+- Forums (http://india-forum.com)
+-- Forum: Indian History & Culture (http://india-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: Indian History (http://india-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=10)
+--- Thread: Historicity of Jesus - 2 (/showthread.php?tid=362)
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 07-25-2009
^
Related to #459.
Sounds familiar? Even the "opium" of the masses had a more spontaneous predecessor:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â "How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' <b>Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.</b>"Â Â â Napoleon Bonaparte.
  "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."  â Napoleon Bonaparte. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
"Opium of the people" take 2 - the version obviously given much more thought, but IMO the extreme plagiarism of ideas and even words shows:
<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Jul 20 2009, 06:30 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 20 2009, 06:30 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.nobeliefs.com/facts.htm#anchor199422
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Perhaps the most quoted "reason" for connecting atheism to communism comes from Karl Marx's statement:
<i>"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. <b>It is the opium of the people."</b></i>
This statement does not come from his communist philosophy, but rather from his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. It also does not express a statement about atheism or about the absence of a god, but rather an observation about religion. Note that many people who believe in god but who renounce religion agree with that statement. <b>Pure individualist Protestantism, for example, correlates precisely with Marx's statement.</b>
Karl Marx makes this clear from his own observation:
<i>Â Â "It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.... The emancipation of the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from religion."
  --Karl Marx (Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, Braunschweig, 1843)</i>
That doesn't sound atheistic at all. At all.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]99790[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Marx, the plagiarist. Communism, the artificial copy.
Communitwits won't like that.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 07-28-2009
AIT foreshadowed not just the British Empire and Colonizer, his deeds and racial perceptions, but the British educational project as well. It was important to show a previous nativized trajectory for the Educational project. The Aryan was foremost an educator of the heathens.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 07-30-2009
Link to inscriptions on Dome of the Rock (eight directions):
It seems to be obsessed specifically with the message that 'Allah is One and He does not have a Son'.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Do not exaggerate in your religion
E nor utter aught concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was <b>only a Messenger of God, </b>and His Word which He <b>conveyed unto Mary,</b> and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and say not 'Three' - Cease! (it is)
NE better for you! - God is only One God. <b>Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. </b>His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And God is sufficient as Defender. <b>The Messiah will never scorn to be a</b>
N <b>servant unto God,</b> nor will the favoured angels. Whoso scorneth His service and is proud, all such will He assemble unto Him. Oh God, bless Your Messenger and Your servant Jesus
NW <b>son of Mary. </b>Peace be on him the day he was born, and the day he dies, and <b>the day he shall be raised alive! </b>Such was Jesus, son of Mary, (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. It <b>befitteth not (the Majesty of) God that He should take unto Himself a son. </b>Glory be to Him! <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 08-02-2009
A comment at
http://haindavakeralam.com/HkPage.aspx?PAGEID=9023&SKIN=D
<b>Significance of Eighteen</b>
28/07/2009 03:52:40
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Raju Puducode 28/07/2009 21:22:47
[...]
I wont be surprised if Christians claim that they wrote <i>Mahabharatha</i> also similar to their claim to Gayathri mantra, yoga, Vedas & Upanishads.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Replacement Theology. Myth -> History (<i>western</i> definition) - which implicitly involves de-deification - is something the catholic church is very much interested in, which is why it's moved off mythification and has been pushing partial historyfication* instead (on the matter of the Hindu lit and epics) for at least some years now. It's a conscious 180 on their part. "History" is national history, is secular history, and secular history can be appropriated: christian history. Can't let christians in India have no history and no culture, after all.
- Christianism needs to steal - "retain" - culture for Indian christians.
- Can't steal/appropriate "culture" unless it is first secularised. Becomes "Indian", belonging to "all Indians".
- Can't secularise, until they take the most Hindu part of its essence out of it
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-02-2009
husky
you posted extra material earlier today. Could you post that again if possible.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-03-2009
Point reinterpretation of the native traditions within a normative framework results in an instant thousand year line of monotheist prophets.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Dear Koenraad,
You introduce here an issue that is also of my interest. Israel Finkelstein, a
Jewish archaeologist from Tel Aviv University, in subsequent papers establishes
that Exodus is ficticious in works like The Bible Unearthed. And even the famous
Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass thinks so.
The scientific community related to Biblic studies is divided basically in two
groups: minimalists, that interpret Bible accounts are more recent, around the
mid first century BC; and maximalists, that think Bible is earlier, since around
second milennium BC. The latter are considered Christian and Jewish
fundamentalists.
<b>
Minimalists like Finkelstein show that Jewish people were Cananites in origin
and never reached the Promissed Land because they were already there. I see a
case simmilar to the propossed Aryan autochtonous origin in India.</b>
Regards,
Carlos<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - ramana - 08-06-2009
Folks there was link to a pdf of Hitler's thoughts on Bible("greatest book of world History") etc in his own handwriting. Any links to it?
