Bartholomew's Notes

The Jerusalem Post and other sources are reporting on a new proposal for a “Third Temple” in Jerusalem. The idea has come from a certain Yoav Frankel, who in a 2007 paper suggested that a “prophet” would have the authority to establish a new Jewish Temple adjacent to the Dome of the Rock, thus turning the Temple Mount into an interfaith space and defusing one reason for continued conflict in the region. His idea is explained on this website, with an extended English-language version of his article here. He is part of an “Interfaith Encounter Association“, and his project is being directed by Ohr Margalit, an academic at Bar-Ilan University. Margalit gives a gushing pitch at the Washington Post:

a rebuilt temple…would be the radical fulfillment of God’s original mandate to the Jewish people and of the original purpose of the Temple, to manifest the One God to the world. This would be more powerfully accomplished with Christian and Muslim shrines nearby along with the pilgrims that visit them. At the very same time, with a rebuilt Temple in peaceful proximity, Allah would be more powerfully manifested in the Dome and in the Al Aqsa Mosque, and likewise for God, the Prince of Peace, in surrounding churches. All would occur simultaneously because the world would then understand and embrace the prophecy of Zechariah 14:9, “On that day, God will be One and His Name One.”

In fact, Frankel is not the first person to suggest that a new Temple could be constructed without damaging the Dome of the Rock, although other schemes have been based on archaeological revisionism rather than the idea of a prophetic fiat. Problems still abound, though: how exactly would a “prophet” achieve the status needed to be taken seriously? Charismatic authority in ultra-Orthodox Judaism tends to lead to sectarian division rather than unity, while authority structures and intellectual traditions in other strands of Judaism mean there is little chance they would succumb to a personality cult. The reality of Temple worship would be unattractive as well – for most Westerners, a return to killing animals as a religious practice is more likely to evoke disgust and bewilderment than feelings of piety.

Further, most Israelis have no interest in a “Third Temple”, and would resent the way such a thing would symbolise the power of an already overbearing religious establishment, while right-wing groups who would like to see its construction are usually adamant that the Muslim buildings must go. Also, how could a new building avoid damaging ancient archaeology on the site or impeding research, even if the Muslim structures are untouched? A new Temple would hardly be a restoration job, but rather an unparalleled modification to an ancient site (with dramatic knock-on effects for the wider area) where conservation should be the top priority.

And why would Muslim authorities agree to it? The example of adjacent Muslim and Jewish worship at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is not encouraging.

Alas for Frankel and Margalit, the religious group which has shown the most excitment over the idea is apocalyptic Christian Zionists (e.g. here, here, and here), although not in a way they would like: from this perspective the plan is just confirmation of a coming “False Prophet”, who will establish the anti-Christ at the head of a one-world religion based at this very spot. Once again, an idea that is on the outer fringes in the Israel of the real world becomes central to Christian fundamentalist fantasy.

(Hat tip: Paleojudaica)

Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

As is being widely reported, the Church of England’s General Synod is being asked to raise concerns about religious programming on the BBC, and over the appointment of a Muslim, Aaqil Ahmed, as commissioning editor for religion. The Bishop of Croydon has a reasonable piece about it on his blog:

…the real question is this: will Ahmed bring to coverage of Christianity the same intelligent and explanatory approach he has brought to coverage of Islam and the Quran at Channel 4? It seems to me that coverage of Islam assumes ignorance on the part of viewers and, therefore, seeks to explain before offering a critique. When it comes to Christianity, however, understanding is (mistakenly) assumed and the critique is almost always wholly negative – and frequently weak. Why, for example, does coverage of the Quran use sympathetic voices whereas the series on Christianity gives voice to critics – not to people from within the faith? A series on the Bible planned for 2011 (the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible – which shaped the English language and people) has now been ditched.

Less reasonable is input from Don Maclean, a former presenter on BBC Radio 2, as reported by the Mail:

Mr Maclean said: ‘They’re keen on Islam, they’re keen on programmes that attack the Christian church.

‘I know there are things that need to be brought forward, but you don’t see any programmes on Anglicanism that don’t talk about homosexual clergy and you don’t see anything on Roman Catholicism that don’t talk about paedophiles.

‘They seem to take the negative angle every time.  They don’t do that if they’re doing programmes on Islam.  Programmes on Islam are always supportive.

