(EMAIL) rpt@r-pt.net
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A Starbucks Encounter with Michael Berryman
I love to go to Starbucks, grab a cup of coffee, and read/study my favorite topics in book form. Once and a while I will bump into people well known in pop-culture. Michael Berryman was recently one of those people. Of course, he is best known to me from an 80′s classic,... Read More
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An Ironman Supplement ~ Thin Nothing I
I thought I would post a few items for the average man to engage someone lightly about Genesis. Here I want to focus on larger, easier to defend positions and will also throw in some minutia for the person who is curious about the issue as well. I will give a short reply and... Read More
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Reason and Faith (From An Old Debate-Updated)
Certain words can mean very different things to different people. For instance, if I say to an atheist, “I have faith in God,” the atheist assumes I mean that my belief in God has nothing to do with evidence. But this isn’t what I mean by faith at all. When I... Read More
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BIBLICAL ETHICS ~ Did God Kill Innocent Children in Second Kings 2:23-25?
I was in a recent debate about Biblical cruelty/ethics and the person brought up a verse that has not been brought up in conversation with me yet. It provided a fun learning curve on a specific verse and topic that opened up culture and manners of the early Biblical leaders and... Read More
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The Shallow, Self-refuting, Incoherent, and Illogical Thinking of `Agnositc` ~ Vincent Bugliosi
I was surprised in listening to Vincent Bugliosi in an interview about his book, Divinity of Doubt: The God Question. Surprised because considering his book on debunking pretty much every JFK conspiracy known to man, I would expect him to realize his fundamental mistake that... Read More
Some Art by Jon McNaughton I Like ~ `The Forgotten Man` & `Peace Is Coming`
The artists name is Jon McNaughton (FaceBook -or- mainsite) and these are two painting I like by him. In fact, when I was in Arizona last month I saw the “Peace Is Coming” (below) painting in an art store. Very deep.
Some funny stuff has come out in regards to the above painting, such as this humorous “caption” :
“We’ll trade you this peasant for that constitution. We’ll even throw in the bench,” to, photo-shopped versions of it.
Israeli Soldier Points Gun At Little Girl? More Palestinian Fauxtography
It has been a while for some FAUXTOGRAPHY (see my many posts on my older blog), so here is the most recent one — which is NOT the one the Wall Street Journal fell for, via The Blaze:
A multitude of websites have posted the photo and presented it as authentic including: Australians for Palestine, Palestinian Libra, and a boycott Israel (BDS) website
A pro-Israel blogger tracked down the original photos which show a wider shot of the scene of the street theater performance.
The Blaze Continues:
That blogger linked to an Israeli site Tazpitwhich discussed the photo in June after seeing it posted on the Facebook group called “Freedom Will come to Palestine.” The photo prompted comments condemning Israel including, “Disgusting! Hope the Israelis rot in hell!!” Tazpit wrote:
The soldier in the photo appears to be holding a Kalashnikov AK47 which is not used by the Israeli army, but used often by the Palestinian police forces and terror organizations. The IDF is known for using M16 and M4 weapons, and its uniforms are different from the soldier’s uniform that appears on the photo.
Tazpit quoted an Israeli government spokesman who said:
“Unfortunately, the use of such photos is a known method, trying to harm Israel’s image on the internet and is part of the social networks war of information”.
The use of fake photographs to score PR points in the Arab-Israeli conflict was highlighted after blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs discovered a Reuters photographer in Lebanon had used Photoshop to digitally alter two pictures during the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006.
A Chris Christie Intervention for Bubbles
In case you do not know what Miks’s nickname is, see HERE
The Good and the Bad from Indiana: They Are the 23rd State to Become a Right-to-Work State ~ Awesome! (and, Republicans Fight Against Smoking Law-To No Avail)
This great news comes from Libertarian Republican:
Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation passed by the Republican-controlled legislature late Wednesday, making Indiana the 23rd state in the nation to have Right-to-Work.
From the Muncie Free-Press”Right to Work the law in Indiana”:
Right to Work is now the law in Indiana, making it the first Rust-Belt state to pass the measure that prohibits labor contracts requiring workers to pay union dues.
Smoking law makes its way through their state senate, take note it is the Republicans holding out for freedom (via Libertarian Republican):
The vote on the House side was 61 to 34. Most of the No votes came from Republicans. Here’s a partial list of some Republican Reps. who we know voted pro-liberty: Reps Culver, Dermody, Kubacki (photo), Friend (photo), and Wesco. (Note – Each one of these Reps. from their websites is a “family values” conservative.)
BREAKING: World Net Daily`s Joseph Farah Already Leading the `Birther` Charge Against Marco Rubio ~ Misguided Interpretation of the Constitution
The Hill reports the following:
Conservative Joseph Farah on Tuesday evening predicted that “10 percent of the Republican vote” would fail to get behind Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as the hypothetical vice presidential nominee because they will believe the circumstances of his birth make him ineligible.
