Moral Equivalence

Moral Equivalence is a natural outgrowth of Postmodern Thinking . . . we've been seeing the results for years . . . everything has to be "fair" - which means equal . . . no matter if things are the same and no matter why people live in different situations . . . things should be equal. Look at the "no tolerance" rules for fighting in schools . . . it used to be that the aggressor was punished . . . but now a kid who is just defending himself is considered fighting too and they'll both be kicked out of school . . .

Sounds kind of like this war between Israel and her neighbors . . . Israel has been repeatedly attacked . . . just for existing. Israel has had numerous innocent citizens targeted by terrorists and neighboring governments on countless occasions . . . yet the world can't seem to make a moral distinction between Israel's actions and those who target her men, women and children. Israeli soldiers wear uniforms and do not hide among their populations . . . the terrorists use women and children as shields.

Read this article by Victor Davis Hansen to see how we are in the same moral quagmire that we were in before the 2nd World War.

The Brink of MadnessA familiar place.By Victor Davis Hanson
When I used to read about the 1930s the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Germany, the appeasement in France and Britain, the murderous duplicity of the Soviet Union, and the racist Japanese murdering in China I never could quite figure out why, during those bleak years, Western Europeans and those in the United States did not speak out and condemn the growing madness, if only to defend the millennia-long promise of Western liberalism.

Of course, the trauma of the Great War was all too fresh, and the utopian hopes for the League of Nations were not yet dashed. The Great Depression made the thought of rearmament seem absurd. The connivances of Stalin with Hitler both satanic, yet sometimes in alliance, sometimes not could confuse political judgments.

But nevertheless it is still surreal to reread the fantasies of Chamberlain, Daladier, and Pope Pius, or the stump speeches by Charles Lindbergh (Their [the Jews] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government) or Father Coughlin (Many people are beginning to wonder whom they should fear most the Roosevelt-Churchill combination or the Hitler-Mussolini combination.) and baffling to consider that such men ever had any influence.

Not any longer.

Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.

It is now nearly five years since jihadists from the Arab world left a crater in Manhattan and ignited the Pentagon. Apart from the frontline in Iraq, the United States and NATO have troops battling the Islamic fascists in Afghanistan. European police scramble daily to avoid another London or Madrid train bombing. The French, Dutch, and Danish governments are worried that a sizable number of Muslim immigrants inside their countries are not assimilating, and, more worrisome, are starting to demand that their hosts alter their liberal values to accommodate radical Islam. It is apparently not safe for Australians in Bali, and a Jew alone in any Arab nation would have to be discreet and perhaps now in France or Sweden as well. Canadians past opposition to the Iraq war, and their empathy for the Palestinians, earned no reprieve, if we can believe that Islamists were caught plotting to behead their prime minister. Russians have been blown up by Muslim Chechnyans from Moscow to Beslan. India is routinely attacked by Islamic terrorists. An elected Lebanese minister must keep in mind that a Hezbollah or Syrian terrorist not an Israeli bomb might kill him if he utters a wrong word. The only mystery here in the United States is which target the jihadists want to destroy first: the Holland Tunnel in New York or the Sears Tower in Chicago.

In nearly all these cases there is a certain sameness: The Koran is quoted as the moral authority of the perpetrators; terrorism is the preferred method of violence; Jews are usually blamed; dozens of rambling complaints are aired, and killers are often considered stateless, at least in the sense that the countries in which they seek shelter or conduct business or find support do not accept culpability for their actions.

Yet the present Western apology to all this is often to deal piecemeal with these perceived Muslim grievances: India, after all, is in Kashmir; Russia is in Chechnya; America is in Iraq, Canada is in Afghanistan; Spain was in Iraq (or rather, still is in Al Andalus); or Israel was in Gaza and Lebanon. Therefore we are to believe that freedom fighters commit terror for political purposes of liberation. At the most extreme, some think there is absolutely no pattern to global terrorism, and the mere suggestion that there is constitutes Islamaphobia.

Here at home, yet another Islamic fanatic conducts an act of al Qaedism in Seattle, and the police worry immediately about the safety of the mosques from which such hatred has in the past often emanated as if the problem of a Jew being murdered at the Los Angeles airport or a Seattle civic center arises from not protecting mosques, rather than protecting us from what sometimes goes on in mosques.

