Care to elaborate?

KINGBEE POSTS:

KINGBEE POSTS: #16

Kingbee,

Regarding your blaming the Catholic Church and Catholicism for slavery.....

We know that slavery was a legal, accepted and deeply interwoven part of the Roman empire when the Catholic Chruch came into existence in the first century and began her work. The Church labored to better the life of slaves by teaching their equal human dignity and working for their emancipation. The Chruch ordained them as priests and in 225 had a slave as Pope. She urged those owners who were converted to Christianity to release their slaves and within 200 years of Constantine's conversion, her efforts led to practically eradicating the pagan concept of slavery.   

The beginning of these efforts can be seen in St. Paul's letter to Philemon 16:21, about a runaway slave named Onesimus, who had converted to Catholicism. While St.Paul did not condemn slavery explicitly, which he was hardly in a position to do in those days of the early Church, he did, however,  urge Philemon to welcome Onesimus back, "no longer as a slave but as a brother in Christ and "to do even more than I say" which implies giving Onesimus his freedom.

In the 4th century, the Chruch was successful in getting the civil power to remove the legal restrictions against the slaves. It was recognized that slaves were also men made in the image and likeness of God and they were no longer branded by hot irons with the stamp of their master. Nor were they any more thrown into gladiatorial contests for the amusement of a pagan populace. Under the influence of the Catholic Chruch, besides slavery, the civil power had made concubinage, adultery, abortion criminal offenses. Slavery was essentially softened into serfdom. So, the individual, high or low, with money or poor, was held equally responsible for the observance of the moral law.

The chastity of slaves was safeguarded by special legislation as was the marriage of slaves and that of a slave to a free woman. The foundation of European civilization was laid in the recognition of the family as a moral body as the primary unit of a civil society.

Three vital consequences resulted from the acceptance by the State of these Christian principles. The life of the family was stabliized, the woman's place as the head of the home was recognized and slavey now softened into serfdom had the promise of final emancipation.

Slavery surfaced again later in history when the inroads of Mohammadism revived slavery for the Moors regarded it as a duty to enslave captive Christians. Even so, religious Orders sprang up dedicated to the ransom of slaves and from 1198 to 1632, the Trinitarians and the Order of Mercy freed over 1, 400,000 slaves. The Chruch's evangelizing and civilizing mission was successful in almost eliminating slavery before it erupted again with the expeditions to the New World by Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries. When they entered the American colonies the Popes did their utmost to prevent slavery.

The Popes in these and suceeding centuries, including Eugene IV in 1435, Pius II in 1462, Paul III in 1537, Urban VIII in 1639, Benedict XIV in 1741 all actively condemned slavery.  Gregory XVI in 1839 and Leo XIII in 1890 both later fought African slave trade. But it was chiefly being fostered in the AMerican colonies founded from Protestant England and remember that Catholics themselves were not emancipated from penal laws until 1829.  

Lula posts:

OCK,

 Please read my response to KINGBEE # 31.

I only touched the surface of how the Catholic Chruch has condemned slavery. She continues to condemn this tragic commerce in human misery today just as she has condemend slavery everywhere for 2,000 years.

although you quoted my disclaimer

you apparently ignored it.  

catholics weren't the only christians participating in enslaving the native peoples of the western hemisphere or africa.  they were merely among the first to do so, but hardly the last.

there are some major differences between the sort of slavery practiced in the americas from the 15th thru 19th centuries and its other manifestations in various locations, different cultures and earlier histroric periods.  while any sort of enslavement negates the core essence of humanity, most previous slaveholding societies provided mechanisms through which individuals might eventually be able to improve their status or that of their children.  comparing roman, greek, babylonian, etc slavery to the industry created by so-called enlightened westerners is sorta like making claims that commerical fishing as practiced 200 years ago had a similar impact on the oceans as today's factory fishing vessels with their advanced electronics and expanded range of operations.  

it hardly seems plausible that catholic monarchs who sponsored the conquest of central and south america--including several lauded for their piety--would have ignored or defied papal orders.  any pope who could draw a line thru a continent in order to resolve a dispute between two catholic nations musta been powerful enough to have prevented members of religious orders, all of whom were sworn to obey papal authority from brutally forcing native peoples into servitude.  

only in the last 100 years or less have governments, organizations or dynastic families--even the most long-lived and despotic--of central and equatorial south america managed to acquire the sort of power and wealth of a chuch that enriched itself by exploiting the poorest of the poor.

which is alive and well in southern mexico, honduras, peru and bolivia still laboring under the burden of a cross of gold studded with emeralds 

really?  when exactly was this the norm before--or after--the enlightenment?  how about any time before or since?  in which traditionally catholic nations is this the case? 

