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Time Celebrates Methodist Seminary’s Move to Train Imams and Rabbis Too

For centuries, theological seminaries minted trained and licensed ministers of their respective religious traditions. They took seriously their creedal and confessional commitments to their respective faiths and denominations. While comparative theology may have been taught, it was with a view to understand and critically evaluate them as rival truth claims, not equally valid truthful claims. But those dark, backwards days may be behind us if Claremont School of Theology successfully paves the way. Or at least that’s the sentiment conveyed in Time magazine writer Elizabeth Dias’s August 22 article, “Training Pastors, Rabbis, and Imams Together.” Dias’s 10-paragraph-long August 22 article portrayed Claremont president Jerry Campbell as a “classic American” entrepreneur who took a novel approach to the school’s “low enrollment and in-the-red” balance sheet: “end isolated clerical training” by “bring[ing] toegether Claremont, the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC) and the Academy for Jewish Religion California.” Of course, religious training deals in matters of eternal verities, not marketplace commodities, so that sort of approach is unwise, religious conservatives would argue. Yet Dias excluded any dissent from her examination into the newly inclusive Methodist seminary.  Indeed, Dias’s word choice in the following passage seems to hint conservative critics are opposed to religious tolerance (emphasis mine): To be sure, Claremont’s push to desegregate religious education has encountered its share of roadblocks . The most notable to date occurred in January when questions about Claremont’s commitment to Christian education nearly cost the school its funding and sanction from the United Methodist Church. After a five-month investigation, Campbell prevailed. “We explained clearly to the [Methodist] review team that in fact our United Methodist character continues intact throughout this program,” he said. ” We intend to be the Christian partner in this endeavor, and so we are not changing our United Methodist character essentially in any way.” But how can a Christian seminary grant divinity degrees to persons of religious traditions that it views as false religions? And if Claremont views other religious traditions as equally valid, wouldn’t that by definition be a denial of the truth claims of Christian Scripture, which holds forth Jesus Christ as the only “name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). A thorough religion reporter would explore these questions; sadly Dias failed to do just that.

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Time Celebrates Methodist Seminary’s Move to Train Imams and Rabbis Too

New MRC Report Exposes The Real Radio Hatemongers

The so-called “news” media have spent much of the past two decades demonizing the rhetoric of conservative radio talk show hosts as mean-spirited, divisive or a menace to civil discourse. But these same journalists — who gleefully castigate Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and other conservatives — are silent about the vile and vicious rhetoric that spews from the Left’s leading radio talk show hosts. Since late 2007, the Media Research Center has collected numerous examples of the outrageousness of left-wing radio hosts. And, unlike the Left — which attempted to smear Rush Limbaugh with phony quotes — readers can find an audio or video of every one of these quotes (46 in all) posted at our Web site: www.MRC.org . MRC’s new report includes examples of over-the-top rhetoric from left-wing hosts Mike Malloy, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Ron Reagan, Jr., Ed Schultz and Montel Williams, all of whom currently or at one time broadcast to a national audience on either the Air America network or via XM and/or Sirius satellite radio. A few of the choicer examples: ■ Conservatives Want to Kill Barack Obama: “I really think there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out.” – Ed Schultz, August 11, 2009. (Listen to the MP3 audio ). ■ Conservatives Are Terrorists: “Do you not understand that the people you hold up as heroes bombed your goddamn country? Do you not understand that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are as complicit of the September 11, 2001 terror attack as any one of the dumbass 15 who came from Saudi Arabia?” – Mike Malloy, January 19, 2010. (Listen to the MP3 audio ). ■ Conservatives Want You to Die: “If, in fact, the GOP doesn’t like any form of health care reform, what do we do with those 40 to 60 million uninsured?…When they show up in the emergency room, just shoot ‘em! Kill them!…Do we have enough body bags? I don’t know.” – Montel Williams, July 21, 2009. (Listen to the MP3 audio ). ■ Conservative Congresswoman Would Have Liked the Holocaust: “[Representative Michele Bachmann is] a hatemonger. She’s the type of person that would have gladly rounded up the Jews in Germany and shipped them off to death camps….This is an evil bitch from Hell.” – Mike Malloy, October 17, 2008. (Listen to the MP3 audio ). ■ Dick Cheney Eats Babies: “Cheney, by the way, looks very ruddy. I couldn’t get over that. Like, he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby. He must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood.” – Mike Malloy, October 22, 2009. (Listen to the MP3 audio .) ■ Dick Cheney Should Die: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion. Dick Cheney is an enemy of the country….Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you? See, I don’t even wish the guy goes to Hell, I just want to get him the hell out of here.” – Ed Schultz, May 11, 2009 (Listen to the MP3 audio ). ■ Rush Limbaugh Should Die: “I’m waiting for the day when I pick up the newspaper or click on the Internet and find that he’s choked to death on his own throat fat, or a great big wad of saliva or something, whatever. Go away, Limbaugh, you make me sick.” – Mike Malloy, January 14, 2010. (Listen to the MP3 audio ). ■ Michele Bachmann Should Die: “So, Michele, slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.” – Montel Williams, September 2, 2009. (Listen to the MP3 audio ). Even more disturbing quotes can be found in the full report posted at MRC.org , some with very strong language. Keep these examples in mind the next time you hear a liberal huff and puff about how conservative radio hosts are supposedly ruining the quality of American public discourse. They need to clean up their own house, first.

