Saturday

The Religion WAR (01-26)

Reading between the lines, thinking outside the box, and seeing the forest...
 
 
 
    The director of the Vatican press office has said that he was not dismayed to find Pope Benedict XVI missing from a list of the world's 100 most influential people, as evaluated by Time magazine. "I'm very happy that the Pope isn't on the list, because they have used criteria that have absolutely nothing to do with the evaluation of the Pope's religious and moral authority."
 
    Benedict XVI urged the continuation of dialogue toward Christian unity when sending greetings to the Eastern Churches that are celebrating Easter. "Today many Eastern Churches, following the Julian Calendar, celebrate the great solemnity of Easter. I would like to express my fraternal spiritual nearness to these brothers and sisters of ours.
    The Council of Nicaea established that the day of Easter should fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The difference of dates for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is due to fact that they follow different calendars.
    [WAR: The Whore uses the vernal equinox as the starting point to determine her pagan days, so should those attempting to observe the appointed times use the same starting point?
    "He then brought me into the inner court of the house of YAHWEH, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about 25 men. With their backs toward the temple and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east." (Eze 8:16)]
 
    The Vatican clarified the celebration of holy days of obligation when celebrating the extraordinary form of the Roman rite according to the 1962 Missal, reported the bishops' conference of England and Wales.
    Catholics are obliged to go to Mass on holy days of obligation. Some holy days of obligation vary according to the decisions made by local episcopal conferences. There are differences in the calendars corresponding to the extraordinary and ordinary forms of the Mass, with many feast days falling on different dates in the 2 missals.
 
    Following Wednesday's general audience, Benedict XVI received participants in the 6th meeting of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and the Islamic Culture and Relations Organisation of Tehran, Iran. They have been meeting to study the theme of: "Faith and Reason in Christianity and Islam".
    "Faith and reason are both gifts of God to mankind. Faith and reason do not contradict each other, but faith might in some cases be above reason, but never against it. Faith and reason are intrinsically non-violent."
    "Religious traditions cannot be judged on the basis of a single verse or a passage present in their respective holy Books. A holistic vision as well as an adequate hermeneutical method is necessary for a fair understanding of them."
 
    In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah.
    Posthumous baptisms by proxy have been a common practice for the Mormons for more than a century, allowing the church's faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife.
 
    When it comes to keeping women in their place, polygamous Mormon fundamentalists and the Pope have a lot in common.
 
    Made public today was the annual Message to Buddhists for the Feast of Vesakh, issued by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and signed by Cardinal Tauran and Archbishop Celata, respectively president and secretary of the council.
    This year's message - published in English, French and Italian - is entitled "Christians and Buddhists: Caring for the Planet Earth". It indicates that "preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for everyone."
    Vesakh, the main Buddhist festivity, marks 3 fundamental moments in the life of Gautama Buddha. It is held during the full moon of the month of May because, according to tradition, Buddha was born, achieved enlightenment and passed away in that period.
 
    The Vatican is considering how the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity can work together in a globalized pursuit of the common good. Today in the Vatican press office, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences presented its plenary session on "Pursuing the Common Good: How Solidarity and Subsidiarity Can Work Together."
    The goal of the assembly, explained an English-language note released for the press conference, "is to give new meaning and application to the concept of common good in this age of globalization, which in certain fields is leading to growing inequalities and social injustice, laceration and fragmentation of the social fabric, in short, to the destruction of common goods throughout the world."
    "The main hypothesis on which scholars are called to exchange their views is that the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity can, unlike the compromises between socialism and liberalism, mobilize new social, economic and cultural forces of civil society which, within politically shared fundamental values, can generate those common goods on which the future of humanity depends."
    (And: "The programme", the note adds, "envisages a careful inspection of the current processes of radical change in the light of the 4 fundamental principles of the Catholic social doctrine {dignity of the human person, common good, solidarity and subsidiarity} to understand how and in what measure these principles are effectively applied, and to suggest new solutions where they are misconstrued, misunderstood, disobeyed or distorted.")
 
