Philippians 2:5-8 - 1, The Mind of Christ

Philippians 2:5-8 ASV Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (6) who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, (7) but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; (8) and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.

"Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:". The American Standard Version of 1901 chooses to render the active voice of the verb as found in the oldest available manuscripts. Rather than the familiar passive, "Let this mind be in you …", of the long available manuscripts of later origin.

Providence appears to desire that we consider both the active and passive aspects of the use by the born again Christian of that great supernatural gift and blessing, the Mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 LITV [of Jay P. Greene] (14) But a natural man [literally, "a soulish man", as opposed to "the spiritual one" in verse 15, "a natural" or "soulish man"] does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (15) But the spiritual one discerns all things, but he is discerned by no one. (16) For "who has known the mind of the Lord [(meaing"Jehovah")]?" "Who will teach Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Isaiah 40:13 is noted by the translator as the source of the two questions in verse 16:

Isaiah 40:13 DRB Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord [(literally Jehovah)]? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?

The context in Isaiah speaks of the absolute spiritual poverty of the Gentiles. How different it is for those Gentiles who, from the first century on, have been freely given the Mind of Christ.

Like Faith, Hope, and Love, the Mind of Christ is one of the great supernatural gifts and blessings that are the heavenly treasure of the born again. These gifts and blessings are fully accessible through the fleshly veil that was torn asunder at Golgotha. The Mind of Christ has been freely given, in order to be freely used.

Philippians 4:8 LITV For the rest, brothers, whatever is true, whatever honorable, whatever is right, whatever pure, whatever lovely, whatever of good report, if of any virtue, and if of any praise, think on these things.

Those who possess the Mind of Christ are able to judge what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, reputable, virtuous, and praiseworthy.

And the spirit of that life which is in Christ Jesus provides the freedom to think on these things.

Woman Heads Largest North American Muslim Group

Her opinions on the "mystery" of the Trinity, proper attire, and public worship arrangements, are worth considering. (May start threads on these later.)

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Toronto Star article, Soccer mom picked to head Islamic group:

Soccer mom picked to head Islamic group [/] Convert | How a Kitchener teen stopped saying her rosary, tuned in to the Qur'an and became president
of N. America's largest Muslim group [/] Sep. 24, 2006. 01:00 AM [/] STEPHANIE SIMON [/] SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Canadian philosophy student Ingrid Mattson had given up God. She had stopped saying her rosaries, stopped taking communion. She was an atheist, abroad in Paris the summer before her senior year at the University of Waterloo.

But she could not stop listening to the Qur'an. [/] "Forget it," she told herself. "This can't be happening to me." [/] But day after day, she popped the cassette into her Walkman, mesmerized by the chanting and oddly moved by lines such as: "Of him seeks every creature in the heavens and on earth; every day in splendour."

When she returned home to Canada after that summer of 1986, Mattson signed up for the only Arabic class she could find. It was full of 8-year-old immigrants, who soon came to resent her for winning so many of the chocolates the teacher awarded top students. [/] Mattson wanted to hang out in bars with her brothers, the way she always had. [/] Instead, she found herself at her sewing machine, stitching headscarves. That spring, during the holy month of Ramadan, she gathered several Muslim friends as witnesses and pledged herself to Allah.

[…] Last month, about 60,000 Muslims in the United States and Canada elected the 43-year-old Kitchener native president of the largest Muslim organization on the continent, an educational and professional group called the Islamic Society of North America. [/] She is ISNA's first woman president, the first non-immigrant and the first convert to Islam.

[…] Outside the organization, Muslims have greeted Mattson's election more warily. [/] She has received angry letters from conservatives who resent having a woman in charge. Such critics often cite an ancient hadith, or narrative about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, stating that no goodwill comes from entrusting leadership to a woman. [/] The Islamic left has questioned Mattson's credentials as well. A traditionalist who dresses modestly in ankle-length skirts and loose blouses — and who avoids shaking men's hands whenever possible — she pushes women's rights only so far. [/] She has called for mosques to dismantle barriers that block women from seeing or clearly hearing the imam during prayer. But she does not support the more radical, feminist notion that women should pray alongside men — or even lead men in prayer.