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New MRC Report Exposes The Real Radio Hatemongers

WaPo, Editorially a Proponent of Church/State Separation, Worries About Too Few Muslim Chaplains in Va. Prisons

Those familiar with the Washington Post know that the paper is a staunch defender of a very liberal vision of the separation of church and state. For example, the paper’s editorial board was heavily critical of the Supreme Court’s Mojave cross ruling. But when it comes to the supposed dearth of Muslim chaplains at Virginia prisons, Sunday’s Metro section went into full hand-wringing mode. “Inadequate Funds for Chaplains,” complained a subheader for the page B1 story by staffer Kevin Sieff. “In Va., most money goes to Protestant clergy,” another subheadline for the story “Support limited for Muslims in prison”* lamented. Of course, it wasn’t until paragraph 27 that Sieff noted that “[n]either Catholic nor Jewish chaplains have sought funding from corrections officials.” As Sieff explained early in his article, “a 200-year-old interpretation of the state constitution… bars Virginia from doing any faith-based hiring” and “is the only state where prison chaplains are contractors, not state employees.” Sure, “Muslim chaplains could visit correctional facilities to minister to Virginia’s 32,000 inmates,” Sieff explained, “but they received no funds from the state” until a $25,000 grant was given to Muslim Chaplain Services of Virginia last July. “The department [of corrections] has been living in the past. No other state in the country is so far behind the curve,” Sieff quoted the lament of one Larry Coleman of the American Correctional Chaplains Association. Yet nowhere in his 43-paragraph article did Sieff quote a defender of the Old Dominion’s approach to prison chaplaincies. What’s more, Sieff presented Virginia policy as an unwitting accomplice in homegrown terrorism. “In the absence of qualified Muslim religious service providers, inmates can become attracted to radical views and the politico-religious messages coming from other inmates,” Sieff quoted from a study by terrorism experts at George Washington University and the University of Virginia.  Of course, volunteer Muslim chaplains who are not on the state payroll may have more credibility as a moderating influence on Muslim inmates than those who may be seen as government stooges by virtue of their affiliation with the state, but Sieff failed to find anyone who would argue that point.  *The online version’s headline is slightly different, “Limited  spiritual support in Virginia prisons as number of Muslim inmates grows”

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WaPo, Editorially a Proponent of Church/State Separation, Worries About Too Few Muslim Chaplains in Va. Prisons