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 08-06-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Aug 6 2009, 07:47 PM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Aug 6 2009, 07:47 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Folks there was link to a pdf of Hitler's thoughts on Bible("greatest book of world History") etc in his own handwriting. Any links to it?
[right][snapback]100155[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's one of the pages linked off http://nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Hitler's Bible--Monumental History of Mankind</b>
Hitler's private notes show how the Bible influenced Hitler <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - ramana - 08-06-2009
Thanks Husky.
Meanwhile a nascent research article that ties the Sumerians, Dilmun/Telmun to the Andhras.
Andhra Pradesh: land of Paradise- Telmun
Add to the mix the genetic profile of the gypsies.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-09-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Academe as Battleground - Part 2
History as Myth - Western Academeâs self-preserving industry</b>
<b>Western academe has to confront the truth that what goes by the name of white civilization today is a derivative of the white church; </b>(but they are least interested in confronting truth) if only because <b>after the Christianization of the whole of Europe, the White Church diminished all Anglo-Saxon, Nordic/Scandinavian and Continental pre-Christian religion, Gods, culture and history to merely legends, myth and folklore heroes. </b><b>The pre-Christian past was denied reality and historicity (as White Christians define history) and was retained as a romantic and nostalgic mythical component of their White identity.
</b>
However it cannot be emphasized enough that the White race will not suffer the pangs of crisis of identity, feel de-culturised, rootless or orphaned if this component of their past, their history did not survive even as a museum or literary artifact. The White Church has effectively reduced European pre-Christian history to myth and this diminishing has everything to do with national territory and the human soulâs inextricable link with the soil and the sense of belonging to a nationâs soil.
Thus White civilization today is congruent with White Christianity. Their Buckingham Palace, Statue of Liberty, their Da Vinci and Picasso, Descartes and Voltaire, their Smithsonian and World Trade Center, Albert Hall and Eiffel Tower, Shakespeare, Whitman and Strauss cannot wash away or even hide the ugly history of the march and expansion of the white church across continents, leaving behind it a bloody trail of genocide, slavery, colonialism, greed, lust, rape, plunder, disease, loot and mindless destruction of everything that was grander and nobler than itself.
"Columbus stands, by this definition, not as Italian, Spaniard, Portuguese or Jew but as the penultimate European of his age, the emblematic personality of all that Europe was, had been and would become in the course of its subsequent expansion across the face of the earth.
As a symbol then, Christopher Columbus vastly transcends himself. He stands before the bar of history and humanity, culpable not only for his deeds on Espanola, but, in spirit at least, for the carnage and cultural obliteration which attended the conquests of Mexico and Peru during the 1500s.
And the ghost of Columbus stood with the British in their wars against the Zulus and various Arab nations, with the United States against the âMorosâ of the Philippines, with the French against the peoples of Algeria and Indochina, the Belgians in the Congo, the Dutch in Indonesia. He was there for the Opium Wars and the "secret" bombing of Cambodia, for the systematic slaughter of the indigenous peoples of California during the nineteenth century and of the Mayans in Guatemala during the 1980s. And yes, he was very much present in the corridors of Nazi power.
The Third Reich was, after all, never so much a deviation from as it was a crystallization of the dominant themes - racial supremacism, conquest and genocide - of the European culture Columbus so ably exemplifies.
Nazism was never unique: it was instead only one of an endless succession of "New World Orders" set in motion by the Discovery. It was neither more nor less detestable than the order imposed by Christopher Columbus upon Espanola; 1493 or 1943, they were part of the same irreducible whole." (A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present by Ward Churchill, City Light Books, San Francisco, 1997, p 92)
This is the most damning indictment of the White Church by one of its victims; Ward Churchill a Native American, along with Vine Deloria Jr. exemplifies a new genre of American scholarship that is beginning to challenge White Christian academe on its own turf. The white church had no native land, no janmabhumi. White Christians therefore cannot claim any land as being their own, on which was born their religion, their people. Europe was white before it was Christian; America, Africa, Asia and Australia were neither white nor Christian. White became White Christian through a marriage of mutual convenience between the White race and the folklore of Jesus Christ whose reality and historicity is being increasingly questioned in the White world. Not that Jesusâ historicity is of any relevance to the intellectual counter-challenge except to give the White Christians a dose of their own medicine of denying historicity to non-Christian religions and their Gods.
The consummation of this marriage produced the abominable and monstrous White Church which conferred upon White Christians the dubious distinction of being genocidal invaders, occupiers and settlers around the world, on territories not theirs by race, religion or both. Except for the first âmigrationâ of humans from out of Africa (the jury is still out on this story whose immediate motivated corollary is that we are all immigrants from somewhere), peoples of the world, before the advent of the two blood-thirsty offspring of Judaism, belonged to the soil which gave birth to their religions. Nationalism is the umbilical cord of a people binding them in a blood-tie to the soil of their religion. This was the truth that White Church and White State driven western academe had to negate and eventually subvert.