…He said: ‘I think there’s a secularist movement in this country to get rid of Christianity.  Something must be done.’

Unhappily, for no clear reason he mixes this in with:

The presenter claimed ‘the last thing we want is war on the streets’ adding that ‘we need all the moderate Muslims to stand up and be counted’.

He added: ‘They’re all in private telling you how dreadful they think Islamic terrorism is, but they’re not forming together in a group and standing up against it.’

It’s true that religious programming overall has declined: the Christian Institute reports that “the BBC’s religious coverage has fallen by nearly 15 per cent in the last 20 years, from 177 hours in 1988 to 155 in 2008, even though its total television output has doubled”.  Serious documentaries about religion have been marginalised: on the TV, the Everyman and Heart of the Matter strands have long gone, while on the radio the Sunday news programme is broadcast at an ungodly early hour and the World Service’s Reporting Religion is no more.

But Maclean’s complaint (presumably lifted from Michael Nazir-Ali) is over-egged: there is a generous amount of devotional material on the radio, and programmes continue to be broadcast on TV (see here for a current list). Compare that with ITV, which ditched its devotional Christian programming some years ago for purely commerical reasons; insofar as there is less devotional programming, that’s a result of secularisation, rather than a process directed by a “secularist movement”. I’d like to see more documentaries, but it’s not true that the only subjects covered concern sexual matters: at Easter there was a very good docudrama about the future Pope John Paul II’s experiences during the war, and if you keep a close eye on the schedules a decent amount of material about religion can be found in programmes about history or the arts, particularly on BBC Four.

By the way, I saw Don Maclean once in the flesh – when I mentioned this to some friends I was surprised at how enthusiastic they were. Eventually I discovered there is an American singer of the same name, although spelt differently.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Following on from yesterday’s blog entry, Dave Bones of Malung TV News has had further correspondence with Glen Jenvey, who for several years has been cited in the media as an expert on Islamic terrorism and as an “anti-Jihad” activist. Jenvey has apparently announced his conversion (or “reversion”, to use insider terminology) to Islam through the guidance of a notorious extremist:

im fine looking forward to tell the world they should imbrace islam as well.i will be putting the wrongs of my past right and helping all muslim prisoners as a muslim.

may allah guide me and thank omar bakri for his bring me into the fold of islam.

glen aka omar hamza jenvey

This is written in Jenvey’s trademark dyslexic style; the story has also been confirmed by Bones through a contact at Salafimedia.com, and Jenvey has just deleted his “alimasharli” YouTube channel, which carried videos attacking Islamic extremists. Just a couple of weeks ago Jenvey posted a phone interview he had made with Omar Bakri, in which he had posed as a journalist in order to elicit some (predictable) inflammatory quotes.

Jenvey used to run a fake extremist website as an undercover operation, and some are speculating this new development is of the same sort. However, it should also be noted that the media declined to pick up his Omar Bakri interview, and he was recently angered by an unflattering passing reference in the Daily Mail. He has also acted erratically since the Sun withdrew an article sourced from him in January.

Of course, there’s also a chance that Jenvey’s email and YouTube site have been hacked by a talented impersonator, but the previous statements I blogged yesterday have been around for a few days now unchallenged.

UPDATE: A new statement has appeared:

Let it be known MI5 and the Daily Mail newspaper are full time over paid trash!…The Daily Mail were un-ware in their badly researched story I was under cover collecting information for a British MP and Newspaper for them to pass on to the police to stop public disorder offences from Feb 2009.

…Omar Bakri has invited me to Islam and i will be converting in early July I will not be working for any intelligence service from this date against Muslims or any other group.

over the years i have found the police racist and MI5 full of interbread public school boy’s i declare complete contempt for the Daily Mail’s LIES and after the PCC result if not fair will be taking them to court…over the years i have worked along side several intelligence services and will be sharing this secret info with my friends and Muslim Brother.

There’s also a link to an audio of “advice by my Brother in Islam Sheikh Omar Bakri”, in which Omar Bakri discusses Jenvey’s wish to convert.

Also, Dave Bones adds:

I have seen emails from Aranis solicitors asking why Mr Jenvey is withdrawing his evidence and enquiring about his change of heart.

