Monday, December 14, 2009

Miguel H. Díaz is first Hispanic to represent U.S. at Vatican


Posted on Friday, 11.20.09


Miguel H. Díaz
GREGORIO BORGIA / AP

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com




ROME -- Deep in the heart of Vatican City, Cuban-born Roman Catholic theologian Miguel H. Díaz has managed to find an Italian version of a sandwich that reminds him of home: pan con lechón.

``They're Italian pork sandwiches but very, very close to pan con lechón,'' said the Miami-raised university professor who was plucked out of academia by President Barack Obama for one of the most sought-after jobs in the U.S. diplomatic corps: U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.

``The woman has just adopted the family,'' he chuckled. ``We've gone in there several times, and she's like `L'ambasciatore Americano.' She knows exactly what I like.''

Since his official arrival in this historic city last month, Díaz, 46, has been seeking out the familiar while soaking in his new surroundings, from patronizing the shop that makes his favorite sandwich to hobnobbing with Catholic bishops and cardinals to sifting through endless invitations from curious Italians wanting to meet the man chosen to carry out U.S. foreign policy at the Vatican.

``There is so much hospitality accompanied by wonderful friendship and food that it's a wonderful challenge to have,'' Díaz told The Miami Herald in his first interview with a U.S. publication since arriving in the Italian capital.

But it's not all cocktail parties. Díaz will be working to shape policy on issues where the church and Obama administration share common goals: poverty, world hunger, human trafficking, the Middle East, HIV/AIDS, terrorism and the environment.

What he won't be doing: focusing on abortion or domestic problems confronting the Catholic Church, such as gay rights and the ordination of women priests.
``I am not here as a representative of the U.S. church nor a particular group, however noble that cause may be,'' he said. ``I am here as a diplomat, as a representative of the U.S. government.''

An alumnus of Miami Coral Park High and St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Díaz is an academic religious thinker who has made history as the first Hispanic appointed to this ambassadorship. The United States and the Holy See -- the ancient central government of the Roman Catholic Church -- established full diplomatic relations in 1984.

One of three top U.S. diplomatic posts in Italy -- there is an ambassador to Italy and another assigned to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations -- this is considered a prized appointment that often goes to someone close to the president. Díaz was among several Catholic religious advisors to Obama during his presidential campaign.

``Once an opportunity like this comes around, you can't really say `No' to something like this,'' he said.

Those who know Díaz said he's more than capable of fulfilling his new role.

``He's very gifted in many ways,'' said the Rev. Steven O'Hala, academic dean at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, where Díaz worked from 1998 to 2003. He was academic dean for two years before leaving for an associate professorship at Barry University in Miami Shores.

``He's able to relate to many different kinds of people even though he's a theologian by trade,'' O'Hala said. ``He's the kind of person who can easily relate to just about anybody.''
Díaz attributes the talent to his Miami experiences and humble roots as the child of Cuban immigrants.

``Since the beginning of my nomination, I have underscored that I want to be a bridge-builder,'' said Díaz, whose parents left Cuba for Spain when he was 9 before settling in Miami, where his father worked as a waiter. ``As a Cuban-American I have lived `life on the hyphen,' bridging cultural, language and various other social experiences.''

MORE THAN HERITAGE
Still, Díaz doesn't want to be defined solely by his heritage.

``When people say I am the new face of Catholicism, I like to say in some ways I am the face that characterizes Catholicism. I'm not sure if it's new. It's the face that is part of our culture, our diversity,'' he said.

``I am the U.S. ambassador who is Cuban-American and is proud of that tradition,'' he said, ``but who is able to precisely build bridges because of the way I was raised, and the experiences I have had in a city where most of my friends came from very different backgrounds and traditions.''

That experience, coupled with his professional background and love of languages -- he speaks fluent Italian and French as well and English and Spanish and reads German and Latin -- could be useful in key areas that may shape the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda with the Vatican, including the Middle East.

``I am hoping to build a lot on President Obama's Cairo speech,'' said Díaz, referring to Obama's June speech in Egypt in which he touched on inter-faith dialogue.

Still, Díaz's appointment wasn't without controversy. While some Catholics lauded it, others questioned where he stood on abortion given the Vatican's pro-life stance and Obama's pro-choice position.

``I've always stood for a consistent ethics of life from the beginning,'' he said.
As the U.S. representative, Díaz said he plans to be a set of eyes and ears on the litany of issues on which the church and the administration agree.

``The fact that we have the opportunity to engage the Holy See and the fact that the Holy See has such extensive relations worldwide gives us an opportunity to really serve as a listening post,'' he said, sitting in his spacious second-floor office overlooking the manicured grounds of the tiny embassy.

Meanwhile, he continues to adjust to life in Rome. He's prioritizing his agenda after co-hosting a conference with the Holy See on HIV/AIDS and getting to know his staff, which includes fellow Cuban American, Deputy Chief of Mission Julieta Valls Noyes.

His wife, Marian, who also has a doctorate in theology, and their four children, ages 5 to 15, are settling in, he said.

ON THE HOMERFRONT

In Miami-Dade's Westchester neighborhood, his parents, Félix and Silvia Díaz, laud their son's accomplishment. The family, including brother Jorge, traveled to Washington for the swearing-in ceremony, and his dad went to Rome to see him present his credentials to the Pope.
``It is a great honor for us,'' said Silvia, 73.

When she and her husband left Cuba, she said, they had just one goal: to work hard to give their children an education. Her baby Miguel, she said, has more than fulfilled their expectations.

``He was always an excellent student,'' she said. ``He has a good heart. He's noble.''
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Glass-entombed and preserved body of Pope John XXIII


High court reaffirms ban on Sunday shopping

Society 02.12.2009
High court reaffirms ban on Sunday shopping



Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:


Sunday will no longer be an option for Christmas shoppers


Ruling in favor of the Catholic and Lutheran churches, Germany's highest court has found that the city of Berlin's ten shopping Sundays a year go against the constitutional protection of Sundays as a day of rest.

Germany's Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that shops must close on Sundays, and that legislation in Berlin allowing for ten shopping Sundays was unconstitutional. Germany's Basic Law protects Sunday and public holidays as "days of rest from work and of spiritual improvement."

Berlin legislation passed in 2006 had allowed shops to remain open up to ten Sundays a year, including the four Sundays before Christmas. The Catholic and Lutheran churches had challenged the change and took the issue to the nation's highest court.

"Legal protection measures must recognized Sundays and public holidays as days of rest from work," said Hans-Juergen Papier, president of the Constitutional Court. "A mere economic interest in revenues and the basic desire of potential shoppers to buy does not justify allowing these shops to be open as an exception."

The protection of Sundays in Germany's Basic Law is a holdover from the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and can be found in Article 139.

The shopping Sundays already planned in Berlin for the Advent season this year will take place despite and the ruling will come into effect in 2010.

hf/AP/dpa/epd/KNA
Editor:


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John Carroll and Georgetown University part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoPsXMh6wGMhttp://


lushlady2001
December 19, 2008

Depiction of the life of John Carrol, Bishop of Baltimore and founder of Georgetown University.

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

India Buys 200 Tons Of Gold And Moves From The Dollar


Posted: November 3, 2009 at 5:59 am


The dollar is still losing its luster as the foreign reserve currency of choice. India has just bought 200 tons of gold from the IMF at $1,045 an ounce which is close to a recent record high of $1,070. The entire transaction is worth almost $7 billion. The move is seen as a way for India’s central bank to move some of its capital away from investments in the dollar.

The IMF may sell another 200 tons of gold in the relatively near future and most experts expect that the buyer will be China, which has foreign currency reserves of $2 trillion and might like to have its own hedge against the value of the American buck.

India is being explicit in its concern about the long-term value of the dollar. One senior official of the central bank there told The Wall Street Journal, “It makes sense to buy gold as it will appreciate more than the U.S. dollar.”

The equity markets may stay volatile as the global economic recovery stays uncertain giving central banks and investors another reason to move to gold as a “safe haven”. The transition to the commodity may drive down the dollar’s value even further which could help US exporters, but that is bound to increase the concern that the dollar is no longer the most important exchange currency.

Douglas A. McIntyre
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Pastor Bill Hughes - Ancient & Modern Adventism

Catholic infiltration of the SDA Church pt 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5IPwibXkwshttp://

zzapamiga
May 17, 2009

Pastor Bill Hughes the author of the books 'The Secret Terrorists' and 'The Enemy Unmasked' gives a sermon on both ancient and modern Seventh Day Adventism and how the modern Adventist Church has been infiltrated by both the Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order for the purpose of leading the Seventh Day Adventist Church into the ecumenical movement. Also challenges Adventists to show compassion towards others in witnessing the gospel of Jesus Christ.


Now Watch Part 2:
Pastor Bill Hughes - Ancient & Modern Adventism...- Catholic infiltration of the SDA Church pt 2

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience


November 22, 2009

Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
By Barry Bussey

The line has now been drawn. A prominent group of conservative Christian church leaders have issued a “clarion call” to society. It is known as theManhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience.” In the Obama era of seeking the “common ground,” 150 leaders of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical wings of the church have made it abundantly clear that “common ground” will not mean they discard the historic Christian teachings on life, marriage and religious freedom. They will not remain silent while government and other agencies demand compliance of church-run institutions to accept the secular view on those matters
“We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.”
It should not be surprising that such an emphatic statement be made at this time – the amount of social change taken place in western society in just the last fifty years has been unprecedented. The church leaders statement comes at a time of increased uneasiness amongst religious groups in the politics of Capitol Hill,The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views.” They point out that,

“In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded.”

Isaac Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. While he was referring to the physical laws of nature it does cause one to wonder if there is a similar dynamic in the social realm. Is it possible that the events of the last fifty years is now about to receive an opposite and equal reaction among the conservative element in our society? If so, could there be an over-reaction? Or are things so far “gone” to one view that there could never be an over-reaction?

The Declaration, written by Robert P. George of Princeton University, Timothy George of Samford University and Chuck Colson* of The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, is a document that will be discussed for some time. It has the potential to frame the future debate of these important issues of our time. Its language is energetic yet sensitive to opposing sides. “Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.” “We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.”

While acknowledging “that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct” the Declaration argues that

“We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God’s intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the
rejection of sinners.
For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to “a more excellent way.” As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.”

The Declaration closes with the statement, that


Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required… [as in the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. who argued..] Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and
inspiring.
Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

The public policy debates over issues of life, marriage, and religious freedom will continue to take up an inordinate amount of time going forward. This document has clearly laid out the issues the religious community finds most problematic. We are now entering into a debate about the basic structure of society. In my view, the question above all questions is a simple one – but profound – it is this – “What does it mean to be human?” Further questions flow from that one. “Who determines meaning?” “What does our historical understanding of that question mean today?” And then finally, recognizing that we have to live on the same real estate – how do we accomplish that without destroying one another but acknowledge the inherent dignity of our fellow human being?

To read the complete document go to: www.manhattandeclaration.org


Source: http://irla.org/assets/images/news/Standish%20at%20UN%20GA%20Sep.23.09.jpg
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*Watergate,..President's Men, member of the FAMILY Charles Colson?
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NARLA Supports Fight Against Global Blasphemy Law at the UN in Geneva



October 22, 2009



The International Religious Liberty Association’s “Statement of Concern about Proposals Regarding Defamation of Religions” was distributed today at that the meeting of the UN Human Rights Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards, in Geneva. The Ad Hoc Committee has wide, if somewhat ambiguous, authority to “prepare complementary international standards to strengthen and update international instruments against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in all their aspects.” Among the items it is considering, are provisions designed to create a global ban on speech that offends religious sensibilities.
Attorney Barry Bussey, executive director of NARLA and a member of the panel that drafted the IRLA’s statement of concern, notes that “while we find much that is said about religion to be offensive, we cannot accept efforts to ban speech about religion. Such a ban will silent minority opinions and prevent honest and open discussions about the pros and cons of religious beliefs.”

“The push by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to create a global ban on free speech on matters of religion is dangerous,” states James Standish, Deputy Secretary General of the IRLA who is in Geneva this week representing the IRLA position. “We have seen the devastating impact of national equivalents of the provision, particularly in Pakistan where blasphemy laws are used to settle personal vendettas and relied upon as a pretext marginalize the Christian community. Exporting this failed national model to the rest of the world would be very problematic. The IRLA is dedicated to prevent this.”
Blasphemy laws have a long history of abuse in a variety of cultures. Citizens have suffered injustice under these laws, prophets have been persecuted for violating them, and Jesus Christ – the Messiah to Christians, a prophet to Muslimswas executed in retaliation for making statements that offended the sensibilities of religious leaders of His day.

Contact Kevin Gurubatham for interviews: gurubathamk@gc.adventist.org


Related:

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September 23, 2009


Sitting in the United Nations General Assembly this morning, the words from a meeting yesterday with a leader in one of the world’s largest development organizations echoed in my ears:

“Adventists need to be involved at the U.N.—not because of what you’re going to get, but because of what you have to give!”
He went on to talk about the unique insights and capability of Adventists in healthcare, education and, yes, religious freedom.

Listening to President Obama speak about the new U.S. emphasis on addressing global issues in this unique global institution, it’s clear that we not only have something to offer. It’s up to us to use our voice as a rejuvenated United Nations tackles issues.
If there was any doubt that the side of good has a lot of work to do, consider this: Immediately following President Obama at the microphone was Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. And Gaddafi is not alone in his desire to use the United Nations to legitimize his blood-drenched regime.

We have a huge amount of work to do to stand up for good. Revitalizing our influence at the United Nations is a step. And we are dedicated to work tirelessly to ensure that those who attack religious freedom are met at every venue.

James Standish recently rejoined the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as our representative to the United Nations. He wrote this post from New York, where he attended today’s United Nations General Assembly session.
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P.S. Bolds and Highlights added.

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IRLA Answers the Swiss Ban on Minarets


A Statement by John Graz, PhD, IRLA Secretary-General

Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, November 29, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers. The initiative was approved by 57% of the 2.67 million voters. Like many Swiss citizens living outside the country, I was surprised by the results of the recent referendum. But is this a religious freedom issue or a simple question of zoning standards?

My first reaction in reading the results was to look at how my canton of origin, Geneva, voted. The Muslim population in Geneva is significant and there is a mosque with a minaret in the city. The canton voted against the ban on minarets. Three other French-speaking cantons did the same, as did the city of Basel. If the Muslims were as dangerous as those promoting the ban claim, the Swiss who live in close proximity to Muslims would, logically, be the first to support restrictions on the Muslim community. Thus, the vote of Geneva against the ban is indicative of the flaws in the logic underpinning the ban.

The majority of those interviewed, including those who supported the initiative, claim they do not harbor hostility towards Muslims. They point to the fact that the ban only applies to minarets, not to the building of mosques without a minaret. Further, it is claimed that the ban is not due to religious hostility, but rather a rejection of the Islamist political ideology. Supporters, therefore, largely do not believe the vote was a stroke against religious freedom.

Some supporters of the ban might add that in the last 10 years, more mosques were built in Switzerland than there were churches built in most of the Islamic countries around the world. Some may ask for reciprocity: “You will be allowed to build minarets in Switzerland as soon as you authorize Christians and believers of other faiths to build their churches and temples in predominantly Muslim countries.” It is true that some predominantly Muslim nations impose extremely repressive policies against Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and Muslim believers who are not followers of the dominant branch of Islam in the nation. But it doesn’t follow that Muslims who live in Switzerland are responsible for those repressive policies or that they could stop the repression even if they wanted to. Indeed, it is likely that many of the 400,000 Muslims living in Switzerland are there because they left a repressive nation in order to live in a free country.

The supporters of the ban did their best to frighten people. The poster showing minarets looking like missiles covering a Swiss flag is a good example. The debate became very emotional. It was no longer about authorizing a religion to build a house of worship with its symbol, the minaret. Rather, the discussion stoked fears that a wave from the 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide would wash over the country, and religious zealots would make Switzerland into another Iran. The vote became a way to show the world, its international organizations, and its politicians that in Switzerland the people don’t want to change their tradition and their culture.

The Swiss operate through direct democracy. This means that, rather they rely on representatives (e.g. Members of Parliament or Members of Congress) to settle issues of national and local importance, people vote directly on the issues. It is, therefore, worth imagining what would happen if a vote on the building of structures for minority faiths were put to referendums around the world. How would people react? I travel around the world and I see religious minorities often looked upon as foreign religions. They are frequently accused of threatening the national and traditional culture. People tend to react against something which is not familiar and which, according to them, could change their landscape, values, and habits. The Swiss, through direct democracy, have expressed a level of intolerance that I fear has strong support across the world.

Those who defend religious freedom have to face such a reaction. The religion of minorities is often associated with foreign powers. It is presented by nationalists as a force to destabilize and annihilate the national culture. One of the big debates in Europe before Islam took the front page of the newspapers was regarding so-called “cults” and “sects.” In France and Belgium, there were efforts to ban groups labeled as “sects,” even though there was no evidence that the vast majority of the faiths targeted were dangerous in any manner.

Much of Europe is still not familiar with religious pluralism. Our history is full of religious persecution and intolerance. In Switzerland, we divided the country between Protestant cantons and Catholic cantons. When it became apparent that we could not eliminate the other side, the motto could have been, “We can live in one nation, but not in the same canton.” Today it is no longer Protestant versus Catholic, but Islam is seen by some as a new religion which may, in the long term, threaten the traditional landscape.

There is an aspect the media did not focus on in the debate, and that is the intolerance associated with secularization. I live in the United States where I see more and more mosques and minarets being built. Nobody, with the exception of a few extremists, seems to be frightened by them. Why? There are many other religious buildings. Religious diversity and pluralism is a fact. In Europe, the society is very secularized. Religion is no longer at the center of people’s lives. The attitude is that you can believe whatever you want as long as you keep it to yourself, and conform to secular social norms. For some, a good religion is a dying religion. When Evangelicals or Pentecostals become too active, they face hostility from the public. Similarly, a new minaret is a visible expression of a living religion. For some, it is much too visible with the potential of looming even larger. A majority of Swiss showed they are not ready for this move.

Could the attitude change some day? Could Muslims in Switzerland be accepted as full citizens? My answer is, “Yes.” Islam will become in Europe a religion like others, but there is work to do. Muslims should keep working with other religions and religious leaders for the wellbeing of all citizens, for religious freedom around the world, for more justice, and for less poverty. Leaders of faith communities must work to educate young people against violent religious extremism. Every time there is a terrorist attack fueled by religiously inspired hatred, whether it is in Madrid, London, Bali, Baghdad, Pakistan or New York, fear grows. The most effective means of calming these fears is to work together effectively to stop the religiously inspired violence.

The Swiss vote to ban minarets shows just how much work is needed to advance the cause of religious freedom – even in nations like Switzerland, which is one of the freest nations in the world. In nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and many other repressive nations, the work is even more urgent and the violations of religious freedom much more extreme. Believers of all faiths should meet together, build bridges, and work for the common interestsnot to achieve a false unity based on the lowest common denominator, but to support the full freedom of each faith to believe, practice and to proclaim their unique beliefs. Religious violence should be strongly disapproved, and religious dialogue and religious freedom should be encouraged and defended.

We live on the same planet and we must live together peaceably and help each other. It will be done if we accept the right and the freedom of each person to be different from others. It is a worthy objective for the coming years in Switzerland and throughout the world. And it is a project the International Religious Liberty Association is proud to be leading.
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P.S. Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis.
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Was There Really a Great Flood?

By Leonardo Vintiñi
Epoch Times Staff
Created: Aug 2, 2009
Last Updated: Aug 4, 2009



NOAH'S ARCHEOLOGY: The story of a Great Flood is present throughout many ancient cultures. But did it really happen? (photos.com)



In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” —Genesis 7:11-12

Approximately 9,000 to 5,000 years ago in the northern Turkish province of Sinop, an event of spectacular historic magnitude took place. So spectacular, in fact, that some believe it represents proof that the “Great Flood” recounted in the Bible may have been an actual (though somewhat exaggerated) representation of real events.

In September of 2004, an expedition in the Black Sea by a team of scientists from various institutions (including the National Geographic Society) determined that the sea in question was not always as we know it today.

They concluded that it had originated from an immense lake of black water that at one point in history began to widen in an unusually rapid way. The change was so great, in fact, that inhabitants of the surrounding area were immediately obliged to search for more secure land, hastily leaving behind housing, tools, and other traces of their former lives.

This led the underwater expedition headed by oceanographer Robert Ballad to declare that there once existed human settlements that now reside more than 300 feet underwater. This startling Black Sea discovery not only contributed to a thoroughly enriched historical understanding of the serious alterations in water level suffered in the ancient Middle East, but also raised questions about what caused the alteration in the first place.

Since then, scientists and reporters continue to probe the unresolved issue; it is a key to understanding the historical development of human civilization and the different climatic stages that Earth has experienced. Furthermore, it is an important theme intertwined not only with the Judeo-Christian tradition but with many legends from different cultures around the world—the Great Flood.

The Black Sea: Proof of the Flood?

Contemporary hypotheses suggesting that the rapid growth of the Black Sea was a consequence of an incredible rainfall of planetary proportions has never received great sale. Based on a large framework of scientific laws, predominantly geological, which have been established on the basis of empirical observation over the years, makes this a rather improbable scenario.

In the first place, skeptical geologists propose that for such a flood to have occurred, we would find a similar stratum throughout the world covered with pebbles, sludge, boulders, and other elements. It is curious that this layer cannot be found, even more so when the flood narrated by the Bible had taken place in a time as recent as 3000 B.C.

Neither can be found the strata of fossils, with different animal and vegetable species occupying specific soil layers. According to flood logic, the animal remains of all species before the big flood (including the extinct dinosaurs) should be found today in only one stratum, without any distinction. But paleontology completely contradicts these suppositions.

Yet these examples appear to be only the tip of the iceberg comprising the arguments that refute a global flood. Even so, much of such reasoning is refuted with equal grace by the “pro-flood” scientists. In fact, descriptions like “all the sources of the great abyss were broken” or “the waterfalls of the heavens were opened” recounted in Genesis are backed up by hypotheses that, although incredible, are impossible to rule out as being incompatible with reality.

One of the more dramatic hypotheses proposed that the planet could have been covered with water up to its highest points, contrary to the calculations indicating that all the water suspended in the atmosphere would only be enough to reach a modest 1.2 inches over the total surface of Earth.

These “flood supporters” calculate that if the geography of Earth went through a leveling out in its surface—the mountains being lowered, the sea troughs being elevated—then the entire Earth would be covered by thousands of feet of water.

According to the water-covers-the-earth theory, in the times of Noah the upper layers of the atmosphere contained a substantial amount of water that today makes up the oceans. This atmospheric water was what covered the whole planet, and which later returned to the ocean troughs by violent vertical tectonic movements. Researchers in support of this idea believe it makes suitable reference to the “waterfalls of the heavens” that could condense themselves thanks to dust generated by several simultaneous volcanic eruptions.

With respect to non-Biblical myths about a purifying flood, these can be found in the Hindu, Sumerian, Greek, Acadia, Chinese, Mapuche, Mayan, Aztec, and Pascuanese (Easter Island) cultures, among others. Several of these stories appear to possess surprisingly similar common factors. Among the most repeated themes are those of celestial announcements ignored by the people, the great flood itself, the construction of an ark to preserve life from the flood, and the later restoration of life on the planet.

A clear example of this similarity is provided by pre-Biblical Mesopotamian history of the flood in which the god “Ea” warned Uta-na-pistim, king of Shuruppak, about the punishment that awaits humanity for its serious moral degeneration. Uta-na-pistim received instructions from the god to construct a craft in the form of a cube with eight floors, and said that it should include in it a pair of each species of animal, plant seeds, as well as his own family. Thus, Uta-na-pistim survived the several-day-long deluge, released a bird to verify the proximity of dry land, and made an animal sacrifice to the gods.

In Search of the Lost Ark

One separate point that adds weight to the Bible controversy is the body of photographic and physical evidence of a large object encrusted in Mount Ararat, where, according to the Christian text narrations, finally rested the ark of Noah.

In the beginning of 2006, University of Richmond professor Porcher Taylor declared that according to an extensive study made over years of satellite photography there is a foreign object encrusted in the area northeast of the mountain, the length of which coincides perfectly with that of the ark recounted in the Bible.

Such satellite images from above Ararat have inspired the curiosity of a great number of scientists since this declaration was made in 1974. Several expeditions of investigators also managed to rescue remains of petrified wood, as well as 13 strong anchors of rock in the area surrounding the supposed location of the possible archeological treasure. Ultrasonic tests have also been made, revealing a very odd structure embedded in the rock.

In spite of the multiplicity of texts from diverse cultures which tell the story of a great ancient flood, the magnitude and duration of such an event seems to be a point of argument, even among those who believe that such an event actually occurred. Thus, while a small number of researchers suggests that this flood covered the entire Earth in vast amounts of water, most geologists agree that such a scenario is an impossibility.

While not everyone believes ancient accounts that describe the re-creation of humanity from the salvation of a handful of people, it would seem that a climatic catastrophe actually did take place across the entire planet several millennia ago. We can also safely assume that an indefinite number of human beings in elevated locations had the capacity to continue civilization, and to transmit the story of the occurrence to later generations.

Up until the time when evidence is revealed to definitively tip the scales toward one of these particular theories, the story of a time when a great flood purged the sins of man will be taken as a myth for some and a statement of historical fact for others. Either way, this great ancient flood remains forever a part of the story of humankind.


Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/20470/
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Does His Business Have a Prayer?

Geoff Williams, AOL Small Business,
AOL
posted: 5 DAYS 3 HOURS AGO




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If you deal in intangibles, you may sometimes find it difficult to prove to customers that you're delivering a solid return on their investment. For instance, if you're a consultant overseeing a sales team, it can be challenging to know -- at least right away -- if your advice is actually working. Or if you sell an energy-saving device, nobody's going to know how it's working until the utility bills start coming. But think how hard it is to prove a return on investment when you own a prayer business.


Joel Gross, 25, doesn't seem daunted by that -- nor by the fact that he is an agnostic. He now has a tiny stake in the $4.6 billion spent every year on Christian products and services, as reported by ChristianRetailing.com. Last August, he hung up his shingle on the Internet and created Prayer Helpers. The product Gross's company sells: prayers. If you're down and out and want someone to pray for you, you just send $9.99, and Prayer Helpers will pray for you.

It's not as crass as it sounds. Gross recognizes that his business isn't for all religious people. He says he sees this as a service for people who have private issues and don't feel comfortable asking friends and family to pray for them. It should also be quickly noted that Gross, who says he was religious growing up, is also not the one doing the praying. He has a silent partner, a longtime friend from his youth, who studied religion in school and is a Christian, handling the customer service side of the business, which includes interacting with the people who email and doing the actual praying.

Prayer Helpers is also offering a free prayer to customers who want to try the service. As Gross's Web site says, "We are so confident in the power of our Prayer Helpers to petition God on your behalf, in a fashion that leaves you totally satisfied, that we are offering an absolutely free prayer trial. We know that after you try our free prayer service, you will come back to us for every important issue that you need the help of God to resolve."

But it hasn't exactly been a booming business yet. Since Gross opened up Prayer Helpers, he has had few paying customers -- well, not even a few. "Two. We've had two customers," admits Gross, sounding a little sheepish.

While that may be due to the recession, or possibly due to the aforementioned difficulty gauging return on investment (you have to not just have faith in God, but that the prayer service works), Gross thinks the lack of customers has mostly been because "people don't even know there's a service like this out there, that you can go online and find people who will pray for your request and keep it private. That's been my biggest challenge, getting the word out."

Gross also has some competition in the blogosphere -- other online services that, for a fee, will pray for their patrons. In the Company of Prayer is specifically aimed at entrepreneurs and executives aiming to, in the words of their Web site, "provide a quick, daily prayer specifically to businessmen and women, who, like us, find prayer to be an inspirational tool in the management of our professional lives." Subscriptions range from as low as $12 a year, to $50 and even $250 per year.

Meanwhile, InformationAgePrayer.com, which came on the scene this year, is offered to people of all religions. What makes it different is that it utilizes a computer with text-to-speech capability, so it's not a person, but instead, a PC or Mac praying for you. The cost varies, depending on everything from your denomination to what prayer service you're using. Right now, if you're a Catholic, you can get a deal on the Lord's Prayer -- only pay $3.95 a month instead of the usual $6. Or you could sign up for the computer to recite a Hail Mary in your name; that's just 7 cents.

As for how Gross came to enter the online prayer business, a year ago, he and a friend were making a list of possible business ideas. Not surprising: Gross was a business major at the University of Washington in Seattle. (He now lives in Venice, California, and works full time as a Web designer.) As they chewed over concepts for a startup, the conversation made its way to his friend joking that Gross could sell prayers. Gross didn't laugh. He felt there was a business opportunity to exploit.

Gross admits that some of his friends and family, however, have been worried that he is instead exploiting people of faith. "The strongest reactions," says Gross, "have come from my atheist friends who think I'm taking advantage of Christians and people who are superstitious."

Meanwhile, his Christian friends, says Gross, have been more bemused and generally supportive, but even there, he admits, "They see it as a weird service."

Geoff Williams is a veteran business journalist and a regular contributor to AOL Small Business. He is also the co-author of the upcoming book, Living Well with Bad Credit.

2009-12-07 14:24:39

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Source: http://smallbusiness.aol.com/startup/article/does-his-business-have-a-prayer/805592?icid=mainhtmlws-main-ndl3link1http%3A%2F%2Fsmallbusiness.aol.com%2Fstartup%2Farticle%2Fdoes-his-business-have-a-prayer%2F805592

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Noah's Flood




NOAH’S FLOOD

For seven days after Noah and his family entered the ark, there appeared no sign of the coming storm. . . . It was a time of triumph to the world without. The apparent delay confirmed them in the belief that Noah’s message was a delusion, and that the Flood would never come.
Notwithstanding the solemn scenes which they had witnessed -- the beasts and birds entering the ark, and the angel of God closing the door -- they still continued their sport and revelry, even making a jest of these signal manifestations of God’s power. They gathered in crowds about the ark, deriding its inmates with a daring violence which they had never ventured upon before.

But upon the eighth day dark clouds overspread the heavens. There followed the muttering of thunder and the flash of lightning. Soon large drops of rain began to fall. The world had never witnessed anything like this, and the hearts of men were struck with fear. All were secretly inquiring, “Can it be that Noah was in the right, and that the world is doomed to destruction?” Darker and darker grew the heavens, and faster came the falling rain. The beasts were roaming about in the wildest terror, and their discordant cries seemed to moan out their own destiny and the fate of man. Then “the fountains of the great deep” were “broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Water appeared to come from the clouds in mighty cataracts. Rivers broke away from their boundaries, and overflowed the valleys. Jets of water burst from the earth with indescribable force, throwing massive rocks hundreds of feet into the air, and these, in falling, buried themselves deep in the ground.

The people first beheld the destruction of the works of their own hands. Their splendid buildings, and the beautiful gardens and groves where they had placed their idols, were destroyed by lightning from heaven, and the ruins were scattered far and wide. The altars on which human sacrifices had been offered were torn down, and the worshipers were made to tremble at the power of the living God, and to know that it was their corruption and idolatry which had called down their destruction.

As the violence of the storm increased, trees, buildings, rocks, and earth were hurled in every direction. The terror of man and beast was beyond description. Above the roar of the tempest was heard the wailing of a people that had despised the authority of God. Satan himself, who was compelled to remain in the midst of the warring elements, feared for his own existence. He had delighted to control so powerful a race, and desired them to live to practice their abominations and continue their rebellion against the Ruler of heaven. He now uttered imprecations against God, charging Him with injustice and cruelty. Many of the people, like Satan, blasphemed God, and had they been able, they would have torn Him from the throne of power. Others were frantic with fear, stretching their hands toward the ark and pleading for admittance. But their entreaties were in vain. Conscience was at last aroused to know that there is a God who ruleth in the heavens. They called upon Him earnestly, but His ear was not open to their cry. In that terrible hour they saw that the transgression of God’s law had caused their ruin. Yet while, through fear of punishment, they acknowledged their sin, they felt no true contrition, no abhorrence of evil. They would have returned to their defiance of Heaven, had the judgment been removed. So when God’s judgments shall fall upon the earth before its deluge by fire, the impenitent will know just where and what their sin is -- the despising of His holy law. Yet they will have no more true repentance than did the old-world sinners.

Some in their desperation endeavored to break into the ark, but the firm-made structure withstood their efforts. Some clung to the ark until they were borne away by the surging waters, or their hold was broken by collision with rocks and trees. The massive ark trembled in every fiber as it was beaten by the merciless winds and flung from billow to billow. The cries of the beasts within expressed their fear and pain. But amid the warring elements it continued to ride safely. Angels that excel in strength were commissioned to preserve it.

The beasts, exposed to the tempest, rushed toward man, as though expecting help from him. Some of the people bound their children and themselves upon powerful animals, knowing that these were tenacious of life, and would climb to the highest points to escape the rising waters. Some fastened themselves to lofty trees on the summit of hills or mountains; but the trees were uprooted, and with their burden of living beings were hurled into the seething billows. One spot after another that promised safety was abandoned. As the waters rose higher and higher, the people fled for refuge to the loftiest mountains. Often man and beast would struggle together for a foothold, until both were swept away.

From the highest peaks men looked abroad upon a shoreless ocean. The solemn warnings of God’s servant no longer seemed a subject for ridicule and scorning. How those doomed sinners longed for the opportunities which they had slighted! How they pleaded for one hour’s probation, one more privilege of mercy, one call from the lips of Noah! But the sweet voice of mercy was no more to be heard by them. Love, no less than justice, demanded that God’s judgments should put a check on sin. The avenging waters swept over the last retreat, and the despisers of God perished in the black depths. -- E. G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets,Pacific Press Publishing Assn., Mountain View, CA., 1958, pp. 98-101.

The next time God will destroy the earth by fire. Read the details of this next destruction in our incomparable book, Earth’s Final Hours. Also read approximately when this destruction by fire will occur.
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Source: http://www.pacinst.com/flood.htm
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Learn not the way of the heathen, Jer 10:2 - PT1

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb1yu2_pt-1-learn-not-the-way-of-the-heath_shortfilmshttp:// Pt 1 Learn not the way of the heathen, Jer 10:2
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How December 25 Became Christmas



by Andrew McGowan

Click to view a slide show of larger images and captions.
(or visit:
http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp#location1)

On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday?

The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.

Learn more about the history of Christmas and the date of Jesus’ birth in the free e-book The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition.


The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.

This stands in sharp contrast to the very early traditions surrounding Jesus’ last days. Each of the Four Gospels provides detailed information about the time of Jesus’ death. According to John, Jesus is crucified just as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. This would have occurred on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, just before the Jewish holiday began at sundown (considered the beginning of the 15th day because in the Hebrew calendar, days begin at sundown). In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, the Last Supper is held after sundown, on the beginning of the 15th. Jesus is crucified the next morning—still, the 15th.a

Easter, a much earlier development than Christmas, was simply the gradual Christian reinterpretation of Passover in terms of Jesus’ Passion. Its observance could even be implied in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7–8: “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival...”); it was certainly a distinctively Christian feast by the mid-second century C.E., when the apocryphal text known as the Epistle to the Apostles has Jesus instruct his disciples to “make commemoration of [his] death, that is, the Passover.”

Jesus’ ministry, miracles, Passion and Resurrection were often of most interest to first- and early-second-century C.E. Christian writers. But over time, Jesus’ origins would become of increasing concern. We can begin to see this shift already in the New Testament. The earliest writings—Paul and Mark—make no mention of Jesus’ birth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide well-known but quite different accounts of the event—although neither specifies a date. In the second century C.E., further details of Jesus’ birth and childhood are related in apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Proto-Gospel of James.b These texts provide everything from the names of Jesus’ grandparents to the details of his education—but not the date of his birth.

Finally, in about 200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Surprising as it may seem, Clement doesn’t mention December 25 at all. Clement writes: “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20 in our calendar]...And treating of His Passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius, on the 25th of Phamenoth [March 21]; and others on the 25th of Pharmuthi [April 21] and others say that on the 19th of Pharmuthi [April 15] the Savior suffered. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].”2

Clearly there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth in the late second century. By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas.

The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”3 In about 400 C.E., Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in 312 C.E. and then remained stubbornly attached to the practices of that moment in time, they seem to represent an older North African Christian tradition.

In the East, January 6 was at first not associated with the magi alone, but with the Christmas story as a whole.

Click to view a slide show of larger images and captions.

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in midwinter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6?

There are two theories today: one extremely popular, the other less often heard outside scholarly circles (though far more ancient).4

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly.

More recent studies have shown that many of the holiday’s modern trappings do reflect pagan customs borrowed much later, as Christianity expanded into northern and western Europe. The Christmas tree, for example, has been linked with late medieval druidic practices. This has only encouraged modern audiences to assume that the date, too, must be pagan.

There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.

Granted, Christian belief and practice were not formed in isolation. Many early elements of Christian worship—including eucharistic meals, meals honoring martyrs and much early Christian funerary art—would have been quite comprehensible to pagan observers. Yet, in the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E.

This would change only after Constantine converted to Christianity. From the mid-fourth century on, we do find Christians deliberately adapting and Christianizing pagan festivals. A famous proponent of this practice was Pope Gregory the Great, who, in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs. At this late point, Christmas may well have acquired some pagan trappings. But we don’t have evidence of Christians adopting pagan festivals in the third century, at which point dates for Christmas were established. Thus, it seems unlikely that the date was simply selected to correspond with pagan solar festivals.

The December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion, at least. As we have seen, the Donatist Christians in North Africa seem to have know it from before that time. Furthermore, in the mid- to late fourth century, church leaders in the eastern Empire concerned themselves not with introducing a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but with the addition of the December date to their traditional celebration on January 6.7

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11 Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”12

In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar—April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6—the eastern date for Christmas. In the East too, we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.”13 Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6.e

Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6).

Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. One of the most poignant expressions of this belief is found in Christian art. In numerous paintings of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary—the moment of Jesus’ conception—the baby Jesus is shown gliding down from heaven on or with a small cross (see photo of detail from Master Bertram’s Annunciation scene); a visual reminder that the conception brings the promise of salvation through Jesus’ death.

The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century C.E. rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: “In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born...and in Nisan they [our ancestors] will be redeemed in time to come.” (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)14 Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany may well have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later.15

In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism—from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year—than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own too.16


Notes
1. Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8.
2. Clement, Stromateis 1.21.145. In addition, Christians in Clement’s native Egypt seem to have known a commemoration of Jesus’ baptism—sometimes understood as the moment of his divine choice, and hence as an alternate “incarnation” story—on the same date (Stromateis 1.21.146). See further on this point Thomas J. Talley, Origins of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 118–120, drawing on Roland H. Bainton, “Basilidian Chronology and New Testament Interpretation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 42 (1923), pp. 81–134; and now especially Gabriele Winkler, “The Appearance of the Light at the Baptism of Jesus and the Origins of the Feast of the Epiphany,” in Maxwell Johnson, ed., Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 291–347.
3. The Philocalian Calendar.
4. Scholars of liturgical history in the English-speaking world are particularly skeptical of the “solstice” connection; see Susan K. Roll, “The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question,” in Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 273–290, especially pp. 289–290.
5. A gloss on a manuscript of Dionysius Bar Salibi, d. 1171; see Talley, Origins, pp. 101–102.
6. Prominent among these was Paul Ernst Jablonski; on the history of scholarship see especially Roll, “The Origins of Christmas,” pp. 277–283.
7. For example, Gregory of Nazianzen, Oratio 38; John Chrysostom, In Diem Natalem.
8. Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte Chrétien, 5th ed. (Paris: Thorin et Fontemoing, 1925), pp. 275–279; and Talley, Origins.
9. Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos 8.
10. There are other relevant texts for this element of argument, including Hippolytus and the (pseudo-Cyprianic) De pascha computus; see Talley, Origins, pp. 86, 90–91.
11. De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae.
12. Augustine, Sermon 202.
13. Epiphanius is quoted in Talley, Origins, p. 98.
14. b. Rosh Hashanah 10b–11a.
15. Talley, Origins, pp. 81–82.
16. On the two theories as false alternatives, see Roll, “Origins of Christmas.”
a. See Jonathan Klawans, “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” BR 17:05.
b. See the following BR articles: David R. Cartlidge, “The Christian Apocrypha: Preserved in Art,” BR 13:03; Ronald F. Hock, “The Favored One,” BR 17:03; and Charles W. Hedrick, “The 34 Gospels,” BR 18:03.
c. For more on dating the year of Jesus’ birth, see Leonara Neville, “Fixing the Millennium,&rd; AO 03:01.
d. The ancients were familiar with the 9-month gestation period based on the observance of women’s menstrual cycles, pregnancies and miscarriages.
e. In the West (and eventually everywhere), the Easter celebration was later shifted from the actual day to the following Sunday. The insistence of the eastern Christians in keeping Easter on the actual 14th day caused a major debate within the church, with the easterners sometimes referred to as the Quartodecimans, or “Fourteenthers.”

Andrew McGowan
Warden and President of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Andrew McGowan’s work on early Christianity includes God in Early Christian Thought (Brill, 2009) and Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford, 1999).

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Source:http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp
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Friday, December 11, 2009

This Is My Father's World


This Is My Father's World

#92

1
This is my Father's world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

2
This is my Father's world,
the birds their carols raise,
the morning light, the lily white,
declare their maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
he shines in all that's fair;
in the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

3
This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad!



COMPOSER
Franklin L. Sheppard, 1915
TUNE / METRIC
TERRA BEATA S.M.D.
AUTHOR
Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

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MIDI FILE
4-PART HARMONY
dh092fv.mid
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Public Domain

Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy

Scandal
Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy

Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he’s been playing in America’s war on terror.

By Adam Ciralsky January 2010

Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater security firm (recently renamed Xe), at the company’s Virginia offices. Photograph by Nigel Parry.
I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.” Prince—the founder of Blackwater, the world’s most notorious private military contractor—is royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent.

Erik Prince has an image problem—the kind that’s impervious to a Madison Avenue makeover. The 40-year-old heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, and a former navy seal, he has had the distinction of being vilified recently both in life and in art. In Washington, Prince has become a scapegoat for some of the Bush administration’s misadventures in Iraq—though Blackwater’s own deeds have also come in for withering criticism. Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue fighting force capable of toppling governments. His employees have been repeatedly accused of using excessive, even deadly force in Iraq; many Iraqis, in fact, have died during encounters with Blackwater. And in November, as a North Carolina grand jury was considering a raft of charges against the company, as a half-dozen civil suits were brewing in Virginia, and as five former Blackwater staffers were preparing for trial for their roles in the deaths of 17 Iraqis, The New York Times reported in a page-one story that Prince’s firm, in the aftermath of the tragedy, had sought to bribe Iraqi officials for their compliance, charges which Prince calls “lies … undocumented, unsubstantiated [and] anonymous.” (So infamous is the Blackwater brand that even the Taliban have floated far-fetched conspiracy theories, accusing the company of engaging in suicide bombings in Pakistan.)

In Hollywood, meanwhile, a town that loves nothing so much as a good villain, Prince, with his blond crop and Daniel Craig mien, has become the screenwriters’ darling. In the film State of Play, a Blackwater clone (PointCorp.) uses its network of mercenaries for illegal surveillance and murder. On the Fox series 24, Jon Voight has played Jonas Hodges, a thinly veiled version of Prince, whose company (Starkwood) helps an African warlord procure nerve gas for use against U.S. targets.

But the truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction. For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas”—places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than $1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009—by acting, among other things, as an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officials—Prince became a Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his indefatigable ambition—the very attributes that have galvanized his critics—also made him extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence. (Full disclosure: In the 1990s, before becoming a journalist for CBS and then NBC News, I was a C.I.A. attorney. My contract was not renewed, under contentious circumstances.)

But Prince, with a new administration in power, and foes closing in, is finally coming in from the cold. This past fall, though he infrequently grants interviews, he decided it was time to tell his side of the story—to respond to the array of accusations, to reveal exactly what he has been doing in the shadows of the U.S. government, and to present his rationale. He also hoped to convey why he’s going to walk away from it all.

To that end, he invited Vanity Fair to his training camp in North Carolina, to his Virginia offices, and to his Afghan outposts. It seemed like a propitious time to tag along.

Split Personality
Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind around—an amalgam of contradictory caricatures. He has been branded a “Christian supremacist” who sanctions the murder of Iraqi civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusive—Howard Hughes without the O.C.D.—he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.

The common denominator is a relentless intensity that seems to have no Off switch. Seated in the back of a Boeing 777 en route to Afghanistan, Prince leafs through Defense News while the film Taken beams from the in-flight entertainment system. In the movie, Liam Neeson plays a retired C.I.A. officer who mounts an aggressive rescue effort after his daughter is kidnapped in Paris. Neeson’s character warns his daughter’s captors:

If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills … skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you [don’t] let my daughter go now … I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Prince comments, “I used that movie as a teaching tool for my girls.” (The father of seven, Prince remarried after his first wife died of cancer in 2003.) “I wanted them to understand the dangers out there. And I wanted them to know how I would respond.”

You can’t escape the impression that Prince sees himself as somehow destined, his mission anointed. It comes out even in the most personal of stories. During the flight, he tells of being in Kabul in September 2008 and receiving a two a.m. call from his wife, Joanna. Prince’s son Charlie, one year old at the time, had fallen into the family swimming pool. Charlie’s brother Christian, then 12, pulled him out of the water, purple and motionless, and successfully performed CPR. Christian and three siblings, it turns out, had recently received Red Cross certification at the Blackwater training camp.

But there are intimations of a higher power at work as the story continues. Desperate to get home, Prince scrapped one itinerary, which called for a stay-over at the Marriott in Islamabad, and found a direct flight. That night, at the time Prince would have been checking in, terrorists struck the hotel with a truck bomb, killing more than 50. Prince says simply, “Christian saved Charlie’s life and Charlie saved mine.” At times, his sense of his own place in history can border on the evangelical. When pressed about suggestions that he’s a mercenary—a term he loathes—he rattles off the names of other freelance military figures, even citing Lafayette, the colonists’ ally during the Revolutionary War.

Prince’s default mode is one of readiness. He is clenched-jawed and tightly wound. He cannot stand down. Waiting in the security line at Dulles airport just hours before, Prince had delivered a little homily: “Every time an American goes through security, I want them to pause for a moment and think, What is my government doing to inconvenience the terrorists? Rendition teams, Predator drones, assassination squads. That’s all part of it.”

Such brazenness is not lost on a listener, nor is the fact that Prince himself is quite familiar with some of these tactics. In fact Prince, like other contractors, has drawn fire for running a company that some call a “body shop”—many of its staffers having departed military or intelligence posts to take similar jobs at much higher salaries, paid mainly by Uncle Sam. And to get those jobs done—protecting, defending, and killing, if required—Prince has had to employ the services of some decorated vets as well as some ruthless types, snipers and spies among them.

Erik Prince flies coach internationally. It’s not just economical (“Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time”) but also less likely to draw undue attention. He considers himself a marked man. Prince describes the diplomats and dignitaries Blackwater protects as “Al Jazeera–worthy,” meaning that, in his view, “bin Laden and his acolytes would love to kill them in a spectacular fashion and have it broadcast on televisions worldwide.”

Stepping off the plane at Kabul’s international airport, Prince is treated as if he, too, were Al Jazeera–worthy. He is immediately shuffled into a waiting car and driven 50 yards to a second vehicle, a beat-up minivan that is native to the core: animal pelts on the dashboard, prayer card dangling from the rearview mirror. Blackwater’s special-projects team is responsible for Prince’s security in-country, and except for their language its men appear indistinguishable from Afghans. They have full beards, headscarves, and traditional knee-length shirts over baggy trousers. They remove Prince’s sunglasses, fit him out with body armor, and have him change into Afghan garb. Prince is issued a homing beacon that will track his movements, and a cell phone with its speed dial programmed for Blackwater’s tactical-operations center.

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.Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater-201001

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