But then the world is awash with a vicious hatred that we have not seen in our generation: the most lavish film in Turkish history, Valley of the Wolves, depicts a Jewish-American harvesting organs at Abu Ghraib in order to sell them; the Palestinian state press regularly denigrates the race and appearance of the American Secretary of State; the U.N. secretary general calls a mistaken Israeli strike on a U.N. post deliberate, without a word that his own Blue Helmets have for years watched Hezbollah arm rockets in violation of U.N. resolutions, and Hezbollahs terrorists routinely hide behind U.N. peacekeepers to ensure impunity while launching missiles.

If you think I exaggerate the bankruptcy of the West or only refer to the serial ravings on the Middle East of Pat Buchanan or Jimmy Carter, consider some of the most recent comments from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah about Israel: When the people of this temporary country lose their confidence in their legendary army, the end of this entity will begin [emphasis added]. Then compare Nasrallahs remarks about the U.S: To President Bush, Prime Minister Olmert and every other tyrannical aggressor. I want to invite you to do what you want, practice your hostilities. By God, you will not succeed in erasing our memory, our presence or eradicating our strong belief. Your masses will soon waste away, and your days are numbered [emphasis added].

And finally examine here at home reaction to Hezbollah which has butchered Americans in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia from a prominent Democratic Congressman, John Dingell: I dont take sides for or against Hezbollah. And isnt that the point, after all: the amoral Westerner cannot exercise moral judgment because he no longer has any?

An Arab rights group, between denunciations of Israel and America, is suing its alma mater the United States for not evacuating Arab-Americans quickly enough from Lebanon, despite government warnings of the dangers of going there, and the explicit tactics of Hezbollah, in the manner of Saddam Hussein, of using civilians as human shields in the war it started against Israel.

Demonstrators on behalf of Hezbollah inside the United States does anyone remember our 241 Marines slaughtered by these cowardly terrorists? routinely carry placards with the Star of David juxtaposed with Swastikas, as voices praise terrorist killers. Few Arab-American groups these past few days have publicly explained that the sort of violence, tyranny, and lawlessness of the Middle East that drove them to the shores of a compassionate and successful America is best epitomized by the primordial creed of Hezbollah.

There is no need to mention Europe, an entire continent now returning to the cowardice of the 1930s. Its cartoonists are terrified of offending Muslim sensibilities, so they now portray the Jews as Nazis, secure that no offended Israeli terrorist might chop off their heads. The French foreign minister meets with the Iranians to show solidarity with the terrorists who promise to wipe Israel off the map (In the region there is of course a country such as Iran a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region) and manages to outdo Chamberlain at Munich. One wonders only whether the prime catalyst for such French debasement is worry over oil, terrorists, nukes, unassimilated Arab minorities at home, or the old Gallic Jew-hatred.

It is now a cliché to rant about the spread of postmodernism, cultural relativism, utopian pacifism, and moral equivalence among the affluent and leisured societies of the West. But we are seeing the insidious wages of such pernicious theories as they filter down from our media, universities, and government and never more so than in the general publics nonchalance since Hezbollah attacked Israel.

These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the quarter-ton Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.

Yes, perhaps Israel should have hit more quickly, harder, and on the ground; yes, it has run an inept public relations campaign; yes, to these criticisms and more. But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.

In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around.

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDBhMzg5Mzk4NjQ5MjM5OTJhZjRjMWQ4OWMzNDhmMzk=

With all this heat . . . is there Global Warming?

Is the Earth Warming?

Well the first Earth day (1970) had the radical environmentalists proclaiming that the next Ice Age was upon us (The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years," he declared. "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." Kenneth Watt ") and that our human populations would starve to death by 1980 . . . now the same groups are screaming about Global Warming (Algore et al) . . . (the last time I checked, a little warmer temps were a good thing especially compared to a global ice age.)

Regardless there is so much junk science and hyperbole surrounding this issue that you really have to check your preconceived ideas at the door and look at some facts.