Muddassar Arani is Abu Hamza’s solicitor.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 19 Comments »

Self-styled anti-terrorism expert and British Obsession pundit Glen Jenvey has just released an extraordinary statement, in which he appears in effect to repudiate the “anti-Jihadi” efforts by which he came to public attention. It is published on Cryptome, and has also been sent to me from his email address.

In particular, Jenvey claims to have provided evidence crucial to the extradition of jailed Muslim extremist Abu Hamza to the USA, but that he now wishes to withdraw his statement and videos because “I wish no part in this show trial on a disabled man”. Further:

I have already witnessed lies being told in a British court in the case of Abu Izzadeen, with police statements going missing and officers lying about receiving evidence.

And I know the full history of secret evidence on Abu Qatada and where it came from and what was said behind closed doors which led to him being placed back in prison.

And in a second piece, published on Analyst Network, he apparently adds that:

I phoned Anjem Choudhary yesterday and he wants me to meet him. I won’t go into the details of what we discussed.

Anjem Choudary is the most notorious Islamic extremist in the UK who’s not behind bars, so this is astonishing.

The background to all this is quite long and complicated, but to cut a long story short, back in January ago the Sun published a front-page splash which claimed that extremist Muslims were using a web forum to plan attacks on British Jews in revenge for Israeli action in Gaza. In particular, the businessman Alan Sugar was named as a target. The source for the story was Glen Jenvey, but Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads found evidence suggestive that Jenvey had made the extremist postings himself under a false Islamic identity. The Sun removed the story (without any public explanation), and articles about the controversy appeared in Private Eye and the Guardian. Jenvey has strongly protested his innocence, and he claims that the Guardian article was written to protect a Guardian columnist.

Three weeks ago Jenvey featured briefly in a Daily Mail article about the recent “anti-extremist” protests in Luton; discussing a group called March for England (which was not responsible for the violence which erupted month), the Mail noted the involvement of virulent anti-Muslim blogger Paul Ray (“Lionheart“) and gave some details about Dave Smeeton, the group’s organiser. The Mail added that

Another link between the men is Glen Jenvey, accused by several newspapers of fabricating stories about Islamic extremism. Jenvey has eight ‘friends’ on his Facebook site; two of them are Ray and Smeeton.

The Mail did not claim that Jenvey was involved with events in Luton, but this was the final straw. Jenvey now writes:

Due to personal unfounded attack’s by the Daily Mail newspaper calling me an unmasked football hooligan and personal attacks on myself and family by bloggers from the far left and supporters of the failing Labour Government, I wish to withdraw my police statement taken by the anti-terrorist squad for the FBI.

The 6-page statement lists a number of video tapes to be used in the extradition case of Abu Hamza and one video links James Ujaama to Abu Hamza. Without these tapes, which kick-started the case in America, it will be hard to present a valid case against Abu Hamza now that I’m withdrawing all evidence due to personal attacks and lies by the Daily Mail…I ask thugs at the Daily Mail to leave my friends and family alone. It made me feel sick the Daily Mail‘s claims that I was a Nazi.

By “bloggers from the far left and supporters of the failing Labour Government”, Jenvey means in particular Tim Ireland. In fact, I haven’t read anything anywhere that either attacks or even mentions members of Jenvey’s family (As a side note, the idea that Tim works on behalf of the Labour Party has been taken from an allegation made against him in comments that have appeared on conservative blogs; Tim has denied it).

Jenvey also claims that

Bloggers have threaten to chop my head off and this came not from Muslims but the far left. I receive phone calls day and night waking me up in my sleep.

Further,

 I believe that Sheikh Abu Hamza and Sheikh Abu Qatada should in good faith both be allowed out of prison on a control order as soon as possible.

All quite remarkable.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 13 Comments »

Bruce Wilson digs out a video of neo-Pentecostal “spiritual warfare” theorist C. Peter Wagner talking about Japan in the early 1990s, and why the Sun Goddess Amaterasu is the “harlot” from the Book of Revelation:

Japan, as a nation, is one of the nations of the world which has consciously, openly, invited national demonization.  And they do this though what’s called the Daijosai ceremony…where when a new Emperor comes in to power…And as a part of this ceremony the Emperor goes to this specially chosen…place…He eats rice that has been planted and harvested and chosen through witchcraft. And at a certain time that night the Sun Goddess visits him in person, and has sexual intercourse with the Emperor…So the emperor becomes one flesh with the sun goddess…There is a certain spiritual phenomenon…that’s called succubus…Since the present emperor slept with the Sun Goddess the stock market in Japan has gone down, never come up since. This has been a disastrous year, the first year the rice harvest failed, the first Japan has ever had to import rice.

