The Qur'an on Sodom

And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.
And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.
And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.
And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:
Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:
Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.
Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. Genesis 19: 1-25

It isn't just the Bible that condemns homosexual acts. The Qur'an makes several references to Sodom. The following passages are from the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation of the Qur'an (Lut is the Qur'anic rendition of Lot):

We also (sent) Lut: He said to his people: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you?
"For ye practise your lusts on men in preference to women : ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds."
And his people gave no answer but this: they said, "Drive them out of your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!"
But we saved him and his family, except his wife: she was of those who legged behind.
And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime! Surah 7 (Al-Araf): 80-84

When Our messengers came to Lut, he was grieved on their account and felt himself powerless (to protect) them. He said: "This is a distressful day."
And his people came rushing towards him, and they had been long in the habit of practising abominations. He said: "O my people! Here are my daughters: they are purer for you (if ye marry)! Now fear Allah, and cover me not with shame about my guests! Is there not among you a single right-minded man?"
They said: "Well dost thou know we have no need of thy daughters: indeed thou knowest quite well what we want!"
He said: "Would that I had power to suppress you or that I could betake myself to some powerful support."
(The Messengers) said: "O Lut! We are Messengers from thy Lord! By no means shall they reach thee! Now travel with thy family while yet a part of the night remains, and let not any of you look back; but thy wife (will remain behind): To her will happen what happens to the people. Morning is their time appointed: Is not the morning nigh?"
When Our Decree issued, We turned (the cities) upside down, and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer,-
Marked as from thy Lord: Nor are they ever far from those who do wrong! Surah 11 (Hud): 77-83

The people of Lut rejected the apostles.
Behold, their brother Lut said to them: "Will ye not fear (Allah)?
"I am to you an apostle worthy of all trust.
"So fear Allah and obey me.
"No reward do I ask of you for it: my reward is only from the lord of the Worlds.
"Of all the creatures in the world, will ye approach males,
"And leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? Nay, ye are a people transgressing (all limits)!"
They said: "If thou desist not, O Lut! thou wilt assuredly be cast out!"
He said: "I do detest your doings."
"O my Lord! deliver me and my family from such things as they do!"
So We delivered him and his family, all.
Except an old woman who lingered behind.
But the rest We destroyed utterly.
We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)! Surah 26 (Ash-Shuara): 160-173

(We also sent) Lut (as an apostle): behold, He said to his people, "Do ye do what is shameful though ye see (its iniquity)?
Would ye really approach men in your lusts rather than women? Nay, ye are a people (grossly) ignorant!
But his people gave no other answer but this: they said, "Drive out the followers of Lut from your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!"
But We saved him and his family, except his wife; her We destined to be of those who lagged behind.
And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)! Surah 27 (An-Nami): 54-58

And (remember) Lut: behold, he said to his people: "Ye do commit lewdness, such as no people in Creation (ever) committed before you.
"Do ye indeed approach men, and cut off the highway?- and practise wickedness (even) in your councils?" But his people gave no answer but this: they said: "Bring us the Wrath of Allah if thou tellest the truth."
He said: "O my Lord! help Thou me against people who do mischief!"
When Our Messengers came to Abraham with the good news, they said: "We are indeed going to destroy the people of this township: for truly they are (addicted to) crime."
He said: "But there is Lut there." They said: "Well do we know who is there : we will certainly save him and his following,- except his wife: she is of those who lag behind!"
And when Our Messengers came to Lut, he was grieved on their account, and felt himself powerless (to protect) them: but they said: "Fear thou not, nor grieve: we are (here) to save thee and thy following, except thy wife: she is of those who lag behind.
"For we are going to bring down on the people of this township a Punishment from heaven, because they have been wickedly rebellious." Surah 29 (Al-Ankaboot) 28-34

Vatican representative in Britain calls for alliance with Jewish and Muslim groups to combat same-sex "marriage"

As reported by John Bingham of London's Daily Telegraph, April 27, 2012:

Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Apostolic Nuncio, called for closer co-operation with other faiths as well as Christian denominations to put pressure on the Government over its plans to allow same-sex couples to marry.

In an address to Catholic bishops from England and Wales, he echoed the recent comments of Pope Benedict who said the Church faced “powerful political and cultural currents” in favour of redefining marriage.

His comments come after a series of high-level interventions by some Muslim and Jewish leaders last month after the Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, launched a national consultation on how same-sex marriage might be introduced.

Last month the Muslim Council of Britain voiced opposition to the plans, describing it as “unnecessary and unhelpful”.But, as the Islamic faith in Britain does not have the same hierarchical structures as Christian Churches, much of the Muslim opposition has been voiced through local alliances.

In Scotland, the Council of Glasgow Imams recently agreed a joint resolution describing same-sex marriage as an "attack" on their faith and fundamental beliefs.

Opinion in the Jewish community has been more sharply divided. The Liberal and Reform synagogues have given their support to same-sex marriage but rabbis within the main United Synagogues have expressed opposition.

The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, who is retiring, has so far resisted pressure to voice opposition to the proposal.

But Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of Mill Hill United Synagogue in north London, who advises him on family issues, recently accused the Coalition of launching an “assault” on religious values.

Meanwhile Lord Singh, head of the Network of Sikh Organisations, recently said the proposed reforms represented “a sideways assault on religion”.

Addressing English and Welsh bishops at their plenary meeting in Leeds, Archbishop Mennini, warned them they faced a “lengthy and probably difficult campaign”.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t ask for and look for more support among other Christian confessions and indeed, persons of other faiths,” he said.

“It seems to me that, concerning the institution of marriage, and indeed the sanctity of human life, we have much in common with the position of the Jewish community, the Chief Rabbi and many of the more significant representatives of Islam.”

Speaking in London yesterday the second most senior active Catholic cleric in England and Wales, Archbishop Peter Smith, of Southwark, said there had been no “formal” contact with Jewish groups to form a united front on the subject of marriage.

But he said: “We will work with anyone who agrees with us that to redefine marriage is not a good thing for society and will lead to more confusion.”

He criticised the Government’s plans as “dangerous” and lacking in the usual consultation processes required for major legislation.

“It has not been thought through,” he said.

“It is a very dangerous way to go forward in terms of legislation on such a vital topic.”

Archbishop Smith added: “We are working as best we can with all sorts of different faith groups, the Church of England is very much along the same lines as ourselves on this.

“I went to see Theresa May back in February and the Church of England was well represented.”

In a reference to suggestions that the redefinition of marriage could challenge the Anglican position as the established church, the Archbishop said: “It is particularly difficult for the Church of England because of all the legal ramifications of it.

“There are something like 3,000 mentions of marriage in various statutes and it is quite clear that the Government has not thought through the implications of the changes they are proposing.”

He also defended the right of Catholic schools to promote the Church’s position on marriage following accusations of “political indoctrination” from secular and humanist campaigners.

Israeli rabbis disagree on same-sex "marriage"

As the old saying goes, where there are two Jews, there will be three opinions. As reported by Kobi Nahshoni of Ynet News on August 29, 2011:

Senior Religious Zionism Rabbis Yaakov Ariel, Haim Drukman and Elyakim Levanon have withdrawn their support from a recent initiative seeking to match between religious homosexuals and lesbians until the religious and ethical aspects of the issue are clarified, Ynet has learned.

The three even demanded that the Kamoha association, which is part of the matchmaking initiative, immediately remove their names from the list of supporters on the association's website – until further notice.

In the past few days, the rabbis have been asked to explain their support for the initiative. They clarified that despite being involved in the matter, they did not approve the final version of the initiative, which was made public.

Rabbi Ariel claimed in writing that he had had no contact with the Kamoha association, but only with a particular rabbi, and that "the real solution for those with reversed tendencies is psychological treatment."

Rabbi Drukman declared, "I never engaged in this issue," while Rabbi Levanon clarified that he "urges guys with unhealthy inclinations to seek the proper treatment for the sake of furthering repair."

Rabbis Ariel and Drukman are refusing to address the issue and explain their stand, but Ynet has learned that they have not ruled out matches between homosexuals and lesbians. They believe that this option must be discussed seriously and thoroughly, including the halachic and mental aspects of such a move.