This Time Weigel Compares Right to Czars Who Butchered Jews

Dave Weigel might have changed jobs, but that’s about all. Weigel, the one-time Washington Post blogger assigned to cover conservatives, but who actually bashed them on a regular basis, left the Post only to be hired by another Post-owned publication – Slate. Now that he’s at Slate, he’s also up to his old tricks, comparing opponents of the Ground Zero Mosque to the czars who used to murder Jews by the thousands. Oh sure, he doesn’t say that, but he does. First, the pretend conservative complains about the ” Greak[sic] Mosque Freak-Out of 2010 ” and how some Americans think Obama might be a Muslim. He then goes on to bash Powerline blog because they criticized Obama saying “he certainly isn’t one of us.”  But Powerline was clear, saying that the reason some are befuddled by Obama’s religion is those who are confused “interpret his aloof non-Americanism in this way.” After a brief and strident defense of American Muslims, the real Weigel shows up. Read his full comment from an Aug. 19 post dubbed ” The Big Bad Muslim Poll ,” “I’m remembering what Sarah Palin said about the ‘mosque’ that got liberals so angry: ‘peace-seeking Muslims, please understand, ground zero mosque is unnecessary provocation.’ Implicit in that statement is the belief that there are ‘peace-seeking Muslims.’ We’re learning about a lot of people who won’t go that far. They view Muslims the way that the czars used to view the Jews.” The way the czars used to “view the Jews?” Well the czars devoted a lot of energy into evicting Jews, killing Jews and more – like Nazis without the scientific process. It’s the kind of behavior that appears in the movie “Fiddler on the Roof” where a whole town was ordered out of their homes. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s turn to Aish.com – “the world’s largest Jewish content website, logging millions of monthly user sessions with 270,000 unique email subscribers.” The section begins with a headline ” Government-organized pogroms against the Jews deflected attention from the corrupt regime.” Aish.com defines pogroms as “mob violence against Jews.” Here are a few highlights: “[F]orced conscription of Jewish boys into the Russian Army.” “[B]oys were between the ages of 12 and 18 and were forced to serve for 25 years!” “[T]he Russian secret police began to circulate a forgery which became the most famous anti-Semitic ‘document’ in history – The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” In Czarist Russia, there were so many pogroms against the Jews that it is simply impossible to even begin to list them all. (In one four year period there were 284 pogroms, for example.) So, when Weigel says some on the right view Muslims this way, he’s making the case that conservatives want to slaughter Muslims, evict them from their homes and more. That kind of propaganda is more appropriate for czarist Russia than a site owned by a theoretically legitimate news outlet. Like this article? Sign up for “Culture Links,” CMI’s weekly e-mail newsletter, by clicking here.

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This Time Weigel Compares Right to Czars Who Butchered Jews

Top 10 Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories

A compilation of the 10 most popular conspiracy theories currently circulating on the radical right and, increasingly, on points of the political spectrum much too close to the center for comfort. Scholars continue to debate the psychological and sociological origins of conspiracy theories, but there is no arguing that these theories have seen a revival on the extreme right in recent years. Over the last two decades, a far-right conspiracy culture of self-proclaimed “Patriots” has emerged in which the United States government itself is viewed as a mortal threat to everything from constitutional democracy to the survival of the human race. This conspiracy revival — which has been accompanied by the explosive growth of Patriot groups over the last year and a half — kicked into overdrive with the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, who is seen by Patriots as a foreign-born Manchurian candidate sent by forces of the so-called “New World Order” to destroy American sovereignty and institute one-world socialist government. —————————————————– 1. – Chemtrails the belief that air and water vapor contrails that form in the wake of high-altitude aircraft are really clouds of toxic soup being deliberately sprayed by hundreds, if not thousands, of secret government planes executing the designs of the New World Order. —————————————————— 2. – Martial Law Today, hundreds of Patriot groups around the country are actively preparing for the declaration of martial law, some of them by mapping wilderness areas, learning how to set booby traps, studying and practicing guerrilla warfare tactics, and setting up short-wave radio communications systems. The question is not if, but when, the New World Order will come crashing down. ——————————————————– 3. – FEMA Concentration Camps Sending Patriot militias to internment camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which most Patriot groups consider to be “the executive arm of the coming police state.” ——————————————————– 4. – Foreign Troops on U.S. Soil government officials are colluding with other governments to suppress Americans with the use of foreign troops. Patriots believe this foreign assistance will be necessary due to the patriotism of America's own troops. ——————————————————– 5. – 'Door-to-Door' Gun Confiscations Patriots believe it inevitable that NWO forces in black masks and jackboots — and possibly UN blue helmets — will one day be sent door to door to take away their weapons by force. ——————————————————– 6. – 9/11 as Goverment plot On the far left, the reason seen for attacking the American people was to justify a perpetual state of war; on the far right, it provided an excuse for the government to, at long last, institute a police state. ——————————————————– 7. – Population control For the conspiracy-minded, there is no such thing as an accidental tragedy or historical caprice. Each epidemic, mass industrial poisoning and medical advance (vaccinations, in particular) is just another highly suspicious example of the latest technologies being employed to further the agenda of hidden New World Order forces. ——————————————————— 8. – HAARP This is the “Death Star” of the Patriot conspiracy galaxy, around which so many other conspiracies orbit and often intersect. To the conspiracy-minded, HAARP is a government program tasked with creating secret directed-energy weapons, instruments for weather and mind control, and even potent new methods to cause earthquakes. ——————————————————— 9. – The Federal Reserve Conspiracy It wasn't long after its creation under Woodrow Wilson that the Federal Reserve System became a central fixture in the world of right-wing conspiracy. It was seen, rightly, as introducing European-style central banking into the United States. It was also seen, this time wrongly, as the latest form of spreading Jewish and banker control over every aspect of American life. ———————————————————- 10. – The North American Union Since the passage of NAFTA in 1993, fears of economic dislocation and loss of sovereignty have animated both sides of the political spectrum. On the left, these fears are centered on the growth of transnational corporate power at the expense of U.S. labor and national policy. In some circles on the right, the trade bill is seen as the beginning of the so-called “North American Union” (NAU), the goal of a secret plan to merge the United States with Mexico and Canada and, in the process, eliminate sovereign government for each country. It is also a dominant conspiracy theory animating the hard-line anti-immigration movement, which overlaps heavily with Patriot territory. ———————————————————- More Detailed description of each conspiracy at site http://www.alternet.org/news/147851/top_10_right-wing_conspiracy_theories/?page=… added by: Stoneyroad

