“A memorial to the millions of people who have suffered at the hands of this cruel god”
Posted: July 30, 2011 Filed under: Christianity Leave a comment »Church in Wales inquiry after rector burns Bible pages
22 July 2011 From BBC News North West Wales
(see a video about this here: BBC © 2011)
The Church in Wales says it is investigating after a Gwynedd rector burnt some pages from the Bible.
The Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth of St Peter ad Vincula Church, Pennal, also cut up pages from the King James Bible to create an artwork.
Unveiling it at a church event, he said it revealed a “cruel and vile God“.
The Bishop of Bangor said: “Destroying parts of the Bible we don’t like is disrespectful and will offend many people.”
Mr ap Iorwerth told BBC Wales he had burnt scraps of cut up the passages at the public event because he had been making a statement as part of an art experiment.
He said he had had nothing but support from people at the church near Machynlleth, close to the Gwynedd-Powys border.
‘Gobsmacked’
He revealed his controversial piece of art at an event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.
He said: “I find it highly offensive that people would think I have given my life to serving that type of God and that I would regard the words of the King James Bible as sacred truth.
“I cut out all the nasty bits of that Bible, the language of which is being celebrated all over the place this year, because I don’t think you can separate that language from the God it is representing.
“I was gobsmacked no programmes or articles are representing the cruelty, revenge and hatred of this version of God.”
The artwork, which also contrasts the language of the Bible and the festive greetings of Christmas cards, is mounted on a 9ft by 7ft board.
Mr ap Iorwerth wants to show it in a gallery and also promote it as an alternative Christmas card , because he thinks it will provoke thought and discussion.
He said it is the “most-popular” version of God as cruel that he takes exception to, whereas he thinks more attention should be paid to God’s life-work and the view that “God is love”.
“People have told me they turned away from the real message of Jesus because of this God – that this version put lots of people off him as children.
“My version of God is Jesus, who was pure compassion and unconditional love.
“The King James Bible should be praised for its language but not for the God it represents – the two need to be separated.”
He said he burnt the pages, which were the remaining scraps of those he cut up to make the display, as a “symbol of all the suffering in the world”.
“The point being that some people are more concerned about destroying a few bits of pages than about those who have died after suffering.”
He said he had not yet heard anything of an investigation against him and will be pursuing his own “evangelical” investigation after the summer into “how such a cruel God has so prominent a place in national life”.
‘Wrestle with’
He said he also planned to create a “wall of shame” at the church naming all of God’s “cruel actions”.
The rector claimed “incredible” support from parishioners.
The Bishop of Bangor, Andy John, said destroying the Bible, or passages from it, would cause offence to many.
He said: “I have therefore written to the Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth and will be investigating the matter further.
“There are parts of the Bible that we struggle to understand today because culturally our life is so far removed from that period in which the Bible was written.
“However, it is not given to us to pick and choose – sometimes the most challenging parts are those which we need to wrestle with most of all.”
David Wood: Answering Oslo
Posted: July 30, 2011 Filed under: Christian terror, MDI, Videos 2 Comments »Christian missionary David Wood was quick to blame Islam and Muslims for the Norway attack, even before any details about the attacker had been released.
Robert Spencer’s hate ideology – a conveyor belt to terrorism?
Posted: July 25, 2011 Filed under: Christian extremism, The News, Violent extremism Leave a comment »The notorious anti-Islam hater Robert Spencer was named by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik as an intellectual influence on his thinking. The public need to know if Robert Spencer’s ideology is, for some, a conveyor belt to terrorism.
From today’s Guardian:
The American anti-Muslim agitator Robert Spencer was namechecked when Breivik listed his intellectual influences on Dokument.no, along with a pseudonymous Norwegian who calls himself Fjordman and the equally pseudonymous Bat Ye’or, who invented the Eurabia conspiracy. Spencer, along with his sidekick, Pamela Geller, was responsible for the campaign against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”.
Obviously these people cannot be held responsible for the use to which their ideas were put. No matter how deranged a killer’s ideas, he still needs a deranged personality to put them into action. But anyone tempted to take them seriously should consider what were almost Breivik’s last words on Document.no: “For the last three years I have been working full time on a cultural conservative work which will help to develop and market these political ideas.”