[…] Mattson's journey to Islam began when she was a teenager in Kitchener. As a girl, she had been the most pious in her family of seven children, but when she entered high school, she began to find bedrock concepts such as the Holy Trinity illogical. [/] The nuns and priests at her Catholic school were unable to answer her questions. "Accept the mystery," they told her. She couldn't. [/] As president of the ISNA — an unpaid post — Mattson will lead a diverse organization that trains Muslim leaders, sets standards for hundreds of mosques, helps immigrants adjust to North American life and serves as an umbrella uniting associations of Muslim engineers, doctors and other professionals. She will also be a very visible spokeswoman for the faith, a role she relishes.

[…] At the convention's opening seminar, she urged her fellow Muslims to step proudly into mainstream society and engage their neighbours until they stop associating Islam with terrorism. [/] "Islamic medical clinics ... Islamic ethics ... Islamic charity. These are the terms that should come off the tips of tongues," she told a cheering crowd. [/] "Islamic intellectuals ... Islamic peace movements ... Islamic human rights. This is who we are." [/] Los Angeles Times [My ellipses and emphasis]

Global Warming: Media Lies?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works article, Hot & Cold Media Spin:

Speeches & Statements [/] Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge To Journalists Who Cover Global Warming [/] SENATOR JAMES INHOFE CHAIRMAN, SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE [/] SENATE FLOOR SPEECH DELIVERED MONDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2006

I am going to speak today about the most media-hyped environmental issue of all time, global warming. I have spoken more about global warming than any other politician in Washington today. My speech will be a bit different from the previous seven floor speeches, as I focus not only on the science, but on the media’s coverage of climate change.

Global Warming -- just that term evokes many members in this chamber, the media, Hollywood elites and our pop culture to nod their heads and fret about an impending climate disaster. As the senator who has spent more time educating about the actual facts about global warming, I want to address some of the recent media coverage of global warming and Hollywood’s involvement in the issue. And of course I will also discuss former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media pedaled a coming ice age.

From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. Just last week, the vice president of London’s Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism.

During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry, which link every possible weather event to global warming. The year 2006 saw many major organs of the media dismiss any pretense of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy.

[…] My skeptical views on man-made catastrophic global warming have only strengthened as new science comes in. There have been recent findings in peer-reviewed literature over the last few years showing that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing and a new study in Geophysical Research Letters found that the sun was responsible for 50% of 20th century warming. Recently, many scientists, including a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted long-term global cooling may be on the horizon due to a projected decrease in the sun’s output.

A letter sent to the Canadian Prime Minister on April 6 of this year by 60 prominent scientists who question the basis for climate alarmism, clearly explains the current state of scientific knowledge on global warming.

'Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise.'

[…] The more the eco-doomsayers’ predictions fail, the more the eco-doomsayers predict. These failed predictions are just one reason I respect the serious scientists out there today debunking the latest scaremongering on climate change. Scientists like MIT’s Richard Lindzen, former Colorado State climatologist Roger Pielke, Sr., the University of Alabama’s Roy Spencer and John Christy, Virginia State Climatologist Patrick Michaels, Colorado State University’s William Gray, atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Oregon State climatologist George Taylor and astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas, to name a few.

But more importantly, it is the global warming alarmists who should be asked the question -- “What if they are correct about man-made catastrophic global warming?” -- because they have come up with no meaningful solution to their supposed climate crisis in the two decades that they have been hyping this issue.

If the alarmists truly believe that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are dooming the planet, then they must face up to the fact that symbolism does not solve a supposed climate crisis. The alarmists freely concede that the Kyoto Protocol, even if fully ratified and complied with, would not have any meaningful impact on global temperatures. And keep in mind that Kyoto is not even close to being complied with by many of the nations that ratified it, including 13 of the EU-15 nations that are not going to meet their emission reduction promises.

[…] Many of the nations that ratified Kyoto are now realizing what I have been saying all along: The Kyoto Protocol is a lot of economic pain for no climate gain.

[…] If we allow scientifically unfounded fears of global warming to influence policy makers to restrict future energy production and the creation of basic infrastructure in the developing world -- billions of people will continue to suffer. Last week my committee heard testimony from Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, who was once a committed left-wing environmentalist until he realized that so much of what that movement preached was based on bad science. Lomborg wrote a book called “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and has organized some of the world’s top Nobel Laureates to form the 2004 “Copenhagen Consensus” which ranked the world’s most pressing problems. http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=158 And guess what?

They placed global warming at the bottom of the list in terms of our planet’s priorities. The “Copenhagen Consensus” found that the most important priorities of our planet included: combating disease, stopping malaria, securing clean water, and building infrastructure to help lift the developing nations out of poverty. I have made many trips to Africa, and once you see the devastating poverty that has a grip on that continent, you quickly realize that fears about global warming are severely misguided.