Obama throws support behind controversial Islamic center

Washington (CNN) — President Obama threw his support behind a controversial proposal to build an Islamic center and mosque near New York's ground zero, saying Friday that “Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” according to remarks distributed by the White House. “Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said, according to prepared remarks released before a speech. “That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he said. Obama was speaking at a White House Iftar dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The president's remarks drew praise from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who announced his support for the Islamic center last week. Bloomberg compared Obama's speech to a letter President George Washington wrote in support of a Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. “President Obama's words tonight evoked President Washington's own August reminder that 'all possess alike liberty,' ” Bloomberg said in a statement. “I applaud President Obama's clarion defense of the freedom of religion tonight,” he said. The president invoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which critics of the Islamic center cite as the main reason for preventing its construction. “We must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan,” Obama said, according to his prepared remarks. “The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country.” “The pain and suffering experienced by those who lost loved ones is unimaginable,” he continued. “So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.” But Obama argued that American ideals and the Constitution demanded that the project proceed. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,” he said. “The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.” The proposed Islamic center has provoked vocal opposition from some families of 9/11 victims and other groups. Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the plan, according to CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Wednesday. The project's leaders say they plan to build the $100 million, 13-story facility called Cordoba House three blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks. The developer, Sharif El-Gamal, describes the project as an “Islamic community center” that will include a 500-seat performing arts center, a lecture hall, a swimming pool, a gym, a culinary school, a restaurant and a prayer space for Muslims. On Wednesday, the project's developers declined an offer by New York Gov. David Paterson to relocate the project to a state-owned site. Earlier this month, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously denied landmark status for the building where the proposed Islamic center would stand, allowing the project to move forward. added by: TimALoftis

Bar Refaeli Tits with Leo of the Day

Bar Refaeli is one of the hotter girls in the world. She’s the kind of hot girl who I humor myself by talking to fake profiles pretending to be her on twitter and facebook, you know to make me feel like she’s into me, even though I know it isn’t her….She is the reason I masturbate to memories of a Jewish girl I once got with…she wasn’t quite as put together as Bar Refaeli, if anything she happened to be very fucking disgusting…like a hairy little troll that has nothing to do with her religion, but everything to do with the good Jewish girls being too busy getting with respectable people…so I was stuck with this bitch wh was so hairy that her vagina was like a pillow in her panties, her face like an accidenteed Sarah Jessica Parker and her mustache made for a perfect place to cum, since it held my orgasm there better than hairless skin, kinda like putting sand on an icy step… So here is Bar Refaeli properly representing Israel and her tits with her longterm boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio at a party I wasn’t invited to because I was too busy with my fist up my wife’s ass and pussy, it’s her new thing…cuz it is the only way she feels anything….while I remain more and more dead on the inside with every thrust….

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Bar Refaeli Tits with Leo of the Day

Roseanne Barr: Nazi Leaders Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler Were Jewish

Roseanne Barr on Friday said leaders of the Nazi Party such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler were all Jewish. In the comedienne’s latest anti-Semitic rant , she also claimed that many Palestinians are Jewish and were “driven out of their homes by a cheney-ized [sic] Judeo Christian Bushite America.” Further demonstrating her serious need for counseling, Barr said Nazi scientists “successfully created a mutant human–a hybrid of Jewish mentality and German Resolve, the Zionist.” Readers are cautioned before proceeding as this is seriously disturbed stuff (h/t NB reader Consigliere5):  Many of the Palestinian people are jewish and became christian after Israel stole their land and homes. They were dark skinned, and so driven out of their homes by a cheney-ized Judeo Christian Bushite America. the jewish american socialists are sending a flotilla from america to break the blockade of the anti-semitic zionists in Gaza! Zionists are German. weird hybrid. In order to defeat euro socialism, Hitler leveraged the rich jewish industrialists against the working class jews. The Russian accounts say that the last trains to Auschwitz were first class, as that is all the leverage left to the jewish oligarchs within the ‘reich’, (other than the jews like Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler at the top). The scientists of the Reich successfully created a mutant human–a hybrid of Jewish mentality and German Resolve, the Zionist– He who broke the back of the labor movements and socialism,— which is the goal of National Socialism—(different word for the American Southern Confederacy-the one Anne Coulter loves).   Seriously, this woman needs psychiatric attention and fast.  Exit question: Does Barr really believe this nonsense, or does she go off on one of these absurd rants every now and then to draw attention to herself? 

