Syrian
Islamists Defecate in Church, Light Christian Man on Fire
By Raheem Kassam on Brietbart
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/02/10/VIDEO-Syrian-Islamists-defecate-in-Church-light-Christian-man-on-fire
A new documentary
short by the Journeyman.TV company operating out of the United Kingdom shows evidence of
the targeting of Christians in Syria, and apparent fighting back in the north
of the country.
The video sheds light on recent incidents in
the war-torn country, which include Islamists defecating in a Church, tearing
Bibles to shreds, and pouring gasoline over a Christian man and lighting him on
fire.
The video (below) is just eight minutes long,
but goes some way to explaining how "Christians, who make up one tenth of
the population, are being driven out." The documentary claims that
"in the Northeast, hand-in-hand with the Kurds, one group [is] beating
back the Islamists' advance."
The news comes on the heels of recent news
that over 450,000 Christians have been
displaced since the start of
the country's civil war in 2011.
Mahjoub Abdulahad, an elderly Christian, said,
"The extremists said the Christians and the Kurds were infidels and had to
be killed!"
Abdulahad explained how he was trying to
repair a church damaged by extremists: "The windows were broken, too. They
made a mess of the church, even defecated on the floor... There were books on
the floor, they ripped them apart, even the Bible."
However, he also explained how a few towns are
developing Christian militias to fight back against the Islamist terror.
"We have checkpoints around the town to
protect it from strangers," he said.
When asked about leaving the country,
Abdulahad replied, "No, we must stay. We must stay and defend our land
and, God willing, this crisis will be resolved."
Early on in the video, Mohammed Jelloud, a
local Arab man, told the filmmakers, "They said they'd chop our heads off
if we stayed. They said we were supporting the regime and they burnt one of my
cousins. They poured gasoline over him. But he is alive, and with the help of
the Kurds we managed to get him to a hospital".
Fadi, a young Christian, echoed Jelloud's
statements, telling the film crew, "I have came to work with [the Kurds]
because they are working to secure, to keep my way and my style of life, not to
let people from outside like Jabhat al Nusra [jihadis] to come and force me to
change my style of life, force me to change the way I live."
"Don't wear pants, don't do this, don't
do that, be a Muslim. I just wanna be like I was before and better, and have
freedom."
The film ends on a pessimistic note,
explaining that the situation is not likely to improve at any point soon.
"The Syrian civil war", the narrator claims, "may be just
another step in [Christianity's] slow decline in the Middle East."
Is Religion the Cause of Most Wars?
Posted: 04/10/2012 3:52 pm by Rabbi
Alan Lurie
" In their recently
published book, "Encyclopedia of Wars," authors Charles Phillips and
Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of
1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause,
accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all
people killed in warfare. "
There are many common misconceptions
about religion that are often taken as unquestioned facts, such as the idea
that religious people are inherently anti-science, that a literal reading of
holy texts is the "true" religious stance, that faith is incompatible
with reason, and that all religions claim to posses sole and absolute truth.
While all these ideas are true for a
minority of the population, they do not describe normative religious beliefs
and practices for the majority of believers. It is understandable that these
misconceptions persist, though, because they come from the loudest voices on
the extremes, and like other polarizing positions in politics and culture are
simplistic ideas that promote easy "us vs. them" thinking. But there
is one common misconception about religion that is voiced often and
consistently as an obvious truth -- often by educated, thoughtful people --that
is just not factually true: The idea that religion has been the cause of most
wars.
In his hilarious analysis of The 10
Commandments, George Carlin said to loud applause, "More people have been
killed in the name of God than for any other reason," and many take this
idea as an historical fact. When I hear someone state that religion has caused
most wars, though, I will often and ask the person to name these wars. The
response is typically, "Come on! The Crusades, The Inquisition, Northern
Ireland, the Middle East, 9/11. Need I name more?"
Well, yes, we do need to name more,
because while clearly there were wars that had religion as the prime cause, an
objective look at history reveals that those killed in the name of religion
have, in fact, been a tiny fraction in the bloody history of human conflict. In
their recently published book, "Encyclopedia of Wars," authors
Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and
from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a
religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2
percent of all people killed in warfare. While, for example, it is estimated
that approximately one to three million people were tragically killed in the
Crusades, and perhaps 3,000 in the Inquisition, nearly 35 million soldiers and
civilians died in the senseless, and secular, slaughter of World War 1 alone.