Lula posts:

I am well aware that the slavery became more acute after the discoveries made by SPain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries. Informatin travelelled slowly back then and it took some time to get back to the Chruch, but when it did the Chruch unreservedly condemned colonial slavery and every type of slave trade as inhuman and immoral. Again, numerous documents attest to this fact. In January, 1435, once Pope Eugene IV learned that some Catholics were indeed subjecting some of the islanders to slavery, he issued a severe rebuke that if they didn't repent of their sin, give freedom to their captives and restore their goods, they incurred the sentence of excommunication.

Real history has it that the Church condemned all forms of colonial slave trade and worked unceasingly over the course of centuries to get rid of the slave trade. Catholic missionaries, theologians never ceased to strive for the abolition of slave trade. Today, the Chruch still spares no effort to save others from the crypto-slavery of the modern world.   

As best as she can, the Chruch is actively fighting slavery and continues to condemn  tragic commerce in human misery.    In a Feb. 2006, issue of Catholic News report, Barbara Kralis writes that slavery is found in the farms of India, in the brick making kilns of Pakistan, and the cocoa plantations of Cote d'Ivoire and in the charcoal making camps of Brazil? Slavery thrives in Nepal, in the sex slavery brothels of Manila, Thailand, Jappan, and even in the US.  There is child prostitution in South America and across the Mideast. Migrant trafficing exists for sexual labor in the US and Canadian borders. What about the sweatshops in the garment manufacturing industry in New York and Los Angeles? It goes on and on ....

On page 34 the Chruch stated, "No government in the world today officially endorses slavery, yet banned worldwide, slavery thrives in every nation of the face of the earth becasue of organized crime, corruption of law enforcement officials, and insatibalbe greed."

Depends on the pagans your talking about really.  Irish women had more rights in the pagan days then many Christians ones else where did.  Any peoples who's women were expected to insctruct their children in martial ways were more equal to their men. 

I d say the bible was a double edged sword on slavery.  It was the cause or excuse of slavery in the beginning and through out its modern heyday. Christians did make slaves of pagans in the name of converting them.  But it also was instrumental in its demise as well, when larger groups started to interpret the bible that way.

Slaveryas a whole was a practice of mankind though. I doubt there was one ancient people that did not engage in it in some form.  In fact the people that the bible is about went from slaves to slave owners.

Paladin 77 POsts:

Paladin,

KINGBEE  may have been referring to my comment in post #5....

Lula posts: #5

Interestingly, of Obama's faith you said...

To which Kingbee responded....

I wasn't being deceitful, just repeating Obama's own words....he claims to have belonged to a Christian church for 20 plus years...why the slip?....his saying "My Muslim faith" seems very odd.  

Yes, of course, the moral precepts of the Ten Commandments are most suitably used in terms of providing guidance for public policy. It's applying them to the new morality where the trouble begins. Homer, so long ago, sang "Hateful to me as the gates of Hell is the man who has one thing on his lips and another in his heart."  He gave a pretty good definition of a lie. Anyway, as justice is the basis of business relations between individuals, so truthfulness is the basis of social intercourse, which rests on the confidence one feels in the words of our fellow man. Lying is anti-social and even where lies apparently have little or no immediate harm, they have a tendency to sap our trust in others and make us suspicious of everything we hear. That's how I feel about Obama's comment.....very suspicious.

[quote]What was the false witness that I supposedly made?[/quote

apparently lula hadda clue. 

no i wasn't referring to your comment--at the time anyway. at least you didn't go all ingenuous or go into dat ol innocently naive routine better left to four-time convicted felons, former aides to the current vice-president and other much more adept masters of the genre.

but since you seem determined to deliberately misconstrue this whole 'my muslim faith' nonsense while he feighns ignorance  (okay...perhaps i'm expecting more from your associate than he's capable of delivering; throughout his ju career, he's never shrunk from any opportunity to spotlight his incredlble, near total lack of comprehension skills, not to mention common sense with such determination i shoulda realized acting dumb has nothing to do in his case with any sorta acting) let's fill everyone in on exactly who shot john. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: You mention your Christian faith. Yesterday you took off after the Republicans for suggesting you have Muslim connections. Just a few minutes ago, Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, said they've never done that. This is a false and cynical attempt to play victim.

