A New York Times Christmas message...

....to all of those Earth-destroying viruses that constitute the greater part of humanity outside the progressive enclave of "People Like Us."

A Christmas Letter to the Editor published by the NYT on Christmas Day:

//Regarding the Dec. 14 front-page article “Paris climate deal nearly unraveled over 1 word”:

Why are the words “population” and “climate change” rarely, if ever, uttered in the same breath? There was a graph in Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” where population growth and carbon dioxide emissions were in lockstep from near zero heading toward infinity. Will no one in a position to do so ever raise this issue?

As I understand the term “virus,” there are “good” ones and “bad” ones. A “good” virus will sicken its host but not kill it so the virus can be passed to other hosts, thus ensuring its viability and continued existence. A “bad” virus will kill its host, ensuring the ultimate end of the virus. The “good” virus controls itself to ensure its continued existence. Picture, if you will, the human race as a virus and Mother Earth as its host. We are, all of us, a “bad” virus. If we are left unchecked by our own devices, we are going to kill our host. It is not a question of what we do; it is a question of the fact that we are — more than 7 billion and growing.

Often, though, the host produces antibodies to the invading virus. Think, in this case, of plagues, bacteria, cancers and other assorted ways that humans have been (somewhat) checked by Mother Earth. We, the virus, have put up a valiant defense against these attempts to be thwarted by our host. But for how long: What is out there that we don’t know about? Whatever it is, we may not survive it as a species and may go the way of a million others before us. If we do survive it, we will make Mother Earth uninhabitable and kill ourselves.

I am betting on Mother Earth. We are but a dust mote in the time of existence of this beautiful blue and green orb.

Alan L. Waters, Bethesda//

Merry Christmas, Alan!!!

The media's annual Christmas present...

...You Christians are so dumb!

And evil.

Newsweek: The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin

They wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnations of homosexuals. They fall on their knees, worshipping at the base of granite monuments to the Ten Commandments while demanding prayer in school. They appeal to God to save America from their political opponents, mostly Democrats. They gather in football stadiums by the thousands to pray for the country’s salvation.

They are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch. They are joined by religious rationalizers—fundamentalists who, unable to find Scripture supporting their biases and beliefs, twist phrases and modify translations to prove they are honoring the Bible’s words.

This is no longer a matter of personal or private faith. With politicians, social leaders and even some clergy invoking a book they seem to have never read and whose phrases they don’t understand, America is being besieged by Biblical illiteracy. Climate change is said to be impossible because of promises God made to Noah; Mosaic law from the Old Testament directs American government; creationism should be taught in schools; helping Syrians resist chemical weapons attacks is a sign of the end times—all of these arguments have been advanced by modern evangelical politicians and their brethren, yet none of them are supported in the Scriptures as they were originally written.

Cannon Fodder notes:

 It is not unusual for Newsweek, and other major media magazines, to publish critical opinions of Christianity and the Bible during major Christian holidays. I have lost count of how many March/April issues of such magazines have cast doubt on the resurrection, just in time for Easter.

However, the recent Newsweek cover article by Kurt Eichenwald, entitled “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,” published intentionally (no doubt) on December 23rd, goes so far beyond the standard polemics, and is so egregiously mistaken about the Bible at so many places, that the magazine should seriously consider a public apology to Christians everywhere.

Of course, this is not the first media article critiquing the Bible that has been short on the facts. However, what is stunning about this particular article is that Kurt Eichenwald begins by scolding evangelical Christians for being unaware of the facts about the Bible, and the proceeds to demonstrate a jaw-dropping ignorance of the fact about the Bible.

Being ignorant of biblical facts is one thing. But being ignorant of biblical facts after chiding one’s opponent for that very thing is a serious breach of journalistic integrity. Saying Eichenwald’s article is an instance of “the pot calling the kettle black” just doesn’t seem to do it justice.

Dan Wallace writes: 

Every year, at Christmas and Easter, several major magazines, television programs, news agencies, and publishing houses love to rattle the faith of Christians by proclaiming loudly and obnoxiously that there are contradictions in the Bible, that Jesus was not conceived by a virgin, that he did not rise from the dead, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The day before Christmas eve (23 December 2014), Newsweek published a lengthy article by Kurt Eichenwald entitled, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin.” Although the author claims that he is not promoting any particular theology, this wears thin. Eichenwald makes so many outrageous claims, based on a rather slender list of named scholars (three, to be exact), that one has to wonder how this ever passed any editorial review.

