Two Irish Generals fighting on opposite sides of the Civil war had a bitter debate after the war. The Confederate General ended the argument succinctly with a basic truth. "The reason the North won the War Between the States is they had more Irish!" There is more than a grain of truth to that.

Slavery that prospered America is and was some of the most brutal in history. Freeing slaves only to strap them with jobs share cropping and keeping them in line with murder, lesser education, lesser jobs, Jim Crow rules should make any Gay Rights supporter pale to make such comparisons. My point is this. I would not cite Religion as any kind of proof of piety. As a former bible teacher I can tell you for a fact the devil always comes on time, sits in the front row and makes sure everyone sees his “generous” offering.

I see the role of the philosophy of Christianity during that period as being one that fought to increase the amount of freedom for people of that time, and to extend slaves the grace of God despite their confused neighbors.

There were Christians on both sides of the argument, and the Christians that wanted the freedom of slaves has won out, as slavery is not espoused my any major theologian in America today.

This is yet another example of the intellectual flexibility of Christian philosophy, which has led the charge in just about every great western philosophical advance, including the most significant philosophical advance of our time: science.

Christianity always was and always will be about obedience to Christ. It does not care about political issues, buildings, traditions, and asks Christians to “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar” It puts love first. It puts grace as the cornerstone of faith and not our own understanding. Its heart and soul is about one question “Who do you say that Christ is?” The bible is a book of questions and the real spirituality hidden in parables, stories and requires a student to study, reflect and live regardless of what estate you come from. There are 38,000 (+/-) Christian denominations in the world. This is a VERY flexible religion. There are only two denominations of Muslims. They are either Sunni (85%) or Shiite (15%) This religion is growing in number. How do you have 2 BILLION Muslims and only have trouble with a few thousand and suddenly Islam is dangerous? That is cowardice talking. The numbers do not support anything else. <http://www.islamicweb.com/begin/population.htm>

Most of the changes do not come FROM the church but through it. People use church to justify their lack of spirituality. Churches are hospitals, which mean ultimately they are stopping points for spirituality. The REAL Christians are bound to Christ. They are not bound to buildings, books, or the typical things you would think. This belief is heresy by they way and is considered Christian anarchy because what purpose would a church serve if “everybody got to do whatever they wanted to do.” Thus the Christian paradox unfolds.
http://christianity.about.com/od/denominations/p/christiantoday.htm

Quote:
I am talking about historical context and where things come from. Christianity has been divided since Martin Luther (1500s) started the Protestant reformation. It is not exclusively a right wing religion and yet when you talk about religion now days that is all that is worthy discussing. I think that is a little self serving. How can Christian religion be so divided and yet all Muslims are the same? Irony how those we disagree with are "them" and "we" in our rightness have no willingness to listen. It is a tragedy in spiritual context.

Christianity has always been divided. In the earliest days of the Church (right after Christ ascended), Peter and Paul argued incessantly about which direction Christian philosophy would go in. Peter wanted it to be legalistic and exclusive, made largely of and for converted Jews. Paul saw it as a new branch of Judaism that left alot of the old traditions behind and included non-Jewish believers.

Just because there is division doesnt make Christs impact any less powerful.


Is Jesus in Jeans is wrong? In a religion that morphs to whatever face wants to wear it. How can that be possible? I personally think this is interesting because it makes Jesus real, but what is the irony of blue-eyed blond haired man walking the earth in a time when everyone in a part of the continent of Africa where everyone had brown skin and wooly hair? <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5318718/Jesus-in-jeans-sculpture-unveiled.html>
You could argue the strength of Christianity is it’s ability to change but how do you separate culture from religion?

Quote:
The incongruity is that religion continues to defile spirituality rather enhance it. The bible is nothing more than a mirror. A mule looks in and as a rule a mule will always look out. My point was directed to the mules which are of late many.

Well, I dont think that this is necessarily true. Every man formulates philosophy. Religious, practical, aesthetic, ontologic, epistemologic, etc. Every man filters his experience through his own philosophical matrix and comes up with a formula that he has faith in. It is from this that systematic philosophies are born. They tend to reflect culture more than anything else. The great thing about Jesusin this regard, is that he transcends culture. He went out of his way to address non-Jews. Not only that, but Paul's contribution to the canon of the bible contains quite a bit of apologetics directed towards Greeks...using their gods and philosophical meandering to illuminate Christ. He did a great job of it, too, as he himself provided much of the intellectual foundation for early Christianity in several mediterranean cultures.

Jesus transcends culture? I don't think that is true. Jesus was a specific person in a specific time frame.

Anyhow...people are people. They are flawed and they make mistakes. From HUGE mistakes to the miniscule. This is why Christianity is such a beautiful religion. It accepts this fact, and it extends God's hand out in loving forgiveness in spite of the fact that we war, enslave, and kill. Remember, in Christian belief, everyman is responsible for the crucifixion and torture of Christ. That includes me, you...everyone. We are all capable of this and live our lives like that daily. In spite of our disgusting nature, God still tries to make us right and efforts to bring us into his presence.

Life is about growth and part of that is understanding our starting point.

[Odysseus]

This thread is officially gey.