Of course Junk Science is nothing new . . . there will always be experts and politicians and activists who try to change public opinion and ultimately try to change public behavior. I just want the truth. Check out this quote on global warming referencing the current heat wave were experiencing. People have such short memories and were so self absorbed that if were hot today then the entire globe must be hotter at this time in history! Ive highlighted some salient points. If you want to read the entire article then go to A Bit of History for Global Warmers

People sweltering from a heat wave in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. might find cold comfort in the fact that the temperatures of the past few days are not the hottest on record. That "honor" belongs to a summer 76 years ago -- decades before the controversy over "man-made global warming" began."From June 1 to August 31, 1930, 21 days had high temperatures that were 100 degrees or above" in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service. "That summer has never been approached, and it's not going to be approached this year."Between July 19 and Aug. 9 of that year, heat records were set on nine days and they remain unbroken more than three-quarters of a century later. "That's hot," added Michaels, who also serves as professor of natural resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.The summer of 1930 also marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th century. In 1934, dry regions stretched from New York and Pennsylvania across the Great Plains to California. A "dust bowl" covered about 50 million acres in the south-central plains during the winter of 1935-1936.

Some people believe that the ends justify the means. Meaning that getting people to change their opinion or behavior is worth lying or exaggerating or hurting people. I prefer to have the truth. Everyone has an opinion and a point of view, but as much as is possible we should be given the truth and then people should be able to make their own opinions . . . thats freedom.

Unfortunately, some people are not satisfied with just presenting the truth. They feel the need to impose their opinion on other people so they use the courts and heavy handed politicians and the Media by using hyperbole.

Check out this article Earth Day - then and now for more information on the some of these predictions from the radical environmentalists:
1. The population of the world will starve in ten years
2. Pollution will kill all of us who dont starve
3. DDT and other chemicals will kill the few who are left
4. Non-renewable resources will run out (Oil, coal etc) (ironically they oppose cutting down trees which are totally renewable I renewed some in my yard last weekend)
5. Most of our animal species will be extinct in our life times (we wont be here to see them anyway)

So how did all the doomsday activists get it all so wrong?
I contend that they were blinded by their agendas. I also think they made some critical errors:
1) They believe that the end justifies the means
2) They really believe that technology is bad
3) They think more people on the planet is bad
4) They see human beings as the problem
5) They think rich people are inherently evil and are selfish
6) They dont see technology as having any hope for solving the problems of pollution or population or disease.
(They sound remarkably like democrats)

Check out this quote from the article:
How did the doomsters get so many predictions so wrong on the first Earth Day? Their mistake can be handily summed up in Paul Ehrlich and John Holdern's infamous I=PAT equation. Impact (always negative) equals Population x Affluence x Technology, they declared. More people were always worse, by definition. Affluence meant that rich people were consuming more of the earth's resources, a concept that was regularly illustrated by claiming that the birth of each additional baby in America was worse for the environment than 25, 50, or even 60 babies born on the Indian subcontinent. And technology was bad because it meant that humans were pouring more poisons into the biosphere, drawing down more nonrenewable resources and destroying more of the remaining wilderness.
We now know that Ehrlich and his fellow travelers got it backwards. If population were necessarily bad, then Brazil, with less than three-quarters the population density of the U.S., should be the wealthier society. As far as affluence goes, it is clearly the case that the richer the country, the cleaner the water, the clearer the air, and the more protected the forests. Additionally, richer countries also boast less hunger, longer lifespans, lower fertility rates, and more land set aside for nature. Relatively poor people can't afford to care overmuch for the state of the natural world.

So what do you think?
How long will we let other people do our thinking for us?
How long will we let other peoples opinions shape our thinking?
What is the truth?
Who will you listen to?

Polls Distort US views on Abortion

Polls Distort U.S. Views on Abortion

Big Surprise . . . Once again the media is pushing their religion on everyone . . . skewing polls to make it seem as if more people support their opinion - trying to play on people's natural inclination to be part of the crowd - so "if most people believe it, then it must be the right thing to believe."

Think for yourselves and don't believe everything you read and certainly not every poll. Weigh information against what you know to be true from the Bible. Oh – and a little common sense too (funny how common sense isn't really that common).

Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2006 3:22 p.m. EST
Polls Distort U.S. Views on Abortion
As two vacancies on the Supreme Court opened up last year, a series of polls found that people in the U.S. approve of the Roe v. Wade decision by a significant margin – but these polls distort Americans' real feelings regarding abortion.
That's the view of Mark Stricherz, a contributing editor to Crisis magazine, who takes an in-depth look behind the polls in an article titled "A Terrible Misunderstanding."
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision declared that no restrictions can be placed on abortion in the first trimester; in the second trimester, the state can regulate abortion "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health," but not ban it; and in the third trimester the state can ban abortion except when there is a threat to the mother's life or health.
But the 1973 companion case to Roe, Doe v. Bolton, decreed that "maternal health" must take into account "all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age – relevant to the well-being of the patient."
The ruling allowed a pregnant woman to have an abortion "for practically any reason remotely tied to health," Stricherz observes.
Then a 2000 Court decision struck down laws banning partial-birth abortion.
"Thus, the Court now permits abortion at nearly any time for virtually any reason," writes Stricherz. But that's often not how pollsters frame the question when asking about Roe v. Wade, according to the writer.
A June 2005 Gallup Poll, for instance, describing Roe as "the decision that legalized abortion" found strong support for the decision – 65 percent.
Polls by the Pew Research Center, the Associated Press and Quinnipiac University described Roe as having established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. All three polls found support for Roe.
A CBS poll in July 2005 described the Court ruling as having "established a constitutional right for women to obtain legal abortions in this country," while CNN and USA Today called it "the decision that legalized abortion." Again, the polls found strong support for the decision.
But the Los Angeles Times framed its poll question more in line with what the Court's rulings really mean: "Generally speaking, are you in favor of the Supreme Court decision which permits a woman to get an abortion from a doctor at any time, or are you opposed to that?"
The result: Only 43 percent of respondents were in favor. "It was the lowest level of support recorded because the rest of the polls misinterpret Roe and Doe. They view Roe v. Wade as a decision that legalized abortion but restricted the procedure, not one that made virtually all abortions legal," writes Stricherz.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of respondents in Gallup polls disapprove of abortion when a woman and her partner simply do not want another child or when a pregnancy would interfere with a woman's career.
Also, polls have routinely found that about two-thirds of respondents oppose legal abortion after the first trimester – and a 2003 CNN/USA Today poll found that 84 percent oppose it in the last three months of pregnancy.
Concludes Stricherz: "If the polls described what the rulings actually did, their results would yield far less public support" for Roe v. Wade.