History simply does not support the
hypothesis that religion is the major cause of conflict. The wars of the
ancient world were rarely, if ever, based on religion. These wars were for
territorial conquest, to control borders, secure trade routes, or respond to an
internal challenge to political authority. In fact, the ancient conquerors,
whether Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, or Roman, openly welcomed the
religious beliefs of those they conquered, and often added the new gods to their
own pantheon.
Medieval and Renaissance wars were
also typically about control and wealth as city-states vied for power, often
with the support, but rarely instigation, of the Church. And the Mongol Asian
rampage, which is thought to have killed nearly 30 million people, had no
religious component whatsoever.
Most modern wars, including the
Napoleonic Campaign, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the
American Civil War, World War I, the Russia Revolution, World War II, and the
conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, were not religious in nature or cause. While
religious groups have been specifically targeted (most notably in World War
II), to claim that religion was the cause is to blame the victim and to
misunderstand the perpetrators' motives, which were nationalistic and ethnic,
not religious.
Similarly, the vast numbers of
genocides (those killed in ethic cleanses, purges, etc. that are not connected
to a declared war) are not based on religion. It's estimated that over 160
million civilians were killed in genocides in the 20th century alone, with
nearly 100 million killed by the Communist states of USSR and China. While some
claim that Communism itself is a "state religion" -- because it has
an absolute dictator whose word is law and a "holy book" of
unchallenged rules -- such a claim simply equates "religion" with the
human desire for power, conformance, and control, making any distinctions with
other human institutions meaningless.
Of course the Hebrew Bible
chronicles many wars -- most notably Moses' conflicts in the desert and
Joshua's conquest of the nations of Canaan -- and we may see these as examples
of religiously sanctioned violence. Here, though, we must recognize that
archeological evidence points to the conclusion that these conquests never
occurred, or at least not as dramatically as described in the Bible. As one who
reads the Bible for spiritual truths, not historical facts, I am, of course,
quite happy that no such slaughters occurred. The ancient Rabbis also
understood these stories not as celebrated victories, but as warnings about the
dangers of warfare.
Judaism has always taught that war
may only be considered when there is a clear threat, and only after every other
option has been exhausted. Avoiding war must be the goal. Deuteronomy states,
"When you approach a city to do battle with it you should call to it in
peace." In other words, even when threatened, seeking peace must be the
first course of action. The ancient Rabbis took this teaching so far as to
flatly state, "In God's eyes the man stands high who makes peace between
men. But he stands highest who establishes peace among the nations."
To be clear, this is not to say that
religion is not a cause of conflict. Obviously it is, has been, and no doubt
will continue to be. Clearly there are those who have committed horrendous acts
based on religious zeal, and we must be alert to these threats and respond
forcefully. But in a world with billions of people who are self-defined as
religious, those who believe that violence is the will of God and that the
murder of innocents is a holy act are a small, insane minority.
Peace is the highest religious
aspiration for which we must work. As he envisioned a future where the world is
perfected by the conscious acts of human beings, the ancient Hebrew prophet
Isaiah wrote, "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their
spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more." While religions have often fallen
well short of this utopian vision, we must recognize that greed, unbalanced
power, and causeless hatred - not religion - are the causes of most wars, and
eliminating these should be our focus.
James
the Just and the Ebionites
Early Jewish Christians placed James, the brother of
Jesus, in a place of high honor. Paul describes James as one of the “pillars”
of the church and went to report to him when he arrived in Jerusalem (Galatians
2: 9-10, Acts 21:18) . According to ancient sources, including the apocryphal
Gospel of Thomas, Jesus placed James in a position of authority, and stated
that he was to lead the church after the ascension (Thomas 12). In the New
Testament, James is depicting as making decisions for the whole church, such as
his decision to admit Gentiles into the church at the Counsel of Jerusalem (Acts 15). We see in the New Testament that
James, not Peter, was the “head” of the church.
