Posted on 09/07/2014 12:35:02 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
Bear with me for a moment. It’s college football Saturday and there are some really big games which will have national implications. The State of Michigan will see the Wolverines and Spartans line up against two formidable foes, Notre Dame and Oregon respectively, and they travel to both venues. As well, out west there’s another pretty big game between USC (the other one, Southern California, not South Carolina) and Stanford. And up in the ‘Shoe, Ohio State will face the challenge of the Hokies from Virginia Tech. My own Tennessee Volunteers have Arkansas State coming to Knoxville — before they’ll have to travel to Norman Oklahoma to face the top five rated Oklahoma Sooners. And Kansas State will have to take on Iowa State whom they should not take for granted at all.
Now, why did I start off talking about the major college football lineups today? Because I need something to calm me down as I tell you about this little tidbit.
As reported by CNS News, “At a ceremony Wednesday honoring Shaarik Zafar, who was just appointed to serve as the State Department’s Special Representative to Muslim Communities, Secretary of State John Kerry said “confronting climate change” is “a duty or responsibility laid down in scriptures.” “Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid down in scriptures, clearly, beginning in Genesis,” Kerry claimed.
Ok, trying to take a deep breath.
First of all, why do we need a Special Representative to Muslim Communities? Congress simply must not fund this newly-created position — why is the State Department concerned about Muslim communities? So do we need a special representative to Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist communities? Maybe Yazidi communities need a state department representative?
Where do these people come from? At a time when Christians are being slaughtered, I find it astounding that Kerry — and indeed the progressive socialists — are more focused on fighting climate change because they believe God said so? What a bunch of political hypocrites.
I’m so glad it’s college football season or else I’d just have to run all day long to relieve the tension.
Check out what Scary Kerry stated, “Our fates are inextricably linked on any number of things that we must confront and deal with in policy concepts today. Our fates are inextricably linked on the environment. For many of us, respect for God’s creation also translates into a duty to protect and sustain His first creation: Earth, the planet. Before God created man, He created Heavens and Earth.”
Kerry also stated that “Muslim-majority countries are among the most vulnerable” when it comes to the impact of climate change. So we canceled our space program so we could do more for Muslim countries in educating them on space exploration and technology. Now we need to protect “Muslim-majority” countries from the dangers of climate change?
What about protecting Jews and Christians from the onslaught of Islamo-fascism and jihadism as Islamic terrorism proliferates? Nah, that’s just too hard and doesn’t fit the progressive socialist ideology.
Folks, enjoy football today and this weekend — my Atlanta Falcons take on the New Orleans Saints — because if we don’t have something take our minds off them, these progressives will make us lose them. One thing is for sure, the progressive leftists know how to “punt away” the real problems and fumble all over the field.
The biggest “climate change” in the Book of Genesis was Sodom and Gomorrah.
And we KNOW what THAT was all about!
Igor grabbed AB”Abby”NORMAL’s brain for Kerry.
Michael Savage played it on his show last week.
I could not believe my ears.
How does anyone so breathtakingly stupid rise to such heights?
Even the morons who put him there aren’t that stupid.
Ignorant maybe.
But not that colossally stupid.
You have given a great explanation for why there is so much consensus. Most of these yahoos are college professors who have sidestepped the requirement to publish in the intellectual journals. They now set up phony websites and non profit operations to troll for government grants.
OBAMA: ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE
OTRANTO - MASSACRE OF CHRISTIANS BY MUSLIMS
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana
800 Italians Men Beheaded in Otranto in 1480 for Refusing Islam,by the Turks, with the Approval of Sultan Mehmet II
On August 14, 1480, a massacre happened on a hill outside the city of Otranto, in southern Italy, here 800 of the town’s men were taken to a place called the Hill of the Minerva, and, one by one, beheaded in full view of their fellow prisoners. It became known as the Hill of the Martyrs. They died because they refused to convert to Islam. The 800 men of Otranto were martyrs. But due to their sacrifice, however, the Ottoman invasion was slowed and Rome was spared the same fate that had befallen Constantinople only 27 years before.
The city of Constantinople had been taken in 1453 and for 3 days its people were made slaves or killed or raped and the city was looted, all with the permission of the Sultan, Mehmet (Muhammad) II,who was then 21.Mehmet is the Turkish way of saying Muhammad.
The people of Otranto knew of the siege of Constantinople and that when that city fell the Muslims pillaged the city, but the key moment came when they reached Hagia Sophia.
After breaking down the church’s bronze gates, they found inside a huge throng of Byzantines who had taken refuge and who were praying that the city might be delivered by some miracle. The Christians were seized and separated according to age and gender. The infants and elderly were brutally murdered; the men, including some of the city’s most prominent senators, were carted off to the slave markets; and the women and girls were taken by soldiers to be raped or sent into a life of slavery.
At Otranto, the terms of the Muslims were ostensibly generous. If the town surrendered, the defenders would be permitted to live. They said no, it was repeated and again it was no. It was the city against 18,000 Muslims and it lasted 2 weeks.
Slaughter, Sacrilege, and Slavery
Turkish troops entered and killed anyone in their path. They made their way to the cathedral. As in the Hagia Sophia, the invaders found the church filled with people praying with Archbishop Stefano Agricoli, Bishop Stephen Pendinelli, and Count Largo, the commander of the soldiers. The Ottomans commanded:
1.The archbishop to throw away his crucifix, abjure the Christian faith, and embrace Islam. When he refused, his head was cut off before the weeping congregation.
2.Bishop Pendinelli and Count Largo likewise would not convert and were also put to death, reportedly by being slowly sawed in half.
3.As was the custom, the priests were murdered and the cathedral was stripped of all Christian symbols and turned into a stable for the horses. The Ottomans then gathered up the surviving people of Otranto and took them as captives.
The people of Otranto faced the same end as the Christians of Constantinople. All of the men over the age of 50 were slaughtered; the women and children under the age of 15 were either slain or sent away to Albania to be slaves. According to some contemporary sources, the total number of dead was as high as 12,000, with another 5,000 pressed into slavery.
800 Men who Survived told to Convert to Islam or Die
The Muslim commander ordered the men of Otranto, 800 survivors of the battle, those who were not over 50 and had not been already killed in battle or later, or were not children and had not be killed or enslaved, to be brought before him. He gave them one chance to convert to Islam or die. To convince them, he instructed an Italian apostate priest named Giovanni to preach. The former priest called on the men of Otranto to abandon the Christian faith, and they would get many benefits.
One of the men of Otranto, a tailor named Antonio Primaldi (he is also named Antonio Pezzulla in some sources), came forward to speak to the survivors. He called out that he was ready to die for Christ a thousand times. He then added, according to the chronicler Giovanni Laggetto in the Historia della guerra di Otranto del 1480:
“My brothers, till today we have fought in defense of our country, to save our lives, and for our lords; now it is time that we fight to save our souls for our Lord, so that having died on the cross for us, it is good that we should die for him, standing firm and constant in the faith, and with this earthly death we will win eternal life and the glory of martyrs.”
At this, the men of Otranto cried out with one voice that they too were willing to die a thousand times for Christ.
The Execution
The next morning, August 14, the 800 prisoners were bound together with ropes. The victims repeated their pledge to be faithful to Christ, and the Ottomans chose the courageous Antonio Primaldi as the first to be executed.
The old tailor gave one final exhortation to his fellow prisoners and knelt before the executioner. The blade fell and decapitated him, but then, as the chronicler Saverio de Marco claimed in the Compendiosa istoria degli ottocento martiri otrantini (“The Brief History of the 800 Martyrs of Otranto”), the headless corpse stood back upright. The body supposedly proved unmovable, so it remained standing for the entire duration of the gruesome executions.
Stunned by this apparent miracle, one of the executioners converted on the spot and was immediately killed. The executioners then returned to their horrendous business. The bodies were placed into a mass grave, and the Turks prepared to begin their march to Rome.
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