There was no culture that did not derive from the religion of the people and no religion that did not belong to the soil. Simply put, all pre-Christian, pre-Islamic and non-Semitic religions understood the limitations of the human brain and worked out the relationship between human beings and the power that created this planet; some religions called it God, some called it Truth, some called it Consciousness or Supreme Intelligence while yet others called it Spirit. Some religions, like Hinduism went beyond the planet and articulated a mind-boggling and breathtaking description of all Creation and the intelligence behind Creation; While Hinduism described Time in terms of âyugasâ, Hindus understood and articulated timelessness just as they understood and articulated the still and pregnant state beyond Creation.
The history of European/White civilization is thus congruent with the history of the White Church. Western history and western account of world history is a sordid record of the journeys and wars by which the White Church expanded across continents. As ward Churchill writes, Christopher Columbus is emblematic of the genocidal White Church. Hindus would add Vasco da Gama, Francis Xavier, Alfonso De Albuquerque, Robert Clive and Queen Victoria to the list.
Subsequent to the first wave of expansion and occupation, western history is a chronicle of western science and technology devised to aid future expansion and sustain past occupation. Western academe, offspring of the White Church was confronted by the humbling truth that the religion, knowledge, science and technology of White Christians did not yield convincing answers to any fundamental question plaguing humankind nor did they permit the White race to live in peace with other humans and non-human Creation; even more humbling was the truth that the non-Christian, non-Muslim cultures, religions and peoples they laid waste were far superior in terms of refined religious understanding and scientific and civilisational achievements. The third humbling truth that the racist and white supremacist civilization had to confront was that White Christians had no nation. A nation-less religion was like a man without a home.
The White Church employed three devises to expand, conquer and occupy continents not its own - genocide, slavery and colonialism. When the British colonised India they were confronted by a civilization and a religion that had created wealth beyond belief, its achievements in literature, both sacred and secular, and the arts were magnificent and beyond compare, its people were contented, there was no poverty, no hunger and the most striking thing was the Hindu adherence to a voluntary code of conduct called dharma which governed every aspect of a Hinduâs life.
Indiaâs Hindus posed and continue to pose the biggest doctrinal and empirical challenge to the White Church and its state power - White Christian America and Europe. Hindus had a nation, they continued to live in that nation and Hindus had demonstrated their determination to protect their nation from religious invaders and marauders. White Christians were faced by a people whose innate refinement showed up the White civilizationâs immorality, injustice and greed in unpitying light. It was driven home to them that the Hindus were contented to live on their janmabhumi which they held to be punyabhumi and their karmabhumi. Hindus and Hinduism had no desire to conquer and occupy alien nations; Hindus had never conquered territory from greed of wealth or natural resources, never conceived of decimating people with different worldviews and had no use for colonizing territories and nations belonging to other peoples.
White academe had its work cut out for it. English education and western scholarship on Hindu religion, society and culture had to -
  * Sow discord among the different communities of Hindus
  * Peddle academic theories equalizing Hindus with their invaders on their homeland
  * Inject the poison of discontent
  * Rupture the fabric of social harmony resting on dharma
  * Confine Hindu dharma/religion within the idiom of mono and polytheism
  * Promote monotheism as the supreme virtue and accuse Hindus of polytheism
  * Diminish Hindu history as myth and tell the Hindus that they have no history
  * Peddle the theory that the roots of the Hindu religion lie outside India
  * Thus deny Hindus the comfort of belonging to a timeless nation
  * Render Hindus as nation-less as White Christianity and Islam
Gandhi exemplified the success of western academeâs diabolic intentions. At the peak of his political activism in South Africa, Gandhi admits to the innate nobility of colonialism when he speaks of the purpose of colonialism as being to civilize and lift up the victim nation and its natives from a state of barbarity, ignorance and superstition. Gandhi also denied historicity to our ithihasas. Srirama and Srikrishna were only mythological figures for Gandhi; and the Mahabharata war was not a mega war fought among the Kings of Dwapara yuga arraigned on two sides of the battlefield - dharma and adharma, but an allegory to describe the war between the forces of good and evil inside a personâs mind.