That “cultural conservative work” was the PDF he mailed out as he set off on his murder spree.
Loonwatch.com comments:
When you preach bigotry and fear on a daily basis, don’t be surprised when one of your followers takes the next logical step. But Robert Spencer has a reason to feign surprise and indignation over what his hatred has incited, as the link between his hate-writing and this act of terrorism becomes clear: Richard Silverstein notes that the right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik cited Robert Spencer 46 times in his manifesto. He was clearly quite the fan. This certainly seems to be right-wing anti-Muslim terrorism inspired by the king of Islamophobia himself, Robert Spencer.
CNN exposes notable anti-Islam speaker, Walid Shoebat as a fraud
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Christian extremism, Islam, The News Leave a comment »‘Ex-terrorist’ rakes in homeland security bucks
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/15/video-terror-training-fraud-part-2/
Rapid City, South Dakota (CNN) — Walid Shoebat had a blunt message for the roughly 300 South Dakota police officers and sheriff’s deputies who gathered to hear him warn about the dangers of Islamic radicalism.
Terrorism and Islam are inseparable, he tells them. All U.S. mosques should be under scrutiny.
“All Islamic organizations in America should be the No. 1 enemy. All of them,” he says.
It’s a message Shoebat is selling based on his own background as a Palestinian-American convert to conservative Christianity. Born in the West Bank, the son of an American mother, he says he was a Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist in his youth who helped firebomb an Israeli bank in Bethlehem and spent time in an Israeli jail.
That billing helps him land speaking engagements like a May event in Rapid City — a forum put on by the state Office of Homeland Security, which paid Shoebat $5,000 for the appearance. He’s a darling on the church and university lecture circuit, with his speeches, books and video sales bringing in $500,000-plus in 2009, according to tax records.
“Being an ex-terrorist myself is to understand the mindset of a terrorist,” Shoebat told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
But CNN reporters in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian territories found no evidence that would support that biography. Neither Shoebat nor his business partner provided any proof of Shoebat’s involvement in terrorism, despite repeated requests.
Back in his hometown of Beit Sahour, outside Bethlehem, relatives say they can’t understand how Shoebat could turn so roundly on his family and his faith.
“I have never heard anything about Walid being a mujahedeen or a terrorist,” said Daood Shoebat, who says he is Walid Shoebat’s fourth cousin. “He claims this for his own personal reasons.”
CNN’s Jerusalem bureau went to great lengths trying to verify Shoebat’s story. The Tel Aviv headquarters of Bank Leumi had no record of a firebombing at its now-demolished Bethlehem branch. Israeli police had no record of the bombing, and the prison where Shoebat says he was held “for a few weeks” for inciting anti-Israel demonstrations says it has no record of him being incarcerated there either.
Shoebat says he was never charged because he was a U.S. citizen.
“I was born by an American mother,” he said. “The other conspirators in the act ended up in jail. I ended up released.”
He said his own family has vouched for his prison time. But relatives CNN spoke to described him as a “regular kid” who left home at 18, eventually becoming a computer programmer in the United States.
Shoebat, now in his 50s, says he converted to Christianity in 1993 and began spreading the word about the dangers of Islam. He has been interviewed as a terrorism expert on several television programs, including a handful of appearances on CNN and its sister network, HLN, in 2006 and 2007.
Since al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, expertise on terrorism has been in high demand. The federal Department of Homeland Security has spent nearly $40 million on counterterrorism training since 2006. The department doesn’t keep track of how much goes to speakers, nor does it advise officials on the speakers hired by states and municipalities.
Shoebat spoke at a 2010 conference in South Dakota and was so well-received that he was invited back for the May event in Rapid City, according to state officials. He warned the police and first responders gathered in the hotel conference rooms that the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah had operatives working in Mexico and that drug cartels were raising money with Islamic groups. He also asserted that federal agents could have prevented the 9/11 attacks by looking for a chafed spot, called “zabibah,” that sometimes forms on the foreheads of devout Muslims.
“You need ex-terrorists who can tell you what life is like and what thinking is like of potential terrorists,” Shoebat said. “But had we looked at the zabibah only, we would have deflected a suicide action of killing 3,000 Americans.”
But Shoebat also told the group there were 17 hijackers when there were 19. And perhaps more surprising from a man who bills himself as a terror expert, Shoebat said the Transportation Security Administration could have stopped them. The TSA wasn’t created until after the 9-11 attacks.
Jim Carpenter, South Dakota’s homeland security director, said Shoebat brought “a point of view that certainly is not mainstream.”
“He brings in commentary about living and being raised as a Muslim and converting over to Christianity — gives them a different aspect of breaking the mold, so to speak,” Carpenter said. But he said Shoebat’s appearance was “a small portion” of the two-and-a-half-day conference.
“It’s not like we’re talking about setting up training and a discipline we would follow, that this is the only way and that’s the particular point of view of a Muslim or somebody of the Islamic faith. That’s not the case,” Carpenter said. “That’s his point of view.”
Carpenter said there is “no fear of threat” from Islamic terrorism in South Dakota, where the last census reports showed the state’s Muslim community made up less than one-half of 1 percent of the population. According to Rapid City’s local newspaper, about two dozen Muslims live in the city.
During Shoebat’s presentation, he criticized Muslim organizations and told audience members to be leery of Muslim doctors, engineers, students and mosques.
“Now, we aren’t saying every single mosque is potential terrorist headquarters. But if you look at certain reports by the Hudson report, 80 percent of mosques they found pamphlets and education on jihad. So they’re in the mosque, the mosque in accordance to the Muslim brotherhood is the command post and center.”
The conservative Hudson Institute said it never issued such a report and has no idea why its name was invoked.
Shoebat warned that making special accommodations for Muslim beliefs was a step toward establishing Islamic religious law. And he recounted how he wore a T-shirt that read “Profile me” on a trip to the airport and approached the screeners at the security checkpoint.
“I got tapped down, I got checked, I got all these different things,” he said. “I say it’s wonderful.”
Shoebat and business partner Keith Davies run several foundations and three websites that are all linked. Shoebat said the major group, the Forum for Middle East Understanding, includes his own Walid Shoebat Foundation.
In tax records filed by Davies, the Forum for Middle East Understanding reported 2009 earnings from speaking engagements, videos and book sales of more than $560,000. The documents are thin on specifics, and so is Shoebat.
“Basically, we are in information, and we do speaking and we do also helping Christians that are being persecuted in countries like Pakistan, and we help Christians that are suffering all throughout the Middle East,” he said. Asked how they do that, he said, “None of your business” — adding that disclosing details could endanger people he was trying to help in Islamic countries that have laws against blasphemy.
Shoebat’s name doesn’t appear on any of the paperwork. As for his own salary, he said he makes “probably what a gas station makes or a garage makes.”
“Everybody thinks I’m just raking in the dough, which is absolutely incorrect,” he said. He referred details to Davies, who offered to provide a copy of the group’s tax returns — but didn’t. When asked who served on the foundation’s board of advisers, Davies gave “Anderson Cooper 360″ the name of a former pilot, who didn’t return phone calls. But he could not name the high-ranking military officers he said were on the board.
Federal officials say they don’t know exactly how much money has gone to speakers like Shoebat. But in April, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee raised concerns about “vitriolic diatribes” being delivered by “self-appointed counterterrorism experts” at similar seminars.
Sen. Susan Collins, the committee’s Republican chairwoman, and Connecticut Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman asked the department to account for how much federal grant money went to state and local counterterrorism programs and what standards guided those grants. The request followed reports by the liberal Political Research Associates and the Washington Monthly that raised similar questions.
The Homeland Security Department told CNN that it has standards — and if training programs don’t meet them, “corrective action will be taken.”
“We have not and will not tolerate training programs — or any DHS-supported program — that rely on racial or ethnic profiling,” the agency said in a written statement.
Other Gods of Christianity
Posted: July 12, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, MDI, Question Mark Leave a comment »Other Gods of Christianity
Exposing various other hidden Gods of Christianity
Is it three or one God in Christianity? This has been one burning question being debated for years, however, in this paper we are about to observe that Christianity is not about one or three Gods but numerous other deities besides!
The Yardstick
Christian apologist Sam Shamoun has proposed (or helped us!!) with a set of qualities or attributes which a Christian God must possess. He said,
“…one of the many reasons given in Scriptures to worship Yahweh alone is the fact that he is the Judge of all…” (Bold, Underline and Italics emphasize ours)
He quoted the following biblical verse:
“O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!” Psalm 94:1-2”
And another verse,
“Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. THE LORD JUDGES THE PEOPLE; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.” Psalm 7:6-8 (Bold, Caps and Italics emphasize ours)
And then he wrote,
“If the NT writers believed that Jesus is God we should not be surprised to find them ascribing these very Divine functions (that is the function of Judging) to the risen Lord.” (Bold, Italics and Capital emphasize ours)
It is clear from the above citations that Shamoun wants to argue that because Jesus (peace be upon him) was delegated the job to judge people therefore, he is God. No wonder he entitled the name of his paper as:
“Jesus as the Judge of All the Earth
Additional Evidence from the New Testament for the Deity of Christ” (Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
To recapitulate, judging people is an evidence for deity of Christ (peace be upon him).
Other deities
However, the Bible is rigged with other mortals who too possess the power to judge people!!
We read in the so claimed “Injeel”:
“And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, YE SHALL SIT UPON TWELVE THRONES, JUDGING THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL.” (Matthew 19:28, King James (1611) Bible. Capital and Bold emphasize ours)
Notice that it is not just the similarity between Jesus (peace be upon him) judging and apostles judging as well! Rather they would- very similarly to Jesus (peace be upon him)-, sit on the throne and judge at least twelve tribesmen.
Paul goes a step ahead of the biblical Jesus (peace be upon him) to expand the reign of apostles and saints from just twelve tribes to the entire world:
“Do ye not know that the SAINTS SHALL JUDGE THE WORLD? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?”(1Corinthians 6:2, King James (1611) Bible.Bold, Italics, Caps and Underline emphasize ours)
Comparatively, we find that the God of Old Testament would judge whole of Earth as well:
“”Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Genesis 18:25 (Caps emphasize ours)
And,
“The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed.” 1 Samuel 2:10 (Caps emphasize ours)
And,
“O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!” Psalm 94:1-2 (Caps emphasize ours)
Observe how idolatrously Paul claims and attributes that saints would judge the whole world just as God of Bible would also judge the entire Earth!
But this is not where the ignominious similarity ends because Paul takes a huge leap to claim that saints would even judge Angels!
“Know ye not that WE SHALL JUDGE ANGELS? how much more things that pertain to this life?” (1 Corinthians 6:3, King James (1611) Bible. Bold, Capital and Italics emphasize ours)
“Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life!” ( 1 Corinthians 6:3, Good News Bible, TEV. Bold, Italics, Underline and Capital emphasize ours)
Shamoun provided three NT verses where we can only find biblical Jesus (peace be upon him) to judge living or dead people, however, saints of Christianity, by the virtue of judging angels, have propelled themselves ahead the deity of Jesus (peace be upon him) to become greater gods than him!:
Jesus is the Judge of All.
“And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” Acts 10:42
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31
“in that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” Romans 2:16
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:” 2 Timothy 4:1
Notice yet again that Shamoun thought that Jesus by judging “living and the dead” was judging ALL, however, he did not thought of Angels who – as higher beings, would be judged by Saints, ironically!
Christian scholar and a renowned commentator of the Bible – Albert Barnes, explains that by the virtue of saints judging humanity and angels, would be elevated to the post of honor and to the“right hand of judge” and more importantly, would be ASSOCIATED with Jesus (peace be upon him) in judgment:
“it is the only one which gives a fair interpretation to the declaration that the saints should judge angels in 1Co_6:3. If asked “in what way” this is to be done, it may be answered, that it may be meant simply that Christians shall be exalted to the right hand of the Judge, and shall encompass his throne; that they shall assent to, and approve of his judgment, that they shall be elevated to a post of honor and favor, as if they were ASSOCIATED with him in the Judgment.” (Barnes’ Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:2. Bold, Italics and underline emphasize ours)
As an ultimate proof of idolatry and sharing of godhead- Barnes truth fully exposes the paganism of Christianity by saying that saints would be “associated” with Jesus (peace be upon him) in the divine process of judging humans. In other words and as per Shamoun’s own yardstick, saints would share the divine right of judging humans with the God.