They also believe that the issue of whether the initiative should be made public must be discussed as well. In the coming days they plan to engage in the issue, and until they make a decision they refuse to be linked to the initiative.

Rabbi Levanon, on the other hand, said he had no intention of expressing his full support or objection, explaining that each case must be examined individually.


Early launch

The three rabbis feel that Rabbi Arale Harel, who initiated the new project, took things too fast when he launched the initiative based on their agreement in principle, and without receiving their final approval.

They three are also unhappy with the involvement of the Kamoha organization, due to the objection of some of them to organizations bringing together religious gays.

If at the end of the inquiry Ariel and Drukman refuse to publicly support the initiative, the plan will likely suffer a heavy blow as the two were the most senior religious leaders linked to it.

Rabbi Menachem Burstein, head of the Jewish fertility organization Puah Institute, who supports the initiative, admitted that Rabbi Harel was wrong to have rushed to link the rabbis to the project, but added that he had no doubt that all Religious Zionism rabbis would eventually support it.

According to Burstein, a homosexual and lesbian planning to marry through the new project are required to present a letter from a therapist confirming that they have tried to become straight but failed, promise to remain faithful to each other as long as they are married and accept psychological guidance for them and their children – three conditions aimed at meeting any rabbinical or professional objection to the matter.

The project's initiator, Rabbi Harel, told Ynet that "throughout the years that the matchmaking initiative has been conducted, the abovementioned rabbis have been escorting the idea with their advice and resourcefulness. Now, after it has been made public, they have expressed reservations over its public aspect, as well as additional questions relating to a small number of the couples.

"These reservations were presented to me in talks I had with the rabbis, and therefore we stopped publishing their names as supporters of the initiative until the issue is clarified. Apart from the abovementioned rabbis, there are others who support this initiative and their names will be published soon."

Most American non-Orthodox Jews support same-sex "marriage"

As reported by Ron Kampeas of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 11, 2012:

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- As soon as President Obama wrapped up the television interview in which he endorsed same-sex marriage, he called an evangelical minister who advises him to offer a heads up. Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, made a similar call to the Orthodox Union.

The calls, made Wednesday before excerpts from the interview hit the Internet, demonstrated the White House's determination to preempt any backlash that the endorsement might engender from religious groups. Obama administration officials have been careful to emphasize that the president also backs protections for religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage.

“He called to inform us about what the president was going to announce and put it in context,” Nathan Diament, the OU’s executive director of public policy, said of the call from Lew, himself an Orthodox Jew.

The move appeared to have yielded some dividends.

The OU said in a statement that it was “disappointed" by the president’s new stance and reiterated Orthodox Jewish opposition to "any effort to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions." But the group also said that it “appreciated” Obama's praise of New York State's same-sex marriage law, which offers some protections for religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage.

The Jewish community's reactions to Obama’s remarks were auspicious for the White House: There was great enthusiasm from most quarters, along with restrained criticism from Orthodox Jewish opponents of same-sex marriage. Obama notably did not pair his endorsement of same-sex marriage with any nods toward a legislative effort, since he says the issue should be left to the states.

Polls have found that upwards of three-quarters of American Jews support same-sex marriage. Outside the Orthodox world, Jewish groups generally back it as well.

Words like “historic” peppered statements by Jewish groups welcoming Obama’s remarks.

“It is a significant and historic step forward in the pursuit of equal opportunity, individual liberty and freedom from discrimination,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement, “and underscores the fact that no American should be denied access to the benefits of civil marriage because of his or her sexual orientation...”

...The Reform movement’s Religious Action Center described the president's remarks as “a key moment in the advance of civil rights in America.”

"These rights are due no less to same-sex couples than heterosexual ones, as the president’s comments today acknowledge," the RAC said.

Among other groups praising the president's endorsement were the National Council of Jewish Women, Hadassah, the National Jewish Democratic Council and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Another Orthodox umbrella group, Agudath Israel of America, refrained from directly criticizing Obama in its statement, noting that the president was expressing his “personal feeling.”

Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudah’s director of public affairs, told JTA in an email that the president’s endorsement was “unfortunate” to the degree that it advanced the cause of same-sex marriage. But Shafran also noted that “The president was clear about the fact that he was sharing the fruits of his own personal contemplation of the issue, not advancing any new federal initiative. He is leaving the definition of marriage to each state's electorate.”

That was the balance sought by the White House, according to an administration insider. In addition to Lew's call to Diament after the interview was recorded and before ABC released excerpts, Obama called Joel Hunter, an evangelical megachurch pastor who has been one of the president's spiritual advisers.

Hunter told The Washington Post that while he disagreed with the president’s new position, it did not damage their relationship. But Hunter told the paper that he was concerned about the effect that the push for same-sex marriage would have on religious liberty.

“If there is a law that you cannot discriminate between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples, then eventually there will be pressure on the Church to obey the law,” Hunter said. “And there will be lawsuits that come testing this thing, and we just know that we will certainly be pressured to conform to the law.”

While the White House tried to reassure religious conservatives by stressing the measured nature of the president's remarks, this did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of Jewish supporters of same-sex marriage.

“It will be a milestone in American history for gay rights,” Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Religious Action Center, told JTA. “He was laying down a marker about his personal commitment and not trying to deal with the policy issue. His statement provides momentum.”

Deborah Lauter, the ADL’s civil rights director, said the president’s statement follows a series of legislative advances on gay rights issues.

She listed the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy that kept gay troops closeted, the extension of hate crimes laws to include gay victims, and the administration’s refusal to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in court. She noted the recent momentum in Congress to pass legislation that would protect gay employees from being fired on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“It is more of a symbolic statement, but the administration has been doing concrete steps,” she said.

Jewish groups that oppose same-sex marriage may have adopted a measured tone in response to the president’s remarks, but there were still signs that the issue can be divisive within the Jewish community.

Agudah blasted the National Jewish Democratic Council for describing Obama's statement as advancing "tikkun olam," or the Jewish imperative to make the world a better place.

"To imply that a religious value like 'tikkun olam' -- and by association, Judaism -- is somehow implicated in a position like the one the president articulated is outrageous, offensive and wrong," Agudah said. "We hereby state, clearly and without qualification, that the Torah forbids homosexual acts, and sanctions only the union of a man and a woman in matrimony."

The NJDC’s chair, Marc Stanley, had referenced Obama's "unmatched record of progress in favor of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans."

"President Obama has admirably continued to demonstrate the values of tikkun olam in his work to make America a better place for all Americans," Stanley said. "I am truly proud of President Obama and know that so many others in the Jewish community share my feelings.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition, which does not take a position on same-sex marriage, highlighted on its Twitter feed the statements of the OU and Agudah. Pressed by a Democratic activist on Twitter, however, the RJC said it did not necessarily support the groups' views. "But we do acknowledge that Orthodox Jews and traditional Jewish views exist," the RJC tweeted.

40 years ago: New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller vetoes anti-abortion bill

On May 13, 1972, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who, two years earlier, had signed the most liberal abortion bill in the United States, vetoed a bill that had passed the state’s assembly and senate, repealing the law that permitted elective abortions through the 24th week of pregnancy. Mr. Rockefeller denounced the way in which backers of the repeal bill exerted pressure in an election year, and said he could see “no justification” for condemning women to “the dark ages” again. He stated in his veto message, "I do not believe it right for one group to impose its vision of morality on an entire society." Of course, Mr. Rockefeller was ignoring that it was two "groups"--the upper and lower houses of the New York state legislature--who had passed the law, and that he was, as an individual, imposing his vision of morality on an entire society by vetoing the bill.

Eight days earlier, U.S. President Richard Nixon, charging that several key suggestions by his Commission on Population Growth and the American Future “would do nothing to preserve and strengthen close family relationships,” had rejected such measures as abortion on demand, unrestricted distribution of family-planning services, and making contraceptive devices available to minors. The following day, a letter from Mr. Richard Nixon to Terence Cardinal Cooke, Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, was released, showing that the president backed Cardinal Cooke’s stand against abortion on demand. Two years earlier, New York had passed the U.S.A.’s most liberal abortion law, permitting elective abortions through the 24th week of pregnancy.