Farah has been one of the most prominent and persistent voices of the so-called “birther” movement, which argues that President Obama is not eligible to be president of the United States due to doubts about his birthplace and the citizenship of his parents.
Farah’s objection to Rubio might serve as a rallying cry to voters convinced that Obama’s presidency is illegal according to the rules set out in the Constitution.
“Rubio is not eligible,” Farah told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “He’ll lose 10 percent of the Republican vote because he is not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years.
Rubio was born in Miami in 1971. Farah’s argument against Rubio’s “natural born” status relies on a strict definition also used by Farah and others who raised doubts over Obama’s eligibility. The strict definition requires that both parents be legal citizens at the time of the birth.
Rubio’s parents became naturalized citizens in 1975, but were permanent legal residents of the United States when Rubio was born, according to Rubio’s office. Rubio’s official biography has already been scrutinized, due to questions over the date his parents arrived in the United States as Cuban exiles.
Farah’s website, World Net Daily, is now reporting on the potential controversy under the category “Certifigate.” The website first raised the question in May, but Farah raising the issue in a national television appearance could be a signal of things to come should Rubio appear on the Republican presidential ticket later this year.
And via The Daily Caller:
Host Sean Hannity said Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is more likely to share the ticket if Romney wins the GOP nomination. But Farah declared that Rubio would not be eligible.
HANNITY: I think that’s taken. It’s got to be Rubio. That’s my guess.
BOB BECKEL: If it’s not, somebody’s lost their mind.
FARAH: Rubio is not eligible.
HANNITY: Whoa, what do you mean, ‘Rubio’s not –
FARAH: He’ll lose 10 percent of the Republican vote because he is not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years.
HANNITY: I don’t believe that. I don’t think that’s going to work.
World Net Daily took the mantel of birtherism from the Democratic attacks against Obama, now they will lead the way against Marco Rubio:
MIAMI, Fla. – Some national news media are declaring that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible for the presidency or vice presidency, even though Rubio’s constitutional eligibility remains unclear and the popular Florida Republican has himself downplayed any interest in running on a White House ticket.
In a Daily Caller piece today titled “Coming soon: Rubio ‘birthers,’” journalist Matt Lewis warns, “There is already a movement afoot (led by some on the fringe) to disqualify him from serving as president (which would presumably disqualify him from serving as vice president). That’s right – some are arguing that Rubio is not eligible because he is not a ‘natural-born citizen.’”
Lewis explains the logic by citing a May 22 WND report examining the issue, which noted, “While the Constitution does not define ‘natural-born citizen,’ there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens.”
Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller thinks those questioning Marco Rubio’s natural-born citizenship are racists or misguided adherents to the Constitution.
That report examined both Rubio and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, both of whose parents were legal U.S. residents but not legal U.S. citizens when the future politicians were born.
“Who knows how big this thing will get?” asks Lewis. “Maybe it’s just a small fringe movement – but it is a ‘thing.’ The good news here, of course, is that the rise of Rubio birthers proves that birthers are not merely partisan hypocrites who solely attack Democrats like Obama. They are, instead, either consistent racists – or consistently misguided adherents to the Constitution. But hey – at least they aren’t partisan hacks.”
Michael Medved took a call from a birther who used the same line of thinking that Joseph Farah applies to the constitution, Medved uses the callers own source to explain why Obama (and now Marco Rubio) are eligible:
Joe Scarborough Brings to the Forefront Medias Incompetence in Comparing Negative Ads Between Obama and Republicans
Via NewsBusters:
Liberals Causing Liberals to `Face-Palm` ~ Priceless!
Via NewsBusters and MRCTV:
ELEANOR CLIFT: The capital gains has not always been at 15 percent. You know, when Reagan came to town, the marginal rates were very high, and he got money as a movie actor, so he wanted to bring those down which he did. When the Bushes came into office, they wanted to reduce capital gains because a lot of their money came from investment income. The 15 percent, [Camera pans to Zuckerman doing double facepalm], the 15 percent we arrived at when W. Bush was in office, and it has not always been that low.
Got that? Reagan and Bush only cut taxes to help themselves. It had nothing to do with stimulating the economy.
I agree with Mort [to the right].
The Inquisitions Bush`s Fault? Almost ~ The Tale of Two Books
NPR has a left leaning bias, we all know that and I have proven it in the past. So reviews of a book they laud connecting the fanciful imaginations of the progressive in regards to history and Bush is a dream come true. In two reviews of the book/topic with the author of the book, God’s Jury, you can see a creeping bias, much like the pre-war Germany propaganda, has on the cover a “hooked nosed” Pope designating (implicitly or explicitly) the secular leftist hatred for anything Christian.