Now we start the Season of Media Strawman Attacks on Christian Belief.

Cue Popular Science magazine...

"FYI: Could A Virgin Birth Ever Happen?"

Time's annual "Easter is a downer" story ...

..involves warning parents that their children may be religious nuts.

Here is a prize-winning pull quote -

"Model a healthy balance between religion and life
Show them in your own behavior, suggests Mihalas, how religion can co-exist with enjoying life.//

Because, obviously, religion can't be a part of making life an enjoyable, flourishing experience to leftist secular humanist atheists.

*Sheesh*

If it's Lent, it must be time for the media's annual game of "smear the Christian."

The claims in this article are not new. As the article itself notes, the "research" is relying on the late Christopher Hitchens' decade old hit piece.

Debunking the Debunkers.

Wintery Knight has a post on the debunking of the "Jesus Wife gospel."

My fifteen year old brought me the Smithsonian article, pointed to the bold words that a "gospel" said that "Jesus had a wife" and asked me what was up with that?  I explained that every so often some scholars with a particular axe to grind would get a piece of text written hundreds of years after the fact and, usually, mistranslate it so as to come up with a conclusion that would support their agenda.

Then I read the Smithsonian article.  My points were all in the article, but usually in soft disclaimers after the real attention was given to the nonsense.

Take the "Wife of Jesus" nonsense.  It is a scrap of paper the size of a credit card that has six incoherent, widely separated lines. It was written in the Third or Fourth Century.  One line says something to the effect that "Jesus said, "my wife...."  and another line mentioned "disciple."  The "discovery" was made by a extreme-feminist professor.

What are the odds that there has been a mistranslation? Probably pretty good.

But let's say there isn't and let's play the debunking game that secular atheists play when it comes to Christian sources, how do we know that the "Jesus" mentioned in this text is even Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus/Joshua/Yeshua was not an uncommon name.  Certainly, there is a reference in a completely different line that has no clear connection to the first line save for being on the same page to "disciples,"but could that be completely unrelated to this "Jesus" or perhaps there was another "Jesus" who had disciples.

In short, what connection is there to this document and to anything having to do with any kind of Christianity?  None, whatsoever unless you happen to be an extreme-feminist with an axe to grind.

But let's say that it is a reference to Jesus of Nazareth, then that would only mean that somebody writing hundreds of years later for reasons that no one knows has a sentence that may say Jesus said "my wife."  Was it a parable?  Was intended as a reference to the Church, i.e., the bride of Christ?  Who knows because there is no information in this scrap of paper.

Science and Religion.

Geologists may have found exact date of Crucifixion.

Geologists??? You wouldn't expect that connection.

And, although it is nice to have a dodgy science story affirm orthodox Christianity for a change, this story still seems "dodgy."

Apparently, some geologists have found evidence of "seismic activity" in the Dead Sea region between 26 AD and 36 AD which they correlate to the references in Matthew 27 to the earthquake at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. Then using what we know about the date of the crucifixion, they then use that information to date the seismic activity. Here's the story:

Geologist Jefferson Williams of Supersonic Geophysical, along with Markus Schwab and Achim Brauer of the German Research Center for Geosciences, studied three cores drilled from a beach of the Dead Sea adjacent to the Ein Gedi Spa. Upon examining annual layers of deposition in the sediments that settle in the Dead Sea, known as varves, the scientists could show that at least two major seismic events were evidenced in the core sample.

One was a region-wide earthquake that occured in 31 B.C., another seismic event that happened sometime between the years 26 and 36 A.D. According to Williams, the latter event occurred during “the years when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea and when the earthquake of the Gospel of Matthew is historically constrained.” While the year of the event described in Gospels and underscored by scientific testing, the actual year was in question. Williams said, "The day and date of the crucifixion (Good Friday) are known with a fair degree of precision."


Summarizing a paper published in Nature by Colin Humphreys and Graeme Waddington, Williams noted that all four gospels of Christian scripture, and Tacitus in Annals (XV, 44), coincide in that the Crucifixion of Jesus took place while Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea from A.D. 26 to 36:

• All four Christian gospels say the crucifixion occurred on a Friday.
• All four gospels agree say Jesus died a few hours before the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath at nightfall on a Friday.
• The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, known as the Synoptic Gospels, concur that Jesus died before nightfall on the 14th day of Nisan, right before the start of the Passover meal.
• The Gospel of John’s differs from the Synoptic Gospels in indicating that Jesus died before nightfall on the 15th day of Nisan.