OBAMA: You know what? I mean, these guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand. The...

STEPHANOPOULOS: The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections.

OBAMA: No, no, no. But the -- I don't think that when you look at what is being promulgated on Fox News, let's say, and Republican commentators who are closely allied to these folks--

STEPHANOPOULOS: But John McCain said that's wrong.

OBAMA: Now, well, look. Listen. You and I both know that the minute that Governor Palin was forced to talk about her daughter, I immediately said that's off limits. And--

STEPHANOPOULOS: But John McCain said the same thing about questioning your faith.

OBAMA: And what was the first thing the McCain?s campaign went out and did? They said, look, these liberal blogs that support Obama are out there attacking Governor Palin.

Let's not play games. What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you're absolutely right that that has not come--

STEPHANOPOULOS: Christian faith.

OBAMA: -- my Christian faith. Well, what I'm saying is that he hasn't suggested--

STEPHANOPOULOS: Has connections, right.

OBAMA: -- that I'm a Muslim. And I think that his campaign's upper echelons have not, either.

What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith -- something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time.

i don't claim to be too be a mindreader or have special powers of cognition, but it's not too difficult--even reading the transcript; words on paper, as most of us know far too well, are rarely able to convey the sense of what's actually been said--to appreciate obama was attempting point out the fact that he's been under constant attack by good christian people such as yourselves who apparently are devoid of scruples and moral values when it comes to perpetuating falsehoods to further your own agenda and those attacks have been tacitly, if not overtly, approved by the gop.  

for nearly a year, i've been a very infrequent visitor to ju.  on the few occasions i've been able to drop by, i've been shocked by numerous baseless claims (such as those you've posted here), references to obama as 'hussein' and ridiculous assertions about his secret muslim existence.

yall are just as bad--if not worse, cuz you've managed to help fool a fair number of people into believing barak is, in fact, muslim--as those in the mid-south who spent the entire eight months i was there this year doing their best to scare everyone in earshot about obama's secret plan to fill the whitehouse with blacks, set up a stewpot in the oval office and begin to serving the good white folks of america...for dinner

Don't worry too much about that.  The only thing Charlie Gibson accomplished in that interview was making a fool of himself.

He puts the "incompetent" back in Incompetent Press.

Lula posts:

Bingo!

Kingbee,

I saw and heard Obama's interview with George Stephanopolous. Immediately after Obama said,

Let's not play games. What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you're absolutely right that that has not come--

George immediately "corrected" him saying "Christian faith". 

My point of post #5 stands...

Obama calls himself a Christian, but by his 100% pro-abortion voting record, he doesn't walk the Christian walk. Obama is a hypocrite in that he calls himself a Christian, but doesn't act Christian by virtue of his 100% voting record on abortion, including infanticide.

Kingbee posts:   

Obama said what he said...sure, good people can take it differently.....my point wasn't so much about his saying "my Muslim faith" as was that he claims  to be a practicing Christian....either way, both the Muslim and Christian faiths condemn the grisly practice of abortion....

You go too far Kingbee. The interview itself clears the GOP of your slam.

Knock, knock, Obama's running for President.   

Of course good people are going to scrutinize his history and character...that, in effect, is what the political process and electing our President is all about....except, of course,  by the mainstream media who has kept Obama's Muslim heritage veeeery quiet..

Don't run for president if you can't take the scrutiny. And speaking of scrutiny...what about the adulation the mainstream media has given him? They are roaring around all Alaska trying to dig up something on Palin , but why haven't they traveled to Africa and reported on the whole of Obama's family life and background? 

Getting back to this interview and Obama's slip of "my Muslim faith"....and your claim that good Christians such as me are devoid of scruples etc. etc....

It would appear that it's Obama is the one caught in the lie......

Here's a quote from Aaron Klein's Sept. 10th, World Net Daily follow-up report of the interview.....

The statements came amid an exchange in which Obama accused Republicans of spreading "lies" that he is a Muslim. McCain, though, has strongly condemned such accusations.

"These guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand," Obama said.

But Stephanopoulos corrected the Illinois senator, stating, "The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections."

Obama replied: "I don't think that when you look at what is being promulgated on Fox News, let's say, and Republican commentators who are closely allied to these folks."

"But John McCain said that's wrong," Stephanopoulos shot back.