[…] Many in the media, as I noted earlier, have taken it upon themselves to drop all pretense of balance on global warming and instead become committed advocates for the issue.

Here is a quote from Newsweek magazine:

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”

A headline in the New York Times reads: “Climate Changes Endanger World’s Food Output.” Here is a quote from Time Magazine:

“As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval.”

All of this sounds very ominous. That is, until you realize that the three quotes I just read were from articles in 1975 editions of Newsweek Magazine and The New York Times, and Time Magazine in 1974. http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,944914,00.html

They weren’t referring to global warming; they were warning of a coming ice age.

Let me repeat, all three of those quotes were published in the 1970’s and warned of a coming ice age.
[…]The media endlessly hypes studies that purportedly show that global warming could increase mosquito populations, malaria, West Nile Virus, heat waves and hurricanes, threaten the oceans, damage coral reefs, boost poison ivy growth, damage vineyards, and global food crops, to name just a few of the global warming linked calamities. Oddly, according to the media reports, warmer temperatures almost never seem to have any positive effects on plant or animal life or food production. Fortunately, the media’s addiction to so-called ‘climate porn’ has failed to seduce many Americans.

According to a July Pew Research Center Poll, the American public is split about evenly between those who say global warming is due to human activity versus those who believe it’s from natural factors or not happening at all.

In addition, an August Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that most Americans do not attribute the cause of recent severe weather events to global warming, and the portion of Americans who believe global warming is naturally occurring is on the rise.

Yes -- it appears that alarmism has led to skepticism.

The American people know when their intelligence is being insulted. They know when they are being used and when they are being duped by the hysterical left.

The American people deserve better -- much better -- from our fourth estate. We have a right to expect accuracy and objectivity on climate change coverage. We have a right to expect balance in sourcing and fair analysis from reporters who cover the issue.

Above all, the media must roll back this mantra that there is scientific “consensus” of impending climatic doom as an excuse to ignore recent science. After all, there was a so-called scientific “consensus” that there were nine planets in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.

Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since hysteria sells -- it’s very profitable. But I want to challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring legitimate voices [in] this scientific debate and to stop acting as a vehicle for unsubstantiated hype.

Click here for highlights [and audio and video] of the speech [/] Contact: Marc Morano (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov) Matt Dempsey (matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov) [My ellipses and emphasis]

An Important Event?

An address of John Paul II on June 10, 1979 at the Blonie Field marked the beginning of the end for Soviet Communism. Will the address of his successor on September 12, 2006 at the University of Regensburg be a similar milestone in world history?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From an American Thinker article, The Pope, Jihad, and “Dialogue”:

The Pope, Jihad, and “Dialogue” [/] September 17th, 2006

The most important address commemorating 9/11/01 was delivered on 9/12/06, a day after the fifth anniversary of this cataclysmic act of jihad terrorism. It was not delivered by President Bush, and was not even pronounced in the United States. On September 12, 2006 at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture (“adding some allusions of the moment”) entitled, “Faith, Reason and the University”.

[…] Christianity, the Pope maintained, was indelibly linked to reason and he contrasted this view with those who believe in spreading their faith by the sword. Benedict developed this argument by recounting the late 14th century “Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia” between the Byzantine ruler Manuel II Paleologus, and a well-educated Muslim interlocutor. The crux of this part of his presentation, was the following:

Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God’, he [the Byzantine ruler] says, ‘is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death’

However, it is Benedict’s discussion of the Byzantine ruler’s allusions to “…the theme of the jihad (holy war)”—Koran 2:256, “There is no compulsion in religion”, notwithstanding—that has unleashed a firestorm of condemnation and violence from Muslims across the world. Here are the words deemed so incendiary by both Muslim leaders, and the masses:

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the ‘Book’ and the ‘infidels’, he [Manuel II Paleologus] turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’

The historical context for these words—which were likely written by Manuel II Paleologus between 1391 and 1394—turns out be much more banal, albeit unknown to fulminating Muslims (here; here),and Islamic apologists of all ilks, especially the disingenuous Muslim (here; here) and hand-wringing non-Muslim promoters of empty “civilizational dialogue”.