Gandhi, like Columbus was emblematic. By conceding that the British government always raised the status of its conquered and enslaved subjects, and by diminishing the history of the Hindu people to the status of myths and legends, Gandhi became the living proof of the successful intent of western academe. Decimating Hindu nationalists under Gandhiâs nose and getting Gandhi to stand by in helplessness as the nation was vivisected was one of the most stunning victories of western academe. Gandhi was emblematic of the unthinking Hindu who continues to regurgitate western academe's front end refuse. (To be continued)
Radha Rajan,
7th August, 2009 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is the "false narrative" versus "history" dichotomy which has been swallowed wholesale by the westernized Hindus. They have even started finding (pale versions of) "humanism" and "Enlightenment" and sundry other ideologies in the "scriptures" of India, and in an effort to be charitable, they will even pretend to impart kadwa sach to their protectorate. they also never tire of propagating lies about there being "leaders' of the "Religion" that is Dharma in India. The author Radha Rajan has done well in exposing this class of Hindus who have adopted philology to project a theological veneer onto Dharma. Philology (secular interpretation of texts) is a specifically Christian product. Soon Krishna wil be declared as the first Philologist, the harbinger of this breed, when panini or sayana do not suffice as they do at present.
The quickest way to destroy (or sterilize) a dharma is to insinuate that there are leaders (priests) of a normative version of the dharma in the target society; these "leaders" are projected as the agents of historical and ideological change. This is what was done with all handsome greek named fellows calling themselves Maccabeans, "protectors" of Judea and Judaism, the Sambhaji Brigade of its time.
Origins of iconoclasm under the colonizer's normatizing gaze:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It appears that because they consider sanskrit, brahiminic, they do not listen to music, classical karanataka music... no literature, no art, no poetry. link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - acharya - 08-09-2009
<b>
Birthplace of Roman emperor found in Italy</b>
AP
In this photo released by the Cittareale Cityhall, and taken on Aug. 5, 2009, AP â In this photo released by the Cittareale Cityhall, and taken on Aug. 5, 2009, archeologists are seen â¦
By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer Marta Falconi, Associated Press Writer â Sat Aug 8, 2:43 am ET
ROME â Archaeologists have unearthed a sprawling country villa believed to be the birthplace of Vespasian, the Roman emperor who built the Colosseum, they said Friday. The 2,000-year-old ruins were found about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Rome, near Cittareale, lead archaeologist Filippo Coarelli said.
The 150,000-square-feet (14,000-square-meter) complex was at the center of an ancient village called Falacrine, Vespasian's hometown.
Even though there are no inscriptions to attribute it for sure, the villa's location and luxury make it likely it was Vespasian's birthplace, Coarelli said.
"This is the only villa of this kind in the area where he most certainly was born," the archaeologist said in a telephone interview from Cittareale.
The 1st-century residence featured "a well-preserved huge floor, decorated with luxurious marble coming from the whole Mediterranean area," he said.
"It's clear that such things could only belong to someone with a high social position and wealth. And in this place, it was the Flavians," the dynasty to which Vespasian belonged.
The four-year excavation, which also turned up other ruins, including a necropolis burial ground, was carried out by a group of Italian and British archaeologists.
Vespasian, whose full name was Titus Flavius Vespasianus, brought stability to the empire following turmoil under the extravagant Emperor Nero and a civil war among his successors.
Born in A.D. 9 into a family of low-tier country nobility, Vespasian rose through the army ranks, becoming the general in charge of putting down a Jewish revolt in Judea.
After being acclaimed emperor by his troops in A.D. 69 and eliminating his rivals, Vespasian found Rome facing a deep economic crisis and still recovering from the fire that consumed it under Nero.
Using riches plundered from Jerusalem and proceeds from increased taxes, he launched a major public works program and started building the Colosseum â the most ambitious and best-preserved of his projects.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-09-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Aug 9 2009, 09:32 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Aug 9 2009, 09:32 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>
Birthplace of Roman emperor found in Italy</b>
[right][snapback]100235[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Vespasian and Titus are sporting the exact same name, Titus Flavius Vespasianus.??
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - acharya - 08-10-2009
http://www.burningcross.net/crusades/jesus...ea-scrolls.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To summarize, Professor N.S. Rajaram in his book âThe Dead Sea Scrolls and the Crisis of Christianityâ the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls challenged the two most fundamental beliefs of Christianity: the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and Christianity as the embodiment of the message of Christ. Both these beliefs are put in jeopardy by the Dead Sea Scrolls and thus it becomes understandable why the Catholic Church procrastinated in making the Dead Sea Scrolls available to the world.
First, the scrolls make no specific mention of Jesus or that the âJesus messageâ originated with him. According to the emerging picture from the accounts of the times in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus would at best have been one among many âteachers of righteousnessâ that were part of an ultra conservative messianic Jewish movement based in Qumran going back at least 100 years BCE.