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Roseanne Barr: Nazi Leaders Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler Were Jewish

ABC Shoves Back at Shales, Insists Amanpour’s Memoriam for ‘All Who Died in War’ Borrowed from Her Catholic Church

ABC is fighting back against Washington Post critic Tom Shales asking if ABC’s new Sunday show host Christian Amanpour meant to send flowers and regrets to members of the Taliban in her overbroad eulogy on her debut as This Week host. Justin Elliott of Salon’s War Room blog  found remarks from Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president at ABC, that Shales’ criticism here is “utterly fabricated.” He can’t admit that Amanpour left the door wide open to speculation. Brent Baker noticed the slight, where Amanpour made no moral distinctions among the world’s war dead: “We remember all of those who died in war this week. And the Pentagon released the names of eleven U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan.” Technically, “all of those who died in war” could include a suicide bomber or an executioners of whole families. But Schneider insisted Amanpour’s Catholic upbringing played a role:  “Christiane took the language from a prayer that she says in her Catholic church every weekend. It’s a bidding prayer,” Schneider said. I’m a lifelong Catholic and have never heard the phrase “bidding prayer” — which could be a British usage . We often call them “prayers of the faithful,” where lectors read out general prayers, each specific to its parish. It wouldn’t be surprising for Catholics to pray for an end to war, but it might be eyebrow-raising to pray with the loophole phrase for “all who died in war.” That includes innocents, and could include terrorists. Schneider also accused Shales of “trying to create some kind of controversy out of something that is utterly well intentioned — which is to honor both U.S. soldiers that have died in battle as well as civilians and ordinary people who die in war all the time. Seems like a fairly non-controversial thing to do.” But wait — Amanpour said “all those who died in war,” not just U.S. soldiers and civilians.  Perhaps Amanpour goes to church every week, as Schneider suggested. But that’s not the impression many Christians have after her special “God’s Christian Warriors” in 2007. In one interview at that time, TV Guide asked about her own faith, and it came out much more muddled: TVGUIDE.COM: In the course of reporting this, did people ask you if you believe in God? AMANPOUR: They did. I always find it a difficult question. I’m born of a Catholic mother and a Muslim father and I’m married to a Jewish husband. So I have all of God’s wonderful shapes in my DNA. It has helped me have an inclusive look at what religion is all about. I instinctively retreat from division. I don’t want politics or religion to be a reason for division in my life or in other people’s lives. I see so much war, killing and hatred; I can always see why it shouldn’t be like that. Amanpour doesn’t declare she’s Catholic there at all. She seems like a natural fit for the secular liberal media elite.

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ABC Shoves Back at Shales, Insists Amanpour’s Memoriam for ‘All Who Died in War’ Borrowed from Her Catholic Church

Leelee Sobieski Tits Distract From her Face of the Day

I was sitting in the park yesterday because I have nothing better to do with my time, and a group of Jewish girls walked by me. All of them had real big tits on skinny little frames, but 2 out of the 4 of them had faces that didn’t look like they survived an arab suicide bombing… I don’t know if it was an inbreeding to keep the culture alive situation, but I do know that luckily there are plastic surgeons to fix them up later in life when they are old enough to realize the importance of a face that doesn’t make people want to throw up…after they marry a nice Jewish boy with money to pay for it and the whole thing brought back memories of Leelee Sobieski…. She was one of those Jewish girls who has big old titties, but I don’t remember ever liking her face, and despite her disappearing the last couple years, my opinion of her hasn’t changed. She’s like a youthful Sarah Jessica Parker, with a horse face that only other girls would like, a bad nose and sense of arrogance that she isn’t an ugly little pig who doesn’t eat pig who pisses me the fuck off, and makes me want to cum on her face to teach her a lesson about life doing what ugly girls belong doing…

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Leelee Sobieski Tits Distract From her Face of the Day