Comment

Comment by Craigart14 on July 28, 2017 at 11:02pm

Joan, you would have a hard time convincing Palestinians that the Israelis are their cousins.  You would have an equally hard time getting Israelis to admit that the ancient texts deeding their land to Abraham are fictions.  After the Romans conquered Israel in the early second century, the Jews were scattered, forced out of one nation after another, including England in 1390 and Spain in 1492.  After WWI, the Brits, having defeated the tottering Ottoman Empire, ruled Palestine until 1947, when they pulled out, which resulted in an invasion the very next day by the armies of five Islamic nations.  With British and American aid, the Israelis fought the Muslim armies to a standstill and the new nation of Israel was established.

Here's where things get sticky.  Between the two World Wars, a host of Turkish absentee landlords sold out to Jewish settlers.  In the Thirties, surrounding Muslim nations expelled their Jews, around 600,000 to 700,000 people.  Some settled in Israel, many emigrated to Britain, the US, Canada, etc.  Though the Israeli government urged Palestinians to stay, but Arab and Muslim leaders urged them to leave Israel temporarily while their armies conquered Israel.  Since they didn't win, 500,000 Palestinians found themselves stateless.  Though the Arab and Muslim nations promised to take care of their Muslim brothers and sisters, the Palestinians were placed in camps.  They have demanded the right of return for the past 80 years while their population has risen to more than two million.  The Israelis of course believe that Israel is theirs as a gift from God, to the extent that its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, urged archaeologists and anthropologist to "find the title deed to the land of Israel."  The Palestinians believe that Israel is their land by the right of occupation ever since the Jews were dispersed by the Romans.

There never was a nation called "Palestine," and there hadn't been a nation called "Israel" since about 160 CE.  What right had the Romans to displace the Jews?  Roman legions.  What gave the British and other European powers the right to give their land back and displace the Palestinians?  The military might that had just helped to defeat the Nazis.  Britain fulfilled the 1915 Balfour Declaration by establishing a Jewish homeland and, not incidentally getting a bunch of Jews out of the UK.

There's no end in sight.

Comment by Joan Denoo on July 27, 2017 at 8:45pm

Explain this to me, please, someone. The Israelis and Palestinians have fought each other since the Dark Ages and before. Why? Thy are cousins!!! Have they not, in all this time, realized their finest men and women give their lives to support tribalism. We are now in the 21st Century. Just GROW UP!

Comment by Compelledunbeliever on July 27, 2017 at 7:51pm

I read a new release today. The Lebanese are 90 percent canaanite. The hebrews are believed to be simply a tribe thereof.

Comment by Ian Mason on July 27, 2017 at 1:39pm

When I visited the Museum of Israel a couple of years ago, I read that the Hebrews were in fact a rural eastern Canaanite people who took advantage of a temporary power vacuum in the west (no Hittites or Egyptians) to push their way into Canaan's urban centers.Basically a tribal migration from land to town.

Comment by Bertold Brautigan on July 27, 2017 at 11:57am

Ancient DNA solves mystery of the Canaanites, reveals the biblical people’s fate

WAPO

The Hebrew text offers one explanation for the destiny of the Canaanites: annihilation. The Israelites, per Deuteronomy 20:16-18, were commanded to “utterly destroy” the cities of various tribes including the Canaanites. Those who survived fled or became servants.

But historians are skeptical that either exodus or annihilation occurred. University of North Carolina religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman noted in a 2013 blog post that, beyond the Hebrew Bible, “there are no references in any other ancient source to a massive destruction of the cities of Canaan.”

Now a study of Canaanite DNA, published Thursday in the American Journal of Human Genetics, rules out the biblical idea that an ancient war wiped out the group. The DNA, when compared to that of modern-day people, shows that the Canaanites managed to leave a long line of descendants. Even if they suffered some defeats, “enough people survived that they contributed to the present-day population,” Tyler-Smith said.

Comment by Daniel W on March 25, 2017 at 11:18am

Fewer atheist news stories today.

FFRF aiming to remove yet another cross from public land.  This one is in southeast Texas. 

Here's the trailer for that Madalyn Murray O'Hair Netflix movie "The Most Hated Woman in America".  Should be available on Netflix now, I haven't tried to watch yet.  “There’s an absolute steady retreat,” she said in an interview in 1989, “into what I call neofascism – but it’s really old-time fascism – into a robber-baron society and a religiously dominated society, and that’s not cyclical because they have new weapons at hand now, mainly communications technology with which they can rapidly disperse ideas.”

6,500 women in Egypt filed for divorce in 2015 due to their husband's "atheism or change of beleif".  Hard to interpret that phrase.  Buried elsewhere in the article, Egypt has 866 atheists, more than any other middle eastern country.  "Libya has only 34, Sudan 70, Yemen 32, Tunisia 329, Syria 56, Iraq 242, Saudi Arabia 178, Jordan 170, and Morocco 325"  I would take any such numbers with a big grain of salt.

Atheist preaches a respectful sermon in a Brazilian church.   The sermon is in the link.

Comment by tom sarbeck on March 24, 2017 at 11:32pm

Yeah, Bert. it works both ways. It's why we can't let Trump's Betsy DeVos wreck the public schools.

Comment by Bertold Brautigan on March 24, 2017 at 9:08pm

And I really love his corollary. Something to the effect that if ignorance of nature creates gods, knowledge of nature is for their destruction.

Comment by tom sarbeck on March 24, 2017 at 8:29pm

I have Shelley's Necessity of Atheism on my Kindle. I like his thought that in ignorance man creates gods.

I'll get back to it when I finish Lerner's "The Big Bang Didn't Happen". Talk about ignorance....

Comment by Loren Miller on March 24, 2017 at 6:48pm

More like leader-shit...

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