Dead Sea Scrolls parchmentThe Dead Sea Scrolls further reveal that many of the practices that people now regard as Christian innovations â like the Lordâs Prayer and the Lordâs Supper â can be traced to the Qumrans, also going back at least one century before the birth of Christ. Additionally, the Dead Sea Scrolls give us a picture that the early Christian movement was by definition âan Apocalyptic cultâ waiting to do battle with the forces of evil in which righteousness would prevail. The early Christians at Qumran concentrated on personal purity [ritual bath, complete obedience, abstinence, prayer, study and communal meals, etc] and made themselves ready for the great battle in which they firmly believed that the forces of evil would die upon the blazing spears held by the hands of the âSons of Light.â
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - acharya - 08-14-2009
The closing of the Christian womb
By Spengler
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KH11Ak03.html
A century ago, Christians dominated the intellectual and commercial life of the Levant, comprising more than one-fifth of the 13 million people of Turkey, the region's ruling power, and most of the population of Lebanon. Ancient communities flourished in what is now Iraq and Syria. But starting with the Armenian genocide in 1914 and continuing through the massacre and expulsion of Anatolian Greeks in 1922-1923, the Turks killed three to four million Christians in Turkey and the Ottoman provinces. Thus began a century of Muslim violence that nearly has eradicated Christian communities in the cradle of their religion.
It may seem odd to blame the Jews for the misery of Middle East Christians, but many Christian Arabs do so - less because they are Christians than because they are Arabs. The Christian religion is flourishing inside the Jewish side. Only 50,000 Christian Arabs
remain in the West Bank territories, and their numbers continue to erode. Hebrew-speaking Christians, mainly immigrants from Eastern Europe or the Philippines, make up a prospective Christian congregation of perhaps 300,000 in the State of Israel, double the number of a decade ago.
The brief flourishing and slow decline of Christian Arab life is one of the last century's stranger stories. Until the Turks killed the Armenians and expelled the Greeks, Orthodoxy dominated Levantine. The victorious allies carved out Lebanon in 1926 with a Christian majority, mostly Maronites in communion with Rome. Under the Ottomans, Levantine commerce had been Greek or Jewish, but with the ruin of the Ottomans and the founding of Lebanon, Arab Christians had their moment in the sun. Beirut became the banking center and playground for Arab oil states.
The French designed Lebanon's constitution on the strength of a 1932 census showing a Christian majority, guaranteeing a slight Christian advantage in political representation. With the Christian population at barely 30% of the total and 23% of the population under 20 - Lebanon's government refuses to take a census - Lebanon long since has lost its viability. The closing of the Christian womb has ensured eventual Muslim dominance.
Precise data are unobtainable, for demographics is politics in Lebanon, but Lebanon's Christians became as infertile as their European counterparts. Muslims, particularly the impoverished and marginalized Shi'ites, had more babies. In 1971, the Shi'ite fertility rate was 3.8 babies per female, against only 2 for Maronite Christians, or just below replacement. Precise data are not available, but Christian fertility is well below replacement today.
Even before the 1975 Lebanese Civil War, infertility undermined the position of Lebanon's Christians . The civil war itself arose from the demographic shift towards Muslims, who saw the Christian-leaning constitution as unfair. Christianity in the Levant ultimately failed for the same reason that it failed in Europe: populations that are nominally Christian did not trouble to reproduce.
Lebanon was a Catholic project from the outset, and the Vatican's thinking about the region is colored nostalgia for a dying Christian community and a searing sense of regret for what might have been. If only the State of Israel hadn't spoiled everything, many Arab Christians think, the Christian minority would have wielded enormous influence in the Arab world. It is true that in many Arab countries, Christians comprised a disproportionate share of merchants and intellectuals. But the same was true of the 130,000 Jews of Iraq before 1947, who owned half the businesses in Baghdad.
Contrary to the Arab narrative, the peak of Arab Christian influence occurred a generation after the founding of the State of Israel, when Boutros Boutros-Ghali became Egypt's foreign minister in 1977, and Tariq Aziz became Foreign Minister of Iraq in 1983. In fact, the founding of the State of Israel propelled Christian Arabs into leadership positions in Arab governments. The Arab monarchies installed by the British in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq failed miserably in their efforts to crush the new Jewish State in the 1947-1948 War of Independence. Young military officers replaced the old colonial regimes with nationalist governments, starting with Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1952 coup in Egypt.
Nationalism opened the door of political leadership to Arab Christians. The Syrian Christian Michel Aflaq founded the Ba'ath party which later took power in Syria and Iraq. The rise of secular Arab movements with strong Christian influence was a response to the Arab failure to prevent the founding of the State of Israel. After the Turkish destruction of Orthodox Christian populations in the Levant, the Arab Christian elite - for centuries graced by not a single name the world remembers - saw its chance to shine. Lebanon, previously a backwater, and the pugnacious Maronite population, a marginal group except for their ties to France, improbably emerged as the focal point of Levantine Christianity.
But Arab nationalism failed just as miserably as did the monarchies invented by the British after the Turks were thrown out. Having rolled the dice with Arab nationalism, Arab Christians were left with diminished leverage and declining numbers on the ground in the advent of political Islam. Both in politics and demographics, the Arab Christians largely had themselves to blame. Understandably, they find it more palatable to blame the Jews.