Cullen Murphey’s Cover:
WWII Propaganda:
Modern Islamo-Nazi Depiction:
Some NPR stories on the book/author:
1) The Inquisition: Alive And Well After 800 Years
2) The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators
NewsBusters has this in what they call a Liberal Two-Fer:
…NPR promoted it this way:
Murphy’s new book God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World traces the history of the Inquisitions — there were several — and draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.
“A few years ago, the intelligence agencies had some transcripts released … of interrogations that were done at Guantanamo, and the interrogations done by the Inquisition were surprisingly similar and just as detailed,” he tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “[They were] virtually verbatim.”
“Many people in the Bush administration were insisting [it] was not torture at all. The Inquisition was actually very clear on the matter. It obviously was torture. That’s why they were using it.”
Murphy’s own website summarizes the book this way:
The Inquisition pioneered surveillance and censorship and “scientific” interrogation. As time went on, its methods and mindset spread far beyond the Church to become tools of secular persecution. Traveling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantánamo to the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy.
Surprise, surprise! Murphy sought out a blurb by leftist New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, one of the most prominent Bush-trashing journalists (and a favorite of Terry Gross):
“From Torquemada to Guantanamo and beyond, Cullen Murphy finds the ‘inquisitorial impulse’ alive, and only too well, in our world. His engaging romp through the secret Vatican archives shows that the distance between the Dark Ages and Modernity is shockingly short.”
—Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side.
This book is at odds with the most renown scholar and author of the book, The Spanish Inquisition, Henry Kamen. Take note of the difference in tone and most probably scholarship — as this interview shows… his [Cullen Murphey] connections are so general that any religion or government can be connected to this event. These generalities are not to connect a historical event to a modern one but in progressive fashion the goal of stoking emotions rather than basing something in fact/history is the prime mover.
From an Amazon book reviewer and author of Author of “Mission,” an African novel set in Kenya:
Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition is an amazing experience. It is a highly detailed, supremely scholarly and ultimately enlightening account of an historical phenomenon whose identity and reputation have become iconic. So much has been written about it, so many words have been spoken that one might think that there is not too much new to be learned. But this is precisely where Kamen’s book really comes into its own, for it reveals the popular understanding of the Inquisition as little more than myth.
He explodes the notion that the busy-bodies of inquisitors had their nose in everyone’s business. It was actually quite a rare event for someone to be called before it. And in addition, if you lived away from a small number of population centres, the chances were that that you would hardly even have known of its existence. 
Also exploded is the myth of large numbers of heretics being burned at the stake. Yes, it happened, but in nowhere near the numbers that popular misconceptions might claim. Indeed, the more common practice was to burn the convicted in effigy, since the accused had fled sometimes years before the judgment, or they might have died in prison while waiting for the case to reach its conclusion. The intention is not to suggest that the inquisition’s methods were anything but brutal, but merely to point out that perceptions of how commonly they were applied are often false.
Henry Kamen skilfully describes how the focus of interest changed over the years. Initially the main targets were conversos, converts to Christianity, families that were once Jewish or Muslim who converted to Christianity during the decades that preceded the completion in 1492 of Ferdinand and Isabella’s reconquest. Protestants were targeted occasionally in the following centuries, but it was the families of former Jews that remained the prime target, sometimes being subjected to enquiry several generations after their adoption of their new faith. A focus on converts to Christianity gave rise to a distinction between Old and New Christianity, an adherent of the former being able to demonstrate no evidence of there having been other faiths in the family history.
What consistently runs through arguments surrounding Old and New Christianity, a distinction that was also described as pure blood versus impure blood, is that at its heart this apparent assertion of religious conformity was no more than raw xenophobia and racism. Henry Kamen makes a lot of the contradiction here, since Spain at the time was the most “international” of nations, having already secured an extensive empire and sent educated and wealthy Spaniards overseas to administer it. In addition, of course, Spain was emerging from a long period when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived competitively, perhaps, but also peacefully under Moorish rule. It is worth reminding oneself regularly that the desire and requirement for religious conformity during the reconquest was imposed from above.
Completing Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition prompts the reader to reflect on which other major historical reputations might be based on reconstructed myth. One is also prompted to speculate on the future of an increasingly integrated Europe, a continent forcibly divided for half a century where xenophobia and religious intolerance might be closer to the surface than most of us would want to admit.