State laws against abortion became a moot point on January 22, 1973 with the Supreme Court of the United States', decision in the Roe v. Wade case, which had the effect of permitting abortions for any reason at any point of pregnancy, resulting in the destruction of millions of innocent lives. Nelson Rockefeller was well-known as a womanizer, and it's no coincidence that men who behave in this way have a history of supporting abortion as a way of avoiding the consequences of their actions. Nelson Rockefeller died under suspicious and embarrassing circumstances on January 26, 1979, suffering a fatal heart attack while in an "intimate" position working on an art book with aide Megan Marshack.

U.S. Presbyterian minister says that evolution makes transhumanism inevitable

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:1-5

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Romans 1:21-22

The following article is evidence of how far astray people can go as a result of belief in Darwinian macroevolution. I John 3:2, of course, is referring to Christians in the future after He takes us to be with Him, not to humanity in general as a result of evolution, as implied by Mr. Douglas. As reported by David Yonke of the Toledo Blade, April 21, 2012:

Welcome to the posthuman world. Everyone is smart, tall, good looking, free from disease, and, some predict, will live forever.

The Rev. Mark Douglas, a Presbyterian minister, theologian, ethicist, and professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga., said in a lecture in Sylvania that transhumanism is "inevitable," as long as humanity continues to exist. In extrapolating natural evolution as described by Darwin, and given enough time, the human race will undergo significant genetic and biological changes, he said.

According to this theory, evolution will lead to a long-term progression from humans to transhumans to posthumans -- "a hypothetical future being whose capabilities and features are so different from ours that the term 'human' would seemingly no longer apply," Mr. Douglas said in a lecture Monday night at Sylvania United Church of Christ, the fourth installment in the church's "Scientists in Congregations" series.

Mr. Douglas, in his talk titled "What does it mean to be a human person? What the Bible says and what modern biology and medicine tell us," crammed a semester's worth of college-level material into an hour lecture, reviewing a number of theories about the future of the human race, from scientific, theological, and ethical perspectives.

Natural evolution is one of four ways that the posthuman might emerge, Mr. Douglas said. The others are biologically through intentional genetic modification, mechanically via nanotechnological integration of robotic and artificial-intelligence systems, and coercively via cooperation by another species.

Of the four possibilities, he said, the least likely is coercive transhumanism, as the "you will be assimilated" threat made by the Borg in Star Trek.

Citing the vast distances between celestial bodies and, as far as is known, the lack of suitable interstellar propulsion, Mr. Douglas assured the audience of about 150, "You can go to bed at night not worrying about the Borg."

The other three possibilities, by contrast, are under way, albeit weakly, Mr. Douglas said.

Natural transhumanism is an extension of Darwinian evolution involving gradual changes over multiple generations resulting in a new species.

Each of the theories has its problems, however, and with natural transhumanism they include that 96 percent of species do not evolve but become extinct.

In addition, Mr. Douglas said, human beings, unlike other species, can avoid the need to adapt to their environment because they alone have the ability to change their surroundings.

Theologically, one can find support in the Bible for transhumanism, he said, citing Scriptures that describe a future change or transformation. For example, I John 3:2 states that we "will be like him, for we will see him as he is."

Process theologians such as Marjorie Suchoki assert that "humanity is always in a process of becoming," Mr. Douglas said, while 20th century French theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin espoused a cosmology that integrated Christianity and continual evolution.

But posthumanism in the Christian framework is unique in that it is advental, hinging on divine intervention rather than on a series of progressions.

Biological transhumanism involves the intentional modification of the human genome, not just to cure disease but also to enhance natural, desirable traits such as intelligence, height, and good looks, Mr. Douglas said.

Scientists are already experimenting with gene splicing in mice and other creatures, and rapid advances are under way in mapping the human genome.

But genetic modification raises a wide range of religious, ethical, and practical concerns, he said, from dealing with the complexities of genetics to questions on whether positive changes would be available only to the wealthy and how or where to draw the line when human beings "play God."

Mechanical transhumanism, as espoused by author and scientist Ray Kurzweil, integrates human minds with machines. Mr. Douglas said Mr. Kurzweil believes there are people alive today who will never die because they will be able to "download" their thoughts and memories to a machine.

The philosophical, ethical, and religious problems and questions raised by mechanical transhumanism are virtually endless, he pointed out.

In summarizing the theology of posthumanism, Mr. Douglas said Christianity is shaped by the belief that "God is doing something new to us, and that, therefore, we neither can nor need to transform ourselves."

Rather than naive optimism or nihilistic cynicism, Christians ought to practice "prophetic hope," he said.

"Believe in a better future because God is doing something."

South Sudan: An oasis of pro-Israel sentiment in Africa

As reported by Armin Rosen of Ynet News on May 17, 2012:

JUBA, South Sudan (JTA) – This city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital.

For one thing, most of the city’s inhabitants are Christian. For another, the Israeli flag is ubiquitous here.

Miniature Israeli flags hang from car windshields and flutter at roadside stalls, and at the Juba souk in the city’s downtown, you can buy lapel pins with the Israeli flag alongside its black, red and green South Sudanese counterpart...

...Many South Sudanese are not just pro-Israel but proudly and openly so. There’s a Juba neighborhood called Jerusalem. A hotel near the airport is called the Shalom.

Perhaps most notable, South Sudan’s fondness for Israel extends to the diplomatic arena, where the two countries have been building strategic ties in a relationship that long preceded the founding of South Sudan last July...

...South Sudan was created last year when its residents voted to secede from Sudan, a country with a Muslim majority and without diplomatic ties to Israel. The government in Khartoum accepted the secession, but in recent weeks a long-simmering dispute over oil revenues and borders has brought the two Sudans to the brink of all-out war.

With Sudan having often served as a safe haven for enemies of Israel and the West, the South Sudanese and Israel have had a common adversary.

In the mid-1990s, Osama bin Laden found shelter in Sudan. In 1995, Sudanese intelligence agents participated in an attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, an ally of Israel and the West. Khartoum signed a military cooperation agreement with Iran in 2008, and in 2009, Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed a 23-truck weapons convoy in Sudan bound for the Gaza Strip.

The first contact between militants from southern Sudan and the Israeli government was in 1967, when a commander with the Anyana Sudanese rebel movement wrote to then-Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. The officer explained that his militants were fighting on Sudan’s southern flank, and that with some help, the Anyana could keep Israel’s enemies bogged down and distracted.

According to James Mulla, the director of Voices of Sudan, a coalition of U.S.-based Sudanese-interest organizations, Israel’s support proved pivotal to the Anyana’s success during the first Sudanese civil war, which ended in 1972.

“Israel was the only country that helped the rebels in South Sudan,” Mulla told JTA. “They provided advisers to the Anyana, which is one reason why the government of Sudan wanted to sign a peace agreement. They wanted to finish the Anyana movement just shortly before they got training and advice.”

Over the years, there have been reports of the Israelis continuing to aid South Sudanese rebels during Sudan’s second civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2005 and resulted in an estimated 1.5 million to 2.5 million deaths.

Angelos Agok, a U.S.-based activist and a 13-year veteran in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, recalls that the SPLM’s ties to Israel were kept discrete.

“It was an intricate case, where South Sudan was still part of Sudan, which is an Arab country,” Agok said. “We didn’t want to offend them, and we had to be very careful diplomatically.”

Agok said SPLA leaders traveled to Israel for training. The Israeli government declined to comment on the subject.

Koren says the relationship with South Sudan is consistent with Israel’s strategic interests in East Africa, where state failure and political extremism have provided terrorist groups with potential bases of operation...

...Agriculture is another reason for the alliance. South Sudan’s economic future likely depends on large-scale farming. There was little commercial development in the region during the war years, and the country still imports much of its food from Uganda, despite sitting on some of Africa’s richest potential farmland.

It's an area in which Israel has deep expertise, and it shares that expertise in ongoing cooperative projects with numerous developing countries...