A case in point is Father Samir Khalid Samir, a Jesuit of Egyptian Arab origin who prominently advises Pope Benedict XVI on Islam. I reviewed his fine book 111 Questions on Islam last March [1]. Samir is circulating what he calls a "Decalogue for Peace", leaked August 9 on the website of veteran Vatican analyst Sandro Magister [2].
According to Samir:
The problem goes back to the creation of the state of Israel and the partition of Palestine in 1948 decided by the superpowers without taking into account the population already present in the (Holy) Land. There resides the real root of all the wars that followed. To repair a serious injustice committed in Europe against a third of the world Jewish population, Europe (supported by the superpowers) decided to commit a new injustice against the Palestinian population, who are innocent of the martyrdom of the Jews. The original decision-making was shaped largely as reparation by the superpowers for doing little or nothing to end a systematically organized persecution against the European Jews as a 'race'.
Samir's plan includes international troops on Israel's borders, recognition of the Palestinian right of return, an international commission to decide the future of Jerusalem - in short, what the Israelis would consider the end of their sovereignty and the liquidation of the Jewish State. That a prominent Vatican Islam expert would take such a stance speaks volumes about the power of nostalgia.
There is not a single fact in place in Samir's presentation.
Leave aside the fact that the League of Nations in 1922 confirmed the object of the British mandate to establish a homeland for Jewish people in Palestine, and that preparations for the Jewish State were complete before World War II. Leave aside also the pope's Biblical belief that the Jews are in the Land of Israel because God has commanded them to be there. The fact is that most Israelis, contrary to Samir, descend not from the Jews driven out of Europe by the Holocaust, but rather from Jews driven out of Arab countries after 1947.
There were 600,000 Jews in Israel on the day of its founding; an additional 700,000 were expelled from Arab lands, including Iraq, where the Jews had lived for 1,000 years prior to the arrival of the Arabs. By expelling the Jews, the Arab countries created a population concentration in Israel that made possible the country's emergence as a regional superpower. The results were an exchange of populations of roughly equal numbers, Palestinians leaving the new State of Israel and Jewish refugees arriving from Arab countries.
The whole point of partition in 1948 was "taking into account the population already present" by creating an Arab Palestinian state alongside a Jewish State, contrary to Samir. Had the Arabs agreed to partition, Arabs might have surrounded and eventually absorbed a tiny refugee state. It was the not the superpowers, but rather the surrounding Arab states who did not take into account the interests of the local population, but gambled on crushing the Jewish State in its cradle.
All of this is outrageously wrong, but it is hard to have a rational argument with someone who has an existential problem. It is hard to offer solace to Arab Christians. Their elite misplayed its hand seeking influence through Arab nationalism, and now stands to lose everything to political Islam. As a culture, the Arabs are in
profound crisis - their most celebrated poet, the Syrian "Adonis", calls them "extinct" - and their decline weighs doubly upon the dwindling Christina minority. It is worth contrasting "Adonis'" gloomy assessment of Arab culture with Samir's eccentric cheerfulness; I summarized the Syrian writer's views in a 2007 essay Are the Arabs already extinct?. Nonetheless, Samir still speaks of a grand revival of Arab Christianity. As he told an Italian newspaper on the eve of the pope's departure to Israel last May:
Previously, the Nahdah, the Arab renaissance that took place between the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century was essentially produced by the Christians. Now once again, a century later, the same thing is happening, although the Christians are in the minority in Arab countries. Today the "new" elements in Arab thinking are coming from Lebanon, where the interaction between Christians and Muslims is the most lively. Here there are five Catholic universities, in addition to the Islamic and state institutions. ... Today, the cultural impact of the Christians in the Middle East takes place through the means of communication ... Many Muslims, including authoritative leaders, in both Lebanon and Jordan, but also in Saudi Arabia, have stated this publicly: we do not want the Christians to leave our countries, because they are an essential part of our societies.
It sounds a bit like Mortimer Duke in the 1983 comedy Trading Places, shouting, "Now, you listen to me! I want trading reopened right now. Get those brokers back in here! Turn those machines back on!" Samir hopes that Arab Christians will provide the leaven to lift up Arab society in general; on the contrary, as Arab society sags, it squeezes the Arab Christians out. Sadly, it is may be too late for Lebanon's Christians. "The process began at the turn of the century and it has intensified in recent years ... There are 12 million Christians in the Middle East. If the current trend continues, there will be fewer than 6 million by 2025," Hilal Khashan, political science chair at the American University of Beirut told the Beirut Star on June 10, 2007.
By way of tacit acknowledgement, the Vatican treads lightly with Tehran because the Lebanese Christians are hostages to Hezbollah, the Iranian-controlled Shi'ite militia. The Christian leader Michael Aoun has attempted to form a political bloc between Hezbollah and the Maronite parties. The Christians simply are outgunned, and the Maronites would lose in a military confrontation with Hezbollah.