When data about the Jewish calendar and astronomical calculations are factored in, a handful of possible dates result, with Friday, April 3, 33, being the best match, according to the researchers.

Williams and his team acknowledge that the seismic activity associated with the Crucifixion could refer to “an earthquake that occurred sometime before or after the crucifixion and was in effect ‘borrowed’ by the author of the Gospel of Matthew”, and a localized tremor occurring between 26 and 36 A.D. that was strong enough to deform the Ein Gedi sediments of Ein Gedi but not energetic enough to produce a still extant and extra-biblical historical record. “If the last possibility is true, this would mean that the report of an earthquake in the Gospel of Matthew is a type of allegory,” they write.

I'm not seeing that the earthquake confirms the gospel; it looks like the gospel is being used to confirm a date for the seismic activity, and, then again, maybe not, because the seismic activity could have happened at some time other than the crucifixion.

This is a lot like the "science disproves miracle" story we see every year in Newsweek sometime around Easter.

By the by, I disagree that John necessarily indicates that Jesus died on the 15th of Nissan. St. Thomas Aquinas didn't think that was what John had in mind:

But the words (John 13:1) "Before the festival day of the Pasch" are to be understood to refer to the fourteenth day of the moon, which then fell upon the Thursday: for the fifteenth day of the moon was the most solemn day of the Pasch with the Jews: and so the same day which John calls "before the festival day of the Pasch," on account of the natural distinction of days, Matthew calls the first day of the unleavened bread, because, according to the rite of the Jewish festivity, the solemnity began from the evening of the preceding day. When it is said, then, that they were going to eat the Pasch on the fifteenth day of the month, it is to be understood that the Pasch there is not called the Paschal lamb, which was sacrificed on the fourteenth day, but the Paschal food--that is, the unleavened bread--which had to be eaten by the clean. Hence Chrysostom in the same passage gives another explanation, that the Pasch can be taken as meaning the whole feast of the Jews, which lasted seven days.

Some early commenters, however, did seem to think that the Crucifixion was on the 15th day of Nissan; so realize that there is a legitimate diversity of opinion on the subject.

Jesus is not a Myth...

...but who cares?

CNN apparently had a debate that epitomizes the annual insult offered to Christians by the secular left. It hosted a debate between one side that believed that Jesus was a myth and the other side that believed that Jesus existed but stayed dead:

CNN's annual “Bash Christianity on Easter” story is crazier than usual.

This year, they ran an article entitled The Jesus Debate: Man vs. Myth. On one side were John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman, who deny the physical Resurrection. On the other side, are folks like (self-proclaimed “spiritual pioneer”) Timothy Freke who go even further, and deny that Jesus even existed. They don't just deny Easter, they deny Christmas.

That's right: the Resurrection-denying side was the closest thing to orthodoxy in this debate, at least for the first forty paragraphs (literally). Around the forty-seventh paragraph, they finally quote Prof. Craig A. Evans, who explains that Jesus of Nazareth existed. He is literally the first and only Christian source quoted. And the only thing they use Evans for is to provide some quotes saying that Jesus exists -- you wouldn't be able to tell from the context whether or not Evans even believes in the Resurrection.

So CNN's idea of a balanced article commemorating Easter is to depict the debate as between those who deny the Resurrection and those who deny the entirety of the Gospels. It's hard to know what to describe this as, if not flagrant bias...

I'm also going to note the Third Century amulet used as evidence to support the Mythicist position in case it shows up in some future context:

But let's look at the specific “evidence” that gets trotted out for the CNN piece. The article opens by talking about how Freke decided Jesus didn't exist after reading an old book with a picture of “a drawing of a third-century amulet” of “Osiris-Dionysus, a pagan god in ancient Mediterranean culture” on a cross in a very Christological manner.

It's hard to know where to begin. First of all, the drawing in question (depicted on the left) doesn't claim to be of “Osiris-Dionysus” but of “Orpheus” and Dionysus (also known as Bacchus). This mistake is embarrassing, since the drawing has ΟΡΦΕΟΣ ΒΑΚΚΙΚΟΣ (Orpheus Bacchus) written on it.