Wagner also explains that the previous emperor turned away from this after World War Two, with the result that many people were “saved”, but that he re-established links later on.

This is vintage Wagner: he takes a ritual from another culture and reads into it exactly what he wants to find and seizes opportunistically on current affairs as evidence of spiritual causality. Several obvious questions come to mind: if Hirohito had re-established links with the Sun Goddess, why would Akihito’s 1989 accession have had any particular effect? Why did Japan enjoy increasing growth and prosperity during Hirohito’s final decades? Why has there been no repeat of the one-off 1993 rice harvest failure (which saw a 36% drop in production and was easily explained as due to bad weather)?

And what of the Daijosai ritual itself? It’s very ancient, and much of the symbolism around it is today obscure. Scholar Carmen Blacker explains that:

Wars, rebellions, and impoverishment of the imperial house led to periods, longer or shorter, of dicintinuance. The longest lapse lasted for more than two centuries, from 1466 to 1687, when civil war and its aftermath prevented its performance. During this long gap much of the tradition surrounding the ritual was lost.

One interpretation suggests that it is a rite of passage through which the Emperor is reborn as the child of the Goddess. Part of the ceremony involves a bed-like object, called a shinza. However, the shinza is not touched, the emperor does not lie on it, and its meaning is unknown. Blacker observes:

An intriguing variey of theories have been advanced to account for its presence. It has been seen as a throne, as a marriage bed, a symbol of the Sun Goddess, a resting-place for a visiting god, a refuge where the emperor may receive the soul of his ancestors. (1)

For Wagner, this leaves the way clear to impose a salacious and prurient interpretation based around ritual sex, presumably in order to evoke Western ideas of Satanism.

Wagner’s talk is introduced by Jack Hayford, who heads the famous neo-Penteocostal Church of the Way in Van Nuys, California; somewhat weirdly, Hayford’s intro is accompanied by the kind of muzak you might hear in a corporate training video. Following Wagner, Bruce gives us a couple of clips of Paul McGuire, a Christian Zionist associated with the same church who propounds a crackpot conspiracy theory about occultists cloning a “master race”  and creating body parts for the “super rich” in secret underground laboratories.

(1) See “The Shinza or God-seat in the Daijosai: Throne, Bed or Incubation Couch?” in The Collected Writings of Carmen Blacker (Routledge 2000)

Filed under: Uncategorized | 15 Comments »

OK, it’s an easy target. We all know that Joseph Farah is a man without integrity or decency, a desperate huckster who proclaims to be a Christian while churning out the most egregious lies on his pseudo-news site WorldNetDaily. His crude bias and bad faith are of course long-standing and perennial; but in recent weeks – perhaps in competition with the increasingly hysterical Fox –  his discourse has become so unhinged that WND now more resembles a site like Prison Planet than anything that can be taken with any kind of seriousness.

A few days ago he was pushing the idea that Obama created Swine Flu; but now we’ve reached the very bottom of the barrel, a point so low that only his good friend Michael Savage could possibly compete in the self-degradation that putting your name to such a vile piece of writing must entail.

Here it is, as Farah ponders a recent speech that Obama made in a former concentration camp:

The speech was delivered at Buchenwald, one of the most notorious concentration camps operated by Nazis, a place where some 56,000 people, mostly Jews, were murdered in what Adolf Hitler hoped would be the “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.”

This is the shockingly unbelievable line that struck my attention – one that was in such poor taste that it couldn’t possibly have survived scrutiny by competent speechwriters and editors unless there was some intention behind it: “We are here today because we know this work is not yet finished.”

Now, don’t tell me I am taking this line out of context. I know I am. I understand the context – that the fight continues against those who deny the Holocaust.

However, Farah has compared that to a quote from the Koran Obama used elsewhere, which he cross-references with an adjacent more militant verse:

In his major address to the Muslim world last week, Obama seemed to be speaking in code – whether he or his speechwriters knew it.

…That is the context of this seemingly innocuous quotation that is actually revered by jihadists worldwide.

