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spiritofpeace08's Journal
Kristen's Musings
o 1st entry - Near Death experiences
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Is faith ever against reason?
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October 30, 2008, 12:30:am
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VATICAN-IRAN Apr-30-2008 (320 words) xxxi
Iranian Muslims, Vatican reps say faith is never against reason
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While faith sometimes calls for belief in something that goes beyond a person's ability to understand, faith is never against reason, said participants in a Vatican-Iranian Catholic-Muslim dialogue.
Six representatives of Iran's Islamic Culture and Relations Organization met with a six-member delegation of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in Rome April 28-30 to discuss the relationship between faith and reason.
The topic was a key theme in Pope Benedict XVI's September 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, in which he offended many Muslims by quoting a 14th-century Christian emperor's criticism of Islam and raised questions about the relationship between faith and reason in Islam.
The Vatican-Iranian dialogue participants met briefly with Pope Benedict April 30 after his general audience.
"Faith and reason are both gifts of God to mankind," said a final statement issued by the participants in the April meeting. "Faith and reason do not contradict each other, but faith might in some cases be above reason, but never against it."
The participants also said, "Faith and reason are intrinsically nonviolent."
However, they acknowledged, both faith and reason sometimes have been manipulated to promote violence.
More generally, members of the dialogue pledged to continue working together to promote "genuine religiosity," spirituality and morality and to ensure their followers respect the religious symbols of the other.
The vast majority of Iranian Muslims are Shiites, a minority within the Muslim world.
The dialogue participants said that when approaching Christian-Muslim dialogue it was important to understand that confessional and historical differences exist within both religions.
And, they said, "religious traditions cannot be judged on the basis of a single verse or a passage present in their respective holy books."
The April meeting was the sixth encounter of the Vatican-Iranian dialogue group; the next meeting will be held in Tehran, Iran, in 2010.
Mood: calm
Music: BUSH-everything Zen
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October 16, 2008, 12:58:am
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Education
Undergraduate
Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
Undergraduate, 1981-1983
Columbia University
B.A. Political Science with specialization in international relations
Thesis topic: Soviet nuclear disarmament
Graduate
Harvard Law School
J.D. magna cum laude 1988-1991
President, Harvard Law Review
Organizing and other work experience
1983-1984 Writer/Researcher for Business International Corporation. Helped companies understand overseas markets in the “Financing Foreign Operations” service and wrote for the “Business International Money Report”
1984-1985 Community Organizer for New York Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), promoting personal, community, and government reform at City College in Harlem.
1985-1988 Director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland on Chicago's South Side. While director grew the DCP staff from 1 to 13 and their budget from $70,000 to $400,000.
1992 Led Chicago's Project Vote! push. This effort resulted in a record number of voter registrations, over 600,000 in Chicago. 1)
Teaching
1993-2004 Visiting Law and Government Fellow, then Senior Lecturer, in Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Taught courses on the due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law, on voting rights, and on racism and law. Helped develop a casebook on voting rights.
Law Practice
1993-2002 Worked as an associate attorney with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Represented non-profits and private individuals in urban development projects, voting rights cases, and wrongful firings. Filed major suit that forced the state of Illinois to enforce the Motor Voter Law and successfully argued a wrongful firing case before the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Illinois Senate 1996-2004
Chairman, Health and Human Services Committee
Spearheaded a successful bipartisan effort in Illinois to pass the broadest ethics-reform legislation in 25 years, and gained bipartisan support for his successful bills reforming death penalty interrogations and ending racial profiling by police. Worked with the Republican-led effort to reform welfare.
Also sponsored successful bills expanding tax credits and child-care subsidies for low-income working families, protecting overtime pay for workers, expanding health care for children, and providing job skills training for juveniles.
New York Times chart on Obama's legislative record in the Illinois Senate: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/07/29/us/politics/20070730_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html
United States Senate 2004-present Sworn in 1/4/2005
Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs
Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Member, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Member, Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
Shares responsibility for the bipartisan Coburn-Obama Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, requiring full online disclosure of all entities receiving federal funds, and the bipartisan Lugar-Obama Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act of 2006, deepening non-proliferation work with WMD and including surface-to-air missiles, land mines, and other weapons that may be used by terrorists. Also worked with Coburn to end the abuse of no-bid contracts in the wake of disasters.
Sponsored Bill Statistics
Number of sponsored bills: 70
Number of sponsored bills passed: 2
Number of co-sponsored bills: 404
Number of co-sponsored bills passed: 8
www.opencongress.org (9/3/2008—-dankster keeps taking this out for some reason) (because it makes no sense at all. If you go to the NYT link or the http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d109query.html and http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d110query.html searches, you'll find that he's sponsored and cosponsored many times more bills than those stats list. They're ridiculously off.) http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/271/
Bills / Amendments Passed
Barack Obama has introduced nearly 300 bills during his time in the U.S. Senate, and cosponsored close to 1,000 others. To see his legislative efforts, search the 109th Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d109query.html and 110th Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d110query.html
S.AMDT.1041 to S.1082 To improve the safety and efficacy of genetic tests.
S.AMDT.3073 to H.R.1585 To provide for transparency and accountability in military and security contracting.
S.AMDT.3078 to H.R.1585 Relating to administrative separations of members of the Armed Forces for personality disorder.
S.AMDT.41 to S.1 To require lobbyists to disclose the candidates, leadership PACs, or political parties for whom they collect or arrange contributions, and the aggregate amount of the contributions collected or arranged.
S.AMDT.524 to S.CON.RES.21 To provide $100 million for the Summer Term Education Program supporting summer learning opportunities for low-income students in the early grades to lessen summer learning losses that contribute to the achievement gaps separating low-income students from their middle-class peers.
S.AMDT.599 to S.CON.RES.21 To add $200 million for Function 270 (Energy) for the demonstration and monitoring of carbon capture and sequestration technology by the Department of Energy.
S.AMDT.905 to S.761 To require the Director of Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Education to establish a program to recruit and provide mentors for women and underrepresented minorities who are interested in careers in mathematics, science, and engineering.
S.AMDT.923 to S.761 To expand the pipeline of individuals entering the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields to support United States innovation and competitiveness.
S.AMDT.924 to S.761 To establish summer term education programs.
S.AMDT.2519 to H.R.2638 To provide that one of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5 million or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee certifies in writing to the agency awarding the contract or grant that the contractor or grantee owes no past due Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.2588 to H.R.976 To provide certain employment protections for family members who are caring for members of the Armed Forces recovering from illnesses and injuries incurred on active duty.
S.AMDT.2658 to H.R.2642 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.2692 to H.R.2764 To require a comprehensive nuclear threat reduction and security plan.
S.AMDT.2799 to H.R.3074 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.3137 to H.R.3222 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.3234 to H.R.3093 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.3331 to H.R.3043 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
Senate Resolutions Passed:
S.RES.133 : A resolution celebrating the life of Bishop Gilbert Earl Patterson.
S.RES.268 : A resolution designating July 12, 2007, as “National Summer Learning Day”.
Other Bills Introduced
S.J.RES.23: A joint resolution clarifying that the use of force against Iran is not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law.
S. 453: Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007. The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R.1281), (S.453), would establish criminal penalties for acts of voter deception. Those who knowingly disseminate false information with the intention of keeping others from voting would face up to five years in prison under the legislation. The Act was sponsored by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and 60 cosponsors in the House, and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and 15 cosponsors in the Senate. (20 Cosponsors)
S. 2030: A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require reporting relating to bundled contributions made by persons other than registered lobbyists. (1 Cosponsor)
S. 2111: Positive Behavior for Effective Schools Act. A bill to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to allow State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and schools to increase implementation of early intervention services, particularly school-wide positive behavior supports. (3 Cosponsors)
S. 2066: Back to School: Improving Standards for Nutrition and Physical Education in Schools Act of 2007. A bill to establish nutrition and physical education standards for schools.
S. Con. Res. 46: A concurrent resolution supporting the goals and ideals of Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month
S. 2044: Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act of 2007. A bill to provide procedures for the proper classification of employees and independent contractors, and for other purposes. (6 Cosponsors)
S. 2519: Contracting and Tax Accountability Act of 2007. A bill to prohibit the awarding of a contract or grant in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold unless the prospective contractor or grantee certifies in writing to the agency awarding the contract or grant that the contractor or grantee has no seriously delinquent tax debts, and for other purposes.
S. 2433: Global Poverty Act of 2007. A bill to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day. (9 Cosponsors)
S. 2330: Veterans Homelessness Prevention Act. A bill to authorize a pilot program within the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development with the goal of preventing at-risk veterans and veteran families from falling into homelessness, and for other purposes. (1 Cosponsor)
FULL VOTING HISTORY
Barack Obama's Senate Voting Record
Sources
Milestones: Barack Obama -- The New York Times
Professor Obama was a listener, students say -- Chicago Sun-Times
An Obama Moment -- Geoffrey R. Stone at The Huffington Post
Detailed research into Obama and Clinton's bills that they have authored
Oxy Remembers "Barry" Obama '83
Andrew Sullivan lists major legislative accomplishments, and links to several other articles discussing Obama's record
http://www.pickensdemocrats.org/info/TheAgitator_070319.htm
http://www.opencongress.org/people/show/400629_barack_obama
1) http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-1993/Vote-of-Confidence/
main source: http://obamasresume.org/
Mood: emotionless
Music: TH3 DOORS-the 3ND
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No OBAMA America! Wake Up!
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October 15, 2008, 11:31:am
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OBAMA IS ONE SMOOTH TALKER
He writes great speeches
and eloquently delivers them!
LIES, LIES, LIES!
First he told us NO,
HE DID NOT know
about the hatred that Wright
has been spewing for
twenty years!
Then, three days later, Obama said
HE DID, of course, know!
Finally, after he realized he had to
do some "damage control",
he disavows Wright's statements
WHICH LIE ARE WE TO BELIEVE?
This is not change!
Obama is another in a long list of
no-morals Democrats who lie:
- The New York crime-fighting governor
who’s been “laying up” with prostitutes
for years
- Bill Clinton who never had sexual
relations with that woman
- Ted Kennedy who let that young woman
die in a watery grave after he drunkenly
drove her off a bridge
- the list goes on and on
Not just little white lies about an
event or situation,
THESE ARE BIG LIES ABOUT WHO
THEY ARE AS PEOPLE!
I am not a racist and I don’t want a
racist to be my president .
This is true for most Americans.
Obama is NOT who he claims to be!
He is a very charismatic fake; who is in
the right place at the right time in
American politics, who, under the guise
of being a Christian, is most certainly,
attempting to further the angry, hate-filled
agenda of the Black Muslims, Black Panthers
or Black Whatever they call themselves -
those black radicals who still
blame white people for all their problems.
Their goal is NOT equality for all.
They want
to “pay back” white people - or at the very least,
"turn the tables" on what they have for
generations continued to call
"White Supremacy".
There are thousands of black churches
preaching this message across America.
They couldn’t get it done with violence forty
years ago, so, since then, radical blacks have
instead strategically, non-violently continued
to gain power by publicly CLAIMING to promote
non-racial equality for ALL people while they
actually preach and promote hatred of
whites in their inner circles.
Obama is their crowning glory!
On March 20 The New Black Panthers
endorsed Obama’s bid for the presidency.
What does that tell you?
Of course, Obama’s camp declined the
endorsement and took it down from
Obama’s web site within hours,
I wonder why?
IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH MY
OPINION OF ALL THIS,
LISTEN TO JEREMIAH WRIGHT AGAIN .
THEN ASK YOURSELF THIS:
WHY ARE DISCUSSIONS OF
LOUIS FARRAKHAN,
THE BLACK PANTHERS AND
HATE-MONGERS LIKE
JEREMIAH WRIGHT A PART
OF THIS PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION?
THEY GROOMED HIM
AND THEY POSITIONED
HIM FOR THIS!
REMEMBER:
Those who “love Obama” are either:
- Black and will vote for him regardless of what
he says, does, represents or promises
- Young, hypnotized idealists who are caught up
in being part of electing the first Black American
President –a historical event and they want
to be part of it
- Ignorant “followers” who don’t think for
themselves and will follow their idols,
like Oprah, to their death and destruction
just like the Jim Jones followers with the Kool-Aid
- Far left extremists who will cut off their nose
to spite their face just to get rid of George Bush
and end the war on terror that they don’t
understand or support
- Young college students who have been
brainwashed by professors who never did
have a clue about patriotism, national security
and main stream America even before they
became professors allowing them to influence
the minds of so many
Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a good
liar and has connections; many with money.
He has all the tools and knows how to use them!
He’s working his way to the top,
We have to do everything we can to stop
this from happening!
THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT OBAMA:
1 He lies about who he REALLY is
2 He went to "that" church for 20 years
3 His wife hates America
(what a First Lady she will make)!
4 His spiritual adviser asks God to damn America
5 The Muslim world believes he is a Muslim
6 He uses bad judgment in choosing friends
and associating himself with such characters as:
- Tony Rezko who is guilty of corruption
- His neighbor and friend the Weather Underground
Domestic terrorist who bombed the Pentagon
- Racist Jeremiah Wright
- Again, the list goes on and on
There is NOTHING positive
he could possibly bring to the
presidency that can outweigh
all these negatives
HE IS NOT PRESIDENTIAL
MATERIAL!
Eighty five percent of United States citizens
claim to be Christians.
Where are they?
HIDING! - AFRAID!
AFRAID of speaking out
and defending non-racist
Christianity and the
American way of life;
AFRAID of condemning black
hatred and violence;
AFRAID of being called a racist,
And AFRAID of
RADICAL BLACKS!
America's only hope is that those Christians,
regardless of color, race or gender and those
of other religions who quietly hide in fear now,
will, under the safety of the ballot box,
get off the couch, come out, show themselves
and make a difference in this most important
election of our lifetime!
Mood: angry
Music: silence
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This is some scary shit! [OBAMA] WATCH THIS
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October 07, 2008, 02:46:am
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"Praise our Kenyan brother.
He will open the door for us to enter with ease.
The Kenyan Muslim will soon destroy the great Satan from within.
