Nou die mevrouw Ter Horst  heeft het wel geweten met haar onderzoek.

Wilders ging volledig door het dak  vernamen we via de media.  Minister van der Laan noemt de aanhang van de PVV een groot gevaar voor de Rechtsstaat. 

Pechtold  noemt Geert Wilders een Racist maar zegt geen Sorry.

Geert Wilders dook alvast als de  Martelaar van Venlo in zijn  slachtofferrol

J.P. Balkenende waarschuwde ons onlangs nog voor het Grimmige klimaat in het debat en op straat.

Heel Nederland kwam in Opstand.

Zelfs de bekende advocaat Spong werd ingeschakeld  om de Crisis te bezweren. Door zijn inmenging wordt ook hij nu bedreigd.

Hierdoor zakte de partij van Pechtold wel in de peilingen !!

Van der Laan mept er nog steeds flink op los en ook die Pechtold laat nog steeds van zich horen.

Zelfs Herman van Veen ging zich er mee bemoeien. En ook hij werd bedreigd.

Ondertussen treuren Wilders en Pechtold beide om de Staat van Nederland. Volgens de kiezers gaat het in de verkiezingenstrijd zo dadelijk alleen nog om D66 en de PVV.

Maar waar blijft nou dat gewraakte Rapport  mevrouw Ter Horst?  Zal het nog wel verschijnen? Of was het gewoon maar een geintje ??? 

Zie ook:

Studie polarisatie laat nog op zich wachten

Telegraaf 13.11.09  Een veelbesproken rapport over polarisatie en radicalisering zal niet deze maand al openbaar worden. D66 had minister Guusje ter Horst (Binnenlandse Zaken) gevraagd het onderzoek, dat de PVV zou typeren als een extreem rechtse partij, nog in november naar de Tweede Kamer te sturen. De minister heeft vrijdag laten weten dat het onderzoek nog niet klaar is en daarom in december publiek wordt.

“I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church’s participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day.”

Christian, religious, or otherwise, everyone should read this.

If you’re not religious (I think very few of those involved here are), it’s very easy to substitute the entire U.S. in place of the Church in this brilliant declaration of an intolerance toward intolerance.

Something useful to think about throughout the day:

“I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinion of such would-be religious (or political) leaders as (insert bigot here).”

Amen, Bishop Spong.

I’ve taken to staring at walls a great deal.

Two lyrics from Jackson Browne’s immortal “These Days” once again describe every thing about me well, these days.

Well I’ve been out walkin’

I don’t do that much talkin’

These days

(…)

These days I seem to think a lot

About the things

That I forgot to do

This morning I stare across the trenches at monumental changes in my life (don’t worry-these changes still be largely the stuff of secret; if we share friendship you will be privy soon enough). These days, I’m not doing that much talking, and I’m giving a lot of thought to all that I’ve never gotten around to doing.

While I do not consider ThisSpace a journal, I do find it funny how my personal journaling tends to inspire me to share with the scattered dozen whose eyes land here. Allow me to try and polish it for public consumption by way of a question.

Anyone know how to untangle personal faith from an ideal, from an institution, from a (perhaps) ill-founded dream?

I think the content of my atrophied soul’s wonderings has been to ponder how faith (mine, actually; not that on some impotent chalkboard) stands apart from well, everything else.

Let me make it tangible.

I don’t go to church these days, mainly due to my work schedule (but also due to laziness).

How well does (or should) I expect my faith to stand, to grow, to nourish itself?

I don’t work at a Christian institution any more, by (sometimes lamented) choice.

How should my faith function in places where it is a sorta quirky “lifestyle choice” to everyone else, not necessarily a decision I make every day about the star around which my personal galaxy orbits?

I graduated seminary some six months ago.

How should my faith function, both in private and in vocation, given the richness of the theological education I’ve undergone?

Subtract those three things and… what do you make of my faith in Christ?

What does such a faith look like?

A crooked stick? An empty jar? Filthy rags?

Can you subtract all of the things that make you a Person of Faith and just retain well, that faith?

Are you supposed to do that?

Permit me to drop a bit of historical analogy on you, one that doesn’t quite fit but makes the point as best I can contrive at the moment.

It became the uber-hip, in vogue thing in the 19th century to subtract all that stuff that well, we’d prefer weren’t in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament and reduce all of Christianity down to just Jesus as Love Guru and Omnidirectional Revolutionary Force for Hire or something. (See guys from Crossan to Spong to Chopra for such ‘making of Jesus in an image of our own choosing’ today.) That was then and always has been the default answer to the ‘what do we do with this Jesus?’ question.

Well, I wonder if I have not done something similar, by subtracting most all of Jesus except for whatever I can get going on with Him by myself.

The stuff I don’t like about Jesus, like his expectation that I make church, or make effort to grow in the knowledge of him, or negotiate tough teachings about him, or deal with the unpalpable things others in my tradition may do with him, or, whatever… I guess I’ve sort of subtracted all that I don’t like about the Lord and stuck with what I can would rather hold onto.

By myself.

Alone.

For the Christian, the forbidden math is that which leads to one.

Alone.

          Retired Bishop John Shelby Spong has just published a new manifesto declaring that “The battle over homosexuality in the Episcopal Church is over.”  While his post sounds a note of triumphalism over those who would choose to disagree with him, I believe the message is actually quite different than “We’ve won!”  Rather, the message of Bishop Spong’s note is “I’m not willing to talk about it anymore.”  Of course, anyone who has read any of the bishop’s other writings should be able to recognize that this is a common ploy for Bishop Spong.  What I mean is, the Bishop usually makes grandiose generalizing statements, misunderstanding his opposition, and proclaiming as established fact statements that have little or no proof to uphold them.  

          Thus, the most disturbing thing about this bishop is not his outright rejection of every central tenet of the Christian faith, but his ability to sway well-intentioned, albeit uninformed, lay people to follow him without entering into meaningful debate with the millions of intelligent people around the world who disagree with him.  This bodes very ill for The Episcopal Church.  It is hard to remain in a conversation where you are constantly belittled and your position is never engaged with.  Spong frequently refers to his detractors as “fundamentalists,” “literalists,” and “homophobes.”  This name calling does nothing for the debate but polarize and obscure the issues.  

          Such polarization is Bishop Spong’s forte.  When he’s been challenged by competent theologians, he simply lambasts them with more polemic and does not respond to their thoughts.  For example, when Bishop Spong posted his 12 Theses denying many central tenets of the Christian Faith (the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, Substitutionary Atonement, etc.) Rowan Williams replied with a measured reasonable response critiquing the ambiguity of Spong’s pronouncements.  Spong replied with a scathing letter, questioning Archbishop Williams’ integrity by accusing him of disagreeing with Spong in order to curry favor with evangelicals so that he could become a bishop. 

          This is fairly typical for the Retired Bishop of Newark.  In a letter to Archbishop Williams in 2007, Bishop Spong said of the traditional Biblical view of homosexuality that “No learned person stands there today.”  I can name dozens of men and women who hold doctorates from respected institutions who hold the Biblical position on human sexuality.  For Bishop Spong, that is irrelevant, their ignorance is proven by the fact that they don’t agree with him.  In other words, “no learned person stands there today,” “what about this person?”  “If they were learned they wouldn’t believe that.”  It is not surprising for Spong to write an obituary on the conversation on human sexuality, he has built his career off of pretending to engage Traditional Christianity by publicly building up straw men and setting them on fire.  While he boasts that he is a ”thinking Christian,” he puts surprisingly little thought into engaging his opponents.  I call on all those who are currently happy with the trajectory of the Episcopal Church to jettison Bishop Spong’s techniques and begin intelligently and respectfully to engage with the millions of Christians throughout the world who disagree with them.  The battle may be over for Spong, don’t let the conversation end for you.

J’étais plus que sceptique mais Si si on peut aimer ranger, et faire la vaisselle! Pourquoi j’ai pas été dotée de ce gène moaaa???

]]> http://heysonnie.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/manifesto-the-time-has-come/ Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:39:27 +0000 heysonnie http://heysonnie.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/manifesto-the-time-has-come/

Powerful statement from John Shelby Spong, who was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2001.

Thursday October 15, 2009

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate “reparative therapy,” as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality “deviant.” I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that “we love the sinner but hate the sin.” That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is “high-sounding, pious rhetoric.” The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn’t. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to “Roll on over or we’ll roll on over you!” Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a “new church,” claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by “fair-minded” channels that seek to give “both sides” of this issue “equal time.” I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world’s population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a “mobocracy,” which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture’s various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the “Flat Earth Society” either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church’s participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: “New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth.” I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

~ John Shelby Spong (http://johnshelbyspong.com/)

Afgelopen week is op het vliegveld van Valencia een piloot van Transavia aangehouden en wel op verzoek van de Argentijnse overheid,
die hem ervan verdenkt in de jaren 1974 tot 1979 vluchten te hebben uitgevoerd , waarbij onderdanen van grote hoogte in de zee werden gegooid.

De Spaanse Giardia Civil heeft de betreffende piloot P opgepakt en opgesloten en dus zit P in afwachting van zijn uitlevering aan Argentenie in de cel.
Dit is allemaal nog te volgen.Ik denk goed en wel; het recht zal zijn beloop hebben en die mijnheer P zal wel een goede spaanse advocaat in de arm
nemen om te voorkomen dat hij eventueel ten onrechte aan Argentenie wordt uitgeleverd.

Wie schetst mijn verbazing; twee dagen lang wordt het nieuws in Nederland bepaald door G. Spong. En waarom? P. heeft klaarblijkelijk besloten dat
Spong – die vermoedelijk niets van het recht in Spanje weet – voor hem de beste advocaat is.

Spong begon desgevraagd op de buis uit te leggen dat er tegen P. geen enkel bewijs was en reisde vol zelfvertrouwen naar Spanje om vervolgens na een uurtje
in de rechtszaal  – in wat voor taal ? – teleurgesteld aan de pers mee te delen dat P. zou moeten blijven , waar hij al zat; in de cel.

Die afloop was natuurlijk zeer voorspelbaar. In uitleveringszaken is het voorhanden zijn van bewijs tamelijk onbelangrijk. Dat behoort Spong ook te weten en ook en bovenal behoort hij te weten dat hij  niets voor de man kon doen. Dat zegt ie niet tegen de pers en vermoedelijk ook niet tegen P.

Daarom deugt Spong niet.

Posted via email from Duende Arts

While roaming around the Miami airport on my way back home to Key West in June, I wandered through an art show based on the Four Freedoms.  As I stood there, I felt quite trapped – I had missed the last flight out to Key West and my ride home was still over four hours away.  The freedoms described seemed so far away from what was going on inside of me.

Even after getting home I found myself pondering those Freedoms posters and discovered that in January 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his State of the Union speech to Congress he outlined Four Freedoms.  These four were the freedom from fear, the freedom from want, the freedom of speech and the freedom to worship.

Roosevelt argued that these freedoms worth fighting for – for ourselves and was encouraging the congress to enter into the ‘War to end all Wars’ to secure these freedoms for people everywhere.  He said this “kind of world [is] attainable in our own time and generation [and] is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”  Yet in my experience fighting for freedom [these or any others] has never been effective – because whatever we fight for – must in turn be defended in the same measure, thus continuing the fighting and not the peaceful living that these freedoms promised.

Pondering them, it seemed that the freedoms presented themselves in my mind as an interlocking puzzle and that once I figured out one — all would be revealed.  Neale Donald Walsh in his ‘Conversations with God’ series pretty much convinced me that as a spiritual being that Being was the key to Doing and then Having [not the other way around].  That as we claim our God-given abilities of Being we can then build a consciousness which will in turn out-picture this awareness into the experience of my life and yours—that’s just the way it works.  So Freedom of Thought/Speech was the Key!   Choosing to give voice – to speak and think life-affirming thoughts – was the first freedom.

In our basic human condition, we seek freedom from want and fear; yet every day we experience some measure of lack, limitation, anxiety, worry and concern.  John Shelby Spong argues that this desire for freedom from fear and want is what drives humanity to search for ways to “manipulate God” by living and worshiping in ways that we believe will make God happy so He will bless us.

When we look at how we use our power of thought, we can begin to understand how these freedoms from want and fear are not goals to be achieved.  But actually these freedoms are the end results we can achieve when we apply within our own life the other two freedoms FDR referred to.

To achieve freedom from want and fear we must claim our freedom to worship a God of our own understanding –perhaps not the God of our fathers – but a God of Principle, The Universal Life Force of Absolute GOOD that is NEVER changing.  According to A Course in Miracles, within each human there is a connection point – Whole Spirit of GOD WITHIN – willing to speak as loudly as we are willing to hear.

So where to we begin?  By becoming aware of our words, what we focus on in thought – we give our attention to. The Spiritual Law is ‘as we give we shall receive’.  When we manage and marshal our use of words and aligning these words/thoughts with God-Thoughts we change our experience.  It is our practice and alignment with God-Thought [Freedom of Worship] which will inform our speech [and thinking] we will realize another Freedom that FDR promoted.  When our thoughts and speech are  used in life-affirming ways we have us a new perspective – God as our Source and supply. Now we’re looking to God, instead of the world to meet our needs and be our security, only now will we experience freedom from fear and want.

I remember another trip — this one to Unity Village when they opened their new Spiritual Life Center a couple of years ago.  In this beautiful new ‘green’ motel all of the rooms had a flat screen TV.  This is a marvelous step into the 21^st century, but it did have unintended consequences.

Unity Village is famous for its spiritual enliven environment – most residents and visitors report how peaceful, serene they feel when on the grounds. On my last day at the Spiritual Life Center, I ended up waiting in the lobby of the hotel for approximately 30 minutes and instead of feeling serene and peaceful, I felt awful!  What was going on that changed that spiritually enliven atmosphere?  I was sitting in front of that wonderful flat screen TV pumping out one of the 24-hours news channel’s world view!  I was shocked to realize what was going on – basically, I had been soaking in the fear, the lack and limitation instead of engaging in my usual appreciation  and gratitude for the Good happening. What a difference that made in my experience of the world at that moment.

I’m happy to report that the next time I visited the Spiritual Life Center the flat screen TVs now were offering an in-house meditation loop of spiritual insights and beautiful pictures.  Now these tools are in alignment with Unity’s values and now promoted the serenity and peacefulness of the village.

We have the power to change the channel – to change the way we look at things – it is our responsibility as Spiritual Beings to claim for ourselves the Freedom of Thought/Speech and the Freedom to Worship a God of our understanding.  As we engage in this power of choice, and use our freedom of thought and word we begin to live in Freedom from fear and want.

Isn’t it more effective to BE then DO, so we’ll have the Good that we seek?

Photographed by ĻΩooĻΩoo ‏εïз‎ ©

just an idea to make a sponge bob T shirt

– License

This is a great video for Sunday – an informative, thought-provoking and sometimes even controversial lecture by former bishop John Shelby Spong. He talks about the “terrible texts” in the Bible and the atrocities performed in the name of “God,” among other things (and he isn’t boring). Good stuff indeed! Don’t miss this.

Yay the sermons got approved. now it’s just a matter of recording, editing and uploading the content.

Comments are still on hold. Again I’ll leave the comment fields active but no comment will be approved until the feature has been approved. The main concern is that we will be unable to answer the barrage of questions and comments that come our way…Yea I know, we’re assuming allot there but that was the concern. Anyhow check out what we have and still feel free to leave comments, we’ll read them even if no one else does.

Ooh and I know I said I’d start uploading the radio shows but the radio group decided to wait it out till they heard from the main committee.

Ah Democracy

oh and here’s to win !!!

Noch eine juristische Angelegenheit rund um PVV-Chef Geert Wilders. Am 12. Februar wird ein 43jähriger Mann aus Den Haag vor dem Richter erscheinen müssen, weil er den Star-Anwalt Gerard Spong mit einer E-Mail bedroht hatte. Spong gehört zu denjenigen, die Geert Wilders wiederum wegen seiner umstrittenen Äusserungen in Sachen Islam verurteilt sehen wollen. Nachdem das bekannt wurde, empfing er hunderte Hass-Mails von Wilders-Anhängern und musste sogar von der Polizei geschützt werden.

Het Openbaar Ministerie (OM) wordt bedánkt. Gisteren stelde het OM vast dat de reeks van kwaadaardige uitlatingen van Geert Wilders tegen Moslims en de islam net strafbaar zijn. Daarmee geeft het OM feitelijk groen licht aan Wilders en geestverwanten om door te gaan op deze hatelijke weg. Racisme mág dus, in het publieke debat. Daar komt de kwalijke uitspraak op neer.

Maar niet alleen het OM wordt bedankt. De organisaties die de aangifte hebben gedaan waarvan het OM nu zegt dat ze die niet in een aanklacht gaat omzetten, hadden beter moeten weten. De aanpak van racisme via aangifte en rechterlijke uitspraken is al bedenkelijk, zoals ik eerder aangaf. Die hele aangifte kón immers alleen maar negatief uitpakken voor democraten en dus voor antiracisten. Zou het OM wél tot vervolging zijn overgegaan, en zou de rechter Wlders schuldig hebben verklaard aan discriminierende en/ of beledigende uitlatingen, dan zou er niets zijn gewonnen. Wilders zou zich des te sterker in de schijnwerper hebben kunnen plaatsen vanuit de slachtofferrol, als kampioen van het vrije woord tegen een censurerende overheid. Bovendien zou de staat haar bevoegdheid om scherpe taal te bestraffen, des te makkelijker tegen échte opponenten van de huidige orde hebben ingezet. linkse kritici zouden dara bepoaald meer last van hebben gekregen dan (uiterst) rechts.