So, I ask you, am I really taking Obama’s words at Buchenwald out of context? Or am I the only one seeing them in context?

Farah is suggesting that Obama made a speech at Buchenwald in which he sent out a coded message promising to continue Hitler’s genocide. Make no mistake – his question-marks and “don’t tell me I am taking this line out of context” sentence are no more than vacuous  rhetorical devices which he hopes will deflect criticism for a posture that would make a British tabloid editor choke on his own puke. All they mean is that he’s too cowardly to take full ownership for what he’s saying.

So, Farah is happy to undermine an uncontroversial speech opposing Holocaust denial, a speech presented at a location which for most people represents both a memorial to Holocaust victims and a place for the most serious moral reflection, just to score a point that’s not even cheap. There’s no way he can believe what he’s writing, so he’s simply pumping out inflammatory and tasteless lies in order to whip up paranoia and hate. I’m sure he’d love to be accused of potentially inciting violence, just so he could bleat about how there’s a conspiracy to “silence” him. But just who is he writing this for, besides some lone nutjob with a cabin in the hills, an internet connection, and a collection of guns?

This is not the first time that Farah has used the Holocaust in a way that shows him up as a vulgar clown lacking in any semblance of character – he uses a picture of skeletal Holocaust victims to sell a video attacking Charles Darwin and evolutionary biology. That video was actually condemned by the ADL.

(Hat tip: Dispatches from the Culture Wars; Right Wing Watch. Image snagged from ConWebWatch)

Filed under: Uncategorized | 24 Comments »

Somewhat late to the party, I’ve written a review of Jeff Sharlet‘s 2008 book The Family – it can be seen here.

And rather quicker off the mark, I’ve got a review of Kathryn Joyce‘s new book Quiverfull,  here. Kathryn was also recently on TV talking about her book with Laura Flanders – see here.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Michael Savage, speaking on BBC Radio 5 on June 02:

I’ve supported the five major religions for the last fifteen years on the radio. I was talking about the great religions, including Islam, beginning in 1994. I’m a great supporter of organised religion.

Savage, of course, claims that his anti-Islam comments have quoted out of context, and that the recent much-publicised ban on his entry into the UK has put his life in danger. In fact, if I were Savage I’d more worried about an attack of apoplexy finishing me off:

Much of what he spits out in these extracts (compiled by a fan, apparently) has not  featured in the British debate over the ban; his Radio 5 interviewer does not seem to have been aware of these statements. At 3:20 there is a direct exhortation for listeners to approach Muslims in public places in order to express their contempt and hate.

A very good profile on Savage appeared in Salon in 2004. And it should be noted that despite Savage’s free speech posturing, his son – who has appeared on stage with him and shares his views – is currently waving lawyers around in attempt to shut down open discussion of his own activities.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Sunday Times has an article recent events in Luton (blogged by me numerous times),  including the revelation that the town’s Sikh mayor was assaulted in March by a white youth as a protest against Islamic extremism:

Kier [McElroy] ran up to him and fly-kicked him in the back. Councillor Lakhbir Singh, the mayor of Luton, a Sikh by faith, not in fact a Muslim at all, stumbled and fell forward, putting out his hands to stop himself falling. Kier turned around and, before the police could do anything, he ran through them and was away…In the weeks preceding Kier’s arrest, for some unexplained reason, the assault on the mayor was kept a secret and the mayor himself kept under wraps. He would not talk to me for this article, and I only found out about the attack through a contact in the town after Kier had been charged.

There’s also an interview with Sayful Islam, the Muslim extremist whose notorious protest against a military parade in the town spurred McElroy to action. Laughably, we’re told that he claims that

…he knew that people would be upset by the protests and tried to have a low-key presence, out of harm’s way.

We also meet Mikey Birch (probably a pseudonym), the young man who (along with a certain Wayne King) runs United People of Luton:

…Birch said he had no affiliations with a far-right party, but he did say that if the BNP were in charge at the town hall, Luton would not be so biased towards Muslims. “I’m not being racist, but…”, he said, “…I don’t want my kids being Islamified. I don’t want them forcing their religion on us.”

He was concerned about the number of Muslim councillors in Luton, and thought it was wrong that the extremists had been allowed to protest when their own marches were being prevented or curtailed. “Have Al-Muhajiroun or Al-Qaeda infiltrated the council? That’s what people are saying.” It was Birch who told me that people had talked of storming the town hall in protest.