Dhimmitude

I'm posting an article from the Washington Times editorial page . . . I completely agree with its conclusions and perspective. Just to add a few thoughts to the article . . . In some cultures Dhimmitude also included giving one's own children to Muslims as payment to exist as a non-Muslim in their land. They also wiped out indigenous ethnicities by killing or removing entire people groups to other Arab lands, while moving Arabs into historically non-Arab countries. So if you've ever wondered why the current inhabitants of Palestine or Egypt don't look like any of the archeological depictions you've seen - this explains it - the Arabs running Egypt were no relation whatsoever to the Pharaohs . . .
Make no mistake - the Muslim Jihad is continuing in the same manner as it did from the 7th century on. No Muslim who follows the Koran literally can allow non-Muslims to exist in Muslim lands and all lands are to be Muslim.
If you're willing to think beyond the current Political Correctness of our culture - read some of Bat Ye'or's writings mentioned in the article.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/dwest.htm
Cartoon rage
By Diana WestFebruary 10, 2006
We need to learn a new word: dhimmitude. I've written about dhimmitude periodically, lo, these many years since September 11, but it takes time to sink in. Dhimmitude is the coinage of a brilliant historian, Bat Ye'or, whose pioneering studies of the dhimmi, populations of Jews and Christians vanquished by Islamic jihad, have led her to conclude that a common culture has existed through the centuries among the varied dhimmi populations. From Egypt and Palestine to Iraq and Syria, from Morocco and Algeria to Spain, Sicily and Greece, from Armenia and the Balkans to the Caucasus: Wherever Islam conquered, surrendering dhimmi, known to Muslims as "people of the book [the Bible]," were tolerated, allowed to practice their religion, but at a dehumanizing cost. There were literal taxes (jizya) to be paid; these bought the dhimmi the right to remain non-Muslim, the price not of religious freedom, but of religious identity. Freedom was lost, sorely circumscribed by a body of Islamic law (sharia) designed to subjugate, denigrate and humiliate the dhimmi. The resulting culture of self-abnegation, self-censorship and fear shared by far-flung dhimmi is the basis of dhimmitude. The extremely distressing but highly significant fact is, dhimmitude doesn't only exist in lands where Islamic law rules. This is the lesson of Cartoon Rage 2006, a cultural nuke set off by an Islamic chain reaction to those 12 cartoons of Muhammad appearing in a Danish newspaper. We have watched the Muslim meltdown with shocked attention, but there is little recognition that its poisonous fallout is fear. Fear in the State Department, which, like Islam, called the cartoons unacceptable. Fear in Whitehall, which did the same. Fear in the Vatican, which did the same. And fear in the media, which have failed, with few, few exceptions, to reprint or show the images. With only a small roll of brave journals, mainly in Europe, to salute, we have seen the proud Western tradition of a free press bow its head and submit to an Islamic law against depictions of Muhammad. That's dhimmitude. Not that we admit it: We dress up our capitulation in fancy talk of "tolerance," "responsibility" and "sensitivity." We even congratulate ourselves for having the "editorial judgment" to make "pluralism" possible. "Readers were well served... without publishing the cartoons," said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. "CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam," reported the cable network. On behalf of the BBC, which did show some of the cartoons on the air, a news editor subsequently apologized, adding: "We've taken a decision not to go further... in order not to gratuitously offend the significant number" of Muslim viewers worldwide. Left unmentioned is the understanding (editorial judgment?) that "gratuitous offense" leads to gratuitous violence. Hence, fear — not the inspiration of tolerance but of capitulation — and a condition of dhimmitude. How far does it go? Worth noting, for example, is that on the BBC Web site, a religion page about Islam presents the angels and revelations of Islamic belief as historical fact, rather than spiritual conjecture (as is the case with its Christianity Web page); plus, it follows every mention of Mohammed with "(pbuh)," which means "peace be upon him"—"as if," writes Will Wyatt, former BBC chief executive, in a letter to the Times of London, "the corporation itself were Muslim." Is it? Are we? These questions may not seem so outlandish if we assess the extent to which encroaching sharia has already changed the Western way. Calling these cartoons "unacceptable," and censoring ourselves "in respect" to Islam brings the West into compliance with a central statute of sharia. As Jyllands-Posten's Flemming Rose has noted, that's not respect, that's submission. And if that's not dhimmitude, what is? The publication of the Muhammad cartoons solicited by Denmark's Jyllands-Posten was an act of anti-dhimmitude. Since no Danish artist would dare illustrate a PC children's book about Muhammad for fear of Islamic law (and Islamic violence), the newspaper boldly set out to reassert the rule of (non-Islamic) Danish law. It's as simple as that. And as vital. The cartoons ran to establish — or re-establish — Denmark as bastion of Western-style liberty. But in trying to set up a force field against encroaching sharia, Jyllands-Posten and the Danes have showed us that no single bastion of Western liberty can stand alone. So, how do you say solidarity in Danish? If we don't find out now, our future is more dhimmitude.

Hurting babies

Have you heard the "news" stories on Fetal pain?

Did you hear in any of those stories that two of the people who "collected" the "research" on fetal pain are abortion activists?

One worked for NARAL and the other runs one of the largest ''Reproductive Health Centers" in San Francisco (they do something like 600 abortions a year on babies already past 20 weeks) - Why wouldn't the Main-Stream Media mention the fact that this is a biased report? Why would the Main-Stream Media present this as absolute "news?" Perhaps because the predetermined outcome of the "collection of research" fits well with the Media bias for abortion on demand.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/08/25/fetal.pain.ap/

Why would we expect anything different? These people only investigate and question conservative moral values. They take anything promoting their agenda and run blindly to press trumpeting it as unquestioned truth.

You also might ask why they glossed over the fact that this is not a new study. This is a "collection" of existing studies. I wonder how these biased authors chose which studies to include in their review? Did they line all the existing studies and add up how many say the baby does or doesn't feel pain in-utero and go with who had the most? Did they line up the studies and compare how well the studies were done? Or did they just choose the ones that fit their bias using the "ends justifies the means" rationale in that they may not have been good researchers, but the findings are "true," so they prostitute themselves.

And notice they use ''Reproductive Health Centers" rather than Abortion Mill. And they don't even call themselves the nicer sounding "Abortion Clinic." Why the euphemism? Aren't you proud of what you do? Call it want it is.

Of course you can now get real news and information other places. And as long as you can filter the Main-Stream Media liberal bias you will be all right. Just don't expect a retraction or correction or clarification on these things. They use the technique "if you repeat a lie often enough, it will be the truth." There is truth out there on this - there are other doctors who have actually done studies that indicate the pre-born do feel pain. Notice - I said "indicate." I prefer honesty to just proving my point of view.
http://www.abortionfacts.com/fetal_development/fetal_pain.asp

Here is a quote in response to the collection of existing studies: "They have literally stuck their hands into a hornet's nest," said Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a fetal pain researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who believes fetuses as young as 20 weeks old feel pain. "This is going to inflame a lot of scientists who are very, very concerned and are far more knowledgeable in this area than the authors appear to be. This is not the last word -- definitely not." And Anand said, “The study's authors excluded or minimized evidence suggesting fetal pain sensation begins in the second trimester and wrongly assume that fetuses' brains sense pain in the same way as adult brains.”
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/08/23/fetal.pain.ap/index.html

I also wonder about the diversion in tactics here . . . I thought it was just a teaspoon of goo - "potential humanity" - a fetus - a blastula - something not quite human with no soul - a choice - a part of a woman's body - a nuisance - an inconvenience - an accident - a mistake - something to "take care of" -

And I thought abortion was a woman's right - a choice - a reproductive decision - a simple medical procedure - a way to finish HS/College - a way out of poverty -

So who cares if there's pain involved?
What's the big deal anyway?

Responsibility

I heard Wolf Blitzer from CNN on Laura Ingraham's show yesterday . . . he was justifying the fact that CNN and other MSM outlets continue to give life and free publicity to the radical Muslims . . . he actually used the old line that "if we don't do it then someone else will." His reasoning was so vacuous. I can't believe that he and the others in the MSM feel justified. But then again, they're just passing on information that they supports what they already believe.

Tsunami Mommy

So - who did it? Who pushed the plates that shook the earth that generated the wave that crushed Asia? We could and should go back to "Original Causation." Some theologians/pastors place the responsibility on God http://www.desiringgod.org/library/fresh_words/2004/122904.html) while others see creation as cursed, fallen and in the grip of the Accuser.

Some see Creation as minutely arranged/designed by God as we see it today with God 'pulling the strings' behind a massive curtain. Scientists continually 'discover' the 'finger prints' of God on more and more thoughtful design that just can't be explained by random chance (Darwinian Evolution). http://www.caseforacreator.com/home.php

Some Theologians/Pastors read Genesis and believe that there was no death, destruction, entropy (http://www.hyperdictionary.com/search.aspx?define=entropy), regeneration etc before the fall and that man was supposed to be the co-regents with God over creation. This would even include carnivorous animals being vegetarians (I personally think it's sad that no one seems to care about the violence perpetrated on the poor plants)

I think God spoke all we see into being and gave us and other free moral agents (angels etc) free will. Then some of the choices of those free moral agents were against God's design and thus we have death and destruction. I am not ready to give the enemy credit for the cycle of life that replenishes all that exists from predators to decay. I don't side with those who see in Scripture a time where there was no death at all. I see it more as spiritual death and perhaps physical death for humans - not the rest of creation.

thoughts anyone?

Islamofacism

What happened to history? Why is it that I heard Islam was spread by the sword, but not that it was actually convert, kill or inslave? And worse yet - why is that not taught today? We don't have to place any value judgements on history. We just need to tell the truth. Why is the truth so scary? Maybe it's because the truth does hurt.

I don't mind hearing the truth about Christianity and the abuses done in the name of Christ. I know them and study them so I don't make the same mistakes. The difference is that Judiasm and Christianity have undergone reformations while Islam has not. The other difference is that in Islam the violence is actually written in the book.

Enough with the moral relativism . . . let's be truthful and let the value judgements sort themselves out.