Posted on 09/14/2003 11:28:25 AM PDT by quidnunc
Where a person stands determines how Osama bin Laden is viewed. In the West, he is seen as the murderous terrorist and force behind the Sept. 11 attacks. From the East, he is viewed as a holy leader and protector against Western influences, particularly those of the United States, that threaten religious salvation promised by Islam.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Nice post, Little Ray. Very well articulated and I agree with you completely. Since Red China developed a decent nuclear capability I have felt they are more of a threat to the U.S. than Islam is. With both sides fearing mutual nuclear devastation and thus holding back on the nukes, a conventional war with China would be an ominous event. Especially if they have deeply infiltrated the U.S. homeland, which I believe they probably already have done. The fact that China currently controls both ends of the Panama Canal is not particularly comforting either.
You and I both feel releived that Red China doesn't have much of a navy------yet.
Your ignorance is truly criminal. The Eucharist, the Body of Christ, is truly and substantially the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, but it is not his actual physical body. The term "substantially" is a philosophical term that mean "truly", but in a mystical way not in a physical way. Most Christians agree that God is everywhere, and He can be found in all things. But for some reason Protestants and other non-Catholics don't consider themselves to be cannibals when they eat fish or beef. Yet, when Catholics say that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist in a mystical way, the word "cannibalism" shoots forth like a like an angry ball from the barrel of a loose canon.
The early Romans persecuted the first Christians for this same reason, they put them on trail for "cannibalism" because they believed that Christ was mystically present in the Eucharist. Perhaps if you do not believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist you are not a real Christian?
Lastly, I wonder what you really know about the Inquisition?
Do you know, for example, that it was the SPANISH Inquisition, and not the "Catholic" Inquisition?
Do you know that it was formed by the King and Queen of Spain, (with early papal permission, because the King wanted to add legitimacy to it) - but that after the abuses became known the Popes tried to stop them?
Do you know that even Catholic priests and Bishops were put on trial in the Inquistion, and that the Pope's pleas to the King to halt the trials fell on deaf ears?
Do you know that when the King of Spain expelled thousands of Jews that the Pope joyfully awaited their arrival in Rome, where he took them all in?
Did you know that Spain was conquered and subjected by Islam for four hundred years, and that the Inquisition began as a means to weed out Islamic infiltrators who falsely converted to the Church after Spain finally expelled the Muslims? (thousands of Muslims remained inside Spain under the guise of being "converts", but the very fragile Spanish government was in no position to let them hang around after being sujected by them for four centuries).
Did you know that only several thousand people died during three hundred years of the Inquisition, and not the "tens of thousands" that some anti-Catholic freemasons and protestants claimed for so many centuries?
Did you know that during the 1500's and 1600's only three people a year died from the Spanish Inquisition?
Did you know that the Catholic Church instituted a new concept to the SPANISH Inquisition? The concept of being tried by Judge and a jury of your peers. And they also added the ability of the accused to have a lawyer and witnesses. This added such a wonderful defense for the accused that those who were being tried for crimes other than heresy literally begged the King to put them on trial as heretics, (so they could obtain these new defenses).
Did you know that torture was a universally accepted practice in all civilized governments on earth back then, (and non-civilized ones as well)? And do you know that the Catholic Church managed to limit the Spanish government's torture of suspects to 20 minutes or less, and also managed to abolish all torture that could cause loss of life or permanent bodily damage? (this was an unheard of mercy for the time period in question).
Did you know that many of the Jews who were expelled from Spain were probably involved with assisting the Muslims fight against Spanish soldiers?
I didn't think you did. But now you do.
The buzz is, the Academy is considering giving Bill and Hillary Clinton ... The Julius and Ethel Rosenberg --- Lifetime Achievement Award. Lets face it - who is more deserving?
"But now for the pleasantest party of my duty. It falls to my lot to propose on behalf of the guests the Health of Principal Slubgob and the Tempers' Training College. Fill your glasses. What is this I see? What is this delicious bouquet I inhale? Can it be? Mr. Principal, I unsay all my hard words about the dinner. I see, and smell, that even under wartime conditions the College cellar still has a few dozen of sound old vintage Pharisee. Well, well, well. This is like old times. Hold it beneath your nostrils for a moment, gentledevils. Hold it up to the light. Look at those fiery streaks that writhe and tangle in its dark heart, as if they were contending. And so they are. Do you know how this wine is blended? Different types of Pharisee have been harvested, trodden, and fermented together to produce its subtle flavour. Types that were most antagonistic to one another on Earth. Some were all rules and relics and rosaries, others were all drab clothes, long faces, and petty traditional abstinences from wine or cards or the theatre. Both had in common their self righteousness and the almost infinite distance between their actual outlook and anything the Enemy really is or commands. The wickedness of other religions was the really live doctrine in the religion of each; slander was its gospel and denegration its litany. How they hated each other up there where the sun shone! How much more they hate each other now that they are forever conjoined but not reconciled. Their astonishment, their resentment, at the combination, the festering of their eternally impenitent spite, passing into our spiritual digestion, will work like fire. Dark fire.
"All said and done, my friends, it will be an ill day for us [Devils] if what most humans means by "religion" ever vanishes from the Earth. It can still send us the truly delicious sins. The fine flower of unholiness can grow only in the close neighborhood of the Holy. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps of the altar.
"You Imminence, your Disgraces, my Thorns, Shadies, and Gentledevils, I give you the toast of -- Principal Slubgob and the College!"
--C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes a Toast
Hey, you keep twisting Gospel and cutting-and-pasting C. S. Lewis quotes until the cows come home. The American Giant has been awakened once more and filled with a terrible resolve.
Nice pic! Which one is RBJ?
Still viewing the world through distorted glasses, I see.
I won't be happy until every Muslim acknowledges freedom of religion and equal rights under the law for all people, not just Muslims. Dhimmitude must come to an end.
And don't bother with your whines about the Serbs in Bosnia. When they start killing American citizens by the thousands, then they'll become our problem. Until then, they remain the enemy of my enemy.
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