...Israel already has a small presence in the country in the form of IsraAid, an Israeli NGO coalition. In March, an IsraAid delegation helped South Sudan set up its Ministry of Social Development, which will provide social work-related services for a population traumatized by decades of war...

...Eliseo Neuman, who is director of the American Jewish Committee’s Africa Institute and traveled to Juba with the SPLM when South Sudan was still under Khartoum’s control, says the close ties between Israel and South Sudan could complicate both countries’ relationships with the Arab world.

“The north was blamed by the Arab League generally for fumbling the secession, and some allege that now they have the Zionists on their southern frontier -- meaning the South Sudanese,” Neuman said. “Any very overt strengthening of the relationship might be an irritant.”

The relationship faces another potential pitfall: the future of the estimated 3,000 South Sudanese living in Israel who fled to Israel via Egypt during the long civil war.

Israel has struggled with how to handle the migrants and differentiating between those who came seeking refuge from violence and those who came in search of economic opportunity.

Israel “takes its obligations as a signatory to the Refugee Convention very seriously, given the history of the Jewish people and the history of many people who ended up coming to Israel,” said Mark Hetfield, an official at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society who in two weeks will become its interim president and CEO. “But at the same time, they need to send a signal to people coming for economic reasons that they can’t sneak into the country under the guise of being asylum seekers.”

In February, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced plans to begin deporting South Sudanese who would not accept government financial incentives to leave the country voluntarily.

Hetfield, who is now senior vice president at HIAS for policy and programs, helped oversee a program in Israel that taught job skills to South Sudanese who planned on returning home, but the program was suspended when the threat of deportation loomed.

Hetfield says the group would like the Israeli government to grant South Sudanese a “temporary protected status” that would prevent them from being deported to their unstable homeland.

Mulla does not think that the Israeli refugee issue will have an impact on the broader strategic alliance between South Sudan and Israel. However, he said he has raised the issue of the possible deportations with the South Sudanese ambassador in Washington, and hopes that something can be done to halt the process...

...Advocates for the Africans are appealing to Israel’s Supreme Court in an attempt to stall or halt the deportations.

Israeli rabbi refers to Gentiles as brainless people with no good principles

We're constantly hearing about Gentile anti-Semitism, but we seldom hear about Jewish anti-Gentilism. Fortunately, Ynet News isn't shy about reporting it, as they did with this example--and the rebuttal from another rabbi--on May 21, 2012:

Speaking in Beit Shemesh ahead of the Shavuot holiday, Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, one of the leaders of the Lithuanian branch of haredi Judaism discussed the importance of the torah and said that the world was created for the righteous that learn and follow its teachings.

Yet he also issues some more controversial statements. The rabbi's speech which was published in full in the haredi newspaper Yated Ne'eman, included statements on non-Jews:

"There are eight billion people in the world. And what are they? Murderers, thieves, brainless people… But who is the essence of this world? Has God created the world for these murderers? For these evil-doers? "

The rabbi, who has replaced Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv as the Lithuanian branch of Judaism's spiritual leader, reiterated his statements and went on to say: "Non-Jews have no connection to torah. The nations have nothing, no confidence (=faith) and no good principles."

The majority of Rabbi Shteinman's statements focused on the importance of torah and its influence on the day to day life and on the education of the next generation. The rabbi stressed that "those who don't study torah, are not fulfilling the mitzvoth. If he doesn't study torah it leads to devastation, his devastation, and the world's devastation…

"This is what we need to aspire to, to see all the children, all our generations, make sure the sons study torah…anyone and everyone who wants to see "nachas" (joy) from their children needs to make sure they study torah.

"If not torah they will be illiterates and no joy will come of them. Even if he has money, is that the goal (in life)? Can you take money to the grave with you? There is no such thing. What do you have in the grave (afterlife)? Torah."

The Chairman of Hiddush (for Religious Freedom and Equality), Rabbi Uri Regev said in response to Rabbi Shteinman's statements: "It is incredible and outrageous to hear these hate filled statements against almost the entire human race.

"Rabbi Shteinman once again exposes the fact that his fable of moderateness was at best groundless and at worst an act of deceit."

Israeli rabbi says that helping Gentiles injured in accidents violates the Sabbath

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. Luke 10:25-37

But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Luke 11:42

Things don't seem to have changed much since our Lord's time on Earth. As reported by Ynet News, May 17, 2012:

What should religious doctors do if a gentile is injured in a car accident on Shabbat and is rushed to the hospital? According to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, this does not warrant violating the sanctity of the Sabbath.

During a class on Sabbath halacha relating to religious physicians, the spiritual leader of Shas said that while doctors are expected to do everything in their power – even if it requires violating the Sabbath – in order to save Jews whose lives are in danger, the same does not apply for gentiles.

"If a gentile were to get injured in a car accident during Sabbath, and he is brought to the hospital – Israel must not treat him," he said, explaining that "if the particular procedures come from rabbis (de-rabbanan), then they might be permitted, but if they stem from prohibitions in the Torah (de-'oraita), then they are not allowed, as the Torah forbids to violate the Sabbath for gentiles."

Rabbi Yosef expounded on the problem, saying that the Mishnah Berurah explicitly says that "all religious physicians who treat gentiles on the Sabbath or violating the Sabbath; however, in reality the patients are brought to the hospital and must be treated. The doctors' license says they must treat all patients without distinction of faith or race, and if they don’t, the State could revoke their license and also punish them. So what should the poor doctors do?"

The rabbi offered a halachic solution that follows a rule by which if a single person is doing the act, he is violating the Sabbath, while if two people are doing it together, they are exempt.

"The doctor who needs to operate will call on another doctor, or nurse, to hold the scalpel together and make the incision," said Rabbi Yosef, saying that "it is necessary in order for religious physicians to refrain from being put on trial for distinguishing between a Jew and a gentile on Sabbath."

20 years ago: Dan Quayle criticizes Murphy Brown

On May 19, 1992, U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle addressed the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on the subject of the Rodney King riots (the riots by blacks in the South-Central area of Los Angeles that followed the acquittal of four white police officers of the the beating of black criminal Rodney King)and developments that had led to a "culture of poverty" in the United States. Here are some excerpts:

When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in LA., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame. Yes, I can understand how people were shocked and outraged by the verdict in the Rodney King trial. But there is simply no excuse for the mayhem that followed. To apologize or in any way to excuse what happened is wrong. It is a betrayal of all those people equally outraged and equally disadvantaged who did not loot and did not riot-and who were in many cases victims of the rioters. No matter how much you may disagree with the verdict, the riots were wrong. And if we as a society don't condemn what is wrong, how can we teach our children what is right?

But after condemning the riots, we do need to try to understand the underlying situation.

In a nutshell: I believe the lawless social anarchy which we saw is directly related to the breakdown of family structure. personal responsibility and social order in too many areas of our society. For the poor the situation' is compounded by a welfare ethos that impedes individual efforts to move ahead in society, and hampers their ability to take advantage of the opportunities America offers.

If we don't succeed in addressing these fundamental problems, and in restoring basic values, any attempt to fix what's broken will fail. But one reason I believe we won't fail is that we have come so fur in the last 25 years.

There is no question that this country has had a terrible problem with race and racism. The evil of slavery has left a long legacy. But we have faced .racism squarely, and we have made progress in the past quarter century. The landmark civil rights bills of the 1960s removed legal barriers to allow full participation by blacks in the economic, social and political life of the nation. By any measure the America of 1992 is more egalitarian, more integrated, and offers more opportunities to black Americans - and all other minority group members - than the America of 1964. There is more to be done. But I think that all of us can be proud of our progress.

And let's be specific about one aspect of this progress: This country now has a black middle class that barely existed a quarter century ago. Since 1967 the median income of black two-parent families risen by 60 percent in real terms. The number of black college graduates has skyrocketed. Black men and women have achieved real political power - black mayors head 48 of our largest cities including Los Angeles. These are achievements.

But as we all know, there is another side to that bright landscape. During this period of progress, we have also developed a culture of poverty - some call it an underclass - that is far more violent and harder to escape than it was a generation ago.