Obama's momentary slip was immediately picked up by scores of Internet blogs.

Obama 'quite religious in Islam'

Obama has long denied he was ever a Muslim. His campaign site states: "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian."

But as WND reported, public records in Indonesia listed Obama as a Muslim during his early years, and a number of childhood friends claimed to the media Obama was once a mosque-attending Muslim.

Obama's campaign several times has wavered in response to reporters queries regarding the senator's childhood faith.

Commenting on a recent Los Angeles Times report quoting a childhood friend stating Obama prayed in a mosque – something the presidential candidate said he never did – Obama's campaign released a statement explaining the senator "has never been a practicing Muslim."

Widely distributed reports have noted that in January 1968, Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta's Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro. He was listed as an Indonesian citizen whose stepfather, listed on school documents as "L Soetoro Ma," worked for the topography department of the Indonesian Army.

Catholic schools in Indonesia routinely accept non-Catholic students but exempt them from studying religion. Obama's school documents, though, wrongly list him as being Indonesian.

After attending the Assisi Primary School, Obama was enrolled – also as a Muslim, according to documents – in the Besuki Primary School, a public school in Jakarta.

The Loatze blog, run by an American expatriate in Southeast Asia who visited the Besuki school, noted: "All Indonesian students are required to study religion at school, and a young 'Barry Soetoro,' being a Muslim, would have been required to study Islam daily in school. He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam."

Indeed, in Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," he acknowledged studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies," wrote Obama.

The Indonesian media have been flooded with accounts of Obama's childhood Islamic studies, some describing him as a religious Muslim.

Speaking to the country's Kaltim Post, Tine Hahiyary, who was principal of Obama's school while he was enrolled there, said she recalls he studied the Quran in Arabic.

"At that time, I was not Barry's teacher, but he is still in my memory" claimed Tine, who is 80 years old.

The Kaltim Post said Obama's teacher, named Hendri, died.

"I remember that he studied 'mengaji (recitation of the Quran)," Tine said, according to an English translation by Loatze.

Mengaji, or the act of reading the Quran with its correct Arabic punctuation, is usually taught to more religious pupils and is not known as a secular study.

Also, Loatze documented the Indonesian daily Banjarmasin Post interviewed Rony Amir, an Obama classmate and Muslim, who described Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."

"We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong (waist fabric worn for religious or casual occasions) he looked funny," Amir said.

The Los Angeles Times, which sent a reporter to Jakarta, quoted Zulfin Adi, who identified himself as among Obama's closest childhood friends, stating the presidential candidate prayed in a mosque, something Obama's campaign claimed he never did.

"We prayed, but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Adi.

Friday prayers

Aside from a new website to fight purported smears, Obama's official campaign site has a page titled "Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." The page states, "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ."

But the campaign changed its tune when it issued a "practicing Muslim" clarification to the Los Angeles Times.

An article in March by the Chicago Tribune apparently disputes Adi's statements to the L.A. paper. The Tribune caught up with Obama's declared childhood friend, who now describes himself as only knowing Obama for a few months in 1970 when his family moved to the neighborhood. Adi said he was unsure about his recollections of Obama.

But the Tribune found Obama did attend mosque.

"Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia," states the Tribune article.

It quotes the presidential candidate's former neighbors and third-grade teacher recalling Obama "occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers."

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, notes the Tribune article – cited by liberal blogs as refuting claims Obama is Muslim – actually implies Obama was an irregularly practicing Muslim and twice confirms Obama attended mosque services.

In a free-ranging interview with the New York Times, Obama described the Muslim call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

The Times' Nicholos Kristof wrote Obama recited, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent," the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.

The first few lines of the call to prayer state:

Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet ...

Some attention also has been paid to Obama's paternal side of the family, including his father and his brother, Roy.

Writing in a chapter of his book describing his 1992 wedding, the presidential candidate stated: "The person who made me proudest of all was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."

Still, Obama says he was raised by his Christian mother and repeatedly has labeled as "smears" several reports attempting to paint him as a Muslim.

"Let's make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance [to the American flag] and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding," he told the Times of London earlier this year.

KINGBEE POSTS #44

kINGBEE,

As far as fooling people, I'm willing to let this article by Klein be read and let them decide as far as Barack Hussein Obama is concerned.

As for me, I don't want him in the White House for one reason and one reason only, it's because if elected, he's promised to keep the killing of innocent life in the womb going full throttle in all the Planned Parenthood and other abortuaries.