Free Republic

Some philosophers have promoted the idea that it is impossible for human beings to invent new sins. Any "new" sin that may seem shocking to you, is a sin that was practiced in ancient civilizations that have gone before us. In order for a nation or civilization to be strong, families must be strong. When families die, civilizations die along with them. I refer you to this quote from this website http://constitutionschool.com/2012/09/27/first-time-ever-majority-of-american-households-unmarried/ "For the first time, households made up of married couples with and without children dropped below 50 percent of all households, Jacobsen noted. At the peak in 1960,...

Ever since the peak of the Hellenic empire, visiting the seven wonders of the ancient world has been the way to pay homage to the early achievements of human civilisation. But there was one catch for those who wanted to see them all. The farthest one from Athens, the famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in what is now central Iraq, existed in reports but its exact location had never been definitively proven. Of the other six, the pyramids of Giza remain relatively intact and there are ruins or at least traces of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the statue...

It has all the outward trappings of another Arab Spring: tens of thousands of demonstrators, a permanent protesters' "camp", and megaphoned demands for the removal of another "dictator". Yet the slogans that now ring out on the streets of Iraq each Friday are the voice of a community not best known for championing civil rights - be it for themselves or anyone else. Instead, they are the disenfranchised members of Saddam Hussein's Sunni minority - the Muslim sect that enjoyed three decades of privileged status under his rule, and which spearheaded the long and bloody insurgency against British and American...

A research article posted on the website of terrorist-turned-Christian Walid Shoebat contends the oldest known references to the Islamic deity Allah are not in Arabian records but in Babylonian artifacts. Ancient tablets describe “Alla” as a deity of “violence and revolution.” “This link sheds new light since for many years we have been hearing various ideas on where Allah came from. Christian and Muslim scholars – as well as secular professors – presented numerous arguments on just who Allah really is,” wrote Ted Shoebat, the son of Walid Shoebat. In his heavily footnoted project, he writes that historians have suggested...

After a controversial six-year-long translation project, a Jordanian think tank based in Amman published an Arabic translation of the Babylonian Talmud. After gaining enthusiastic responses to the project from the Arab League, 96 scholars began work on the translation. The editors are happy with the project, stating that the lack of an Arabic Talmud "has always been an obstacle to understanding Judaism." Despite some polarized and politicized responses, most have adopted a positive impression of the massive scholarly work. Dr. Raquel Ukeles of the Israeli National Library states that the project stemmed from scientific curiosity, and the introduction discusses the...

Bible prophecy indicates that in the End Times, the nation we know today as the Republic of Iraq—known variously in Scripture as Babel, Babylon, Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Shinar—will emerge as the global center of wealth, power and terrible evil. Eventually Iraq will pose a direct and existential threat to the State of Israel, particularly during the Tribulation. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime in 2003, Iraq has not been a regional threat, much less a danger to Israel. Some have assumed, therefore, that Iraq would no longer play a major role in Middle Eastern or global affairs...

"We are brothers, We are a family of God. Not one of us is better than the other in His eyes. He loves us both. The future can only be won against the "Evil one" by all of us standing strong together." Malcom X

The Vatican is now reiterating demands for control of religious sites in Jerusalem. Jordan's occupation 1948-1967 didn't bother them. “Peace negotiations in the Middle East must tackle the issue of the status of the holy sites of Jerusalem”, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, declared several days ago in Rome. The Vatican’s former foreign minister asked to place some Israeli holy places under Vatican authority, alluding to the Cenacle on Mount Zion and the garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The first site also houses what is referred...

The Queen’s role as head of the Church of England may no longer be “appropriate” following changes to the law of succession, a group of MPs has suggested.Reforms agreed earlier this year by Commonwealth countries would create a potential conflict of interest because they allow a monarch to marry a Roman Catholic, said a parliamentary committee. It said that if a future heir to the throne were raised as a Catholic, there would be an “obvious difficulty” in that person becoming head of the Anglican Church on their succession. Under current laws, the Queen is required to “join in communion”...

The Catholic church in Germany is to sell Weltbild, its bookselling arm, after the unit admitted last month to publishing pornographic novels. Last month it was reported that German publishing company Weltbild, which is 100 percent owned by the Catholic church, was profiting through the sale of erotic novels. Weltbild is one of Germany’s main book enterprises, with annual sales of 1.6 billion euros and a workforce of 6400. Its interests include general publishing, a main national bookshop chain and book clubs. Catholic leaders were outraged that the profitable company’s book range included steamy pulp novels with titles like Boarding...

In 1925, archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a curious collection of artifacts while excavating a Babylonian palace. They were from many different times and places, and yet they were neatly organized and even labeled. Woolley had discovered the world's first museum. It's easy to forget that ancient peoples also studied history - Babylonians who lived 2,500 years ago were able to look back on millennia of previous human experience. That's part of what makes the museum of Princess Ennigaldi so remarkable. Her collection contained wonders and artifacts as ancient to her as the fall of the Roman Empire is to us....

Last Friday, Rev. Robert Jeffress, the Dallas pastor who introduced Gov. Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit, spoke derisively about the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney, making the case that “Mormonism is a cult.” Two days later, he chided Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as “false religions.” Last year, Rev. Jeffress said the Roman Catholic Church was the outgrowth of a “corruption” called the “Babylonian mystery.” He continued, “Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word. It comes from that cult-like pagan religion. Isn’t that the genius of Satan?” Catholic League president Bill...

Who is the Scarlet Whore who sits on the Beast First we should consider what it means that the Whore sits on the beast. Walid Shoebat reasons by interpreting mountains as nations / empires and not as hills, the seventh beast empire was Islamic ending with the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922AD. Revelation 13 claims that the “head” will be revived. That is, the Islamic empire will be rejuvenated coming from the same persecuting empires that preceded it, but NOT including Rome. This is a clear indication that the eighth beast empire will be Islamic, NOT Roman. We...

Comparing Christianity and the New Paganism The most serious challenge for Christianity today isn't one of the other great religions of the world, such as Islam or Buddhism. Nor is it simple atheism, which has no depth, no mass appeal, no staying power. Rather, it's a religion most of us think is dead. That religion is paganism — and it is very much alive. Paganism is simply the natural gravity of the human spirit, the line of least resistance, religion in its fallen state. The "old" paganism came from the country. Indeed, the very word "paganism" comes from the Latin...

Thousands of years ago, the king of a great city ordered that this inscription be carved in stone at the city gate: “Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, the pious prince appointed by the will of Marduk...full of prudent deliberation... the never-tiring governor who always has at heart the worship at Esagila and Ezida... the firstborn son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon am I. “I had the gates built of sheer blue stone, on which bulls and dragons were elaborately painted. “I let the temple of Marduk, highest of all, supreme of gods, a place of joy and jubilation for major and...

snip Following years of devastation under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the ensuing American invasion of Iraq, World Monuments Fund conservationist Jeff Allen told The New York Times this week that archeologists are beginning to work on ancient Babylonian sites and possibly restore some of them. snip

If the cost of digging a trench is 9 gin, and the trench has a length of 5 ninda and is one-half ninda deep, and if a worker’s daily load of earth costs 10 gin to move, and his daily wages are 6 se of silver, then how wide is the canal? Or, a better question: if you were a tutor of Babylonian scribes some 4,000 years ago, holding a clay tablet on which this problem was incised with cuneiform indentations — the very tablet that can now be seen with 12 others from that Middle Eastern civilization at the...

Aizawl: The fear of the 'Beast' or the Devil in the Christian-dominated state of Mizoram has caused almost 1,000 families to refuse to enroll their names in the National Population Register (NPR) taken up along with the Census 2011 here from May 15. The dread stems from Chapter 13 Verse 17 of the Book of Revelations in the Bible which says "... and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name." The problem has stemmed from the Unique Identification Authority of India stipulating...

Well this should not be a surprise to anyone but Red Dawn is the latest film to be put on hold due to MGM’s financial status. With no executives to control the studio, creditors have placed the responsibility of the once great film company on themselves. This move has affected all the movies it was tied to, from the twenty-third Bond film to The Hobbit. Because of MGM’s financial problems Daniel Craig left Bond 23 for Girl with a Dragon Tatoo and Gullimero Del Toro left The Hobbit.

Ever since the Tower of Babel rebellion about 4,200 years ago (Gen 11:1-9), the vast majority of mankind has been governed and ruled by this godless political and religious system. This idolatrous ideology has indeed developed and deepened throughout the world system for ~ 4,200 years. Civilizations and cultures, ideologies and philosophies, religions and societies, cities and nations, morals and traditions have all sprung forth from this event. God in His judgment scattered the people (Gen 11:8-10; Deut. 32:7-8) to the “four corners” of the earth. It is these God-rejecting rebellious seeds - planted by the founders of Babel -...

A current study, known as the Future of Babylon project, documents the damage from water mainly associated with the Euphrates River and irrigation systems nearby. The ground is saturated just below the surface at sites of the Ishtar Gate and the long-gone Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders. Bricks are crumbling, temples collapsing. The Tower of Babel, long since reduced to rubble, is surrounded by standing water. Leaders of the international project, describing their findings in interviews and at a meeting this month in New York, said that any plan for reclaiming Babylon as a tourist attraction and a...

(excerpt) This moment at CPAC is even more important for the conservative movement as it happened at an important time when there is already a generational change going on in America. Boomers are fading, Xer’s are ruling, and Millenials are finding their way. Forty-eight percent of those who participated in the CPAC straw poll last week identified themselves as students. They are the future of conservativism. And they shouted down an anti-gay bigot. There will surely be other homocon-related clashes within the conservative movement, just as the Democrat Party has regularly used the gay community as pawns in their re-election...

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse. Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God. Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies...

It is in many ways the weirdest shard of reporting from those years, and its testimony is from no less than the former president of France: The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God. Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who...

Soldiers and civilians prepare to enter the ancient city of Babylon for a tour, July 18. The entrance to the ruins is a recreation of Ishtar's Gate, originally built by Nebuchadnezzar II in 575 B.C. It was dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. Photo by Debralee P. Crankshaw, Multi-National Division – South. AL HILLAH — Multi-National Division – South leaders, troops and civilian employees recently visited the historic city of Babylon to see what this ancient land is all about. "The mission [to Babylon] was to educate those on the command staff and some of the primary...

King Jehoiachin was only 18 years old and had occupied the throne of Judah barely three months when he was led off into Babylonian captivity in 598 BCE together with his wives, his mother, his servants, his eunuchs and thousands of "the chief men of the land." But what happened to them when they reached Babylon? And what happened there to the tens of thousands of others who joined them in exile when the First Temple was destroyed a decade later? The Bible tells us of the return to Judah half a century later but virtually nothing of what the...

A hilltop view of the ancient city of Babylon, where King Nebuchadnezzar II, whose life spanned 630-562 B.C., built his hanging gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Photo by Maj. Mike Feeney, 172nd Infantry Brigade. HILLAH — Soldiers of the 172nd Infantry Brigade are enabling documentarians, historians and preservationists as they work to ensure ancient Iraqi history is preserved and documented in Babil province. The Soldiers provide these experts transportation and security as they conduct site surveys of Babylon, an ancient city near the modern city of HillahThe Babil Provincial Reconstruction Team hosted the World Monuments Fund...

HILLAH, Iraq, June 30, 2009 – Soldiers with the 172nd Infantry Brigade are helping documentarians, historians and preservationists as they work to ensure that ancient Iraqi history is preserved and documented in Babil province. Army 1st Lt. Bryan Kelso stands watch outside a deserted palace built under Saddam Hussein at the Babylon ruins, June 21, 2009. Saddam ordered the construction of the palace on a manmade hill overlooking the ancient city of Babylon, where many projects are under way to enhance tourism in the area. U.S. Army photo by Maj. Mike Feeney  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The brigade...

OUR effort in Iraq passed a major milestone today: Our troops are leaving the cities. Advisers remain in place. Joint patrols will still occur. And our forces will wait nearby to respond to Iraqi calls for support. But the last of the bases and US-only outposts within Iraq's urban centers will be vacated. Terrorists have already begun testing the new security arrangements. Iraqi forces won't always pass with flying colors. Yet this situation seemed a pipe dream not so long ago: Iraq's security forces, serving an elected government, assume primary responsibility for the good order of their own country. We...

Regular readers of this weblog and my books know that Bible prophecy says the ancient city of Babylon, Iraq will be rebuilt and become the greatest center of wealth, commerce and power in the “last days” of history. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Revelation are explicit on this subject. Skeptics and cynics abound, to be sure, but the fact is Babylon is being rebuilt right now, in part with U.S. taxpayer funds. Iraqi leaders hope that eventually millions of tourists will come to visit, and real progress is being made. Consider today’s edition of Stars & Stripes, a...

20 FOLD, 20 FOLD, JUDGMENT IS UPON AMERICA On June 08, 2009, I saw the following photo at www.drudgereport.com. (photo of the $20 over the White House) Underneath the picture was this caption: CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT. I IMMEDIATELY heard these words: 20-fold, 20-FOLD, again I say, 20-FOLD is come upon this White House and upon this land." Stunned, I asked the Lord, the Great God of Heaven and Earth, "What does this mean?" This prophetic word has taken two days to come forth for me. The following is the interpretation of the photo and the matter. DESCRIPTION...

A new book by movie producer Jon Peters alleges Hollywood movie mogul Ray Stark sexually molested singer and actress Barbra Streisand at the start of her acting career. The explosive allegations against Stark, who prior to his death in 2004 was one of the most influential producers in motion picture history, are contained in Peters’ memoir, tentatively entitled Studio Head, which was purchased by Harper-Collins Publishers in April for a reported $US875,000. Peters, who turns 64 this year, claims his former wife, actress Lesley Ann Warren, was also molested during infamous Hollywood casting couch sessions and when he became aware...

Iraq's local government is to reopen the Babylon archeological site, which had been closed since the 2003 US-led invasion of the country. The city, located 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, was transformed into a military camp by American and Polish troops and a heliport was built on its ruins. The reopening will take place despite archaeologists expressing their concerns about further damages to what remains of one of the world's first great cities which is pending registration on UNESCO's list of protected World Heritage sites. Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage now says Babil's provincial government has illegal control...

U.S. To Help Rebuild City Of Babylon In Iraq By Joel C. Rosenberg Largely overlooked by the Western news media over the past few weeks was an enormously significant story. The government of Iraq is moving forward with plans to protect the archaeological remains of the ancient City of Babylon, in preparation for building a modern city of Babylon. The project, originally started by the late Saddam Hussein, is aimed eventually at attracting scores of "cultural tourists" from all over the world to see the glories of Mesopotamia's most famous city. What's more, the Obama Administration is contributing $700,000 towards...

Very few of us have had the benefit of learning the Sabbath and the special type of Christianity that this group shares growing up. Most of us have had to learn it after figuring out what we had been taught growing up (or indoctrinated with, if you prefer) and what most Christians teach/believe is a little off of the mark, so to speak. Those of you who have grown up in this lifestyle probably have had to come to grips with it as well as you have heard and experienced other beliefs from your friends. My kids are pretty young...

Is it possible to really win the war on terror? Are there really reasons for Jihad that can be understood and countered by the West? Is military or martial action the last-best chance for ending the threat posed by Islam? In his new and controversial book, Babylon’s Covert War, the author answers these and other complex questions related to the global fight against radical Jihad. Islam has a strategy that was incorporated by Muhammad in the 7th Century that has continued in various forms over a multitude of battlefields be they military, social, or political. During the emergence of Islamic...

Andrew Breitbart, CEO of Breitbart.com, had a great op ed in the Washington Times yesterday about how Hollywood oppresses Republicans and conservatives in La La Land. Detailing the travails of Republicans in Hollywood -- including destruction by Hollywood's liberals of personal property owned by identified Republicans -- Breitbart laments the "bullying" the self-proclaimed tolerant lefties mete out to those who walk the Republican side of the street. Breitbart says of this ideological inbreeding: But Los Angeles is a one-company town. And because of bullying (or what Democrats would call blacklisting or “political discrimination” if the shoe were on the other...

Pauline Kael & trash cinema Will Smith's films are the endgame of a critic's take on Bonnie and Clyde Robert Fulford, National Post Published: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Happy as a clam, rich as a minor Rockefeller, Will Smith turned up recently on a 60 Minutes update of an item from last December. He was there to promote his current movie, Hancock, but his main theme was his huge success and the way he's engineered it. He left me thinking sad and rueful thoughts about, of all people, the late Pauline Kael, the most passionate, stimulating and argument-starting critic in...

LOS ANGELES, July 10 (UPI) -- A group of Hollywood TV and film producers said the Screen Actors Guild declined to accept its final offer for a new contract Thursday. "Today's meeting demonstrated that SAG's Membership First contingent unreasonably expects to obtain more in these negotiations than directors, writers and other actors obtained during their negotiations," the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said in a statement Thursday.AMPTP said its final offer included more than $250 million in additional compensation, important new media rights and protection for pension and health benefits."The refusal of SAG's Hollywood leadership to accept this...

On June 22, 1897, about 400 million people around the world -- one-fourth of humanity -- got the day off. It was the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the British throne. The Diamond Jubilee stretched over five days on land and sea, but its high point was the parade and thanksgiving service on June 22. The 11 premiers of Britain's self-governing colonies were in attendance, along with princes, dukes, ambassadors, and envoys from the rest of the world. A military procession of 50,000 soldiers included hussars from Canada, cavalrymen from New South Wales, carabineers from Naples, camel troops...

(IsraelNN.com) A routine research visit to the British Museum nets a landmark archaeological discovery and proof of the Old Testament's truth. British newspapers report that ancient Babylonian expert Dr. Michael Jursa of Vienna discovered a small clay tablet that provides proof of the Old Testament's veracity. Though the tablet was unearthed near Baghdad in 1920, only last week was it deciphered for the first time, by Dr. Jursa. Upon reading the tablet, which records a donation of gold by "the chief eunuch of King Nebuchadnezzar," a man named Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, Jursa suddenly realized that the name sounded familiar. He quickly consulted...

Quix: I've been undecided about whether the Bible clearly indicated Babylon was to be rebuilt in these END TIMES until reading as far as I have in this book. I believe this excerpt is an important one to prayerfully consider and that it is indicative of a wealth of well researched info in the book. I consider it well worth getting and reading all of—for anyone seriously interested in the END TIMES and Bible prophecy. Pp132-143 Babylon is mentioned 280 times in the Bible—more than any city except Jerusalem. It is easily the most important pagan city that ever existed,...

BELGRADE, Serbia — Top Roman Catholic and Orthodox dignitaries declared Monday that the time has come to close the ages-old rifts between the ancient branches of Christianity and bring East and West closer together. Representing the world's 1.1 billion Catholics and more than 250 million Christian Orthodox, sixty bishops, metropolitans and cardinals — 30 from each side — convened in the Serbian capital Belgrade for a renewed "theological" dialogue while acknowledging that much wider issues are involved. "East and West have been estranged from each other since the 11th century," said Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas, referring to the historic schism...

BABYLON, Iraq - In this ancient city, it is hard to tell what are ruins and what is just ruined. Crumbling mud-brick buildings, some 2,500 years old, look like smashed sandcastles at the beach. Signs of military occupation are everywhere: trenches, bullet casings, shiny coils of razor wire and blast walls stamped "This side Scud protection." Babylon, the city with the million- dollar name, has paid the price of war. It has been ransacked, looted, torn up, paved over, neglected and roughly occupied. Archaeologists said American soldiers had even used soil thick with priceless artifacts to stuff sandbags. But Iraqi...

In an act of at least partial contrition, an officer in charge of the US military occupation of Babylon in 2003 and 2004 has offered to make a formal apology for the destruction his troops wrought on the ancient site. Colonel John Coleman, former chief of staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, said yesterday that if the head of the Iraqi antiquities board wanted an apology, "if it makes him feel good, we can certainly give him one". For more than a millennium, Babylon was one of the great cities of antiquity. It reached its greatest glory...

WARSAW - US and Polish troops did not damage the archaeological ruins of ancient Babylon despite setting up a military headquarters at the site for two years, Iraqi Deputy Minister of Defence Ziad Cattan said on Friday in Warsaw. “There was no damage done to archaeological artefacts in Babylon by either Polish or US troops,” PAP news agency quoted him as saying. Cattan echoed claims by Polish defence officials that the presence of troops at the site helped to preserve Babylon’s archaeological treasures. Earlier this month, John Curtis, a senior archaeologist with the British Museum, had alleged that more than...

Is is the most un-American speech I've ever heard a chief executive give to the United States, and only one was as gruesome and off key as this and that guy is Harry Truman who's being made into a hero because he fits the imperial mode.That's just never existed in our history, that a president says 'Well, I think Im going to take over Costa Rica. There may be some terrorists down there some day. Oh, they arent there yet, but they are planning for it. And they've got bicarbonate of soda. Once you have that, you can build all...

In case you've been hunkered down on Mount Kenya, "Brokeback Mountain" recently opened. No hurricanes destroyed Orlando. No meteorites were reported in Los Angeles. In fact, the film quietly attracted record-breaking crowds in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And so it seems that Ang Lee's film about two cowboys in love is — at minimum — surviving. The reason for this is hard to figure out. Could it be that all three opening cities have hefty gay populations? Another option is that right-wing groups, such as Focus on the Family, are all but keeping silent, in hopes that...

A list of remakes of previously-released films. We have editorially decided to narrow this list to remakes of popular movies produced in the United States. There is a slew of American remakes of foreign films, but those can be more appropriately considered "adaptations" rather than pure remakes. We may create a separate list for these adaptations in the future if there is enough demand. Feel free to contact us or post a message to the forum.

The Bible is full of praise for Persia (today's much-maligned Iran) and for its rulers. In the Book of Ezra, God speaks through the proclamations of Cyrus, the king of Persia, who declares, "The Lord God of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem." Cyrus acceded to this divine command, and thus was the Second Temple in Jerusalem built. In other parts of the Old Testament, there is ringing praise of Cyrus as God's "anointed" and the "chosen" ruler, who freed Jews from their Babylonian...