The propitiatory stance towards Iran on the part of some Vatican diplomats is symptomatic of a different problem. As the center of gravity of the Church shifts towards the Global South, the Church inevitably will absorb some of the political sentiments that prevail in the Global South, including hostility towards the "colonialist" industrial world. The anti-Israeli sentiments that prevail among Third World diplomats already reverberate in the Vatican's diplomatic corps.
The Pope feels a deep pastoral responsibility to Middle Eastern Christians. On March 25, the Holy See expressed "profound concern" about Middle Eastern Christians in the Middle East in the wake of the Israeli incursion into Gaza. Cardinal Leonardo Sandri and Archbishop Antonio Maria emphasized the pastoral function of the pope's visit, noting that he "constantly comforts Christians, and all the inhabitants of the Holy Land, with special words and gestures, coupled with his desire to make a pilgrimage in the historical footsteps of Jesus ... The wounds opened by violence make the problem of emigration more acute, inexorably depriving the Christian minority of its best resources for the future ... The land that was the cradle of Christianity risks ending up without Christians."
There is little risk, however, that the Holy Land will end up without Christians. Although Arab Christians are indeed leaving areas controlled by Muslims, Christians are immigrating to Israel itself, where the Christian community has doubled in size in the past 15 years. Some estimates put the number of Christians in Israel at nearly 300,000, twice the official count. To Israel's 120,000 Arab Christians and 30,000 others must be added Christian immigrants from Eastern European, as well as many Filipinos and others who came as guest workers and have settled in Israel.
Hebrew-speaking Catholic services are held in Israel's largest cities, and Eastern European immigrants have formed new Orthodox congregations. The new Hebrew-speaking Christian communities still are small but they promise a new kind of root for Christianity in the region.
The retirement in 2008 of Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, a vocal critic of the Jewish State, was symbolic of the generational change that shifted the balance of Christian life to Hebrew-speaking Israelis. Patriarch Sabbah belonged to an older generation that blamed Israel for the disruption of Christian life in the Holy Land. In some respects Israel's Christian Arab population is well integrated into Israeli society; its children have a higher rate of university matriculation than Israeli Jews. Nonetheless, Christian Arabs tend to share the concerns of Arabs generally. More recent Christian immigrants, though, learn Hebrew and see the world through Israeli eyes.
<b>
A vibrant Christian presence in the birthplace of Christianity benefits the world community. In its own interest, the State of Israel should foster a Christian presence, as a living link between the Jewish state and Christians around the world.</b> In their short-sightedness, successive Israeli governments have not given enough attention to Christian concerns, particularly regarding the holy places. Residual antagonism towards Christians among Israel's ultra-orthodox community represents another obstacle. Prime Minister Netanyahu made the wise gesture of meeting the pope in Nazareth during his May visit to the Holy Land.
<b>
Nonetheless, the diversity of Israel's Christian population is a positive sign for the long-term viability of Christian congregations in the Middle East. Increasingly, they will speak Hebrew more than Arabic. In the long term, the State of Israel will be viable if its inhabitants bear children and stand their ground, unlike the unfortunate Christians of Lebanon.</b>
[1] See "Fr Samir's 111 Questions on Islam", published in First Things on April 30, 2009.
[2] See Fr Samir: "A Decalogue for Peace in the Middle East" by Sandro Magister.
Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, associate editor of First Things.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - acharya - 08-15-2009
The story of Jesus in the bible essentially boils down to this: God sacrificed himself, to himself, to save us from himself.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-15-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Aug 15 2009, 03:27 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Aug 15 2009, 03:27 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->The story of Jesus... God sacrificed himself, to himself, to save us from himself.
[right][snapback]100399[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Replace with the term 'colonizer'. The Colonizer sacrifices himself to the save the Colonized (from the Colonizer). In actuality, the Colonizer's identity is further hidden from view, replaced with the Colonized's Ancestor as the real Oppressor; thus, the Colonizer sacrifices himself to the save the Colonized (from the Native way of life, the Native Ancestor, the Native's anonymity among the masses without 'morals'). The Lord God sacrifices Himself to save the sinner from original sin.
In India, this picture is transformed into: "the Bharat of Hindus" oppresses the "India of the Macaulayites" and the Macaulayite sacrifices his comforts to save the Hindus.
------------------
The monotheist insistence on imposing a consistent ideological narrative masks native perception of the colonizer's managed chaos. For example, the need to fit all social phenomenon into minority-majority framework masks the colonizer's designs whereby minority is used as proxy. How can the minority be oppressive; the minority is oppressed -by definition-!! The principle of history must be upheld by ignoring the reality!!