Also making an appearance is, inevitably, Paul Ray:

Among the would-be march organisers was a white man called Paul Ray who didn’t even live in Luton. He runs Lionheart, a blog in which he appears to believe he is re-fighting the medieval crusades, the good Christian against the Muslim hordes. He’s currently bailed on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. A man who had no shame about giving his name and address wrote to the local paper, The Luton News, asking, rhetorically, what he was going to do about Muslims demonstrating and attacking “our troops”. His donation to the BNP, he told readers, was in the post.

This is unfortunately a bit ambiguous. Is the man who wrote to the Luton News Ray or someone else? If it’s someone else, why are the sentences juxtaposed? If is is Ray, why suddenly bring in “A man”? Ray has in the past made a number of comments in support of the BNP (which is why he lost the support of American conservatives last year), but he has also tried to keep a bit of distance from the party.

Ray’s reaction to the Times article is predicably hyperbolic:

Journalist David James Smith is what can only be described as a disgusting and sorry example of a British man…His article stenches of the white Liberal upper class who know absolutely nothing about the reality of life on the streets of Britain where these Islamic ghettos now reside…when the pen is in the hands of these diseased, upper-class Liberals they do not want to know the truth, all they care about is beating lower-class English people up to reinforce their misguided ideal of British society upon their readers…He calls me a ‘white man’ in a derogatory racist term, as if being a ‘white man’ makes me a racist…The whole body of his article is pro Sayful Islam propoganda…You would think they were both friends.

Etc, etc. The reference to the Crusades particularly annoyed him:

As a Christian, I do have history to look back on to understand, relate with, and make sense of what is unfolding around me now in the 21st Century in relation to Islam’s religious Jihad. Islamic terror, hatred and Holy War is nothing new, and if it had not been for the Crusades then the freedom we enjoy in Europe would have gone long ago and we would now be living supressed under sharia law, in an Islamic State… Throughout the article he does not make mention once about Moslems like Sayful Islam being a part of the continuation of 1400 years of Jihad, just that I believe I am re-fighting the Crusades.

Ray has a special fondness for bombastic video montages about Crusaders – he gives us two examples here, sourced from fellow-enthusiasts. There’s a whole belligerent subculture on Youtube devoted to this kind of thing, and he’d probably get on well with Theodore Shoebat. However, Ray’s Christianity is not well-informed – he thinks the phrase “turn the other cheek” refers to those who ignored the injured man in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and he does not attend a place of worship.

This is the second time lately that Ray has been dismayed by press coverage – a couple of weeks ago his ire was directed (“The journalist is a TRAITOR!!!”) at the Daily Mail

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

When I was a child, one of those bits of general knowledge that it was felt important for us all to know was this: “The Empire State Building in New York is the tallest building in the world”. It wasn’t – but our schoolbooks were a few years out of date, adults repeated stuff they themselves had learned at school, and general familarity with the true tallest building (the far less interesting North Tower of the World Trade Center) took a while to cross the Atlantic, despite the first remake of King Kong. Either way, though, the fact that the tallest building in the world was in the USA seemed part of the natural order of things.

Now, however, the tallest buildings are in Asia and Middle East, so something must be dreadfully amiss. Over to our favourite Christian apocalypticist, Joel Richardson:

We have all seen pictures of the Burj Dubai in Dubai. Presently it is the world’s tallest building. In the following diagram, the Burj Dubai is the smallest building to the right. Next to it is the proposed Mubarak Tower in Kuwait, the Al Berj Tower in Dubai, and Mile Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves Genesis 11:4

Joel’s commentators warm to the theme:

Man is again attempting to make it self like god…History repeats itself again…YES, Babylon WILL RETURN (or IS RETURNED already?)…

This is a remarkable attitude from citizens of the only country to have put men on the moon, and which continues to lead the way in reaching to the heavens – not anymore through phallus-waving skyscrapers of dubious value, but through scientific space exploration. There’s a reasonable hope that one day engineers will develop the technology to create a “space elevator“, which would facilitate transport into space in a way that is far safer and more environmentally-friendly than the way we do it today; if those who read the Bible superstitiously gain the upper hand, there’s not much chance of it ever being in the USA.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »