SPEAK THE TRUTH! And Redeem This World From Hell

[Badger]

Looking at Wiki and Veith's own site, there is no doubt he's a kook. He has a Ph.d in zoology, he's a Seventh Day Adventist and a Creationist. I can find no references anywhere indicating he taught at Northwestern. (I suppose I could have looked on Northwestern's site to see if he is a professor there, but thought it a waste of time, given your claims about him as someone worth taking seriously.) Wiki says he taught in South Africa throughout his whole career, and even after receiving tenure, he was kicked out for asserting Creationist beliefs. Wiki also says he retired from teaching years ago and indicates he says he's a "pastor" now. Also I can find no reference indicating where he got his Ph.d, hence your claim it's from Harvard is literally unbelievable, given how much you have gotten wrong about his educational background as I indicate above.

Even if he did get his degree from Harvard, it's irrelevant. His field is Zoology, not Theology or Biblical Hermeneutics or History of Religion or Islam. For some reason, people who are highly educated in one field think they can go out and claim to be experts in religion. They drive their little lecture circuit car on the fumes of whatever prestige or "authority" they have gained from a completely different field. When he is introduced as "Dr Veith" before a speech, it sounds good, doesn't it? His rube or innocently ignorant audience are charged up thinking he know what he's talking about, but he doesn't. Even Einstein, using his fame and prestige as the most renowned physicist in the world, tried to get people to think he was also an Equally Great as a Philosopher when writing about theological themes. Reading an essay on some of Einstein's writings on God by a highly trained theologian and philosopher (a Ph.d in each field), one of the most renowned and famous of his time, Paul Tillich, will dispel any notions about Einstein's profundity and competence in theology and philosophy was anything beyond banal undergraduate training. I wonder how far Tillich would have gotten if he went around lecturing on Zoology - with no training.

Here's more on the moron Veith showing he's a charlatan on religious subjects:

"Veith's presentations repeat material published by anti-Catholics such as Alberto Rivera, and Theosophists such as Helena P. Blavatsky as truth. Like many other conspiracy theories promoted within SDA circles, Rome and the Catholic Church frequently figure into such ideas as the central villain.

Notable theories include:

• Islam is a creation of the Catholic Church.[3]
• The United Nations has an occult agenda.[4]
• Global warming is a lie exposed by the Oregon Petition, and Agenda 21 is the UN's roadmap for control of the world.[5]
• The New World Order.[6]
• The New Age is somehow tied to Jesuits, the Antichrist, and ...NASA.[7]

His presentation technique consists of a Gish Gallop of bull****, sprinkled with comments like "isn't that interesting". For example, did you know that the New Orleans Police Department has a crescent and star symbol on their police cars? Clearly this indicates an affiliation with Islam, and not (for example) that Crescent City's cops also include a star in their symbology. The tie to Catholicism is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel also has the same star-and-crescent symbol in one of their stained glass windows! Amazingly this does not mean that it was donated by the cops, despite the fact that the symbol in the window also explicitly says "New Orleans Police". Veith makes sure his audience knows he's just asking questions. Most Seventh-day Adventist churches have distanced themselves from his teachings, likely because they find them crazy."
Walter Veith - RationalWiki

The above repeats some of the kook ideas you peddle here at every opportunity, such as those reflecting anti-Jesuit (that is, actually anti-Catholic) and anti-Islam bigotry.

You keep on talking nonsense and putting me down, xray, and I'll keep on citing evidence and using reason and providing true information. Others can judge who to take seriously.

So again, a Northwestern Professor with a Harvard PhD is a kook? Apparently accusing others of what you are doing hasn’t gotten too old for you to use. The truth is that you are the one cherry picking facts and promoting kooky ideas. Moreover your comments are so littered with anti-Jewish ignorance, it’s getting very hard to take anything you say seriously.

But since you apparently think the Islamic world is such a much better place to live, why don’t you move there? I hear they love Westerners so much that they always offer them a front row view at all the public executions.

 

[x-ray peat]

Looking at Wiki and Veith's own site, there is no doubt he's a kook. He has a Ph.d in zoology, he's a Seventh Day Adventist and a Creationist. I can find no references anywhere indicating he taught at Northwestern. (I suppose I could have looked on Northwestern's site to see if he is a professor there, but thought it a waste of time, given your claims about him as someone worth taking seriously.) Wiki says he taught in South Africa throughout his whole career, and even after receiving tenure, he was kicked out for asserting Creationist beliefs. Wiki also says he retired from teaching years ago and indicates he says he's a "pastor" now. Also I can find no reference indicating where he got his Ph.d, hence your claim it's from Harvard is literally unbelievable, given how much you have gotten wrong about his educational background as I indicate above.

Even if he did get his degree from Harvard, it's irrelevant. His field is Zoology, not Theology or Biblical Hermeneutics or History of Religion or Islam. For some reason, people who are highly educated in one field think they can go out and claim to be experts in religion. They drive their little lecture circuit car on the fumes of whatever prestige or "authority" they have gained from a completely different field. When he is introduced as "Dr Veith" before a speech, it sounds good, doesn't it? His rube or innocently ignorant audience are charged up thinking he know what he's talking about, but he doesn't. Even Einstein, using his fame and prestige as the most renowned physicist in the world, tried to get people to think he was also an Equally Great as a Philosopher when writing about theological themes. Reading an essay on some of Einstein's writings on God by a highly trained theologian and philosopher (a Ph.d in each field), one of the most renowned and famous of his time, Paul Tillich, will dispel any notions about Einstein's profundity and competence in theology and philosophy was anything beyond banal undergraduate training. I wonder how far Tillich would have gotten if he went around lecturing on Zoology - with no training.

Here's more on the moron Veith showing he's a charlatan on religious subjects:

"Veith's presentations repeat material published by anti-Catholics such as Alberto Rivera, and Theosophists such as Helena P. Blavatsky as truth. Like many other conspiracy theories promoted within SDA circles, Rome and the Catholic Church frequently figure into such ideas as the central villain.

Notable theories include:

• Islam is a creation of the Catholic Church.[3]
• The United Nations has an occult agenda.[4]
• Global warming is a lie exposed by the Oregon Petition, and Agenda 21 is the UN's roadmap for control of the world.[5]
• The New World Order.[6]
• The New Age is somehow tied to Jesuits, the Antichrist, and ...NASA.[7]

His presentation technique consists of a Gish Gallop of bull****, sprinkled with comments like "isn't that interesting". For example, did you know that the New Orleans Police Department has a crescent and star symbol on their police cars? Clearly this indicates an affiliation with Islam, and not (for example) that Crescent City's cops also include a star in their symbology. The tie to Catholicism is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel also has the same star-and-crescent symbol in one of their stained glass windows! Amazingly this does not mean that it was donated by the cops, despite the fact that the symbol in the window also explicitly says "New Orleans Police". Veith makes sure his audience knows he's just asking questions. Most Seventh-day Adventist churches have distanced themselves from his teachings, likely because they find them crazy."
Walter Veith - RationalWiki

The above repeats some of the kook ideas you peddle here at every opportunity, such as those reflecting anti-Jesuit (that is, actually anti-Catholic) and anti-Islam bigotry.

You keep on talking nonsense and putting me down, xray, and I'll keep on citing evidence and using reason and providing true information. Others can judge who to take seriously.

Once again resorting to your old tricks. After lobbing several insults at me, repeating one anti-Jewish trope after another, and calling anyone you disagree with a kook or a moron, you then whine about my putting you down, lol. You are the one who continually resorts to ad-hominem arguments. Rather than evaluating the material I presented and debating its content, you once again resort to character assassinations.

Dario-Fernandez-Morera is the Associate Professor at Northwestern, not Walter Veith. Darío Fernández-Morera: Department of Spanish & Portuguese - Northwestern University. He is no kook or pseudo-scholar but a distinguished professor who specializes in the field of Spanish history and culture and knows far more than you or any of your proffered sources on the subject. But since you like Amazon so much here is one Editorial Review that is more typical of the reviews than the one you cherry picked.

“The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise prompts readers to rethink their traditional notion of Islamic Spain. Fernández-Morera shows that it was not a harmonious locus of tolerance. Paying special attention to primary sources, he documents how Islamic Spain was in fact dominated by cultural repression and marginalization. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise is essential reading. It will soon find its place on the shelves of premier academic institutions and in the syllabi of pioneering scholars.”
—Antonio Carreño, W. Duncan McMillan Family Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, Brown University
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-Medieval/dp/1610170954

The second scholar, Dr Walter Veith, is a Professor of Zoology and regardless of what the Propagandists at Wikipedia have to say, his research on the Jesuits is meticulous and hard to refute. If you weren’t so afraid to go down the rabbit hole of non-State approved history, you would see that his videos are simply quotations from primary source documents and scholarly references used to make his point. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that someone who is trying to get the truth out will be the subject of personal attack.

Since you singled out him pointing to an Occult Agenda of the UN as moronic, I would challenge you to watch a lecture on the subject and then refute it.


Unlike you I did look at the source you recommended and am judging it on its content, not the character of the film-maker. As suspected it was nothing more than a government funded (BBC) propaganda film; most likely designed to ready Europeans for the welcoming of masses of Muslims refugees now pouring into their countries.

A typical argument made in the movie is from an archeologist who tries to claim that the native peoples welcomed the invading Moors as conquering heroes and willingly gave up their land. His proof, he cant find any archeological evidence of a battle (from 1300 years ago) in the particular city he is currently excavating. No exaggeration.

And since you rely on Amazon reviews so much, here is one that sums it up for me.
“Skepticism and hostile bias against the actual chronicles and witnesses of the past and replacing it with a vacuous love of archeology. They justify this to themselves beforehand as a matter of principle by assuming bias in written accounts, which is itself a dangerous bias. This has led to the discounting of the important records and words from history that tell us how brutal the Muslims were as we see evidenced today.

So this poor quality and dated piece of enemy within style bunk totally skips over the fact that the Moors were foreigner who invaded and took over other peoples lands and made them subject to them and have to submit to humiliating penalties and rules like paying a jizya, and sharia in order to live. But "they built beautiful palaces" says this narrator!!!!
See http://www.amazon.com/Decline-Easte...=8-1&keywords=decline+of+eastern+christianity"
Amazon.com: When the Moors Ruled in Europe: Timothy Copestake, Brittany Hughes, Rowan Deacon: Amazon Digital Services LLC

If anyone is interested to check, the reviews of this movie were far less positive than that of the book above.

So yes Badger, I’ll be happy to allow others to make their own decisions on the quality of information and arguments we each have made. Your reliance on Amazon reviews, Wikipedia, and BBC Documentaries explain a lot about how you came to adopt wholesale the liberal party line and have become so propagandized. We are living in a time were discernment and effort are especially required to get at the truth, but only if that is what you are interested in.

 

[Badger]

Veith is a Creationist. What else do you need to know about him to realize his statements on religion - among other things - have a very low probability of being reliable or trustworthy? He was kicked out of a tenured university job because of his Creationist dogmas. This does not mean he is wrong about everything, say the UN segment you asked me to watch. But it's not worth the effort to laboriously go through all his stuff on religion knowing this about him from the get-go. I want to listen to people who, unlike him, have training in evaluating religious ideas and mastered methods of historical and other analysis. If he had this expertise, and in using it, came up with conclusions hostile to the Jesuits or Islam, I would not hesitate to pay attention to him and consider what he is saying. I've looked at ideas and writings like that of Veith for a long time. When I was 16, I immersed myself in the ideas of Herbert Armstrong and his son Ted, who were very similar in various ways to Veith (I think they were 7th Day Adventists too) . Later, when I completed college and graduate school, I learned something about using logic and evidence to discern meaning(s) of religion, including non-Christian. I came to realize the Armstrongs were nutballs. That's just one example of many, so I assure you, Veith's religious ideas are old hat to me, thanks to the experience of trying to understand others like them.

The same thing with the Zionists in Israel. What else do you need to know about them when they torture, imprison, rape and kill - over years to this day - children, and for what dastardly crime - throwing rocks at solder with sub-machine guns? What else do you need to know about a government that routinely uses completely disproportionate force on civilians, who do not have jets or cannons or tanks to defend themselves? Knowing just these things alone, besides so much else, is more than sufficient to recognize they are no better than the ancient child-killing murderous pagans that Joshua and Moses killed. There is no rational debating you, because your faith commitments blinds you to seeing what is dark and wrong in your favorite religious idols. At the same time, it blinds you to what is positive and good in those not on your favorites list. An example of the former: you are so caught up in your admiration of ancient Israel that you completely failed, in any of your comments, to note the Prophetic tradition in the OT, which shows Israeli prophets condemning the corruption and sin of ancient Israel, such as Amos, to cite only one:

The prophet Amos, the first of the “writing prophets,” entered the scene in the northern kingdom of Israel and expressed a harsh indictment, speaking God’s words critiquing the people: “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals – they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned” (2:6-7). Amos charges that Israel’s society is unjust. The main moral trait that describes the society is “injustice.”...A second dynamic is exploitation. Amos speaks out: “They…trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl” (2:7). Exploitation has to do with using someone else to one’s own advantage or to satisfy one’s own desires regardless of the cost to that person. In Amos’s day, that meant economic exploitation. It also meant sexual exploitation – the ages long sad story of men overpowering women. (14) The Prophetic Faith—Amos 5:14-24; Hosea 11:1-9

Do you really think modern Israel is an improvement over this, for all the reasons I gave and more?

I see all religions as having the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly. Every one has a mix of this that can be studied from numerous contexts. Looking for and understanding the meaning and evidence of these four things in every religion is useful and helpful in many ways that you would discount or ignore or ridicule or disrespect due to you religious beliefs - again, further indications there is no debating you.

And on a minor note, you misrepresent the background of Morera, just as you misrepresented Veith. Morera is not a scholar "who specializes in the field of Spanish history," as you disingenuously say. He's a scholar of Spanish literature with a very specialized and narrow focus, as noted below:
"Antonio Carreno's teaching and research interests include XVI and XVIIth Centuries of Spanish Literature with a main emphasis on Golden Age poetry (Lope de Vega, Góngora) and the comedia, mainly Lope de Vega's canonical works."
Antonio Carreno | Hispanic Studies
As evident from above, he is not someone with the background to give reliable recommendations of scholarly books on Christian and Islamic history/theology focused on Golden Age Spain. He is an expert on analyzing poetry and plays of the time, not religion or religious history.

Once again resorting to your old tricks. After lobbing several insults at me, repeating one anti-Jewish trope after another, and calling anyone you disagree with a kook or a moron, you then whine about my putting you down, lol. You are the one who continually resorts to ad-hominem arguments. Rather than evaluating the material I presented and debating its content, you once again resort to character assassinations.

Dario-Fernandez-Morera is the Associate Professor at Northwestern, not Walter Veith. Darío Fernández-Morera: Department of Spanish & Portuguese - Northwestern University. He is no kook or pseudo-scholar but a distinguished professor who specializes in the field of Spanish history and culture and knows far more than you or any of your proffered sources on the subject. But since you like Amazon so much here is one Editorial Review that is more typical of the reviews than the one you cherry picked.

“The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise prompts readers to rethink their traditional notion of Islamic Spain. Fernández-Morera shows that it was not a harmonious locus of tolerance. Paying special attention to primary sources, he documents how Islamic Spain was in fact dominated by cultural repression and marginalization. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise is essential reading. It will soon find its place on the shelves of premier academic institutions and in the syllabi of pioneering scholars.”
—Antonio Carreño, W. Duncan McMillan Family Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, Brown University
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-Medieval/dp/1610170954

The second scholar, Dr Walter Veith, is a Professor of Zoology and regardless of what the Propagandists at Wikipedia have to say, his research on the Jesuits is meticulous and hard to refute. If you weren’t so afraid to go down the rabbit hole of non-State approved history, you would see that his videos are simply quotations from primary source documents and scholarly references used to make his point. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that someone who is trying to get the truth out will be the subject of personal attack.

Since you singled out him pointing to an Occult Agenda of the UN as moronic, I would challenge you to watch a lecture on the subject and then refute it.


Unlike you I did look at the source you recommended and am judging it on its content, not the character of the film-maker. As suspected it was nothing more than a government funded (BBC) propaganda film; most likely designed to ready Europeans for the welcoming of masses of Muslims refugees now pouring into their countries.

A typical argument made in the movie is from an archeologist who tries to claim that the native peoples welcomed the invading Moors as conquering heroes and willingly gave up their land. His proof, he cant find any archeological evidence of a battle (from 1300 years ago) in the particular city he is currently excavating. No exaggeration.

And since you rely on Amazon reviews so much, here is one that sums it up for me.
“Skepticism and hostile bias against the actual chronicles and witnesses of the past and replacing it with a vacuous love of archeology. They justify this to themselves beforehand as a matter of principle by assuming bias in written accounts, which is itself a dangerous bias. This has led to the discounting of the important records and words from history that tell us how brutal the Muslims were as we see evidenced today.

So this poor quality and dated piece of enemy within style bunk totally skips over the fact that the Moors were foreigner who invaded and took over other peoples lands and made them subject to them and have to submit to humiliating penalties and rules like paying a jizya, and sharia in order to live. But "they built beautiful palaces" says this narrator!!!!
See http://www.amazon.com/Decline-Easte...=8-1&keywords=decline+of+eastern+christianity"
Amazon.com: When the Moors Ruled in Europe: Timothy Copestake, Brittany Hughes, Rowan Deacon: Amazon Digital Services LLC

If anyone is interested to check, the reviews of this movie were far less positive than that of the book above.

So yes Badger, I’ll be happy to allow others to make their own decisions on the quality of information and arguments we each have made. Your reliance on Amazon reviews, Wikipedia, and BBC Documentaries explain a lot about how you came to adopt wholesale the liberal party line and have become so propagandized. We are living in a time were discernment and effort are especially required to get at the truth, but only if that is what you are interested in.

 

[LUH 3417]

Veith is a Creationist. What else do you need to know about him to realize his statements on religion - among other things - have a very low probability of being reliable or trustworthy? He was kicked out of a tenured university job because of his Creationist dogmas. This does not mean he is wrong about everything, say the UN segment you asked me to watch. But it's not worth the effort to laboriously go through all his stuff on religion knowing this about him from the get-go. I want to listen to people who, unlike him, have training in evaluating religious ideas and mastered methods of historical and other analysis. If he had this expertise, and in using it, came up with conclusions hostile to the Jesuits or Islam, I would not hesitate to pay attention to him and consider what he is saying. I've looked at ideas and writings like that of Veith for a long time. When I was 16, I immersed myself in the ideas of Herbert Armstrong and his son Ted, who were very similar in various ways to Veith (I think they were 7th Day Adventists too) . Later, when I completed college and graduate school, I learned something about using logic and evidence to discern meaning(s) of religion, including non-Christian. I came to realize the Armstrongs were nutballs. That's just one example of many, so I assure you, Veith's religious ideas are old hat to me, thanks to the experience of trying to understand others like them.

The same thing with the Zionists in Israel. What else do you need to know about them when they torture, imprison, rape and kill - over years to this day - children, and for what dastardly crime - throwing rocks at solder with sub-machine guns? What else do you need to know about a government that routinely uses completely disproportionate force on civilians, who do not have jets or cannons or tanks to defend themselves? Knowing just these things alone, besides so much else, is more than sufficient to recognize they are no better than the ancient child-killing murderous pagans that Joshua and Moses killed. There is no rational debating you, because your faith commitments blinds you to seeing what is dark and wrong in your favorite religious idols. At the same time, it blinds you to what is positive and good in those not on your favorites list. An example of the former: you are so caught up in your admiration of ancient Israel that you completely failed, in any of your comments, to note the Prophetic tradition in the OT, which shows Israeli prophets condemning the corruption and sin of ancient Israel, such as Amos, to cite only one:

The prophet Amos, the first of the “writing prophets,” entered the scene in the northern kingdom of Israel and expressed a harsh indictment, speaking God’s words critiquing the people: “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals – they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned” (2:6-7). Amos charges that Israel’s society is unjust. The main moral trait that describes the society is “injustice.”...A second dynamic is exploitation. Amos speaks out: “They…trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl” (2:7). Exploitation has to do with using someone else to one’s own advantage or to satisfy one’s own desires regardless of the cost to that person. In Amos’s day, that meant economic exploitation. It also meant sexual exploitation – the ages long sad story of men overpowering women. (14) The Prophetic Faith—Amos 5:14-24; Hosea 11:1-9

Do you really think modern Israel is an improvement over this, for all the reasons I gave and more?

I see all religions as having the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly. Every one has a mix of this that can be studied from numerous contexts. Looking for and understanding the meaning and evidence of these four things in every religion is useful and helpful in many ways that you would discount or ignore or ridicule or disrespect due to you religious beliefs - again, further indications there is no debating you.

And on a minor note, you misrepresent the background of Morera, just as you misrepresented Veith. Morera is not a scholar "who specializes in the field of Spanish history," as you disingenuously say. He's a scholar of Spanish literature with a very specialized and narrow focus, as noted below:
"Antonio Carreno's teaching and research interests include XVI and XVIIth Centuries of Spanish Literature with a main emphasis on Golden Age poetry (Lope de Vega, Góngora) and the comedia, mainly Lope de Vega's canonical works."
Antonio Carreno | Hispanic Studies
As evident from above, he is not someone with the background to give reliable recommendations of scholarly books on Christian and Islamic history/theology focused on Golden Age Spain. He is an expert on analyzing poetry and plays of the time, not religion or religious history.

I have a serious question. Mass media moguls, archetypal celebrity figures, and medical professionals are the new priests of today. People turn to celebrities and their virtue signaling to know what “agendas” to support: reproductive rights, me too movement, Black lives matter, etc.

Ivan Illich makes a strong case for the medical analogy of experts of all kinds as a new kind of priesthood in (Medical Nemesis, Disabling Professions, Shadow Work).

The stuff about the media, well, there is a lot on the internet about it.

A lot of people refer to this hyper real, violent and trans humanistic agenda as the New World Order. Out of chaos order, the motto of the 33 degree.

Doesn’t every religion operate on this same principle? The world is full of Chaos, and the divine light of God shines light on what is good. The metaphorical Garden and humanity’s fall from a paradise of natural order and harmony.

Erich Fromm interpreted the Garden of Eden story as humanity stepping into the realm of free will. Instead of Eve tempting Adam maliciously, he interpreted it as Eve leading Man into the realm of conscious thought, which requires one to experience good and evil and to develop ones faculties.

Another association that comes to mind is humanity “falling” from grace. In the Chronicle of the Guyaki Indians, Pierre Clastres writes about how the Guyaki people perceive child birth as an ascension from the mothers body.

“This ritual of birth is undoubtedly an illustration of the myth of the origin of the Guayaki, which is essentially the myth of the Atchei Jamo pyve, the Guayaki's first ancestors. What does the myth tell us? "The first ancestors of the Guayaki lived in that huge and terrible earth. The first ancestors of the Guayaki came out of that huge and terrible earth, they all left it. To come out, to leave the earth, the first ancestors of the Guayaki scratched with their nails, like armadillos." To transform themselves into humans, into inhabitants of the world, the original Atchei had to leave their underground dwelling. To reach the outside theyrose up the length of a vertical tunnel they had dug with their nails, like armadillos, who hollow out their burrows deep under the soil. The progress, clearly indicated in the myth, from animality to humanity, therefore involves abandoning the prehuman dwelling, the burrow, and overcoming the obstacle which separates the inferior animal world (the lower) from the human world of the surface (the higher): the act of "birth" of the first Guayaki was an ascension that separated them from the earth. In the same way, the birth of a child takes place not at the moment of the waa, the fall that renews the old union of man and earth, but at the moment of the upi, which breaks this bond: here is the individual's true beginning. The woman raises the infant, tearing him away from the earth on which he was left lying---and this is a silent metaphor for that other bond which the man broke several moments earlier with his knife. The woman frees the child from the earth, the man liberates him from his mother. Text and image, the myth of origin and the ritual of birth express and illustrate one another, and every time a child is born, the Guayaki unconsciously repeat the first episode in Guayaki history in a gesture which must be read in the same way that one listens to a spoken word.”

Some food for thought.

 

[LUH 3417]

Veith is a Creationist. What else do you need to know about him to realize his statements on religion - among other things - have a very low probability of being reliable or trustworthy? He was kicked out of a tenured university job because of his Creationist dogmas. This does not mean he is wrong about everything, say the UN segment you asked me to watch. But it's not worth the effort to laboriously go through all his stuff on religion knowing this about him from the get-go. I want to listen to people who, unlike him, have training in evaluating religious ideas and mastered methods of historical and other analysis. If he had this expertise, and in using it, came up with conclusions hostile to the Jesuits or Islam, I would not hesitate to pay attention to him and consider what he is saying. I've looked at ideas and writings like that of Veith for a long time. When I was 16, I immersed myself in the ideas of Herbert Armstrong and his son Ted, who were very similar in various ways to Veith (I think they were 7th Day Adventists too) . Later, when I completed college and graduate school, I learned something about using logic and evidence to discern meaning(s) of religion, including non-Christian. I came to realize the Armstrongs were nutballs. That's just one example of many, so I assure you, Veith's religious ideas are old hat to me, thanks to the experience of trying to understand others like them.

The same thing with the Zionists in Israel. What else do you need to know about them when they torture, imprison, rape and kill - over years to this day - children, and for what dastardly crime - throwing rocks at solder with sub-machine guns? What else do you need to know about a government that routinely uses completely disproportionate force on civilians, who do not have jets or cannons or tanks to defend themselves? Knowing just these things alone, besides so much else, is more than sufficient to recognize they are no better than the ancient child-killing murderous pagans that Joshua and Moses killed. There is no rational debating you, because your faith commitments blinds you to seeing what is dark and wrong in your favorite religious idols. At the same time, it blinds you to what is positive and good in those not on your favorites list. An example of the former: you are so caught up in your admiration of ancient Israel that you completely failed, in any of your comments, to note the Prophetic tradition in the OT, which shows Israeli prophets condemning the corruption and sin of ancient Israel, such as Amos, to cite only one:

The prophet Amos, the first of the “writing prophets,” entered the scene in the northern kingdom of Israel and expressed a harsh indictment, speaking God’s words critiquing the people: “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals – they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned” (2:6-7). Amos charges that Israel’s society is unjust. The main moral trait that describes the society is “injustice.”...A second dynamic is exploitation. Amos speaks out: “They…trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl” (2:7). Exploitation has to do with using someone else to one’s own advantage or to satisfy one’s own desires regardless of the cost to that person. In Amos’s day, that meant economic exploitation. It also meant sexual exploitation – the ages long sad story of men overpowering women. (14) The Prophetic Faith—Amos 5:14-24; Hosea 11:1-9

Do you really think modern Israel is an improvement over this, for all the reasons I gave and more?

I see all religions as having the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly. Every one has a mix of this that can be studied from numerous contexts. Looking for and understanding the meaning and evidence of these four things in every religion is useful and helpful in many ways that you would discount or ignore or ridicule or disrespect due to you religious beliefs - again, further indications there is no debating you.

And on a minor note, you misrepresent the background of Morera, just as you misrepresented Veith. Morera is not a scholar "who specializes in the field of Spanish history," as you disingenuously say. He's a scholar of Spanish literature with a very specialized and narrow focus, as noted below:
"Antonio Carreno's teaching and research interests include XVI and XVIIth Centuries of Spanish Literature with a main emphasis on Golden Age poetry (Lope de Vega, Góngora) and the comedia, mainly Lope de Vega's canonical works."
Antonio Carreno | Hispanic Studies
As evident from above, he is not someone with the background to give reliable recommendations of scholarly books on Christian and Islamic history/theology focused on Golden Age Spain. He is an expert on analyzing poetry and plays of the time, not religion or religious history.

@Badger I also want to add that there was a streak of radical feminism in the 70s and 80s that was almost like a theology of the body. Mary Daly, who I admit I haven’t read, and am a bit weary of because she is a lesbian, comes to mind, but she is especially outspoken on her stance of transexuality and sex change surgeries (I agree with her stance). She was part of the Catholic Church and an academic.

I think the impression my women’s studies professor made on me relates to her alluding to some sort of spiritual essence inherent in the body and in the ability to procreate. We learned about the “economy of the placenta” and the way it is an organ of reciprocity. I hope you are glad to learn that not all women’s studies classes in America promote abortion and hair dye. The paradox is we never had an open discussion about reproductive rights nor was the term ever mentioned in our class. She made us read classics like Sophocles and rational feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft.

I believe that radical feminism was subverted by liberal feminism which is most likely an intelligence agency construction making people everywhere ugly and asexual.

 

[x-ray peat]

Veith is a Creationist. What else do you need to know about him to realize his statements on religion - among other things - have a very low probability of being reliable or trustworthy? He was kicked out of a tenured university job because of his Creationist dogmas. This does not mean he is wrong about everything, say the UN segment you asked me to watch. But it's not worth the effort to laboriously go through all his stuff on religion knowing this about him from the get-go. I want to listen to people who, unlike him, have training in evaluating religious ideas and mastered methods of historical and other analysis. If he had this expertise, and in using it, came up with conclusions hostile to the Jesuits or Islam, I would not hesitate to pay attention to him and consider what he is saying. I've looked at ideas and writings like that of Veith for a long time. When I was 16, I immersed myself in the ideas of Herbert Armstrong and his son Ted, who were very similar in various ways to Veith (I think they were 7th Day Adventists too) . Later, when I completed college and graduate school, I learned something about using logic and evidence to discern meaning(s) of religion, including non-Christian. I came to realize the Armstrongs were nutballs. That's just one example of many, so I assure you, Veith's religious ideas are old hat to me, thanks to the experience of trying to understand others like them.

The same thing with the Zionists in Israel. What else do you need to know about them when they torture, imprison, rape and kill - over years to this day - children, and for what dastardly crime - throwing rocks at solder with sub-machine guns? What else do you need to know about a government that routinely uses completely disproportionate force on civilians, who do not have jets or cannons or tanks to defend themselves? Knowing just these things alone, besides so much else, is more than sufficient to recognize they are no better than the ancient child-killing murderous pagans that Joshua and Moses killed. There is no rational debating you, because your faith commitments blinds you to seeing what is dark and wrong in your favorite religious idols. At the same time, it blinds you to what is positive and good in those not on your favorites list. An example of the former: you are so caught up in your admiration of ancient Israel that you completely failed, in any of your comments, to note the Prophetic tradition in the OT, which shows Israeli prophets condemning the corruption and sin of ancient Israel, such as Amos, to cite only one:

The prophet Amos, the first of the “writing prophets,” entered the scene in the northern kingdom of Israel and expressed a harsh indictment, speaking God’s words critiquing the people: “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals – they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned” (2:6-7). Amos charges that Israel’s society is unjust. The main moral trait that describes the society is “injustice.”...A second dynamic is exploitation. Amos speaks out: “They…trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl” (2:7). Exploitation has to do with using someone else to one’s own advantage or to satisfy one’s own desires regardless of the cost to that person. In Amos’s day, that meant economic exploitation. It also meant sexual exploitation – the ages long sad story of men overpowering women. (14) The Prophetic Faith—Amos 5:14-24; Hosea 11:1-9

Do you really think modern Israel is an improvement over this, for all the reasons I gave and more?

I see all religions as having the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly. Every one has a mix of this that can be studied from numerous contexts. Looking for and understanding the meaning and evidence of these four things in every religion is useful and helpful in many ways that you would discount or ignore or ridicule or disrespect due to you religious beliefs - again, further indications there is no debating you.

An anti-Jewish, anti-Western bias is the only thing blinding anyone. Claiming that the Israelis “torture, imprison, rape and kill - over years to this day - children, and for what dastardly crime - throwing rocks at solder with sub-machine guns?” is so far from reality, I don’t think it is possible to correct. I know because I already tried the last time you made that same vitriolic lie but ignored my response.

Also revealing is the repetitive attempts to compare a 5,000 year old people and its history to some idealized ethics of today. The ethics of Ancient Israel were certainly far better than the brutality suffered under the absolute Monarchies surrounding it where the King himself was divine and his whim was law. Moreover anything the Prophets wrote criticizing the ancient Israeli Monarchs is more or less applicable to all Governments and peoples of today. This self reflection and self criticism is what makes the Bible timeless and a continued source of inspiration for people to do better and expect more of their leaders. Maybe they forgot to cover that in seminary while hyping a highly sanitized version of the Koran written some 4,000 years later.

As for Dr Veith, all I hear is one excuse after another to avoid what he has to say. This only confirms my suspicion that you are not interested in learning anything new or in having a discussion but would rather continue to insult others you disagree with. Here is an example of a truly open mind that isn't afraid of learning from alternative viewpoints, even from that of a Creationist, gasp.

RP: Randomness is such a deep part of their way of thinking that they are accusing Shapiro of being a Creationist. He says, well, the Creationists sometimes speak very reasonably, and sometimes the so-called neo-Darwinians don't speak so scientifically and reasonably. So he isn't attacking the science, invoking Creationists, because sometimes their arguments are plausible.

By comparison, I did watch that heavily biased puff piece documentary you suggested. Not surprisingly it seems you have forgotten ever recommending it, as you've done with most other things you say which are later proven false. Is this what you call a discussion or debate? Seems like same old cherry picking whack-a-Badger to me.

And on a minor note, you misrepresent the background of Morera, just as you misrepresented Veith. Morera is not a scholar "who specializes in the field of Spanish history," as you disingenuously say. He's a scholar of Spanish literature with a very specialized and narrow focus, as noted below:
"Antonio Carreno's teaching and research interests include XVI and XVIIth Centuries of Spanish Literature with a main emphasis on Golden Age poetry (Lope de Vega, Góngora) and the comedia, mainly Lope de Vega's canonical works."
Antonio Carreno | Hispanic Studies
As evident from above, he is not someone with the background to give reliable recommendations of scholarly books on Christian and Islamic history/theology focused on Golden Age Spain. He is an expert on analyzing poetry and plays of the time, not religion or religious history.

And on a not so minor note, reread the paragraph above and try to see what is wrong with your analysis and false accusation of me being disingenuous. Perhaps you are not the careful reader or scholar you claim to be. Or maybe you have forgotten what you learned about “using logic and evidence to discern meaning.” This is the second time you made the same mistake in even identifying who Professor Fernández-Morera is, much less understanding what his research has to say.

 

[Badger]

I read some of Mary Daly sporadically years ago. I recall she seemed to many to be famous primarily for being a Catholic academic female who admitted to being a lesbian, a first at the time, and shocking as she was at a prominent Catholic college. She didn't really write for any but a female audience, I think, as she didn't really give a poop about what men thought of her ideas. Know nothing about her stance on sex change. Would have been a hoot, which I would have paid for, to have seen her in a public debate with Camille Paglia, another lesbian but much smarter than Daly ever was. Unlike the impression I got of Daly with her aggressive diatribes against the Patriarchy, she does not hate men. It won't happen, though, as Daly died in 2010.

"I believe that radical feminism was subverted by liberal feminism which is most likely an intelligence agency construction making people everywhere ugly and asexual." Nutritionist author and Internet podcaster Gary Null, considering himself a feminist, offers a slightly different way of distinguishing it: spiritual feminists and liberal/political feminists. The latter would be the group that puts out the most feminist claptrap and putting feminism in the worst light. Idea the latter group is an intel agency creation is utterly plausible, in my opinion. In late 1990s, I found on the net an extensive, lengthy article documenting Gloria Steinham's connections to CIA, which, the article showed, supported her feminist activism very early in her career.

"I hope you are glad to learn that not all women’s studies classes in America promote abortion and hair dye." Indeed, I am! Do such classes, I am curious to know, ever show and discuss images of women who are beautiful in the conventional sense, that is, the way most hetero men would regard as beautiful women?

@Badger I also want to add that there was a streak of radical feminism in the 70s and 80s that was almost like a theology of the body. Mary Daly, who I admit I haven’t read, and am a bit weary of because she is a lesbian, comes to mind, but she is especially outspoken on her stance of transexuality and sex change surgeries (I agree with her stance). She was part of the Catholic Church and an academic.

I think the impression my women’s studies professor made on me relates to her alluding to some sort of spiritual essence inherent in the body and in the ability to procreate. We learned about the “economy of the placenta” and the way it is an organ of reciprocity. I hope you are glad to learn that not all women’s studies classes in America promote abortion and hair dye. The paradox is we never had an open discussion about reproductive rights nor was the term ever mentioned in our class. She made us read classics like Sophocles and rational feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft.

I believe that radical feminism was subverted by liberal feminism which is most likely an intelligence agency construction making people everywhere ugly and asexual.

 

[LUH 3417]

Your anti-Jewish, anti-Western bias is the only thing blinding anyone. Claiming that the Israelis “torture, imprison, rape and kill - over years to this day - children, and for what dastardly crime - throwing rocks at solder with sub-machine guns?” is so far from reality, I don’t think it is possible to correct. I know because I already tried the last time you made the same vitriolic lie but ignored my response.

Also telling is your repetitive attempts to compare a 5,000 year old people and its history to some idealized ethics of today. The ethics of Ancient Israel were certainly far better than the brutality suffered under the absolute Monarchies surrounding it where the King himself was divine and his whim was law. Moreover anything the Prophets wrote criticizing the ancient Israeli Monarchs is more or less applicable to all Governments and peoples of today. This self reflection and self criticism is what makes the Bible timeless and a continued source of inspiration for people to do better and expect more of their leaders. Maybe they forgot to cover that in seminary while hyping a highly sanitized version of the Koran written some 4,000 years later.

As for Dr Veith, you come up with one excuse after another to avoid what he has to say but continue to attack his character. This only confirms my suspicion that you are not interested learning anything new or in having a discussion but would rather continue to insult others you disagree with.

Alternatively, I did watch that heavily biased puff piece documentary you suggested. Not surprisingly it now seems you have forgotten ever recommending it, as you do with most other things you say which are later proven false. Is this what you call a discussion or debate? Seems like same old cherry picking whack-a-Badger to me.

And on a not so minor note, reread your paragraph above and try to see what is wrong with your analysis. Its obvious you are not the careful reader or scholar you claim to be or may have forgotten whatever it is you think you learned about “using logic and evidence to discern meaning.”

Last night a friend told me that most Jewish people living in Israel act very different from traditional Jewish peo

I read some of Mary Daly sporadically years ago. I recall she seemed to many to be famous primarily for being a Catholic academic female who admitted to being a lesbian, a first at the time, and shocking as she was at a prominent Catholic college. She didn't really write for any but a female audience, I think, as she didn't really give a poop about what men thought of her ideas. Know nothing about her stance on sex change. Would have been a hoot, which I would have paid for, to have seen her in a public debate with Camille Paglia, another lesbian but much smarter than Daly ever was. Unlike the impression I got of Daly with her aggressive diatribes against the Patriarchy, she does not hate men. It won't happen, though, as Daly died in 2010.

"I believe that radical feminism was subverted by liberal feminism which is most likely an intelligence agency construction making people everywhere ugly and asexual." Nutritionist author and Internet podcaster Gary Null, considering himself a feminist, offers a slightly different way of distinguishing it: spiritual feminists and liberal/political feminists. The latter would be the group that puts out the most feminist claptrap and putting feminism in the worst light. Idea the latter group is an intel agency creation is utterly plausible, in my opinion. In late 1990s, I found on the net an extensive, lengthy article documenting Gloria Steinham's connections to CIA, which, the article showed, supported her feminist activism very early in her career.

"I hope you are glad to learn that not all women’s studies classes in America promote abortion and hair dye." Indeed, I am! Do such classes, I am curious to know, ever show and discuss images of women who are beautiful in the conventional sense, that is, the way most hetero men would regard as beautiful women?

What is conventional beauty? Beauty is a force not an image. For someone so spiritual...

 

[Badger]

Beauty is an inner reality - what you are labeling "force" - that is projected outwardly from the inward. The outward manifestation of this inward reality - originating in the model or archetype of beauty, a "name of God," as the Sufis say - is a "copy" of that inward reality which has taken a form. A beautiful woman is a sort of facsimile of this "name" God. It's profoundly spiritual... As Muhammad said in a hadith, which Sufis quote frequently. “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.”

"What is conventional beauty? Beauty is a force not an image. For someone so spiritual..."

Last night a friend told me that most Jewish people living in Israel act very different from traditional Jewish peo

What is conventional beauty? Beauty is a force not an image. For someone so spiritual...

 

[x-ray peat]

Last night a friend told me that most Jewish people living in Israel act very different from traditional Jewish people

is that what you mean by "inspired and critically thought out?"

 

[LUH 3417]

is that what you mean by "inspired and critically thought out?"

That was actually a thought I was beginning to formulate and never finished typing out because it was his subjective experience of traveling throughout Israel and feeling as though many Israelis were very uptight and cosmopolitan and not at all like some Jewish people who grew up with.

 

[LUH 3417]

Beauty is an inner reality - what you are labeling "force" - that is projected outwardly from the inward. The outward manifestation of this inward reality - originating in the model or archetype of beauty, a "name of God," as the Sufis say - is a "copy" of that inward reality which has taken a form. A beautiful woman is a sort of facsimile of this "name" God. It's profoundly spiritual... As Muhammad said in a hadith, which Sufis quote frequently. “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.”

"What is conventional beauty? Beauty is a force not an image. For someone so spiritual..."

Back to archetypes and facsimiles and sky gods with their forms.

 

[LUH 3417]

Beauty is an inner reality - what you are labeling "force" - that is projected outwardly from the inward. The outward manifestation of this inward reality - originating in the model or archetype of beauty, a "name of God," as the Sufis say - is a "copy" of that inward reality which has taken a form. A beautiful woman is a sort of facsimile of this "name" God. It's profoundly spiritual... As Muhammad said in a hadith, which Sufis quote frequently. “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.”

"What is conventional beauty? Beauty is a force not an image. For someone so spiritual..."

So god is intersex?

 

[Badger]

Still waiting for answer to my question: "Do such classes, I am curious to know, ever show and discuss images of women who are beautiful in the conventional sense, that is, the way most hetero men would regard as beautiful women?"

So god is intersex?

 

[LUH 3417]

Still waiting for answer to my question: "Do such classes, I am curious to know, ever show and discuss images of women who are beautiful in the conventional sense, that is, the way most hetero men would regard as beautiful women?"

Answering that question would encourage one to stoop to a form of myopia typically found on elementary school playgrounds.



Do you find these women “conventionally attractive”? Your entire question is predicated on the idea that men are so simple as to have a type.

If by type you mean “fertile looking”...that is extremely subjective and depends on geography, culture, and a million other things.

 

[LUH 3417]

Beauty is an inner reality - what you are labeling "force" - that is projected outwardly from the inward. The outward manifestation of this inward reality - originating in the model or archetype of beauty, a "name of God," as the Sufis say - is a "copy" of that inward reality which has taken a form. A beautiful woman is a sort of facsimile of this "name" God. It's profoundly spiritual... As Muhammad said in a hadith, which Sufis quote frequently. “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.”

"What is conventional beauty? Beauty is a force not an image. For someone so spiritual..."

Since were on the topic of blueprints and archetypes (yawn) here’s some insight into America’s current obsession with Kim Kardashian’s backside and other “conventional” signs of femininity.

 

[Badger]

I think you misunderstood my question, or I need to clarify it a bit, or maybe the question somehow hit a rather sensitive nerve for you, or all the above.

So let me clarify: all I was asking was if your women's studies classes covered the topic area of beautiful women, primarily those who western, modern urban men would typically find beautiful (not Kim, which many of us find way over-rated with such a terribly fat butt, and not unclothed African women living in dusty hovels). The scope of my question was quite modest, I wasn't looking to ask Big Questions about the nature of female beauty, as you seem to aver.

Answering that question would encourage one to stoop to a form of myopia typically found on elementary school playgrounds.



Do you find these women “conventionally attractive”? Your entire question is predicated on the idea that men are so simple as to have a type.

If by type you mean “fertile looking”...that is extremely subjective and depends on geography, culture, and a million other things.

 

[Badger]

See what I said about Kim K in prior post. I don't know any men who watch her show, but women, yes. You chose the wrong archetype to argue for your side (yawn).

Since were on the topic of blueprints and archetypes (yawn) here’s some insight into America’s current obsession with Kim Kardashian’s backside and other “conventional” signs of femininity.

 

[Badger]

Talking about female beauty in the modern feminist West and to snap you out of your yawns, here's a nugget of insight you can ponder (my emphasis in bolded):

"As I’ve argued here before, female economic self-sufficiency like we have now in the West creates massive negative feedback loops in the Male Commitment-Female Commitment Worthiness relationship. And as williamK notes, female independence (in which women can feed, house, and clothe themselves) not only pushes women to emphasize fulfillment of their desire for sexy cads, but it pushes men to DE-EMPHASIZE their beta provider skills. Men don’t feel inspired to wife up self-sufficient women; men DO feel inspired to provide for and protect vulnerable women. And in en environment of female dependence, men will be careful to choose the prettiest women they can get, because they will be investing a lot in her. In contrast, an environment of female independence encourages men to spread their seed indiscriminately, because the pressure to provide for careergirl yaass queen shrikes has diminished. Executive summary: The West is currently selecting against the efflorescence of female Beauty and selecting FOR the effluvia of female Ugliness. Literally feminism means more ugly women and fewer beautiful women. Feminism is the ideology of Ugliness."

What Produces Female Beauty?
What Produces Female Beauty?

 

[LUH 3417]

See what I said about Kim K in prior post. I don't know any men who watch her show, but women, yes. You chose the wrong archetype to argue for your side (yawn).

Ha well at least our philosophical meandering leads to sleep and relaxation (I hope).
We never discussed conventional beauty and I don’t subscribe to the idea of conventional beauty. Was it Hafiz who brought a dead flower to represent the most beautiful flower in his garden?