He will speak of hope and change,
but the greedy Americans will be defeated!
Yes we can destroy the Satan of America..
.
Praise the Kenyan! Praise Allah!
Soon we change America.
With help of the fellow Muslim!
He will open the door for us to enter with ease.
Bring... my allies to your shores.... Oh Brother, we strap on bomb to teach American Pigs a lesson! ...
Praise our Kenyan brother,
who will bring down the great Satan from inside!"
Mood: WTF
Music: CNN-tv-politics
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Stone tablet discovery found near Dead Sea
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October 07, 2008, 01:44:am
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The New York Times ran a feature story on July 6th, 2008 about the discovery of a stone tablet found near the Dead Sea in Jordan that apparently contains some reference to a “Prince of Princes” (ie. The Jewish Messiah) who would be slain and rise from the dead after three days. (Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection”, July 6, 2008)
The essence of the article and the opinion of the scholars quoted is that somehow, the credibility of Christianity is at stake, on the grounds that this pre-Christian inscription, also known in scholastic circles as “Gabriel’s Revelation”, robs Christianity of its “uniqueness” and novelty.
Dr. Israel Knohl, a Bible professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem states it as thus: “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.” Another scholar commenting on the stone says that it “shakes the very core of Christianity”.
In this perspective, however, it seems that the scholars commenting on “Gabriel’s Revelation” are either completely ignorant of the claims of Christianity, or even willingly misrepresenting them for the sake of publicity.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus, and by extension Christianity, have never claimed veracity based on the idea that Jesus’ death and resurrection were novelties concocted in the first century amongst their own. On the contrary, Jesus repeatedly said that the salvific aspects of his mission, his death and resurrection, were foretold and prefigured by the Jewish Old Testament writings and prophets before the events actually happened.
Again and again, when those events are related in the gospels, we are told that they were previously “written by the prophets”. When the Apostle Paul gives his summation of the matters of “first importance” in his message he says “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Cor 15:3,4).
Up to this point, it has been fairly easy to point to a several texts from the Old Testament to show that the Messiah’s suffering was foretold by the prophets. However, it has not been so easy to show from any of those texts if one wanted to clearly demonstrate that there were predictions that the Messiah was going to rise after three days. (Some Christians point to Hosea 6:1-4 as a proof text, even though it does not explicitly say anything about a Messiah. Others say Jonah’s internment in the whale for three days is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ time in the tomb).
Where explicit reference to a resurrection of the Messiah is spotty in the Old Testament writings, “Gabriel’s Revelation”, the "Dead Sea Tablet", comes to the rescue. It shows that in the organic whole of Jewish tradition, it was understood through the prophetic writings that the Messiah would rise on the third day.
This is not the first time that recent discoveries from Dead Sea have provided unique and unparalleled insight into the claims of Jesus. For example, when John the Baptist sent some of his own disciples to Jesus to ask whether he was "the one" (ie. the Messiah), Jesus gave an interesting answer. He said "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the good news preached to them (Luke 7:22-23 and Matthew 11:4-5).
Up until the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Bible scholars have noted that Jesus was likely referencing Isaiah 61:1 which reads as following: "The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound". From an objective standpoint, one might challenge this view since the text from Isaiah is not explicitly speaking of the Messiah, nor are key ideas referenced, such as the "dead being raised". At face value, Jesus' answer would seem vague.
However, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were translated, a fragment, known as 4Q521, which is part of the Isaiah scroll, was found to say “The heavens and earth will listen to his Messiah . . . Over the poor his spirit will hover and will renew the faithful . . . He . . . liberates the captives, restores sight to the blind ....He will heal the wounded and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor."
Thus the Dead Sea Scrolls fill in critical elements that suddenly make Jesus' answer far more meaningful and concise. Particularly in light of the fact that John the Baptist himself was very likely associated with the Qumran community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were kept, one can now see that Jesus' answer was not arbitrary or obscure.
As more of the Dead Sea Scrolls are translated, there are very likely going to be some more insights opened into first century Judaism, and the culture that spawned Christianity. Up to this point, the DSS, and other discoveries like "Gabriel's Revelation", have only strengthened the claims of Christianity, rather than hurt it. Christianity must be properly understood in its cultural context of pre-Talmudic Judaism, rather than imagining that it suddenly popped into existence in its contemporary Gentile form, fully grown and armed, like Athena popping out of Zeus' head.
The discovery of this tablet helps connect the puzzle pieces which brings clearer focus to why early Christianity gained so much traction within Judaism in the first century. Based on the fact that Jesus and apostles repeatedly said that Jesus' resurrection on the third day was "predicted" by the prophets, this testament in stone gives substantial and unassailable evidence that the expectation and prediction existed before Jesus lived.
Mood: peaceful
Music: tv-CNN
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