Zo geeft het te denken dat advocaat Spong een aangifte tegen Wilders ondersteunt, en alsnog wil doorzetten. Dezelfde Spong deed, samen met zijn collega Hammerstein, in 2002 aangifte tegen mensen die Fortuyn een rechtse extremist, een fascist, een hollandse Haider typeerden. ik was één van degenen tegen wie die aangifte gedaan werd, en gelukkig kwam er van de aangifte verder niets terecht.

Maar de hele poging om via rechtbanken paal en perk te stellen tegen ‘haatzaaierij’ is gevaarlijk voor links, voor democratische rechten in het algemeen. Als het nu tegen Wilders was gelukt, dan zou die uitspraak des te makkelijker als precedent kunnen dienen. Dan zou er morgenaangifte tegen mij gedaan kunnen worden omdat ik Wilders een fascist noem… Nee, ik vind de linkse typering van Wilders als fascist of extremist níet hetzelfde als Wilders’ getier tegen moslims. Maar het strafbaar stellen van het tweede maakt het degenen die ook het eerste wiullen vervolgen wel makkelijker, en dat is schadelijk.

Maar wat nu is gebeurd is wellicht nog erger. Nu zegt de rechterlijke macht, na de aangifte, dat het soort uitlatingen die Wilders keer op keer doet, wél door de beugel kunnen. Immers, ze worden niet zomaar gedaan, ze werden gedaan “binnen de context van een maatschappelijk debat”. Blijkbaar mag schelden en en beledigen dan wel. Vanaf gisteren kan Wilders zeggen: wat ik doe, mág, je moet er maar tegen kunnen. “Wilders: ik heb me aan de wet gehouden”, kopt de Volkskrant al. De hele aangifte is dus uitgedraaid op een voorzet die Wilders helpt om genadeloos in te koppen. Ook degenen die deze aangifte hebben gedaan worden bedánkt. Hopelijk besluit bijvoorbeeld Nederland Bekent Kleur alsnog om af te zien van de procedure om de  rechtbank te bewegen alson werk van de aangifte te maken.

Geen aangifte – en geen uitspraak van de staat over de toelaatbaarheid van Wilders’ taal – was veel en veel beter geweest. Want ja, wat Wilders doet is schelden, beledigen en impliciet dreigen. En nee, dat hoort in het maatschappelijk debat niet thuis en is geen legitieme uitoefening van de vrijheid van meningsuiting. En ja, Wilders gaat wel degelijk verder dan het aanvallen van een godsdienst, hij neemt wel degelijk de aanhangers zelf op de korrel, hoezeer het OM ook beweert van niet.

Maar laten we alsjeblieft de staat niet de gelegenheid geven om als scheidsrechter te dienen om te bepalen wat wel en wat niet gezegd moet worden. Op verbale terreur van rechts is verbale en democratische weerbaarheid van links nodig. Staat, rechtbank en politie zijn in het opbouwen van die weerbaarheid geen bondgenoten, maar obstakels.

I would like to take this opportunity to post a list of reference books that will be useful in understanding the underlying current of this blog. If you are having difficulty with the central topic it would be helpful to become familiar with these books. If you are just looking for good reading related to the future of belief in God, I highly recommend beginning with these books.

In the interest of proper presentation it should be noted that the MLA style of bibliography requires the book title to be underlined. In my bibliography the titles are bolded, because in a Web page underline almost always refers to a hyperlink. To avoid confusion I decided to make this small change. I will just ask for your understanding in this matter. If you feel strongly about it provide a comment.

References

Caussade, Jean-Pierre de. The Sacrament of the Present Moment. Trans. Kitty Muggeridge. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989.

Spong, John S. Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1999.

Attridge, Harold W., eds. The Harper Collins Study Bible, Revised Edition.San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2006.

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Nicht nur Geert Wilders klagt (politisch gesehen gegen die Moslems), seine Gegner klagen auch. Seit vier Monaten liegen dutzende Anklagen gegen ihn bei der Staatsanwaltschaft, schreibt das NRC Handelsblad.

Das Problem: “Ein Staatsanwalt, der Geert Wilders wegen Hass und Diskriminierung anklagen würde, bekäme einen Freispruch,” sate Theo de Roos, Hochlehrer für Strafrecht in Tilburg. Er ist Berater der Staatsanwaltschaft in Sachen Wilders.

Es gibt sage und schreibe 47 Anklagen gegen Wilders. Dazu offenbar noch dutzende Anzeigen wegen des Fitna-Films.

Aber wenn eine Staatsanwaltschaft einen Politiker wegen dessen Meinungen verfolgen würde, dann handele es sich um ein politisches Minenfeld. Was ist nun wichtiger, die Meinungsfreiheit oder gekränkte Gefühle von Gläubigen?

Roos sieht wenig Chancen auf eine Verurteilung von Wilders. Der Staranwalt Gerard Spong sieht das anders. Wilders sei ja schliesslich nicht der “Gemüsehändler um die Ecke” und habe daher eine größere Verantwortung.

“Skewed coverage of academic report in the Dire Mail (sorry, Daily Mail) : Computer game addicts warned they could start behaving like autism sufferers. Of course the report warns no such thing, as discussed here at Spong: Daily Mail muddles cause and effect .”

Author: Daniel Livingstone, Learning Games Blog, 8th April 2008

Full article available here.

Do you believe in killing dinosaurs with your bare hands? With a nod of the head to TGoSJ, I wanted to throw some old news up for discussion on 514.

The tremendously slick creation museum in Kentucky is consistently exceeding the lofty attendance goals it set for itself. The comments of religious leaders are seemingly set to play a huge role in the US presidential primaries. A new Turok game came out last month. What do these things have in common? 

Ok. The creation museum is at war with reality. John McCain’s pastor wants war with Islam . Turok is at war with dinosaurs, possibly in space. The creation museum believes men fought with and rode on dinosaurs. McCain wants Americans to return to space. Am I the only one detecting a memetic pattern here?

I know that creationists are basically batshit fucking loco (bias mine), but in a limited sense they are gaining ground; not only is Intelligent Design a hot topic in the US school system, but you can now get an online masters degree in, to cut out the double-speak, creation science. The American religious right may be as powerful now as it ever has been.

On the other hand, popular atheism is on the rise, Richard Dawkins is a best-selling author, and people like John Shelby Spong and the Archbishop of Canterbury are trying to move religion into the new century. We’ve always been good at projecting ourselves into the future tense, so I’d like to know what 514 has to say about this. Apparently the new Turok game makes it easy to love shanking your fellow man… but the dinosaur boss-battles are brutally difficult to resolve. Who said video games aren’t modern morality tales?

This past week has given me a bit of an academic high. I had to write an essay in my Spong class dealing with Jesus. “Who is Jesus for you” as the specific answer. When Spong gave the essay back to me he said it was, “one of the best he read” and that I “have a lot to give” due to the fact that “there is a lot going on up there”. I don’t feel euphoric in school often, but this was nice.

In all honesty I don’t think the essay is that great. It was OK but I only did one revision of it and after looking it over again I could see areas that need improvement. It was, as most essays I write are, very conflicted on what exactly it was arguing for and was thus broad in its view. It began with a short discussion of the problem of experience and how it can be used and abused in religious life. After this I wrote about language and how it does not encapsulate what it is symbolizing and that all symbols fail. And then I finally wrote about Jesus as a “window to that which is wholly other and the ground of being” an individual of such humanity that is, and must be, labeled divine and a constant question.

It was nice, but I still do not know what I feel about it. I do maintain those beliefs, most of the time, but I am not sure how to articulate them as of yet. It was a start.

also, if you would like to read the essay, it is posted in the other writings section.

nate

A recent article in By¹ reminded me of Bishop John Shelby Spong’s comments on being a Christian in his book Jesus for the non religious.

Having qualified a labourious answer to the simple question “Are you a Christian”, Spong claims that he still believes in a reality – something named God – behind it all. He does not think that this “God” performs miracles and such naïve Dark Age nonsense, but “God” is still “there”.

It reminds me of a parable spoofing creationism often told by novelist Douglas Adams, quoted here as retold by Richard Dawkins in “Lament for Douglas”, May 14, 2001:

A man didn’t understand how televisions worked, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”

Maybe just one little man? Huh? Must be! God. Time to bury this chimera. Really. A funeral long overdue.

1 De Villiers, Johannes. January 12, 2008. Liberale kanon. By, supplement to Die Burger. 12-13.

Home