Stories of the “Acts” of James were preserved in
ancient sources. Josephus wrote of the martyrdom of James. An early Jewish
Christian named Hegissipus also wrote a more expanded account of the martyrdom
of James. James was stoned to death by
the High Priest. Eusebius preserved Hegissipus’s account in his “Antiquity of
the Jews.” Hegisipus describes James in the following manner, “After the
apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the
Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his
mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never
shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege
of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments
but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people,
insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels'
knees.
An early group of Jewish Christians were called the
Ebionites. This name is derived from the Hebrew word for “the Poor.”
We have fragments of “Hebrew Gospels.” In one verse
quoted by Jerome, the resurrected Jesus appears to James, his brother. This
seems to be a more complete account of the appearance of the resurrected Jesus
than we find in 1 Corinthians 15.
And when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of
the priest, he went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he
would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord
until he should see him risen from among them that sleep. And shortly
thereafter the Lord said: Bring a table and bread! And immediately it added: he
took the bread, blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said
to him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from among them
that sleep. (Jerome,
Vir. ill. 2) Several fragments of Hebrew Gospels and
other Jewish Gospels such as the Gospel of the Ebionites have survived.
The Ebionites were very diverse. It seems that they were vegetarian and
rejected the temple sacrificial system. Some rejected Paul and the deity of
Jesus. All kept the Sabbath although some did also worship on Sunday. The
“Ascents of James” an Ebionite “Acts of the Apostles” (which is mostly a
collection of abridged sermons attributed to the apostles) was been preserved
in what is called “Clementine” literature.
It is important to consult the Church Fathers when
exploring the “Jewish Roots of Christianity.”
The Problem with Camels in the Bible
However, most scholars believe that Camel were domesticated sometime around 3000-1500 BC. As beasts of burden and transport, camels occupy an important place alongside horses and donkeys. Two small members of the camel family, the llama and the alpaca of south America, are domesticated first - probably before 3000 BC. At that time both species appear to have been on the verge of extinction. Domestication by the American Indians saves them. Neither the llama nor the alpaca exists now in the wild. The larger of the two, the llama, is primarily a beast of burden, while the shaggy alpaca is valuable for its wool. Neither animal is strong enough to pull a plough or drag a cart - two important steps in the story of civilization which are denied to the early Americans. In the parched regions of north Africa and Asia two different species of camel become the most important beasts of burden - the single-humped Arabian camel (in north Africa, the Middle East, India) and the double-humped Bactrian camel (central Asia, Mongolia). Both are well adapted to desert conditions. They can derive water, when none is available elsewhere, from the fat stored in their humps. It is probable that they are first domesticated in Arabia some time after 1500 BC. By about 1000 BC caravans of camels are bringing precious goods up the west coast of Arabia, linking India with the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.
The domestication of camels does have important consequences
for the Bible. This problem has existed for some time-but has recently gotten
media attention. (See Will
camel discovery break the Bible's back? Opinion by Joel
Baden, special to CNN and Camels Had No Business in Genesis By
JOHN NOBLE WILFORDFEB. 10, 2014 in the New York Times.) Camels do not
seem to have been known in Ancient Egypt or North Africa until after the dawn
of Islam. This seems incredible, because desert Arabs did domesticate camels
earlier. While there are pictures of exotic animals in ancient Egypt-no
depictions of camels or references to camels have yet to be found (but I would not
be surprised if such evidence eventually is discovered). The problem is the
dating of Abraham. If camels were domesticated in the year 1500 BC, then camels
were not used by people in the year 2000 BC, the time period to which Abraham
is usually dated. However, what if Abraham lived 1500-1400 BC and the Exodus
occurred around the year 1200, as many Bible scholars believe? Another issue is
that we do not know exactly when camels were domesticated. The year 1500 is an
educated guess, it may have been earlier. They may have been domesticated
several decades, at least, perhaps even centuries before people started drawing
them or leaving records of them. This would especially be true if the camels
were domesticated by people who lived outside the cities of “civilization.”