Ideological Consistency is expected in the colonizer and this masks the colonizer's geopolitical machinations. The communist is the enemy of liberty, then how can the american sponsor the communist.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-19-2009
Quote:not all christian like that. I am from Syrian church. It is mostly Catholic and evangelical church that do like that, bribe for conversion etc. Syrian christian also in India persecuted by catholics.
That not all Christians are murderers and rapists is a trivial conclusion. We can say the same about any group anywhere in the world at any time. It tells us nothing about what Christianity is. It tells us nothing about, for example, why all the heathen cultures encountered by Christianity have been deliberately and systematically demonized and destroyed (and what could not be destroyed outright have been rendered as "morally oppressive" by their secular "enlightened" twins).
When Indians point out Christian/missionary actions, we are given a line about "perfect christian beliefs" and when we start to investigate the "perfect Christian beliefs" (which has turned heathen-baiting and anti-semitism (ie hatred) into an affair with scientific exactitude, premise, and rationale: one only true god stuff), we get another line: "not all christians are like that", "Christians have cute haircuts", and so on.
Don't you think it is time to investigate further into the reasons why Asia has been turned upside down by this Christian ideology which purports to "save" all our souls, has been doing so violently and aggressively for past 2000 years, relentlessly, and with supreme arrogance. And which has mutated into every stripe of ideology from manifest destiny, to Nazism, to communism, Orientalism, and white man's burden.
Christianity is the mask of (western) imperialism. The "teachings" of Jesus Christ are quite simply propagandistic diversions. When the missionary says "love", it is simply a euphemism for accepting the conqueror as your savior. This is clear from the latest research on Christian origins which has been described here:
http://ascendantasia.blogspot.com/
The Missionary has always preceded the Conquistador, whether in the Native Americas or in Asia. Anyone can say "love thy neighbor"; just declaring such does not make any community into a functioning, kind, or caring community as claimed by Christianity (especially when we see just the opposite visited by Christianity on native communities).
What Christianity uniquely claims is that the presence of an inimitable individual, the Christ, an exemplar, "saves" mankind from all-damning "original sin". The unique claim of christianity is that having the "right belief" is "soul-saving". But we know from Balagangadhara that "right belief" does not impact social reality in the least. It is a false construct, through and through. At most, "right belief" "dissolves" all "problems" into an inchoate mix. Indeed, it creates, out of nothing, a whole class of problems: hypocrisy, the "stress" of not conforming to "cosmic principles", eg the endless pro-abortion, anti-abortion theological miasma which creates endless rancor out of 'human suffering' in the "west" and leads to a never-ending spiral of one-upmanship in "righteousness".
This "right belief" is, thus, the leverage of the colonizer. But, the heathen can never be "righteous" in the eyes of God (or the secular Law) because he does not have the "right belief"; indeed, he does not even have a minimum fig leaf of "consistency" in beliefs (ie a belief system), which is, of course, worse than contemptible. We love our demons, Kumbhakarana and Vibhisana, as mush as we love our gods. Even our Ravana attained Moksha.
So, based on this shady and problematic formulation, the entire culture of India (or Asia) has been deemed "regressive" "oppressive" and "heathen", and has been slated for elimination by the Christians, out of "love", of course!!!
Now why don't you tell me what we should do? And don't say something like I am syrian Christian persecuted by my catholic brothers. India's culture is too important and wonderful be dismissed by such ad hocs.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - ramana - 08-19-2009
Jesus and Yahweh Harold Bloom
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Prolific literary critic, Yale professor and professional provocateur Bloom (The Book of J) here tackles the characters of the Jewish and Christian gods: what god do we meet in Hebrew Scripture? Who is the Jesus of the New Testament, and does he bear any relation to the Jesus most Americans worship? Does, for that matter, the Hebrew Yahweh resemble the first person of contemporary Christians' Trinity? Bloom, as usual, skewers quite a few sacred cowsâfor example, he dismisses the quest for the historical Jesus as a waste of time, and says that Jewish-Christian dialogue is a "farce." But in fact Bloom's major points are somewhat commonplace, including his assertion that the Christian reading of Hebrew Scripture laid the groundwork for Christian anti-Semitism. A fair enough charge, but hardly a new one; theologians have observed, and debated, this point for centuries. Bloom's real brilliance lies in his smaller, subtler claims, such as his nuanced discussion of the different ways Matthew, Mark and Luke present Jesus, his assertion that Bible translator William Tyndale anticipated Shakespeare, and his observation that, contra Marx, religion is not the opiate of the people but their "poetry, both bad and good." The book is learned, even erudite, and sure to be controversial. (Oct. 6)
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 08-19-2009
Bloom has another work also: Tolstoy and Gandhi, Men of Peace (1983)
He goes into Tolstoy Gandhi correspondence. Gandhi had named his commune in S. Africa as 'Tolstoy Farm'.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - acharya - 08-20-2009
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12807914/man-whe...nd-whither-1947
Can somebody translate this