The poor you always have with you, Scripture tells us. And in America we have always had poor people. But in this dynamic, prosperous nation, poverty has traditionally been a stage through which people pass on their way to joining the great middle class. And if one generation didn't get very far up the ladder - their ambitious, better-educated children would.

But the underclass seems to be a new phenomenon. It is a group whose members are dependent on welfare for very long stretches, and whose men are often drawn into lives of crime. There is far too little upward mobility, because the underclass is disconnected from the rules of American society. And these problems have, unfortunately, been particularly acute for Black Americans.

Let me share with you a few statistics on the difference between black poverty in particular in the 1960s and now.

In 1967 68% of black families were headed by married couples. In 1991, only 48% of black families were headed by both a husband and wife.
In 1965 the illegitimacy rate among black families was 28%. In 1989, 65% - two thirds - of all black children were born to never married mothers.
In 1951 9.2% of black youth between 16-19 were unemployed. In 1965, it was 23%. In 1980 it was 35%. By 1989, the number had declined slightly, but was still 32%.
The leading cause of death of young black males today is homicide.

It would be overly simplistic to blame this social breakdown on the programs of the Great Society alone. It would be absolutely wrong to blame it on the growth and success most Americans enjoyed during the 1980s. Rather, we are in large measure, reaping the whirlwind of decades of changes in social mores.

I was born in 1947, so I'm considered one of those "Baby Boomers" we keep reading about. But let's look at one unfortunate legacy of the "Boomer" generation. When we were young, it was fashionable to declare war against traditional values. Indulgence and self-gratification seemed to have no consequences. Many of our generation glamorized casual sex and drug use, evaded responsibility and trashed authority.

Today the "Boomers" are middle-aged and middle c1ass. The responsibility of having families has helped many recover traditional values. And, of course, the great majority of those in the middle class survived the turbulent legacy of the 60s and 70s. But many of the poor, with less to fall back on, did not.

The intergenerational poverty that troubles us so much today is predominantly a poverty of values. Our inner cities are filled with children having children; with people who have not been able to take advantage of educational opportunities; with people who are dependent on drugs or the narcotic of welfare. To be sure, many people in the ghettos - struggle very hard against these tides - and sometimes win. But too many feel they have no hope and nothing to lose. This poverty is, again, fundamentally a poverty of values.

Unless we change the basic rules of society in our inner cities, we cannot expect anything else to change. We will simply get more of what we saw three weeks ago. New thinking, new ideas, new strategies are needed...

...And for those concerned about children growing up in poverty, we should know this: marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program of all. Among families headed by married couples today, there is a poverty rate of 5.7 percent. But 33.4 percent of families headed by a single mother are in poverty today.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Where there are no mature, responsible men around to teach boys how to be good men, gangs serve in their place. In fact; gangs have become a surrogate family for much of a generation of inner-city boys. I recently visited with some former gang members in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a private meeting, they told me why they had joined gangs. These teenage boys said that gangs gave them a sense of security. They made them feel wanted, and useful. They got support from their friends. And, they said, "It was like having a family." "Like family" - unfortunately, that says it all.

The system perpetuates itself as these young men father children' whom they have no intention of caring for, by women whose welfare checks support them. Teenage girls, mired in the same hopelessness, lack sufficient motive to say no to this trap...

...Ultimately however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural consensus, and the use of social sanctions. Bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply, wrong. Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this.

It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice."

I know it is not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to do it. Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood; network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in , this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. Now it's time to make the discussion public.

It's time to talk again about family, hard work, integrity and personal responsibility. We cannot be embarrassed out of our belief that two parents, married to each other, are better in most cases for children than one. That honest work is better than hand-outs - or crime. That we are our brothers' keepers. That it's worth making an effort, even when 'the rewards aren't immediate.' So I think the time has come to renew our public commitment to our Judeo-Christian values--in our churches and synagogues, our civic organizations and our schools. We are, as our children recite each morning, "one nation under God." That's a useful framework for acknowledging a duty and an authority higher than our own pleasures and personal ambitions.

If we lived more thoroughly by these values, we would live in a better society. For the poor, renewing these values will give people the strength to help themselves by acquiring the tools to achieve self-sufficiency a good education, job training, and property. Then they will move from permanent dependence to dignified independence.

The reader will note that the reference to Murphy Brown was just a minor point near the end of the speech, but of course, that's what the ignoramuses (ignorami?) in the media picked up on, and Mr. Quayle was widely ridiculed for criticizing a fictional television character. The bias against Mr. Quayle that was already present in the media was so strong that few people bothered to examine or debate the entire content of his speech. An exception was The Atlantic Monthly, whose April 1993 issue carried the lengthy cover story by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead titled Dan Quayle Was Right. Unfortunately for Mr. Quayle, the article was published too late to prevent his re-election as Vice-President, as he and President George Bush were defeated in the November 1992 election. The one part of Mr. Quayle's speech with which I disagree is near the beginning, where he takes issue with the Japanese view that America's ethnic diversity is a weakness, as opposed to Japan's homogeneity, and says, "our diversity is our strength." 20 years later, that comment seems more questionable than ever, and not just in the United States. The increasing "diversity" of Trudeaupia (still officially known as Canada) has considerably weakened the unity of the society.

I have a long memory, and when media people in 1992 began ridiculing Dan Quayle for criticizing Murphy Brown, I remembered that 20 years earlier, in 1972, there had been serious discussion by liberals in the media about whether it was proper for the television comedy series All in the Family to feature the bigoted character named Archie Bunker. For example, see some the references in Nina Shevzov-Zebrun's May 27, 2011 essay Archie Bunker. Another example was the cover story of the June 1972 issue of Ebony magazine, Is Archie Bunker the Real White America? by Charles L. Sanders. Those unable to remember 1972 may find it hard to believe that Archie Bunker was such a popular character that Mad magazine had a mini-poster on the back cover of one issue reading "Nixon and Bunker in '72," and that Archie Bunker was entered into nomination as a candidate for Vice-President of the United States at the Democratic National Convention that summer.

British man arrested in Thailand for possession of roasted human fetuses

As Paul Harvey used to say, "It is not one world." As reported by Ian MacKinnon of the Daily Telegraph (London), May 18, 2012:

A British man has been arrested in Thailand after being found with six foetuses that had been roasted and covered in gold leaf as part of a black magic spirit ritual.

The corpses of the unborn baby boys were found packed in a suitcase in his hotel room in Bangkok’s Chinatown district.

Chow Hok Kuen, 28, who holds a British passport but is of Taiwanese origin, confessed to police that he had bought the foetuses several days earlier for almost £4,000. The source of the foetuses is unclear.

He said he intended to smuggle them to Taiwan where they would be sold for as much as six times what he paid on the internet to people who believe that their possession would bring wealth and good luck.

The man told police that that he was hired by another Taiwanese man, named Kun Yichen, who regularly travelled to Thailand to collect the ritualistic foetuses.

Worship of the foetuses — observed by some on the Chinese community — is a Buddhist-animist practice known as Kuman Thong that is described in ancient Thai manuscripts.

In Thai black magic rituals, also observed among some Chinese communities, preserved foetuses are believed to bring good fortune to the owner and are often kept in shrines within homes or businesses.

It required male foetuses surgically removed from the womb that were then dried as black magic incantations were said over the body, before it was covered in gold leaf. Kuman Thong means “golden baby boy”.

Lore has it that if the owner reveres the ritual foetus, its spirit will warn and protect its possessor of danger. In practice the foetuses have been replaced by wooden effigies.

Chow Hok Kuen faces up to a year in jail and a fine of £40 for possession of the foetuses, which police said showed development of between two and eight months.

Officers made the gruesome discovery in the hotel in the Yaowarat district of Bangkok, where they found that the foetuses had also been tattooed and were adorned with religious threads.

Col Wiwat Kamhamnan, of Bangkok police, said: “He said he planned to sell the foetuses to clients who believe they will make them lucky and rich.”

Abortion is illegal in Thailand unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or poses a threat to the mother’s health.

But women’s rights groups estimate that up to 400,000 Thai woman undergo abortions each year.