One of my favorite quotes comes from a debate between Dinesh D’Souza and the late atheist Christopher Hitchens:
✦ Atheists regimes killed more people in a week than the inquisition could kill in three-centuries
And another reviewer:
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen is a balanced overview of this sad part of Spanish History. At 300 plus pages the author shows the motivation behind the Spanish Inquisition and that this inquisition was just that, “Spanish.” By sourcing Inquisition, Spanish, and other documentation author Kamen traces the roots and history of the Spanish Inquisition. He shows how this was a tool of the unified Spanish Crown that resulted in its own fear of it past and inability, at times, to deal with contemporary Spain, which came to be at the end of the Muslim domination of Spain and rise of the Protestant Reformation in the rest of Europe. The author does not gloss over the suffering it caused to both Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity, but shows that overall people were better treated by “The Holy Office” aka the Spanish Inquisition than the secular courts. Remember, heresy was a secular crime, punishable only by the secular authorities. And while those Jews and Muslims who did not convert might be considered heathens they could not be heretics. So, those who suffered at its hands were Catholics. The author also shows that, for its time, the Spanish Inquisition acted rationally. For example, when the great witchcraft scare was dominating Europe and its colonies (lets not forget the Salem Witch Trials) for its part the Spanish Inquisition so this phenomena as mental illness or an overactive imagination. In other words Witch hunting stopped dead in its tracks when it got to Spain. Henry Kamen does not gloss over the torture or burnings of the inquisition’s victims, but does show that for all of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, this was not uncommon for most crimes. And, many of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition were burnt and punished in effigy. Kamen shows how the Spanish Crown used the Inquisition to deal with its fear of an Andulus (former Muslim rulers of Spain) Fifth column and the rise of Protestantism in Western Europe. Remember Spain controlled a good part of the present day Netherlands and Belgium as well as Parts of Germany. So some Lutheran ideas did make their way to Spain. But, Kamen also shows that much of Spain, mainly the rural areas, was never even touched by the Inquisition. And that the Inquisition never had whole hearted support from the crown, those in positions of power, and the common folk. It was not the Gestapo like machine painted by many of its critics. But, criticized it should be and author Kamen shows the sad effects of the Inquisition not only on its victims, but on Spain itself. The author concludes by showing that people’s view of the Spanish Inquisition is not based on the historical data available but on the imaginations of those who have not reviewed or studied this data. Overall a great work of history is this book.
A great video by a fellow arm-chair apologists is a good introduction to the topic:
About us
About Papa Giorgio @ RPT:Biased: I have my own interests and personal beliefs in mind when talking to others, spiritually or politically (Prov 21:2; Matt 15:19), because... I am Fallen: I am a sinner and tend towards ~ naturally ~ what is not best for me or others. In other words, I will probably let you down (Rom 3:10; Rom 3:23; Lam 5:16); Sentenced: since I tend towards rebellion and selfishness, I am judged accordingly and righteously (Rom 5:12; Rom 6:23a; Job 36:6); Forgiven: I am justified before God NOT through works but by faith (Eph 2:8-10; Gal 2:16; Rom 6:23b; PS 86:5); Relational: mercy is not getting what you deserve. And grace is getting what you absolutely do not deserve (Heb 4:16; Eph 1:5; Jer 15:19a).
- Eisenhower Example Shows Change In Political Winds & Not the Republican Party
- Michael Medved Challenged by Mother of Six on His Ron Paul Stance
- Deadly Mandating Cartoons
- One of the Best Commercials This Super Bowl
- Some Art by Jon McNaughton I Like ~ `The Forgotten Man` & `Peace Is Coming`
- Worldviews 101 ~ What is a worldview? Are they avoidable? This video deals with the necessity of worldviews
- WhiteBoard Videos ~ The Grand Jihad
- Why Men & Women See Things Differantly (Prager U)
- Israeli Soldier Points Gun At Little Girl? More Palestinian Fauxtography
- True Freethinker: Seems that such anti-Christian supp...
- True Freethinker: "The gravity of Jewish suffering ov...
- Alicia Cantoran: Someone I work with visits your sit...
- Gil: I don't really see what you are try...
- Conversation Topics: My brother suggested I might like t...
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Top 12 Posts Visited at RPT in 2011
1) The Left/Islamo-Nazis/Homosexuality/Womens Rights/and Contradictions
2) LOVE ~ Mariano (of TrueFreeThinker)
3) Debates About Homosexuality
4) Margaret Sanger and the Racist History of Planned Parenthood (Black Genocide)
5) Some Black and White History (A response to convo elsewhere)
6) Taking Physicist Stephen Barr to Task for His Mischaracterizing Saint Augustine's Stance on the Age of God's Creation
7) Homosexuality-A Christian Ethic?
8) Moving Mountains: Faith in Faith (My First "Sermon” Given 4-15-2010, Tax Day)
9) Thanks Obama $ Company-I have wanted this subject of Foreign Campaign Donations back in the headlines (plus Krauthammers ~ Reptilian Desperation)
10) The Vitamin C Pseudogene Argument Crumbles Slowly
11) The BBC Culture
12) Same-Sex Matters (Race and Gender in Marriage)
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