Another observable point is that Barnes states that “Christians” would be ‘exalted’ to the “RIGHT HAND of the Judge”. We often read many claims from Christian apologists that Jesus (peace be upon him) is God because he would be exalted on the right hand of God (Acts 7:55, Romans 8:34) nevertheless, even “Christians” would be “exalted to the right hand of the Judge”. Therefore, either Jesus (peace be upon him) is not a deity or even lay “Christians” are also Gods in Christianity.
And it is not just commentator Barnes, noted Bible commentator Matthew Henry also claims that believers will have a position in the right hand of God:
“Those are the given in common to all believers. The glory of being in covenant with the Father, and accepted of him,of being laid on his bosom, AND DESIGNED FOR APLACE IN HIS RIGHT HAND, was the glory which the Father gave to the Redeemer, and he has confirmed it to the redeemed.” (Henry’s commentary, John 17:20-23. Bold, Italics, Capital and Underline emphasize ours)
Noted Christians like Johnson and Mc Garvey acceded to the fact that there was some sort of partnership or in their words, “close association” between Jesus (peace be upon him) and saints:
“The saints shall judge the world, because of THEIR UNION WITH THE MESSIAH, to whom all judgment is committed” (Source. Capital, Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
And
“The saints will only participate AS MYSTICALLY UNITED WITH CHRIST the judge.” (Source, Capital, Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
Anybody united, associated and sharing in God’s divine work should definitely partner his God head as well.
To Recap
We have seen:
- There are New Testament verses which exclusively attribute the divine privilege of judgment to mere mortals, which should have been sole right of sovereign God.
- While Shamoun showed us that his assumed god – Jesus (peace be upon him) would be judging “living and dead”, on the other hand we read in New Testament that saints would be judging nor just mere mortals but even angels!
- We have noted Christian scholars like Barnes, Henry, Johnson and Mc Garvey agree to the idolatrous fact that there was/is/would be some sort of divine association/union/partnership in the divine functionality of judgment between saints and God.
And now because we know that, according to Christian scriptures, judgment is an evidence for deity of God in Christianity and Christ (peace be upon him) therefore according to Shamoun’s own argumentation, which is,
“However, if the NT doesn’t teach the full Deity of Jesus then we should not expect them to attribute to Christ the Divine prerogative of judgment since this would be idolatry on the grounds that this would be ascribing to a creature the incommunicable or exclusive characteristics of God.” (Italics emphasize ours)
We can infer two points, firstly, either the so called inspired New Testament authors were “not expect(ed)… to attribute to…saints and apostles the Divine prerogative of judgment” which belonged only to God or the NT authors, in their trans have committed “… idolatry on the grounds… that they have ascribed to creatures …the incommunicable or exclusive characteristics of God.” We allow Shamoun and Christians to choose between the two options.
Allah willing, more refutation for Shamoun to follow in future.
“There is no God but Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) is his messenger”
Through this paper I would like to beseech Allah (SWT) to elevate the position of my deceased father in his grave. And bring happiness to two wronged and harmed souls in my life.
N.B.: Unless otherwise mentioned all quotations have been taken from Shamoun’s paper.
Islam and Englishness: Are they contradictory?
Posted: July 12, 2011 Filed under: Islam, lectures, MDI, Videos Leave a comment »I delivered a lecture at the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford (MECO) in March 2011 which caused much debate and led to a fascinating discussion between controversialist modernist Dr Taj Hargey, myself and the audience.
Enjoy!
Lecture: ‘The purpose of life’ by Adam Deen
Posted: July 7, 2011 Filed under: Atheism, Dawah, Islam, lectures, MDI, Videos Leave a comment »Do we have meaning and purpose without God?
Can we live without meaning and purpose?
Adam Deen presents a lecture on ‘The Purpose of life’ at Surrey University
Presented as part of the series of event for the Surrey University Islamic Awareness Week 2011