Last year two undertakers and woman who collected foetuses from illegal abortion clinics were jailed after more than 2,000 corpses were found at a temple morgue when the furnace for the crematorium broke down.

Former U.S. Roman Catholic priest sentenced to 60 years in prison for hiring a hit man to kill teenage boy who accused him of sexual assault

As reported by Melissa Cutler of Fox News, May 18, 2012:

DALLAS -

A former Catholic priest convicted in a murder-for-hire plot was sentenced to 60 years in prison late Friday afternoon.

John Fiala was convicted for trying to hire someone to kill a 16-year-old who accused him of sexual assault. The 53-year-old Garland resident was once a priest in the San Antonio area.

Prosecutors said he discussed the plot with a neighbor who turned him in. Then police set up an undercover sting operation where Fiala offered to pay a hit man $5,000.

Fiala's attorneys tried to argue that a neighbor was the one who hatched the scheme. But Fiala testified his neighbor had no motive.

While the sentence fell short of a life sentence, prosecutors are still calling it a victory.

Fiala also still faces the original sex abuse charges. The teenage victim accused him of sexually assaulting him at gunpoint in 2008.

For more detailed reporting on this incident, see The church and the priest by Abe Levy in the San Antonio Express-News on February 23, 2011 and Father John Fiala: Did This Priest Hire a Hit Man? by Alex Tresniowski in People, February 28, 2011.

Mayan idea of time goes beyond 2012

Don't blame an error in the Mayan calendar if the world doesn't end on December 21, 2012. As reported by Belind McCallum in The Epoch Times, May 10, 2012 (updated May 14, 2012):

Ninth-century hieroglyphs painted by a Mayan scribe in Guatemala are records of lunar and perhaps planetary cycles, forming the oldest known Mayan calendar.

The city of Xultún was discovered almost a century ago in the remote rainforest of the Petén region and covers 12 square miles. It was once home to many thousands of people, and monuments were constructed from the first centuries B.C. Only 56 structures have been counted and mapped among thousands more.

Led by William Saturno from Boston University, a team of archeologists has now excavated the calendar keeper’s room, which seems to be part of a house. This is the first time that Mayan paintings have been discovered on the walls of a house.

Despite damage by looters, numerous red and black glyphs, and various human figures are visible on the three intact walls. Calculations on the east wall refer to the lunar cycle, whereas the more obscure calculations on the north wall could be linked with Mars, Mercury, or Venus.

According to the researchers, Mayan calendars aimed to harmonize sacred rituals with celestial events.

“For the first time we get to see what may be actual records kept by a scribe, whose job was to be official record keeper of a Maya community,” said Saturno in a press release.

“It’s like an episode of TV’s ‘Big Bang Theory,’ a geek math problem and they’re painting it on the wall,” he added. “They seem to be using it like a blackboard.”

However, there is no indication that our world will end in 2012; rather, it will just enter another cycle.

“It’s like the odometer of a car, with the Maya calendar rolling over from the 120,000s to 130,000,” said study co-author Anthony Aveni at Colgate University in the release. “The car gets a step closer to the junkyard as the numbers turn over; the Maya just start over.”

The red and black calculations on one of the walls seem to represent the various calendrical cycles, ranging from the 260-day ceremonial calendar to the 780-day cycle of Mars.

“There are tiny glyphs all over the wall, bars and dots representing columns of numbers,” said decipherer David Stuart at the University of Texas–Austin in the release.

“It’s the kind of thing that only appears in one place—the Dresden Codex, which the Maya wrote many centuries later,” he continued. “We’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Mayan Codices were books written on bark paper a few centuries before Christopher Columbus landed in 1492.

When one enters the room, the north wall lies ahead, featuring a seated king adorned with blue feathers. Painted in bright orange, another man is carrying a pen, identifying him as the resident scribe, who may also have been the king’s son or younger brother.

“The portrait of the king implies a relationship between whoever lived in this space and the royal family,” Saturno explained.

Four long numbers on this wall show one-third of a million to 2.5 million days, stretching about 7,000 years into the future. These numbers seem to combine all the astronomical cycles important to the Maya, such as those of Mars, Venus, and lunar eclipses. Such a tabulation of all of these cycles has never been found before.

“The most exciting point is that we now see that the Maya were making such computations hundreds of years—and in places other than books—before they recorded them in the Codices,” Aveni said.

“The ancient Maya predicted the world would continue, that 7,000 years from now, things would be exactly like this,” Saturno said.

“We keep looking for endings. The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change,” he concluded. “It’s an entirely different mindset.”

Go here for the abstract of the article by Mr. Saturno et. al. in the May 11, 2012 issue of Science.

Beauty may be returning to art

As time has gone on, people in Western culture have become surrounded by an almost monolithic consensus. That is to say, the same basic dichotomy—in which reason leads to pessimism and all optimism is in the area of non-reason—surrounds us on every side and comes to us from almost every quarter. In the various disciplines, the first place this perspective was taught was in philosophy…Then it was presented through art…

…as art became the vehicle for modern man’s view of the fragmentation of truth and life.

As philosophy had moved from unity to a fragmentation, this fragmentation also carried into the field of painting. The fragmentation shown in post-Impressionist paintings was parallel to the loss of a hope for a unity of knowledge in philosophy. It was not just a new technique in painting. It expressed a world view…

…The historical flow is like this: The philosophers from Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Kierkegaard onward, having lost their hope of a unity of knowledge and a unity of life, presented a fragmented concept of reality; then the artists painted that way. It was the artists, however, who first understood that the end of this view was the absurdity of all things. Temporally these artists followed the philosophers, as the artists of the Renaissance had followed Thomas Aquinas. In the Renaissance it was also philosophy, followed by the painters (Cimabue and Giotto), followed by the writers (Dante). This was the same order in which the concept of fragmented reality spread in the twentieth century. The philosophers first formulated intellectually what the artists later depicted artistically.

Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (1976), pp. 183, 184, 190


And now, for some good news: It seems that beauty and realism may be returning to art. As reported by Evan Mantyk in The Epoch Times, March 7, 2012:

NEW YORK—A new vigor for classical arts, like another Renaissance, is in the air at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, in Manhattan, where the lifelike sculptures of Sabin Howard are now on exhibit through March 22.

“Real art uplifts you, it transforms you,” said award-winning novelist Traci L. Slatton, who is also Howard’s wife.

Under the various banners of classicism, realism, and art that is simply “uplifting,” Slatton and other accomplished professionals from the art and literary world gathered on March 2 to celebrate Howard’s works—many of which depict gods in the Greek and Roman tradition and took Howard years to create.

“Looking is the point, beauty is the point, mastery is the point,” said Slatton in an opening speech that condemned the highly conceptual direction of abstract and contemporary art today. “Sabin Howard’s pieces lack irony; this is a deliberate choice.”

The event was not simply an exhibit but a call for a revival of traditional techniques and uplifting subject matter.

Stefano Acunto, chairman of the Italian Academy Foundation, which hosted the exhibit, implored, “Let us work to build upon the work of the greatest achievers, to improve upon it, and to develop it organically—much as Sabin Howard is doing.”

To this end, Acunto, who is also an honorary vice consul of Italy, released a new 10-point art manifesto at the event. A few of the points include “demand elevation, not degradation in subject matter and focus”; “seek reason and clarity, instead of celebrating unreason and emptiness”; and “cultivate devotion to the classics in every form.”

Lamenting the current state of the art world, Acunto said, “Our art spurns reason in a tipsy, self-inebriated and self-anointed binge of self-expression, attempting to capture the soul of our age by holding up a mirror of its very emptiness.”

One Hundred Years
Some of the speakers said the contemporary art world has been off-track for as long as 100 years.

Slatton pointed to artist Marcel Duchamp, who was known as a Dadaist and Surrealist. Duchamp’s 1917 work “Fountain” is, at least, on a superficial level, a urinal hoisted on a pedestal.

“It would have been fine for five or ten minutes of intellectual entertainment or shock value, but it’s 100 years later and art is still being flushed down the toilet,” Slatton said. “I’m here to tell you, the emperor has no clothes.”

