Thursday, February 03, 2005

I find it interesting that there are advocates of creationism and evolution and they almost entirely exclude each other's concept. I happen to think the two concepts compliment one another. I don't believe God actually put down the words of the bible. I think it was written by people of their times, perhaps inspired but nevetheless, people. My first and only proof is because repeatedly, slavery is accepted without comment. I believe deeply that God is Just and would never countenance slavery. Slavery was accepted in the times so it was written about and even modalities were discussed. But, I could be wrong. Perhaps God meant there to be slaves. Or perhaps He meant to address that issue later on or leave it to man to work out, as we largely have. Or perhaps I am not to understand. I accept all possibilities. I do not know. Certainly neither the Bible nor the Queran specify that minutes, days and years are to be understood exactly as they would be in the 21st century. That allows me to speculate. What am I to believe? For me it has always been simple. I believe in the story of creation as told in Genesis. I believe that evolution was the mechanism. If the details of the creation of the seas and the land and the light and the dark had been written there would be no room for the moral lessons of the bible. So with the details of the story of man and the other creatures. I believe it is useful to study the mechanism for it points to much scientific achievment. But we learn nothing about how we are to behave spriitually, ethically or morally from evolution. In the Bible starting with Genesis we learn of all the foibles and pitfalls of mankind. Watch television for a lifetime and you won't see a story that is not a reflection of one in the Bible. We also learn there was a Force from the very beginning telling us how we could live a peaceful and harmonius life. As we do today, we disregarded that Force then. See where our wisdom got us. As for the competition between Muslims and Christians and Jews and Hindus and Budhists and Shintoist and all the others. who really knows God. Does anyone remember the Tower of Babel. God decided man shall speak many languages. Is it not logical that we would have many names and concepts of the Almighty? That story is how I can understand this life of deadly competition. It is how I can speak to others of different faith and concepts. I do not get that from evolution. From evolution I only get the rule of survival of the fittest. Yet, I value the scientific theory of evolution. So I don't know. I only speculate. What a relief! Here I am a religious person who prays daily who doesn't know for sure. I have faith, but I don't know. I have no obligation to make the rest of you believe. I have no obligation to enforce curriculum in the schools. I have only an obligation to God as He gave me to I understand Him. Melvyn Polatchek 6:58:40 PM    comment []

Back at you, Oron Thanks for reading my piece. My accusation that there are expansionist tendencies did not mean that there is a national policy of expansion by the state of Israel.  It does mean that the justification given by the settlers is that they were promised the land in the Covenant. I consider this expansionism because its reasoning transcends the legality by which the State of Israel was created.  Redardless of the justification and motivation, Jews are living in settlements in the Palestinian part of the partition and no matter how it is justified that is an expansion of the original plan.  In the wars you described additional territory was taken.  It really does not mtter whether they were started by the Arabs or the Israelis, the result was increased territory dominated by Israel.  At one point Ishak Shamir tried to actually formally annex the west Bank.  It was rejected by the U.N., but it was clearly an attempt to gain more territory. Whatever the process, whatever legalities are proclaimed, whatever right of self-defense is invoked, Israeli Jews living in Palestinian territory protected by the Israeli Defense force is expansion. Melvyn   11:44:06 AM    comment []

Rebuttal From Oron rosenkrantz Check your history Melvyn, take everything into account. Jews were supposed to get 55% of the land while the Arabs were to get 45%. HOWEVER.. you don't mention that most of the 55% the Jews were to receive was the Negev (which was neither any good for agriculture.. or inhabiting). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UN_Partition_Plan_For_Palestine_1947.png In addition you quote Philip Mattar as saying that "The Jews were being offered 55 percent of Palestine when in fact they had owned only 7 percent of the country." You should add in that the majority of the 55% that they received from the partition was not owned by Jews or Arabs... meaning that they were not taking it away from anyone. Finally, you claim that "there has been an expansionist tendency in Israel which seeks to inhabit areas outside the partitioned borders." I submit to you the state of Israel does not seek to inhabit areas outside the partitioned borders.. if that were true than they would have instigated the wars. However, they did not instigate any of the wars with their Arab neighbors; on the contrary, Palestinians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, Iraqis, Libyans, Tunisians, Sudanis, Moroccans have had "expansionist tendancies," as you call it. The dictionary definition of expansionism: A nation's practice or policy of territorial or economic expansion. (www.dictionary.com). Your perception is backwards, how does a nation have "expansionist tendancies" when it is the one that is being attacked, your comment is ludacris! In conclusion, I do not believe that the state of Israel is 100% correct 100% of the time. Recently the Israeli Attorney General lodged a complaint against the Israeli Government for seizing Palestinian land in East Jerusalem. This, in my opinion, is a perfect example of democracy at work. These seizures will be stopped immediately and justice will be done. (Please post on your blog as a rebuttal to your post) Oron Rosenkrantz • 2/2/05; 7:24:55 PM # 11:29:19 AM    comment []