 
 
    Members of a Russian doomsday sect holed up in a cave on an island in the Bering Sea now say they plan to emerge June 14. Last year, 35 people fearing the end of the world was approaching went down into the cave.
 
 
 
    A Catholic newspaper in Malaysia on Friday continued its fight to use the word "Allah" to signify God in its newspapers. The newspaper has appealed to the High Court to hear its case, Agence France Presse reports.
    In January the Catholic weekly The Herald almost had its publishing license revoked because it used the word "Allah" in its Malay section. "Allah" is both the Malay and the Arabic word for God. Authorities warned the paper not to use the word again in the future.
    The Malaysian Cabinet last year ruled that the word could be used only by Muslims. The internal security minister also issued a ban on its use in a non-Muslim context.
    [WAR: "Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God/EL Most High..." (Gen 14:18). "Most High" = #5945/'elyown; from 5927; an elevation, i.e. (adj.) lofty (compar.); as title, the Supreme. / #5927  `alah (aw-law'); a primitive root; to ascend, intransitively (be high) or actively (mount); used in a great variety of senses, primary and secondary, literal and figurative (as follow).]
 
 
 
    Peter Phillips, the Queen's eldest grandson, will not have to give up his place in the succession to the throne (11th) when he marries next month after his fiancée renounced her Roman Catholic faith.
    The 1701 Act of Settlement, which bars monarchs and their heirs from becoming or marrying Catholics, would have forced him to surrender his place in line if she had not converted.
 
    One of the great ironies of modern Christianity is how warlike many Christians are. Not all Christians, certainly. And many believers at many times in history have put state and ruler before church and God. Yet it remains striking how many conservative evangelicals unabashedly acted as shock troops backing the Iraq invasion.
    Everyone from Jerry Falwell to Pat Robertson to Chuck Colson to D. James Kennedy to James Dobson to a host of lesser Christian leaders propagandized on behalf of President Bush.
 
    The liberal end of the Society of Friends has long had members who denied God's existence or Jesus' divinity. Now hundreds of pagans call Quakerism home.
    Quakers — officially the Religious Society of Friends — are divided into 4 main branches, 3 of which are explicitly Christian. Pagans have been generally joining the liberal 4th branch, the Friends General Conference.
    It may seem strange that pagans would join the Quakers, which began in the 1600s with strong anti-pagan sentiment. Founder George Fox even altered the days of the week because of their pagan roots. To this day, Quakers refer to Sunday as First Day, Monday as Second Day and so on.
 
     For the first time ever, the Grand Lodge of Free And Accepted Masons of the District of Columbia will play host to a historic and grand event, the 9th World Conference of Masonic Grand Lodges, at the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel (May 7-10).
    This conference will bring together international Masonic leaders comprised of high-level officials in government, business and civic service. They will discuss how the Society of Freemasonry can utilize its position to promote universal understanding, enlightened ideas, and goodwill globally.
 
 
 
    A controversial new documentary, following in the footsteps of the popular, if heretical, The Da Vinci Code, asks the brazen question: "What if the greatest story ever told was a lie?" Coming to theaters later this month, Bloodline seeks to prove the conspiracy tale that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child whose bloodline continues today.
    Ben Hammott, an English adventurer, claims to have discovered in southwest France a remote tomb and relics from Jerusalem, dated back to the 1st century. The British Museum and Gabriel Barkay of Bar Ilan University in Jerusalem have analyzed the items.
    "It is possible that artifacts excavated by the Templars on Temple Mount would find a way to Europe," said Barkay. "The finds in this chest are really intriguing and it is really something that inflames the imagination."
    The tomb contained a mummified corpse lying beneath a shroud with a red cross, the symbol of the Knights Templar, a medieval Christian military order. The documentary shows that a DNA test revealed that the corpse is of Middle Eastern origin.
 