When Manuel II composed the Dialogue (which Pope Benedict excerpted), the Byzantine ruler was little more than a glorified dhimmi vassal of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, forced to accompany the latter on a campaign through Anatolia. Earlier, Bayezid had compelled the Byzantines under Manuel II to submit to additional humiliations and impositions—heavier tribute, which was already onerous—as well as the establishment of a special quarter in Constantinople devoted to Turkish merchants, and the admission of an Ottoman kadi to arbitrate the affairs of these Muslims.

During the campaign he was conscripted to join, Manuel II witnessed with understandable melancholy the great metamorphosis—ethnic and toponymic—of formerly Byzantine Asia Minor. The devastation, and depopulation of these once flourishing regions was so extensive that often, Manuel could no longer tell where he was. The still recognizable Greek cities whose very names had been changed into something foreign became a source of particular grief. It was during this unhappy sojourn that Manuel II’s putative encounter with a Muslim theologian occurred, ostensibly in Ankara.

[…] Returning to Pope Benedict’s now controversial lecture, even if one accepts an apologetic interpretation of Koran 2:256 as prohibiting forced conversion to Islam (see below), this verse was abrogated by the verses of jihad, for example 9:5, and many others in sura 9, as well as sura 8. Indeed Koran 9:5 alone is held to have abrogated (here, pp. 67-75 ) as many as 100 pacific (or seemingly pacific verses).

Koranic sources, in particular the timeless war proclamation (the Koran being the “uncreated word of Allah” for Muslims) on generic pagans (not simply Arabian pagans), Koran 9:5, offers pagans the stark “choice” of conversion or death:

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

[…] Such coercion applies not only to “pagans”. Princeton scholar Patricia Crone makes the cogent argument that those of any faith may be forcibly converted during acts of jihad resulting in captivity (including, for example, the jihad kidnapping of the two Fox reporters, Centanni and Wiig). In her recent analysis of the origins and development of Islamic political thought, Dr. Crone makes an important nexus between the mass captivity and enslavement of non-Muslims during jihad campaigns, and the prominent role of coercion in these major modalities of Islamization. Following a successful jihad, she notes:

Male captives might be killed or enslaved, whatever their religious affiliation. People of the Book were not protected by Islamic law until they had accepted dhimma (Koran 9:29). Captives might also be given the choice between Islam and death, or they might pronounce the confession of faith of their own accord to avoid execution: jurists ruled that their change of status was to be accepted even though they had only converted out of fear.

An unapologetic view of Islamic history reveals that forced conversions to Islam are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries.

Moreover, during jihad—even the jihad campaigns of the 20th century [i.e., the jihad genocide of the Armenians during World War I, the Moplah jihad in Southern India [1921], the jihad against the Assyrians of Iraq [early 1930s], the jihads against the Chinese of Indonesia and the Christian Ibo of southern Nigeria in the 1960s, and the jihad against the Christians and Animists of the southern Sudan from 1983 to 2001], the dubious concept (see Paret, above) of “no compulsion” (Koran 2:256; which was cited with tragic irony during the Fox reporters “confessional”! ) , has always been meaningless.

A consistent practice was to enslave populations taken from outside the boundaries of the “Dar al Islam”, where Islamic rule (and Law) prevailed. Inevitably fresh non-Muslim slaves, including children (for example, the infamous devshirme system in Ottoman Turkey, which spanned three centuries and enslaved 500,000 to one million Balkan Christian adolescent males, forcibly converting them to Islam), were Islamized within a generation, their ethnic and linguistic origins erased.

Two enduring and important mechanisms for this conversion were concubinage and the slave militias—practices still evident in the contemporary jihad waged by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against the southern Sudanese Christians and Animists . And Julia Duin reported in early 2002 that murderous jihad terror campaigns—including, prominently, forced conversions to Islam —continued to be waged against the Christians of Indonesia’s Moluccan Islands.

[…] Eschewing the comforting banalities of his predecessor, Benedict XVI has acknowledged that real dialogue, as opposed to bavardage, begins not by kissing the Koran, but reading it. Most importantly, he is impatient with an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians limited to platitudes about “Abrahamic faiths”, which scrupulously avoids serious discussions of the living, sacralized Islamic institution of jihad war.

Until Muslims evidence a willingness to engage in such forthright discussions, Benedict appears to share Dr. Malik’s sobering conclusions from his February 2003 speech: “One certainly needs to be open at all times to learn from the Other, including to learn at times that the Other right now has nothing to teach me on a particular issue.” [/] Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad. [My bracketed ellipses and emphasis]