And “Osiris-Dionysus” wasn't “a pagan god in ancient Mediterranean culture.” These were two separate gods from different cultures. Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead, and Dionysus was the Greek god of wine. And Orpheus wasn't another name for Osiris or Dionysus, or any other god, for that matter. Rather, it's the name of a mythical Greek prophet and storyteller. In Greek mythology, Orpheus was killed by Dionysus. So the idea that Osiris, Orpheus, and Dionysus are all one god is off to a ... rocky start, to say the least.

There's also the fact that the now-lost amulet was almost certainly a forgery. The German epigrapher Otto Kern, who initially promoted the amulet as authentic, recanted in the face of the evidence, a fact that Freke's coauthor Peter Gandy has acknowledged. In Kern's words, the amulet “is almost certainly a fake.” For example, the bent knees in the depiction of the Crucifixion is characteristic of later Medieval art, not art from late antiquity. But since the only evidence of the amulet's existence is the line drawing, it's impossible to know for sure.

Of course, Ehrman is not much better. He regularly cites Third Century stories of Apollonius of Tyana to suggest either (a) that Christians borrowed this story in the First Century to invent stories about Jesus or (b) that because two centuries after the death of Jesus, pagan apologists stole from Christians, that proves that miracle stories by Christians could have developed within a single life-time or (c) both (a) and (b).

This is the year that the Leftist media officially "jumped the shark."

Like the pair of satirists mentioned in the post immediately below, who seem to be in search of an ever smaller audience, Time magazine seems to have the goal of catering to the most chemically pure from of Leftists, who are apparently inbred to the point of imbecility. A veritable Buck v. Bell of New York liberalism.

Consider this clip of a Time magazine editor asking Governor Nicki Haley whether she will be giving Sikh taxi drivers a larger tip while she's in New York City.



Liberals have become a parody of the racists they have claimed to oppose.

Hot Air has the entire interview and suggests playing it from the 4:45 mark to get a real flavor of the condescending tone of the elite liberal media.

Time magazine is running on fumes. This interview may drive a stake through its heart.

From the "Creating the Christ in Your Image" file...

...also file under "It must be getting near Easter if these kinds of stupid stories are being published in the mainstream press"....

...feminist scholar speculates that Jesus was a hermphrodite:

Dr Susannah Cornwall claimed that it is “simply a best guess” that Jesus was male.

Her comments, which are bound to provoke fury in some quarters, were published in response to the ongoing debate about women bishops in the Church of England.

Dr Cornwall, of Manchester University’s Lincoln Theological Institute, describes herself on her blog as specialising in: “Research and writing in feminist theology, sexuality, gender, embodiment, ethics and other fun things like that.”

In her paper “Intersex & Ontology, A Response to The Church, Women Bishops and Provision”, she argues that it is not possible to know “with any certainty” that Jesus did not suffer from an intersex condition, with both male and female organs.

In an extraordinary paper she says: “It is not possible to assert with any degree of certainty that Jesus was male as we now define maleness.

“There is no way of knowing for sure that Jesus did not have one of the intersex conditions which would give him a body which appeared externally to be unremarkably male, but which might nonetheless have had some “hidden” female physical features.”

Dr Cornwall argues that the fact that Jesus is not recorded to have had children made his gender status “even more uncertain”.

She continues: “We cannot know for sure that Jesus was male – since we do not have a body to examine and analyse – it can only be that Jesus’ masculine gender role, rather than his male sex, is having to bear the weight of all this authority.”

Groundless claim - check

Stupid non-scholarly opinion - check

Provocatively insulting - check

The timing is during Lent - check

Bingo! This is one of those insulting stories the media always publishes sometime before Easter.

Update:

On her blog, Conway snippily corrects the article.

She didn't say "hermaphrodite," she said "intersex."

Also, Jesus' sexuality matters because the intersex have always been discriminated against, and the best way to cure that is to ignore the fact that Jesus wasn't apparently discriminated against for being "intersexed" which entitles her to speculate that he was "intersexed."

Brilliant.

Like the swallows returning to Capistano, it is time for Time's annual Lenten "let's deconstruct the Judeo-Christian religious tradition with some non-news of dubious merit."

This year it's the question of whether the Bible was revised to edit out "God's wife," Asheroth.

Because, of course, no one had heard of Asheroth until 2011.