    In examining "the role of the Bible in ecumenical dialogue", the survey highlighted how "Scripture remains the most effective 'place' Christians have to progress together along the path of unity. ... The answers also showed that there no longer exists that diversity among the various Christian traditions - a diversity evident in the past - concerning their relationship with Scripture."
    Professor Diotallevi noted the existence of "a gap dividing the Anglo-Saxon world from central and eastern Europe". In the former, "the sensation of the closeness of God is anything but extinct and the practice of prayer is anything but marginal. A very large majority of people look to the Bible as a source of truth, as the source of a message that has to do with life".
 
Might as well...
    Now that Earth Day is over, let the planning begin for the summer solstice and World Humanist Day in June. The Institute for Humanist Studies, an Albany, NY-based nonprofit, is calling attention to its calendar of atheist holidays on its Web site, www.secularseasons.org.
    The group wants nonbelievers (or at least people who don't celebrate religious holidays) to have a handy reference guide of the calendar of holidays honoring free-thinkers, banned books and nature, among other themes.
    "Some religious holidays are about culture and tradition, not theology. Even people who go to church only on Christmas or to synagogue on the High Holidays do so out of cultural heritage, not because they believe the religious doctrines associated with it."
 
    It may not be what you believe, but it's still a religion. Pagans say they're usually misunderstood and rarely given a fair shot. They call themselves Wiccans. You know that to mean witch. But they want you to understand what that means.
    "We don't go around sacrificing virgins, or killing goats, we don't ride on brooms, but if we did it would definitely save on gas. ... We don't believe in the devil or absolute evil for that matter, that's a completely separate religion all together. We worship nature and the things that Mother Earth holds for us and the gifts that we receive from her."
    Wiccans don't believe in one God, they believe in many, or a God and a Goddess. The Church holds regular group meetings on Sundays, they invite anyone from any religion to come in and listen. They don't celebrate a traditional Easter and Christmas, instead, they hold 8 seasonal rituals called Sabbats, which mean celebration.
    [WAR:  "Paganism is an Earth religion that revolves around the cycles of the sun and the moon." ("To Drive the Dark Away", The Dallas Morning News - "Religion" section, Dec 12, 1997)
    So, are those groups/individuals that determine the annual appointed times using "the cycles of the sun and the moon" actually practicing paganism? From all my years of study on the calendar issue, the overwhelming and undeniable answer is YES!]
 
    The mystery of how migratory birds exploit the Earth's magnetic field using an internal compass may have been solved by scientists who have discovered how molecules in the eye can be orientated by weak magnetic lines.
    Scientists have shown that animals can use a variety of cues to help them migrate long distances and return to the same breeding or feeding grounds. These include visual landmarks, the position of the Sun in the day or the stars at night, and even the smell of specific locations en route.
    (And: "Migrant birds that travel at night use the stars to determine their bearings. In clear weather, captive migrants head immediately in the proper direction using only the stars. They can orient themselves correctly to the arrangement of night skies projected on the dome of a planetarium. Birds apparently can determine their longitude and latitude by the position of the stars."
    [WAR: "Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons(times), and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of YAHWEH." (Jer 8:7)
    Why don't His people know? Because they're following paganism/Catholicism (Sun and Moon cycles) rather than using the Moon and stars to determine what time it is.
    "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place" (Psa 8:3)
    "The heavens declare the glory of Elohim; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge." (Psa 19:1,2)
    "The moon and stars to govern the night" (Psa 136:9)
    "Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night" (Jer 31:35)]
 
    Will Jesus Christ return to Earth in the year 2015? And can studying NASA's website provide evidence for such a scenario? A minister who promotes the Old Testament roots of Christianity suggests a rare string of lunar and solar eclipses said to fall on God's annual holy days 7 years from now could herald what's come to be known as the "Second Coming" of Jesus.
    "God wants us to look at the biblical calendar," says Mark Biltz, pastor of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, Wash. "The reason we need to be watching is [because] He will signal His appearance. But we have to know what to be watching as well. So we need to be watching the biblical holidays."
    [WAR: Yes, we need to be looking at the Biblical calendar, not the Jewish/Babylonian one which this guy is obviously using and basing his speculations on.]
 
 

posted by The Daily Warrior | 12:54 PM