With These new discoveries these “experts” try to prove that camels were
unknown in Israel until well after the rule of King David. This means what they
were saying is that, yes, Abraham may have lived in 1500 when camels were
domesticated-however, even as late as the time of King David, who died around
970 BC, there were no domesticated camels in Israel. (It is hard to precisely date anything
in the Bible that is before the time of David, Saul and Samuel.) If you
read the research by these new “experts” you will notice how much of it is mere
speculation motivated by a desire to “disprove” the Bible. They found camel
bones that were early but they say they don't think they were domesticated-but
they don't know. They looked at the leg bones and said they thought that they
weren’t used as a beast of burden. What if the camel bones they found were used
for riding and not for carrying burdens? These so-called scholars had an
agenda. We know that camels were domesticated much earlier than what they are
saying-but their caveat is "in Israel." I think these so-called
scholars set out with an agenda to try to "disprove" the Bible and
make news. Another fact of the matter is that we don't know for sure exactly
when Abraham lived. It may be later than many suppose-and remember-Joseph's
brothers went to Egypt several times-on donkeys-not camels. I think it is very
interesting that in this story it is stated that the patriarchs most often rode
donkeys. New discoveries could soon refute these new proposals by these
so-called archeologists who are trying to get in the news. Personally, to me Jesus is Lord and the
eternal Word of God. I think the Patriarchs had a limited understanding of God.
I feel very uncomfortable with the efforts of people to elevate Abraham over
Jesus Christ in order to find common ground with Muslims and Jews. Abraham was
the friend of God but Jesus is God Incarnate. Abraham did not die for our sins
or rise again. Abraham wasn’t sinless the way Jesus is. Also, Abraham was
neither a Jew nor a Muslim. (Jews will concede that Abraham was not Jewish, but
Muslims do view Abraham as a Muslim. To Muslims, Jesus was a Muslim too, and is
inferior to Muhammad-the so-called “seal” of the prophets. Of course, Abraham
wasn’t a Christian either.) As I have stated, Abraham’s understanding of God
was partial and limited. God chose to give a more fuller revelation of himself
to Moses than he had the Patriarchs. And then, in Jesus the fullness of the
Godhead dwells bodily. Jesus Himself
said, “For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see
what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it”
(Matthew 13:17). The Book of Hebrews
says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the
worlds” (Hebrews 1:1-2). My faith is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and
righteousness. It isn’t built on camels bones! (as important as they may be).
There
are two species of quadruped animal of the deserts of the world known as camel,
both of which have implications for archaeology. The Bactrian (Camelus bactrianus) (two humps)
resides in central Asia, while the dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) (one hump) is
found in North Africa and the Near East. Camels were (and are) used for
transportation, but also for their milk, dung, hair and blood, all of which
were used for various purposes by nomadic pastoralists of the deserts.
Dromedaries were probably domesticated in coastal settlements along the
southern Arabian peninsula somewhere between 3000 and 2500 BC. The earliest
reference to camels in Arabia is the Sihi mandible, a camelid bone direct dated
to ca 7100-7200 cal BC, or about 8200 RCYBP. Sihi
is a Neolithic coastal site in Yemen, and the bone is probably a wild
dromedary. The earliest camels in Africa are from Qasr Ibrim, Nubia, 9th
century BC. Evidence for the domestication of Bactrian camels has been found as
early as 2600 BC at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.
Sources
This article is part of the Guide to Animal Domestication.
Compagnoni, B. and M. Tosi, 1978. The camel: Its distribution and state of domestication in the Middle East during the third millennium B.C. in light of the finds from Shahr-i Sokhta. Pp. 119–128 in Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East, edited by R.H. Meadow and M.A. Zeder. Peabody Museum Bulletin no 2, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, New Haven, CT.
Grigson, C., J.A.J. Gowlett, and J. Zarins 1989 The Camel in Arabia: A Direct Radiocarbon Date, Calibrated to about 7000 BC. Journal of Archaeological Science 16:355-362.
Zeder, M.A., E. Emshwiller, B.D. Smith,
and D.G. Bradley 2006 Documenting domestication:
the intersection of genetics and archaeology.
Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=bor#ixzz2tUopAdZn
Trends in Genetics 22(3):139-155.