James E. Cooper, editor of American Arts Quarterly, puts the point of initial decline somewhere between World War I and World War II, with the decline gradually becoming more pronounced. He said he could see the change when he was attending the Pratt Institute. At first, he said such art institutions had it right.

“The idea of discipline, of the academy, of tradition, of virtue, of morality, of excellence, of beauty, of God, of spirituality, of inspirations, were structured into an art education,” said Cooper.

Then Cooper went away to fight in the Korean War for three years and returned to find things had changed at the Pratt.

“All over the walls were white paintings, black paintings, just a white square [in the painting], a black square, a white square in a black square, a black square in a white square, ad infinitum,” he said.

Cooper said he understands the original intent of such works. Artists in Europe felt like they couldn’t trust people who ran their countries, so they used art as a form of protest. But questioning tradition only goes so far, he found.

“There’s one thing that the modernists didn’t truly understand because they were so full of dedication and promise to changing the future. They didn’t realize that without a story, without a myth, without a sense of history, without a sense of philosophy, without a tie to Western civilization, or whatever civilization, you cannot create great art,” Cooper said.

‘Morbidly Inflated’
Today, after decades of modern art that has run counter to what Cooper has called “great art,” a large portion of the art market has begun to thrive on such modern art.

“The art market is self-generating, like an inflated economy, the currency is essentially morbidly inflated,” Acunto said. “I’m telling you what you know but what is simply not said.”

But the speakers found hope in works like those of Sabin Howard that embrace tradition and are still selling well. Howard’s newest series of sculptures are selling in the six-figure range, and his prospective buyers include the likes of Elton John.

Peter Trippi, editor of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine and former director of the Dahesh Museum of Art, confirmed this trend.

“There is a market there, and it’s definitely getting healthier,” Trippi said.

Trippi also said that art education around the country is slowly changing, with many students seeking out traditional arts outside of universities.

“Rest assured, there are energetic and really talented young people out there who want to make art like this,” he said, pointing to Howard’s sculpture.

Instead of going to universities to get regular bachelor of fine arts degrees, many students are instead opting for earning certificates at ateliers that specialize in classical arts.

“The good news is those programs are working out really well. Slowly we are seeing the universities offer programs that resemble those ateliers because they know where the bread is buttered, and they know that they have to keep an eye on that market of young people,” Trippi said.

‘You know if it’s great’
Laz Avlon, a fashion model and blogger attending the presentation, said it made sense to him. “I think most people agree but they don’t feel like saying anything,” Avlon said. “They go into the art galleries, they see things, but they don’t feel it’s their place to criticize.”

“The speakers [at the presentation] use the word ‘discern’; most people don’t discern anymore.” He said people go into an art gallery, and they all scratch their chins and muse, but they know in their hearts.

He related a recent experience when he went to an art viewing in the Lower East Side, and the piece on view was simply a carpet rolled up. “It wasn’t even a rug. … It was just a carpet,” Avlon said.

“When you see something, right away you know if it’s great,” he said.

As reported by Zachary Stieber in The Epoch Times, May 11, 2012 (updated May 17, 2012):

NEW YORK—Patricia Watwood and two other artists came together at the Forbes Galleries, where she currently has an exhibition through June 9, to espouse the virtues of contemporary classical realist art while searching for clarity about the oft-misunderstood field.

“Our work is not usually ironic, overly self-reflective, morbid, or nihilistic,“ she explained. “It’s based in traditional methods, it embraces beauty as an emotional and rhetorical language, it uses naturalistic representation, and it is built on the twin cores of Western art—nature and design.”

Many portraits are featured in Watwood’s exhibition, including her daughter, lost in a Harry Potter novel while waiting for dinner; a female Middle Eastern neighbor, depicting how all cultures are human; and two self-portraits, one done while she was pregnant.

The figures provoke contemplation and evoke sensitivity. A fair number are nudes, painted in a similar fashion to what one might see at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., circa the 13th and 14th centuries.

Her highest aspiration is to create artworks that bring a magical and spiritual energy to the viewer.

She said that she and the two other artists “haven’t seen any need to overthrow traditional forms.” “These traditional forms continue to work exactly, perfectly well, to wrestle with this idea about what does it mean to be human, how do we address that in art—that’s what we’re interested in,” she added.

People may have a perception of realism that it is just looking and painting. The process is “actually a complete transformation of looking, thinking, meditating, creating,” Watwood said.

She then read a quote from Sabin Howard’s and her former teacher: “I try to make art which reaffirms to the viewer that there is a value in human life. It should fire the sense that one is not alone, and that one is part of a group with similar needs, longing, hopes, dreams, fears, desires, which transcend time.”

“There is time enough for the things we value: time to craft a painting, to study, to learn, to enjoy, to sit still, and to contemplate a picture and the world it contains,” Peter Trippi, art historian and editor of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine, quoted Watwood in his introduction to the exhibition.

Trippi added, “Beyond their sheer beauty, what excites me the most [about the paintings], is their enveloping stillness...”

...Through her art, Watwood said she wants to communicate and make people care about the world and the subject in the painting. In her notes, she expressed a desire for her paintings to connect spiritually with both subjects and viewers and also to be “visual poems awaiting your interpretations...”

...Myths and legends—which many traditional works are based on—provide excellent opportunities to express different ideals about what it means to be a human being, spirituality without being stuck in a certain religion, and the big questions of our time, Watwood said. She and Howard noted the shift back toward heroism in popular culture, several days before “The Avengers” came to the theaters.

Howard often sculpts Greek gods, using the mythology as a springboard to evoke visceral reactions from people.

“When you do it correctly, it’s so complicated, a painting or a sculpture, that it mimics the rest of the universe because you have this system of hierarchy where all the smaller parts fit correctly into the larger parts,” he said.

“That visual complexity triggers something in you in a visceral way that there’s no way you can stop it. This is a new wave that’s starting to fall and it’s shifting in a way that I really believe is unstoppable,” Howard said.

When Presidents' worldviews collide: Barack Obama vs. Richard Nixon on homosexuality

White House occupant Barack Obama on same-sex marriage, as stated in an interview with ABC News, May 9, 2012:

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

...

It's interesting, some of this is also generational. You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same-sex equality or, you know, sexual orientation, that they believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it. You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we're talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently. It doesn't make sense to them and, frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.

...

This is something that, you know, we've talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it's also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that's what we try to impart to our kids and that's what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I'll be as a as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better I'll be as president.

U.S. President Richard Nixon's opinion of homosexuality, as stated in a White House conversation with aides John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, May 13, 1971:

NIXON: ... CBS ... glorifying homosexuality.

EHRLICHMAN: A panel show?

H. R. HALDEMAN: No, it's a regular show. It's on every week. It's usually just done in the guy's home. It's usually just that guy, who's a hard hat.

NIXON: That's right; he's a hard hat.

EHRLICHMAN: He always looks like a slob.

NIXON: Looks like Jackie Gleason.

HALDEMAN: He has this hippie son-in-law, and usually the general trend is to downgrade him and upgrade the son-in-law--make the square hard hat out to be bad. But a few weeks ago, they had one in which the guy, the son-in-law, wrote a letter to you, President Nixon, to raise hell about something. And the guy said, "You will not write that letter from my home!" Then said, "I'm going to write President Nixon," took off all those sloppy clothes, shaved, and went to his desk and got ready to write his letter to President Nixon. And apparently it was a good episode.

EHRLICHMAN: What's it called?

NIXON: "Archie's Guys." Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy. He's obviously queer--wears an ascot--but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who used to play professional football. Virile, strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar.

I don't mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.

EHRLICHMAN: But he never had the influence television had.

NIXON: You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin' the nuns; that's been goin' on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That's what's happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France.

Let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.

EHRLICHMAN: It's fatal liberality.

NIXON: Huh?

EHRLICHMAN: It's fatal liberality. And with its use on television, it has such leverage.

NIXON: You know what's happened [in northern California]?

EHRLICHMAN: San Francisco has just gone clear over.

NIXON: But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time--it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco.

Decorators. They got to do something. But we don't have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the goddamned designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they're trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.

EHRLICHMAN: Hot pants.

Nixon: Jesus Christ.

Needless to say, it's regrettable that a president believed by many to be a Christian would use our Lord's name as a profanity. The television program, of course, was not called "Archie's Guys," but All in the Family, which had been running on CBS only since January 12, 1971. The first episode cited by Mr. Haldeman is Writing the President, which aired on January 19, 1971. The episode cited by Mr. Nixon is Judging Books by Covers, aired on February 9, 1971. In that episode, it was not Mike (Archie Bunker's son-in-law), but a friend of his (derisively labelled "Sweety Pie Roger" by Archie Bunker) who was the one suspected by Archie of homosexuality.

On the subject of hot pants--the big fashion fad of 1971--I was in grade 6 in the spring of 1972 when the girl in my class whom I had a crush on wore hot pants to school one day just for my benefit. Unfortunately, I was sick at home that day, and missed what would have been a memorable sight. At the time, I regarded this as one of life's little regrets, but she moved away the following year, and I never did see her in hot pants. It's amazing how the passage of 40 years can turn one of life's little regrets into one of life's big regrets.

25 years ago: U.S. Commerce Department approves patenting new forms of animal life

On April 16, 1987, the United States Commerce Department announced that inventors would be permitted to patent new forms of animal life through such techniques as gene splicing and genetic engineering. The policy forbade the patenting of new genetic characteristics in humans. A coalition of animal welfare and public policy groups was immediately formed to oppose the new policy. Dr, Michael Fox, a veterinarian and scientific director of the Humane Society, warned that “the entire creative process…is going to be redirected or controlled to satisfy purely human ends,” adding, “We are not only playing God, we are assuming dominion over God."

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid want to return to Toronto sodomite Pride Parade

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:24-32

The city once known as "Toronto the Good" becomes "Toronto the Godless" more with each passing day. It's hard to think of anything more representative of the state of Trudeaupian muticulturalism than an anti-Israel segment of the anti-God sodomite "community" wanting to put its views on parade. What's a politically-correct Trudeaupian multiculturalist to do when politically-correct worldviews collide?

As reported by Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star, May 15, 2012:

The activist group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid plans to return to the Pride parade this summer, raising the possibility of another battle over whether to provide city money to the major gay festival.

The group, also known as QuAIA, skipped Pride last year to deny Mayor Rob Ford what it called a “pretext” to withdraw the city’s grant.

“We decided we didn’t want to be the scapegoat for Pride not getting funding from the city. But this year, we feel, well, it’s time to go back,” QuAIA member Tony Souza said Tuesday. “We are a queer group in the city. It so happens that the issue we’re talking about is controversial, but that doesn’t mean that the work that we do, which is basically for justice for people, should not be celebrated.”

City officials have recommended that council give Pride $123,807. That would amount to about 8 per cent of the festival’s $1.6 million budget, co-chair Francisco Alvarez said.

The Pride festival, to be held June 22 to July 1, will publish a list of groups in early June that have registered to participate. If a resident then submits a complaint about QuAIA to the festival’s dispute resolution body, as is likely, a panel of legal experts will render a final decision on whether it can march.

In 2010, council asked city manager Joe Pennachetti to decide whether QuAIA contravenes the city’s anti-discrimination policy. He concluded that it does not, saying “there is no legal precedent” to suggest the phase “Israeli apartheid” constitutes a hate crime or a violation of the provincial human rights code.

But Canada’s major Jewish groups consider the implicit comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa both odious and inaccurate.

“The funding decision is the city’s itself,” said Howard English, senior vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “None of us here at CIJA are members of council. We don’t have a vote. But we certainly hope that in making its decision, council keeps in mind the hateful nature of QuAIA’s messaging and the extent to which it’s divorced from the reality of public opinion among the people of Toronto.”

In March 2011, Ford told the Canadian Jewish News that “taxpayer dollars should not go toward funding hate speech.” His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Council voted in June 2011 to have the city revise the anti-discrimination policy, but no changes have been brought forward to date. Souza said Pennachetti’s conclusion that QuAIA satisfies the existing policy should prevent council from denying funding to Pride on the basis of the group’s participation.

“They can’t do that. Because the city manager’s report is very clear that we are not a hate group. You cannot discriminate against us on the basis of what we do,” he said.

James Pasternak, who is Jewish and one of QuAIA’s most vocal critics on city council, spoke more cautiously on Tuesday than he did last year.

“We would hope that Pride says no to bullying and demonization and yes to respect and tolerance,” he said. But he would not commit to asking council to withhold the funding if QuAIA is allowed to march.

Descendants of Templer Society visit Israel

The Templer Society is not to be confused with the Knights Templar. As reported by Noeh Klieger of Ynet News, May 16, 2012:

Some 30 descendants of the Templers, a Protestant sect of German origin of that settled in Israel in the mid-1800s, arrived in the Jewish state from Germany recently for an emotional reunion, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

The group, which was hosted by the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, convened at the same building that housed the Templer center centuries ago, located in Tel Aviv's Neve Tzedek neighborhood. Members of the Temple Society believed that inhabiting and working the Holy Land will bring forth the savior.

The visitors were greeted by Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies President Rabbi David Golinkin, who noted their forefathers' contribution to the settlement, agriculture and commerce of the country. They also attended a lecture by Dr. Eyal Eisler, a leading researcher of the Temple Society.

The Templers erected splendid building across the land, traces of which remain in Tel Aviv's Sharona quarter, Bethlehem of Galilee and the northern town of Bnei Atarot, as well as the German Colony in Jerusalem.

They were expelled from the Holy Land in the beginning of World War II by the British army, which considered them citizens of an enemy state. Prior to their expulsion, the society's members supported Adolf Hitler and took part in anti-Semitic activity.

Saskatoon atheist whines about a Christian prayer at a public event

As the recently-deceased Chuck Colson once pointed out, it used to be a mark of civility for someone to remain silent during a public prayer even if you didn't agree with the religion or the sentiments being expressed. However, secular humanist activists aren't known for their civility. They do seem to be chaacterized, though, by extreme fragility; a public mention of God or Jesus Christ, and grief counsellors and smelling salts may be required.

As reported by Chris Mangatal of Saskatoon radio station CKOM, April 22, 2012 (updated April 23, 2012):

A Saskatoon man is up in arms after Councillor Danauer read a Christian prayer last week to kick off a volunteer appreciation banquet.

The offended man, Ashu Solo, said the prayer is a violation of the separation between church and government, and showed political favouritism toward the Christian faith.

"This is not a Christian city or a Christian country," he said.

"It's a secular and multi-cultural country."

Solo wants an apology from Mayor Atchison and Councillor Donauer, along with a promise it won't happen again at future government events.

Mayor Atchison, however, suggested they compromise by using a different prayer from different faith groups every year.

"If people still say they are non-believers of anything, maybe there's one year that, in fact, we have no worship at all," Atchison said.

Solo rebuked the notion, arguing there are far too many religions to accomodate everyone.

Chris Mangatal issued a further report on April 23, 2012:

A Christian prayer by Saskatoon councillor Randy Donauer has one man very upset following last week's volunteer appreciation banquet.

Ashu Solo says it was extremely inappropriate, offensive and discriminatory to have a prayer at a government event.

"It violates the separation of religion and government for there to be a Christian prayer at a municipal government event," he commented.

In response, Mayor Don Atchison thinks there is a way to accomodate everybody.

"If people are offended by something being a Christian prayer, I don't see why we couldn't have a different prayer from different faith groups in the community every year at our event," he said.

Solo disagrees, saying the separation of religion and government is essential to make sure everyone is happy because there are far too many religions to account for.

He is demanding an apology from both Mayor Atchison and Councillor Donauer, along with a promise they won't mix religion into government events again.

Mayor Atchison and Councillor Donauer owe Mr. Solo no apology for offending his hypersensitivity. Contrary to the belief of Mr. Solo (and many Canadians), Canada is not a "secular" country, if by secular he means a complete separation between church and state, including prohibition of prayer or expression of religious sentiments on public occasions. In fact the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins with this preamble:

Whereas Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law: