Tuesday, September 23, 2008

23 ’Elul 5768: Checkers Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Main Street before Wall Street”, “Open White Spaces for Everyone”, and “Tell the government to protect sea turtles from trawls.”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:
  1. “Mean girl”: There is a lot of dirt on Sarah Palin and her exploitative, un-Christian behavior in this article, but the item I want to discuss is:
    Even though Palin knew that Stein is a Protestant Christian, from a Pennsylvania Dutch background, her campaign began circulating the word that she would be "Wasilla's first Christian mayor." Some of Stein's supporters interpreted this as an attempt to portray Stein as Jewish in the heavily evangelical community. Stein himself, an eminently reasonable and reflective man, thinks "they were redefining Christianity to mean born-agains."
    (Emphasis mine.) Palin is not alone in narrowing the definition of Christianity; a parody from a few years back, “Consumer report: Which religion is the best?”, considers Christianity and Catholicism to be two different religions.  It should go without saying that the claim of Protestantism or one section thereof as the One True Claimant to the Name of “Christianity” is untenable.  Everyone knows that historically Catholicism preceded Protestantism.  Orthodox Christianity, Syriac Christianity, Coptic Christianity, and Ethiopian Christianity also preceded Protestantism.  These older groups were what everyone referred to as Christianity long before Martin Luther.  Therefore, claiming that any younger group is the “real” Christianity is an attempt at changing the definition of the term and not legitimate.
  2. “Beyond the Israeli-Palestinian problem”: This is historical background for the Jihad. Note that the real offense of the Jews behind the Arab-Israeli War is that the Jews refuse to live by the rules that Islam sets for them, that they should be helpless second-class citizens.
Today’s news and commentary:Today’s weird thing, submitted by Emily, is GIANTmicrobes. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

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