Syria's Christians face new threat -- "convert, submit to Islam or face sword"
By Lela Gilbert Published February 28, 2014 FoxNews.com
“Convert. Submit to
Islam. Or face the sword.” In recent days, the besieged Christian community in
Raqqa - a city in northern Syria – has faced those three stark alternatives.
The terrorist group known as ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant –
made their demands after seizing control of the region. They required the local
Christians to renounce their faith and embrace Islam, assent to extreme
subjugation, or face death. On February 27, ISIS published a statement
that an agreement had been signed by 20 of Raqqa’s Christian leaders. Faced
with losing their lives or denying their Christian faith, the community opted
for dhimmi status –
suppression as a “protected” minority – which requires them to submit to an
array of demands, including the notorious jizya tax, which can be
compared to Mafiosi protection money: purchasing their safety, but under
strictly enforced regulations. Raqqa’s Christians are now subject to an extreme
version of Islamic Shariah law, which among other things forbids them to repair
their war-torn churches, worship or pray in public, ring church bells, or wear
crosses or other symbols of their faith. Bearing arms is, of course, forbidden,
as are alcoholic beverages. Even before the agreement was signed, on February
22 Lebanon’s Daily Star reported, “ISIS
has imposed a strict form of Islam in
Raqqa, enforcing the veil and banning cigarettes. They have doled out harsh
punishments under Shariah courts for religious crimes, including beatings and
executions. In Al-Bab, Aleppo, pictures showing ISIS fighters burning tons of
cigarettes were recently published.” The Christians of Raqqa chose “to sign the
dhimma treaty over war,” the ISIS statement explained, and in return
received a commitment by local ISIS commander Ibrahim Al-Badri – also known as
Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi – that they would not be subjected to physical harm or
religious targeting once the treaty was approved. ISIS made the case for
signing the treaty clear: "If they reject, they are subject to being
legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than
the sword." This subjection of Christians and Jews to dhimmitude
has a long history in the Middle East and throughout the greater Muslim world.
Although it officially ended after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, its
humiliating and unequivocal demands have never been erased from the behavior
patterns of communities that suffered under it. And in various ways it is still
enforced de facto in some modern Muslim states. But in today’s Syria,
where warlike militias compete to wield power, enhance prestige and impose
piety, the command to convert or die is a familiar threat. And although dhimmi
status may save lives temporarily, it is null and void if protection money
isn’t paid or if the local authorities are somehow offended. And although
Syria’s Christians face exceptional dangers, they aren’t alone in their misery.
In recent days, other Christians have also been violently attacked in the
Middle East.
On February 16, three Korean pilgrims and an Egyptian Christian bus driver were killed, and more than a dozen injured in a suicide bombing as they drove across the Sinai Peninsula. Korea’s New Straits Times reported, “The bus was carrying 31 parishioners from Jincheon Jungang Presbyterian Church, which is south of Seoul, and was attempting to travel from Egypt into Israel…the church had long saved money to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its founding with a trip to Biblical sites.” Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the attack. In Libya, on February 24, terrorists went door to door in a Benghazi apartment building, asking residents whether they were Muslim or Christian. Seven Egyptian Coptic Christians were seized, taken to a beach and summarily executed – each one shot in the head. An eighth Christian escaped and reported the crime. The outraged Coptic Church in Egypt has demanded further information, and the arrest of the terrorists.
In Syria and in Egypt, in Libya and beyond, Islamist attacks on Christians happen every day: rapes and kidnappings, maiming and murders, houses burned down; churches blown up. Recently in Nigeria, Christians have been massacred by the hundreds.
It’s so pervasive and so constant that our minds struggle to believe it.
Can you imagine a gang of hateful, heavily armed terrorists showing up at your door? Your terrified family is with you, and maybe a few friends. An angry spokesman orders all of you to choose – at gunpoint, then and there – to convert to Islam, surrender, or die.
Believe it or not, it’s an ever-increasing scenario.
In fact, in some form or other, it’s probably going on somewhere right now.
Lela Gilbert is author of "Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner" and co-author, with Nina Shea and Paul Marshall, of "Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians." She is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and lives in Jerusalem. For more, visit her website: www.lelagilbert.com. Follow her on Twitter@lelagilbert.
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