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Beth Schmillen

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Progressive Liberals Post Here Thread!!! Open Discussion!!!
4/5/2007 5:20:59 PM
Progressive Liberals Post Here Thread! Open Discussion!!! Here's the first of postings I'll include here... until I upgrade and have the time to maintaing more forums! (smile) For now... this first offering was posted by Alan McConnell under "List All Your Ventures" thread and I thought it deserved more of a spotlight! Coming to INDY. See the extraordinary documentary sweeping America by storm. But... Posted: 4-2-07 06:26 AM It's a limited opportunity, so act NOW! There is no charge, but seating is limited, and you must reserve a seat in order to enter the theater. Who: Sponsored by the Indianapolis chapter of Freedom Force International http://www.freedom-force.org/ Contact: Alan McConnell, 317-264-0030 mailto:alan@mail.org?Subject=Reserve AFTF WHEN: Thursday, April 19, 2007 7:00 PM WHERE: Keystone Art Cinema & Indie Lounge 8702 Keystone Crossing, Theater #4, Indianapolis, IN WHAT: Aaron Russo's AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM CANNES, FRANCE – Aaron Russo's incendiary political documentary - AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM, which exposes many of the governmental organizations and entities that have abridged the freedoms of US citizens - had its international premiere at Cannes and won a standing ovation. The event, which was held on the beach and filled to capacity, was open to the public and drew a crowd of people who stood along the boardwalk to watch the film. Through interviews with US Congressmen, as well the former IRS Commissioner, former IRS and FBI agents, tax attorneys and authors, Russo proves conclusively that there is no law requiring citizens to pay a direct tax on their labor. His film connects the dots between money creation, federal income tax, voter fraud, the national identity card (which becomes law in May 2008) and the implementation of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to track citizens. Neither left nor right-wing in perspective, the film concludes that the US government is taking on the characteristics of a police state. The international audience at Cannes as well as the European media has been fascinated by Russo's fiery diatribe against the direction America is heading. The discussion that followed the preview lasted for thirty minutes. Actor Nick Nolte, in Cannes for the premiere of OVER THE HEDGE, joined Russo during the premiere event. "The information in this film is something everybody has to know," said Nolte, who was the lead actor in TEACHERS, a film produced by Russo that also starred Morgan Freeman. Russo, who is best known as the producer of feature films including THE ROSE with Bette Midler, and TRADING PLACES with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, wrote, produced, and directed the documentary. "I am disgusted by the direction America was heading," says Russo. "I made this movie because I want to live in a free country and I want my kids and grandkids to live in a free country. The American people must abandon the myth that America is still the land of liberty that it once was." Russo's documentary already has a tremendous grass root groundswell behind it. The film has previewed in over twenty-five cities with sold out theatres and standing ovations. Your presence will assure a stimulating experience. Alan~ Alan McConnell http://community.adlandpro.com/go/RAM/Default.aspx Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Total Posts: 9 (at that time!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thank You for your generosity, Beth. "Generosity Is LOVE In Motion" ~~~~~~~~**********~~~~~~~~ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Freedom Force International...A Force For FREEDOM For All That Is GOOD! Come Join The Cause!
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Beth Schmillen

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Re: Progressive Liberals Post Here Thread!!! Open Discussion!!! All WELCOME !!
4/10/2007 2:39:00 PM
Here is news regarding Iraq that many of us never come across so that is why I'm posting this article from ArabicNews.com US prepared to accept additional Iraqi refugees Iraq-USA, Politics, 4/2/2007 http://www.ArabicNews.com The United States is prepared to increase significantly the number of Iraqi refugees it admits as the civil unrest in Iraq drives a greater number of people from their homes. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey told reporters at a Washington briefing March 23 that previous reports about the United States accepting an additional 7,000 Iraqi refugees in the coming months are inaccurate. She said this figure simply reflects the number of US referrals the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) feels it realistically can expect to make in the coming months. "UNHCR, which has the international mandate, if you will, to do the protection and make referrals for resettlement has indicated... that they had the capacity to be able to register, identify the vulnerabilities and make referrals of about 20,000, and that they anticipated that they would refer 7,000 to the US resettlement program," she said. Sauerbrey emphasized that there is no cap on the number of Iraqi refugees the United States is willing to resettle. The only limit is set by the presidential determination that identifies the total number of refugees the United States will accept from around the world in any given year. In 2007, that number stands at 70,000. The assistant secretary said the United States will be accepting referrals from places other than the UNHCR as well. These include referrals from US embassies and nongovernmental organizations working in the region. However, the United States will not accept resettlement requests at the U.S Embassy in Baghdad for security reasons. Sauerbrey explained that the resettlement program is designed for vulnerable individuals and said that if people are truly in danger in Iraq, they would be ill-advised to remain in the country while their applications are processed. "[T]he advice that the embassy is giving to people... who feel that they are jeopardized is to get to a UNHCR office outside of the country and get the protection letter quickly and then make their application to be considered," she said. Sauerbrey said there are 10 categories of vulnerability the United States will consider in making its determination of whether an applicant is in need of resettlement. Some of the key categories are single women with children and no financial resources, unaccompanied children with no family, elderly people, individuals with extensive medical needs, certain ethnic and religious minorities, and people who are endangered because of their association with the United States and the multinational forces. She emphasized that although the United States feels a strong moral commitment to those Iraqis who have worked with the US government, the program is not limited to those individuals. "[W]e want a broad range of vulnerabilities to be considered," she said. Sauerbrey said the US Department of Homeland Security is working to devise a program that would expedite the issuance of family reunification visas for Iraqis who already have family living in the United States. This would be an effort separate from the refugee resettlement program and would increase the total number of Iraqis the United States could admit. She said that there are currently 1,500 to 2,000 Iraqi refugees being processed for admission to the United States. The assistant secretary emphasized that resettlement is not a practical solution for the vast majority of Iraqi refugees now living in countries of first asylum, such as Jordan and Syria. She praised those countries for their generosity in assisting the displaced Iraqis and said the international community must step forward to help them deal with the strain on their political, social and security systems. An April 17-18 donors' conference in Geneva will address this issue. Here is a transcript of the Q&A: Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration; Lawrence Bartlett, Deputy Director, Asia and Near East Assitance Office; and Whitney Reitz, Overseas Processing Section Chief, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration Sauerbrey: (In progress) We expect that appeal will probably go to 100 million. Then -- that's -- no one has laid that out specifically but in the April conference -- we're anticipating that UNHCR is going to increase the appeal from (inaudible) to probably to 100 and we would be looking at making an appropriate U.S. (inaudible). Question: Do you expect any change in the U.S. help during the conference..." plz use url to cont... http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/070402/2007040220.html
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Beth Schmillen

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Re: Progressive Liberals Post Here Thread!!! Open Discussion!!!
4/17/2007 7:03:12 PM
Hello Adlandpro! Wolves are being slaughtered in Alaska. Managing a wildlife populations whether its deer, beer, owls, American Bald Eagles includes planning. Not out and out slaughter of animals. Stop Wolf-Killing Escalation! While Alaskan officials propose increasingly extreme and downright gruesome measures to annihilate Alaskan wolves, Defenders' emergency campaign to stop them has been succeeding! Still, officials are expected to try to increase the number of wolves gunned down over the next three weeks – please give an emergency contribution to help us stop them. Hi Beth, Something strange is going on in Alaska. Officials have become so extreme in their efforts to kill wolves that they've proposed downright gruesome measures to annihilate these furry canines. The amazing news is that our emergency efforts with Defenders of Wildlife have defeated officials' more barbaric proposals. That said, over 96 wolves have been gunned down so far and Alaskan officials plan to escalate the killing over the next three weeks! Support Defenders of Wildlife's emergency campaign to stop extreme wolf-killing: http://go.care2.com/e/R757/G62y/zkuK Two of the most barbaric proposals defeated with help from concerned citizens like you: PROPOSED: $150 bounty for killing a wolf, even if she's about to birth her puppies, so long as the hunter chops off her legs and presents them as proof of the kill. (DEFEATED last week!) PROPOSED: Gas subsidies for aerial wolf hunters who cruelly chase wolves from the air before landing to shoot them point-blank when they're too tired to run any further. (DEFEATED this week!) Please help Defenders of Wildlife continue to the fight against Alaska's extreme aerial gunning agenda. Alaskan voters don't support it, and neither do wildlife scientists. But, with extreme measures like this continuously thrown on the table, we must keep fighting to prevent hundreds of wolf killings before the winter is over. Officials hope to kill nearly 600 more wolves before the aerial gunning season's scheduled end on April 30 (more than 96 have been gunned down so far). If the latest proposal to speed wolf- killing – the introduction of helicopter gunning – is permitted, the number of wolves killed could spike dramatically. Some of these wolves are preparing to birth puppies and desperately need your help. Please give an emergency donation to help stop the increasingly vicious Alaskan wolf massacre: >> http://go.care2.com/e/R757/G62y/zkuK Thank you for helping today! It feels so good to see what a difference we're making! Hilary Stamper Care2 and PetitionSite Team P.S. Hundreds of wolves -- including pregnant mothers preparing to den -- could be gunned down in the next three weeks unless we can stop Alaska's extreme wolf-killing plans. Please support Defenders' emergency efforts, including grassroots mobilization and media and public outreach. After all, no animal deserves treatment like this. Thank you for receiving Action Alerts from Care2 and ThePetitionSite.com. Care2.com, Inc. 275 Shoreline Drive, Suite 150 Redwood City, CA 94065 http://www.care2.com
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Beth Schmillen

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Re: Progressive Liberals Post Here Thread!!! Open Discussion!!!
4/22/2007 9:00:12 AM
THE WEEKLY SPIN, APRIL 18, 2007 Sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy: http://www.prwatch.org WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO KEEP DOING WHAT WE DO! To donate, please visit: https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/cmd/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1107 -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to further information about media, political spin and propaganda. It is emailed free each Wednesday to nearly 25,000 subscribers. -------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK'S NEWS == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. Onward, Free Market Soldiers: Privatizing Public Diplomacy == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. New Participatory Project: Adding Examples of Greenwash to SourceWatch == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. GoodWorks Means Good Money For Andrew Young in Nigeria 2. How Hill & Knowlton Pioneered Unsound Science 3. AT&T, Verizon Reach Out and Co-Opt Someone 4. NIH Cancels Contract with Conflicted Consultants 5. Former President To Address Washington Times Birthday Bash 6. Last U.S. Newspaper Bureau in Canada to Close 7. European Ban on Drug Ads Under Pressure 8. AP Photographer Marks One Year in U.S. Prison Camp 9. Iraq: Why the Media Failed 10. Swift Boat Firm Helps Abstinence Group Court Public Opinion == UPCOMING EVENTS == Tuesday, April 24, 2007, 5:30 p.m.: Stauber Speaking in San Francisco on the Iraq War - 'War Is Sell' -------------------------------------------------------------------- == BLOG POSTINGS == 1. ONWARD, FREE MARKET SOLDIERS: PRIVATIZING PUBLIC DIPLOMACY by Diane Farsetta U.S. Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes' remarks at the "Private Sector Summit on Public Diplomacy" opened on a militaristic note. "Looking around the room and seeing the quality and the scope of the talent represented here," she said, "I feel like reinforcements have arrived." Given Hughes' membership in the White House Iraq Group, a key part of the Bush administration's Iraq War "sell job," perhaps her choice of imagery isn't surprising. But are her new corporate "troops" well suited for the job of public diplomacy? The January 2007 public diplomacy summit was co-sponsored by the State Department and the PR Coalition, an "ad hoc partnership" of groups representing the public relations, investor relations, lobbying and other communications professions. Nearly 160 PR executives and government officials attended, engaging "in a dialogue over how the private sector can become more involved in and supportive of U.S. public diplomacy," in the words of PR Coalition chair and Accenture PR chief James Murphy. To read the rest of this item, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/node/5967 == BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST == 1. NEW PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: ADDING EXAMPLES OF GREENWASH TO SOURCEWATCH http://www.prwatch.org/node/5968 In the last few weeks we have fielded inquiries from journalists around the world seeking recent local examples of greenwashing. Given that the article on greenwashing has ranked up amongst the top 50 articles in terms of the number of readers over the last few months, we figure it is time to add some recent case studies. So if you have an example that springs to mind, here's your chance to add it to our collection. Please go to http://www.prwatch.org/node/5968 for specifics on what we are looking for help on! SOURCE: Greenwashing Examples for SourceWatch == SPIN OF THE DAY POSTINGS == 1. GOODWORKS MEANS GOOD MONEY FOR ANDREW YOUNG IN NIGERIA http://www.prwatch.org/node/5969 PR executive Andrew Young parlayed his civil rights and liberal political background into a lucrative career representing Wal-Mart Stores, Nike and other corporations. The New York Times examines the role of Young and his firm GoodWorks International in Nigeria, reporting that "GoodWorks is paid to represent many major companies like Chevron, General Electric and Motorola that seek big contracts from the Nigerian government. In addition, executives of GoodWorks have stakes in Nigeria's oil industry, the country's main source of wealth. And several years ago, the firm's chief executive, Carlton A. Masters, started an American company with close relatives of President Obasanjo ... . Mr. Masters said that GoodWorks typically received a 'success fee' equal to 1.5 percent of a contract's value, a fee that can lead to big payouts. In 2005, for example, G.E. Energy, a GoodWorks client, won a $400 million contract to supply generating turbines in Nigeria." SOURCE: New York Times, April 18, 2007 2. HOW HILL & KNOWLTON PIONEERED UNSOUND SCIENCE http://www.prwatch.org/node/5964 In the 1950s, with the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer becoming well established, the tobacco industry was in crisis. Its PR strategy, devised by the firm Hill & Knowlton, was "entangling itself in the manipulation of fundamental scientific processes," as Allan Brandt describes in his new book, "The Cigarette Century." It was Hill & Knowlton's John Hill who "hit on the idea of creating an industry-sponsored research entity. Ultimately, he concluded, the best public relations approach was for the industry to become a major sponsor of medical research." This approach "implied that existing studies were inadequate or flawed," and made the tobacco industry "seem a committed participant in the scientific enterprise rather than a detractor." In 1953, tobacco companies jointly released a Hill & Knowlton-drafted memo that stated, "We always have and always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public health." The industry also created the "Tobacco Industry Research Committee." SOURCE: AlterNet, April 16, 2007 3. AT&T, VERIZON REACH OUT AND CO-OPT SOMEONE http://www.prwatch.org/node/5962 Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick writes that "Astroturf and co-opted groups representing the deaf, disabled, black, low income and others" are "touting a plan to loosen cable franchise rules for the phone companies." He asks, "What do these groups" -- including the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Consumers for Cable Choice, Video Access Alliance, League of United Latin American Citizens, Alliance for Public Technology, National Association of the Deaf, and American Association of People with Disabilities -- "have in common? They all receive funding from AT&T and/or Verizon, and then lobby for them." This "deception ... is about playing on America's caring about the public interest and about minorities getting a fair shake," Kushnick concludes. Worse, "these organizations have very deep-pocketed funders with lobbying groups, PR firms and others to get them the loudest 'volume' in the media or access to regulators and legislators. They often overwhelm the message of independent consumer groups." SOURCE: Nieman Watchdog, April 4, 2007 4. NIH CANCELS CONTRACT WITH CONFLICTED CONSULTANTS http://www.prwatch.org/node/5961 Sciences International -- the firm that evaluated the safety of certain chemicals for the U.S. Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human reproduction, "helping the government determine whether they pose dangers to reproduction and newborn babies" -- has been fired by the federal government. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) and others had raised conflict-of-interest concerns, as Sciences International was doing government work while "on the payroll of Dow Chemical, BASF, 3M and other companies that produce some of the chemicals under scrutiny." EWG director Richard Wiles said, "Protecting the public health is one of those jobs that can't be farmed out to contractors who have huge conflicts of interest with polluters and chemical makers." Sciences International "was in the fourth year of a $5 million, five-year contract" with the National Institutes of Health, which houses the reproductive health center. SOURCE: Washington Post, April 14, 2007 5. FORMER PRESIDENT TO ADDRESS WASHINGTON TIMES BIRTHDAY BASH http://www.prwatch.org/node/5959 Former president George H. W. Bush will deliver the keynote address at the 25th anniversary celebration for The Washington Times (TWT) newspaper, which is owned by a company affiliated with Reverend Sun Myung Moon. One former reporter with the paper, George Archibald, recently wrote, "I cannot think of a worse period in the TWT newsroom's history since the paper's founding in May 1982 in terms of low reporter and editor morale and low productivity when it comes to really important breaking news scoops." Moon has sunk approximately $3 billion into the paper, which suffers from low circulation. However, Bill Berkowitz notes that "Moon is clearly still drawing A-listers into his sphere, as evidenced by the upcoming appearance of George H.W. Bush at the paper's anniversary bash." Moon will also be in attendance and address the celebration. SOURCE: Media Transparency, April 12, 2007 6. LAST U.S. NEWSPAPER BUREAU IN CANADA TO CLOSE http://www.prwatch.org/node/5957 The Washington Post will close its Toronto bureau this summer, and with it, end direct coverage of Canadian issues by American newspaper correspondents. Permanent bureaus will be replaced by wire services, contract writers, freelancers and reporters deployed to cover specific events. Jill Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor correspondent in the Middle East, found an estimated 10 percent drop in foreign bureaus in the U.S. print media since 2000 and about a 30 percent decrease in the number of correspondents over the same time period. This trend has accelerated thanks to the costs of maintaining coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no end in sight for those conflicts. "The thing you lose when you close a bureau or cut a beat is you lose expertise and you lose your attention," explained Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute. "The value of the bureau is that when a newspaper plants a reporter somewhere, they're saying they think the place is important and what is happening in the place is newsworthy." SOURCE: The Toronto Star, April 3, 2007 7. EUROPEAN BAN ON DRUG ADS UNDER PRESSURE http://www.prwatch.org/node/5955 Later this month, proposals "that would jeopardise the current ban on direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs" in the European Union will be unveiled, reports Hannah Brown. The European Commission, which drafts legislation for the European Parliament, suffered a humiliating defeat when similar proposals to weaken the ban were resoundingly rejected in 2002. The commission is expected to propose that drug companies be allowed to provide "information," but not engage in product-specific advertising. "There is no discussion of whether industry is going to be an unbiased source about its own or other products or decisions not to treat," said Barbara Mintzes from the University of British Columbia. A coalition of public health groups opposing the anticipated changes argue that "relevant, comparative and appropriate information on health issues cannot be provided by drug companies," because they focus on promoting their product and ignore alternative, non-drug treatments. SOURCE: British Medical Journal (sub req'd), March 31, 2007 8. AP PHOTOGRAPHER MARKS ONE YEAR IN U.S. PRISON CAMP http://www.prwatch.org/node/5954 For one year, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been "held at a prison camp in Iraq by U.S. military officials who have neither formally charged him with a crime nor made public any evidence of wrongdoing," AP reports. Hussein "was taken prisoner in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006." The director of the Committee to Protect Journalists commented, "It's unfathomable to me why, after an entire year, there has been no progress in terms of the legal process moving ahead." A Pentagon spokesperson pointed to four reviews of Hussein's case, each of which "determined Hussein represented an imperative threat to security and recommended continued detention," he said. AP, "numerous journalism organizations ... and many newspapers," have called for Hussein's release. AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said, "The absence of evidence leads to the conclusion that Bilal is being held because of the photographs he took for the AP -- which were published around the world -- and which were part of AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning submission in 2005." SOURCE: Associated Press, April 11, 2007 9. IRAQ: WHY THE MEDIA FAILED http://www.prwatch.org/node/5953 "It's no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media," observes Gary Kamiya. "Why did the media fail so disastrously in its response to the biggest issue of a generation? To answer this, we need to look at three broad, interrelated areas, which I have called psychological, institutional and ideological. The media had serious preexisting weaknesses on all three fronts, and when a devastating terrorist attack and a radical, reckless and duplicitous administration came together, the result was a perfect storm." In the "psychological" category, he points to "the subtle, internalized, often unconscious way that the media conforms and defers to certain sacrosanct values and ideals. ... It's reflected in a cautious, centrist media that defers to accepted national dogmas." Institutionally, "The decline of newspapers, the rise of infotainment, and media company owners' insistence on delivering high returns to their shareholders have diminished resources and led to a bottom-line fixation unconducive to aggressive reporting." And ideologically, "the U.S. media works within a tiny ideological spectrum on the Middle East, using the same center-right and right-wing sources again and again." SOURCE: Salon.com, April 10, 2007 10. SWIFT BOAT FIRM HELPS ABSTINENCE GROUP COURT PUBLIC OPINION http://www.prwatch.org/node/5951 "Using membership dues paid in part by federal tax dollars, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) hired the Washington, DC, public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts," writes Scott Swenson. CRC -- best known as the PR firm for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who smeared 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry -- will be heading a "proactive rapid response initiative to counteract negative attacks on abstinence education," reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. The Nation's blog notes that the formation of NAEA and its hiring of a well-connected conservative PR firm comes after "a frigid winter for the abstinence-only crowd." The Government Accountability Office criticized the funding of abstinence-only programs without checking their "education materials for scientific accuracy," while the Institute of Medicine faulted abstinence programs in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as jeopardizing "the vitally important end of saving lives." That's not to mention that the abstinence-only programs "favored by Republicans and their conservative allies have lost momentum with the Democratic takeover of Congress," as O'Dwyer's observes. SOURCE: RH Reality Check blog, April 4, 2007 == UPCOMING EVENTS == STAUBER SPEAKING IN SAN FRANCISCO ON THE IRAQ WAR - 'WAR IS SELL' Tuesday, April 24, 2007, 5:30 p.m. John Stauber founded the Center for Media and Democracy in 1993 and has written about war and propaganda for over a decade. In his view the Bush administration has delivered defeat in Iraq by becoming entrapped in its own propaganda. He will examine how the U.S. media often behave like a propaganda arm of the government, and how recent attacks on independent journalists led CMD to launch the Defend the Press campaign. He will also talk about how the Democratic and Republican Parties are framing the war in Iraq for the 2008 elections. Location: CommonWealth Club, 595 Market Street, San Francisco, CA Event URL: http://commonwealthclub.org/mlf/#stauber -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Weekly Spin is compiled by staff of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), a nonprofit public interest organization. To subscribe, visit: http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
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Beth Schmillen

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Re: Progressive Liberals Post Here Thread!!! Open Discussion!!!
5/2/2007 7:44:05 PM
"A Nativity Potpourri" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Frank R. Zindler The Probing Mind, December 1986 Copyright © 2006 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Beth's comment 1st!! (smile) Isn't Nativity normally thought of at Christmas time? But it's going to be mother's day... and I've been posting to forums and thanking people for congratulating me for being one of the Weekly Parade of Shining Stars ~ and Jenny here at Adland who has Cherubs, Angels and nativities hand painted from Spain... had posted and then I was at LaNells Mothers Day Forum ... So, here is one post regarding a Mother ~ Mary whose mothers name was Anna, her father's name Juachim (sp?) ++++++++++++XXXXXXXXXXXXXX======++++++++++++++ "A Nativity Potpourri" The Solstice/Christmas season is a time of more than usual merriment for callers of my Dial-An-Atheist service in Columbus, Ohio. At that time, my messages (which usually change daily) deal mostly with the nativity legends and other absurdities associated with the holiday of Christmas. Some of the messages are serious in tone, but many of them are satirical. For this special December article, I have adapted a number of these messages - both serious and satirical. The Births Of The Messiah The oldest of the gospels, the Gospel of Mark, knows almost nothing of the ancestry, birth, or childhood of Jesus. It knows nothing of any Joseph, the carpenter father of the would-be Messiah, and only once mentions that Jesus' mother was reported to be named Mary [Mark 6:3]. Neither does the latest of the gospels, John's, [1] in which Jesus practically falls out of the sky fully formed, seem to know much about his human origins. Although Jesus is said to have had a father named Joseph and an un-named mother, as well as brothers, John is more concerned with proving the divine and eternal existence of Jesus than to give him a human biography. Only the gospels of Matthew and Luke (among the "canonical" gospels) have given Jesus ancestries and childhoods. Why is this? At the time Mark was written, it was still supposed that the end of the world was near, and that any day Jesus would return trailing clouds of glory. There was no need for biography, only a need to heed the warning, "Be alert, be wakeful. You do not know when the moment comes... you do not know when the master of the house is coming... Keep awake." [Mark 13:33-37] By the time the authors of Matthew and Luke got around to writing their own gospels -- even though they plagiarized most of the gospel of Mark, including the passages indicating the world would soon end -- it had become embarrassingly clear that the world had NOT ended, and that Christians might be in for a long wait. Now evidence was needed to show that this prophet so tardy in returning really had been the Messiah, the Christ - "the anointed one" - for whom everybody had been waiting. More urgently, evidence was needed to encourage people to continue to wait. "Evidence" had to be added to flesh out the gospel skeleton provided by Mark. For this purpose, both the genealogies and the birth stories were created -- partly out of thin air, and partly out of the pagan and Jewish mythologies which so permeated the Greco-Roman empire of which Matthew and Luke were a part. The most critical need was for a genealogy proving that Jesus was of the lineage of David, since it was widely believed that the Messiah would be a descendent of the lascivious king. So the genealogies were the first additions to be forged and added to the Markan account. Although both Matthew and Luke had copies of Mark's gospel, they did not know of each other's efforts. Fortunately for those of us who value truth, they were unable to conspire with each other to invent a consistent genealogy, and the genealogies they forged contradict each other almost totally -- making it now obvious that both authors were liars. [See the accompanying "No Contradictions Here?"] Despite the contradictions, the two Davidic genealogies did their job for a while. But rather soon it was not enough to prove that Jesus had been the Messiah -- especially since his career had been such a fizzle. It became necessary to prove that Jesus had been a god. This required the addition of extra miracles, fulfilled prophecies, and legends to the basic story told by Mark and the first editions of Matthew and Luke. Some problems had to be solved, however. Christianity Christianity Home Being Seen Bible & Jesus Myth Biblical Contradictions Christian Fish Daniel in the Debunker's Den Did Jesus Exist? Fundamentalism Hang 'Em All How Jesus Got A Life Mary "Faker" Eddy Nativity Potpourri ((( the above list is links of the actual website page )))) see url below...... Origins of Mormonism Race & Religion The Real Bible Rehnquist & Ten Taboos The Twelve: Further Fictions Spiritual Guide to Gracious Living Where Jesus Never Walked (((( end of list from above!!!))))) In the ancient world, anybody who was anybody -- even mortals -- supposedly had been born of a virgin. Not only the Egyptian Horus, the Greek Dionysus, Buddha, and the Persian sun-god Mithra -- so popular in the Roman Empire at the time of the evangelists -- had been born of virgins; even Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were believed to have lacked human paternity! So a virgin-birth story was made up for Jesus. The only problem, however, was the fact that a virginal birth of Jesus vitiated the genealogies which had previously been concocted. For the genealogies to have force, Jesus had to be the biological son of Joseph, the biological son of Jacob (or Heli, take your pick!), and so on back to David. But if Jesus had been born of a virgin, since both of the genealogies in the New Testament (NT) are genealogies of Joseph, it follows that the genealogies could no longer prove the Davidic descent of Jesus, if Jesus were not the son of Joseph. What to do? The smartest thing to have done would have been to remove the genealogies. But there were too many copies floating around to be able to get away with that. In fact, the oldest Greek and Syriac manuscripts we have of Matthew say plainly that Joseph begat Jesus. So the mythologists had to content themselves with rewording the genealogies at the critical points to imply a virginal origin of Jesus, and hope that no one would notice that the remainders of the genealogies were now "inoperative" - to borrow a term from Richard Nixon. Thus, verse 16 in Chapter 1 of Matthew reads, in one of the oldest surviving manuscripts (the Codex Sinaiticus Syriacus), "Jacob [was the father] of Joseph, and Joseph, to whom Mary, a virgin, was betrothed, was the father of Jesus." This was later changed in a number of different ways, but the most commonly used Greek manuscript reads, "Jacob [was the father] of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus called Messiah." So it was that Jesus came to possess the distinction needed in order to receive the Good Universe-Keeping Seal of Approval: a virgin birth. That the Josephan genealogies are wholly irrelevant if Jesus is not the biological son of Joseph seems to be noticed only by heretics. Prophecies Of Jesus? In the nativity fictions as elsewhere in the gospel stories, the evangelists sought to bolster their defense of the messiahship and divinity of their client by showing that he was the fulfillment of various Old Testament (OT) prophecies. Since space allows us only to touch upon this interesting facet of our story, we wish to remind readers of the fact that a very detailed and devastating analysis of these "prophecies" was done two centuries ago, by Thomas Paine, one of the non-Christian Fathers of our Republic. Paine's analysis was published as Part III of The Age of Reason and was titled, appropriately, Examination of the Prophecies. Just try to find it in your neighborhood library! [2] The first alleged OT prophecy of Jesus that I wish to consider is in Matt. 2:23. After claiming that Jesus and his family returned from Egypt to Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, Matthew comments, "this was to fulfill the words spoken through the prophet: 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'" Unfortunately for our evangelist, there is no such prophecy to be found in the entire OT. In fact, the village of Nazareth is completely unknown before the writing of the NT. Now you might think that this would be very embarrassing to theologians and the makers of bibles. But in fact, such inconveniences don't seem to faze them at all. In the margin of my King James bible, right beside Matthew's Nazarene pseudoquotation, is a reference to Judges 13:5 -- allegedly the source of the quote. Turning to Judges Chapter 13, what do we find? Do we find anything about Nazareth? Do we find anything about a Messiah? Do we find anything at all referring to the time of Jesus? You guessed it! The answer is "no"! We do, however, find a prophecy addressed to the barren wife of a guy named Manoah, telling her that despite her sterility, she is going to become the mother of Samson. The passage reads, "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite consecrated to God from the day of his birth." Our evangelist either did not know that the Hebrew word nazir was unrelated to the Aramaic-Greek place-name Nazara or Nazareth, or he was dishonestly trying to fool his readers. A nazirite is merely a hippy-type ascetic -- devoted to god and the avoidance of alcohol and personal hygiene. A nazirite is not the same thing as a Nazarene. Perhaps the best known but most misunderstood OT proof-text claimed to be a prediction of Jesus and his virgin birth is the passage in Isaiah, Chapter 7, verse 14. According to Matt. 1:23, Isaiah is supposed to have said, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel." But when we turn to the Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14, we find a somewhat different reading: Behold, the young girl [no specification of virginity] is with child, and will give birth to a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel. [my translation] The differences are striking. Whereas Matthew has the term "virgin," meaning a woman who has never had sexual intercourse, the Hebrew has the word alma -- a word which simply means a young woman. Hebrew has a word for virgin -- bethulah -- and Isaiah would certainly have used it if "virgin" is what he meant. But far more important than the difference in the type of woman involved is the verb in the sentence. Matthew reads Isaiah with a future verb, as though Isaiah is predicting the distant future. But Isaiah tells us the young girl is already pregnant. If Jesus is the babe in question, this is the longest pregnancy in history, and the really miraculous part of the nativity story has been overlooked for nearly two millennia! We may note a disagreement also as to just who it is that will do the Emmanuel-calling: In Matthew we read "they will call his name Emmanuel," as though it is something that undefined people in the future will do. But in Isaiah the Hebrew reads "she will call" -- meaning the mother of the child. Since Mary did not name her baby Emmanuel, we see how irrelevant this prophecy is to the case of Jesus. Moreover, no one in the NT ever refers to Jesus as "Emmanuel." The only occurrence of the word in the entire NT is right here, in this misquotation from Isaiah. Finally, we may note that Isaiah's prophecy is aimed at King Ahaz, who is told that before the child Emmanuel grows up, "desolation will come upon the land before whose two kings you cower now." [New English Bible (NEB)] There is no hint whatsoever that events hundreds of years in the future are being predicted. The whole Geschmutz deals with Ahaz, King of Judah, and the mess he was in. No Jesus or Messiah is to be found either in the vocabulary or the context. (skip sidebar) Follow That Star! Adapted from a Christmas Dial-an-Atheist message. We are come, once again, unto the silliest season of the ecclesiatical year -- the season when preachers begin to read aloud the birth legends in the gospels of Matthew and Luke which purport to tell of the miraculous birth of Jesus. It is interesting that the oldest of the gospels, Mark, knows nothing of these legends, and it was only later -- after the fish story had grown with the retelling -- that Matthew and Luke were written, with their contradictory versions of the genealogy and the birth of Jesus. In chapter 1 of Matthew, we begin with an imaginary genealogy -- totally at odds with the one in the third chapter of Luke, and grouping the generations into what it claims are three groups of 14 generations between Abraham and Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the author doesn't count very well, since only 41 generations are named between Abraham and Jesus, and there is no way to make 3 x 14 = 41! We then read the myth of the virgin birth and are told that a supposedly unfulfilled prophecy -- that a virgin shall conceive and have a son name Emmanuel -- is actually fulfilled in Jesus, a guy who never was called Emmanuel! We then proceed to the wonderful story of the Magi, or astrologers, who come from the East to Herod, seeking the "King of the Jews." Matthew 2:9 reads: The star which they [the astrologers] had seen at its rising went ahead of them until it stopped above the place where the child lay. This following-the-star story is the most delightfully mad fairy tale known to me. How does one follow a star, anyway? If you start to follow a star, such as described here, shortly after its rising you will begin to head east (after all, it is said to have risen in the east). Thus, the Magi would have begun to head back home to Iran. By midnight, however, the star would have been south of our wise guys and the Magi would have been heading toward Saudi Arabia. As the night wore on toward morning, they would head westward toward the Mediterranean Sea. With the beginning of a new night of travel, this mad hatter behavior would replay again, the path of our unwise men describing a series of curlicues on the earth's surface. Depending on how fast they walked, how regular their rate, the absolute sizes of these curlicues would differ greatly, and the final destinations would be incredibly different. Even allowing for the miraculous stopping of the star over the nativity scene -- an impossibility of literally astronimical dimensions -- how would the wise men know which house was under it? Every time they came to a house apparently under the star, if they just walked around to the other side of the house, they would find the star apparently had moved to be over the next house, and so on! If there are any true believers reading this message, I have a challenge. Tonight go out and try to follow a star -- any star except the North Star. See where it gets you! On second thought, don't exclude the North Star. Go for it! When you get to Santa Claus's house, give my regards to the elves. Bethlehem And The Roman Census Having seen how the genealogies of Jesus came to be invented and how the authors of Luke and Matthew twisted OT passages into prophecies of Jesus, we proceed to the question of why Jesus was made to have his debut in Bethlehem. Because it was supposed that the Messiah would be a descendant of David, it was natural for the evangelists to search the scriptures to hunt for Davidic details which they could use in support of the case of Jesus. That they would have to grasp at straws should not surprise us, but what does surprise us is the fact that some incredibly shaky reeds have served the Christian apologists so well over the centuries. Long before the time of the evangelists, the village of Bethlehem in Judaea had been known as "the City of David." So it was only to be expected that apologists should try to find a tie-in between Bethlehem and the Messiah to come. As Matthew searched the (bull)rushes of scripture, he found a weak reed in the Book of Micah: But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, small as you are to be among Judah's clans, out of you shall come forth a governor for Israel... [Micah 5:21; NEB] Unfortunately for Matthew, Micah was not referring to a city, but rather to a tribe or clan descended from a guy named Bethlehem. In I Chronicles 4:4 we learn that Bethlehem was the son of Hur by his wife Ephrathah. Although the context of Micah 5 gives no indication that a distant future is being predicted, Matthew took the passage, changed Bethlehem Ephrathah into Bethlehem in Judaea (thus making it a city instead of a person), added part of a passage from II Samuel 5:2, and came up with: For thus it is written by the prophet: "And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you will come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel." [Matt. 2:5-6] Thus biographies of Jesus came to be fabricated in which the would-be savior was born in Bethlehem. Matthew [2:11] takes care of this in straight-forward manner, having Jesus born in a house in Bethlehem, as though that is where his parents lived. Luke, however, seems to have heard a tradition that Joseph had been living in Nazareth in the northern kingdom of Galilee, and so he has to contrive an incredibly wacky story to have Jesus be born in Bethlehem in satisfaction of the pseudoprophecy in Micah. In order to move Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Luke turns the entire Roman Empire upside-down. In Luke Chapter 2 we read: In those days a decree was issued by the Emperor Augustus for a registration to be made throughout the Roman world. This was the first registration of its kind; it took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria. For this purpose everyone made his way to his own town; and so Joseph went up to Judaea from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, to register at the city of David, called Bethlehem, because he was of the house of David by descent; and with him went Mary who was betrothed to him. She was expecting a child… [Luke 2:1-5; NEB] In contrast to the legend in Matthew, Luke has Jesus born in a stable and laid in a manger, and there is no hint that Joseph had a house of his own in Bethlehem. In fact, we are told that there was no room for the holy family in the inn -- a detail which would be quite irrelevant if Matthew's version were correct. Luke's deception would have been more successful had his knowledge of Roman history been less defective. Although Augustus ruled from 44 or 42 BCE until 14 CE, there is no record of any empire-wide census ever having taken place. While Quirinius, as governor of Syria, did conduct a census, it was in the years 6-7 CE -- 10 or 11 years after the death of Herod. It will be recalled that Herod supposedly still was king of Judaea at the time of Jesus' birth, and he allegedly ordered a slaughter of all boys two years old or under. [See accompanying "Jesus The Twelve-Year-Old"] Apart from the minor difficulty that Herod never did any such thing -- his biographers would have just loved to have added one more sin to Herod's catalog -- there is the problem that Herod died in the year 4 BCE. So Jesus could hardly have been born both in the reign of Herod and at the time of the Census of Quirinius in 6-7 CE! There is another minor problem. Although Quirinius did conduct a census, it was a census of Judaea, not Galilee, and there would have been no reason for Joseph to go from one jurisdiction to the other. He could have stayed in Nazareth -- assuming of course that there was a Nazareth at the time. Although we have archeological evidence of Stone-Age and Bronze-Age occupation at modern-day Nazareth, and of occupation from the second century on, no certain archeological evidence has yet been found to show that there was a city called Nazareth in the year 1 CE. No building of any kind datable to the first centuries BCE or CE has ever been found at "Nazareth." We conclude this critique of the nativity tale in Luke by noting that the Romans were not excessively stupid people, and would never have ordered anything so insane as a census which required everyone to return to his ancestral city. The Empire would have fallen apart if, in the primitive state of contemporary transport, Spaniards had to return from Egypt, people at the Indian frontier had to return to North Africa, etc. There is absolutely no extrabiblical scrap of evidence to support such a hare-brained practice. It is sometimes claimed that an ancient papyrus (Lond. 904, 20f) describes such a census. What that papyrus actually describes, however, is a so-called kata oikian census conducted in Egypt in the year 104 CE. In that census, according to Raymond E. Brown [The Birth of the Messiah, Doubleday, 1977, p. 549], temporary dwellers in various towns had to return to the cities in which they had their regular domiciles in order to be registered. The census does not appear to have extended beyond the borders of Egypt. There is nothing in that papyrus or elsewhere to make one conclude that the author of Luke knew what he was writing about or that he wrote truly. Careful study of the nativity tales in the gospels makes it evident beyond question by objective scholars that the stories of the birth of Jesus are on no firmer foundation than those told about Horus or Buddha. Persons wishing to understand the origins of the Christ Myth might do well to examine the way in which the myth of the "childhood" of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has developed in our own times. No Contraditions here? The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke compared [adopted from Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah]. Fundamentalists claim that there is no contradiction between these two genealogies! Those who are capable of reading try to argue that the genealogy in Luke is really that of Mary. For an answer to that argument, see the accompanying "Jesus the Son-In-Law." Luke 1. Jesus 2. Joseph 3. Heli 4. Matthat * 5. Levi * 6. Melchi 7. Jannai 8. Joseph 9. Mattathias * 10. Amos * 11. Nahum 12. Hesli 13. Naggai 14. Maath * 15. Mattathias 16. Semein 17. Josech 18. Joda 19. Joanan 20. Rhesa 21. Zerubbabel 22. Shealtiel 23. Neri 24. Melchi 25. Addi 26. Cosam 27. Elmadam 28. Er 29. Joshua 30. Eliezer 31. Jorim 32. Matthat * 33. Levi * 34. Simeon 35. Judah 36. Joseph 37. Jonam 38. Eliakim 39. Melea * 40. Menna * 41. Mattathan 42. Nathan 43. David 44. Jesse 45. Obad 46. Boaz 47. Salmon 48. Nahshon 49. Amminadab * 50. Admin * 51. Arni * 52. Hezron 53. Perez 54. Judah 55. Jacob 56. Isaac 57. Abraham Matthew 1. Jesus 2. Joseph 3. Jacob 4. Matthan 5. Eleazar 6. Eliud 7. Achim 8. Zadok 9. Azor 10. Eliakim 11. Abiud 12. Zarubbabel 13. Shealtiel 14. Jachoniah 15. Josiah 16. Amos 17. Manasseh 18. Hezekiah 19. Ahaz 20. Jotham 21. Uzziah 22. Joram 23. Jehoshaphat 24. Asaph 25. Abijah 26. Rehoboam 27. Solomon 28. David 29. Jesse 30. Obed 31. Boaz 32. Salmon 33. Nohshon 34. Amminadab 35. Aram 36. Hezron 37. Perez 38. Judah 39. Jacob 40. Isaac 41. Abraham Luke's list continues back to a mystical total of 77 generations, to Adam, who in turn is the "son of God." Asterisks indicate names missing in some versions, manuscripts, or citations of Luke. Matthew claims there were three sets of 14 generations in his genealogy from Abraham to Jesus, but lists only 41 names! Jesus The Son-in-law Adapted from a Christmas Dial-an-Atheist message. When the two genealogies of Jesus were fabricated by the authors of Matthew and Luke, the mythmakers contradicted each other almost totally, but did agree in one thing: Namely, they both traced Jesus' lineage through Joseph, even though one says Joseph's father was named Jacob and the other says Heli. For centuries the churches have lied about these contradictions and have taught that the genealogy in Luke is actually that of Mary, and that what the text really means to say is that Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli. There is, of course, no evidence for this whatsoever. The text in English reads simply: "Joseph, son of Heli, son of Matthat, son of Levi," and so on. Now both the Hebrew and the Greek languages have perfectly good words for "son-in-law" and surely would have used them if that is what they had intended. Furthermore, the only time the name Heli is mentioned in the entire Bible is here in Luke 3, verse 23. So apologists can't cite other texts to support the notion that Joseph was really Heli's son-in-law, or that the Greek word huios used here doesn't really mean "son." But there is a funny side to this attempted imposture to save the inerrancy of scripture. When one consults the Greek text itself, one discovers that the word son is used only once in the entire genealogy! That is to say, when we read in English: "A son of B, son of C," and so on, the Greek text actually reads: "A son of B of C of D," etc. The idea "son of" is sort of dittoed, so that whatever the word huios in Greek is supposed to mean, its meaning is to be dittoed all the way through to the end of ghe genealogy. Applying the so-called logic of the apologists to the case, we would find that Adam was god's son-in-law, not his son! And since the word they say actually means "son-in-law" is printed out only once -- when describing the relationship between Jesus and Joseph -- we would have to conclude that Jesus was actually the son-in-law of Joseph! We never even knew that Joseph had a daughter, let alone that Jesus had married her. If Jesus really did marry a woman, he couldn't have been born of a virgin. Due to chromosomal problems, only females can result from virgin births! Jesus The Twelve-year-old Adapted from a Christmas Dial-an-Atheist message. If Isaiah actually had Jesus in mind when he prophesied that people would "call his name Emmanuel," we are forced to conclude that Isaiah was wrong. Jesus was never called Emmanuel. But then he wasn't called Jesus either -- at least not after he was about three or four years old. Although none of the gospels record the fact, it is certain beyond question that Jesus almost always was referred to by the appellations as as "the twelve-year-old," or "the twenty-two-year-old." The curious fact derives from the circumstance that Herod, King of the Great State of Wickedness when Jesus was born, had all the kids of Jesus' age killed, for fear that one of them would become "King of the Jews," as had been falsely predicted by certain "wise men" and prophets. Jesus happened to escape the massacre because he and his parents were on vacation in Egypt checking out some delta investment acreage. They didn't get back to Palestine until all the funerals were over and Herod himself had died. When Mary tried to enroll Jesus in kindergarten at the Caesar Augustus Playtime Academy, the principal of the school was completely stymied. "A five-year-old!" he exclaimed. "We don't have any other five-year-olds this year, and we can't waste a whole classroom on one kid. You'll have to put him in first grade with the six-year-olds." And so, all through first grade Jesus was known as "the five-year-old" -- the only one in the whole country. The next year, when all his other classmates had turned seven, Jesus became known as "the six-year-old." And so it went. Year after year, his name changed to reflect his age and his uniqueness. Considering that he never had any playmates his same age, is it any wonder that the thirty-three-year-old came to a bad end? Notes: [1] For the sake of simplicity, we shall refer to "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" as if they were real authors of the gospels which belatedly came to bear their names. In point of fact, there is no evidence to support the notion that any gospel was written by a man bearing the superscribed name. To the contrary, it is evident that all of the gospels are composite creations, the composition of each involving several authors and editors. [2] Copies of my annotated edition of Paine's Part III of The Age of Reason can be purchased from this Web-site (click here). ISBN 0-910309-70-1 Stock #5575 #12.00 Copyright © 2006 American Atheists, Inc. All rights reserved. [text only] http://rc10.overture.com/d/sr/?xargs=15KPjg1nhSt5auwuf0L%5FiXEbqUkwwB4u%5FF9Llue5J8G6Av8XoeWPYuPa7By%5FVIWe1m7AqlufqR%2DaIVOqz2n%5F%2DUFBCMQVKXG%2DD7yt2QwNVscvbnAJUOl%2Dxun72wwJYJYz1SdD%5FkdJ6OYNyPMBbND3Fdr9kOzQvIqvwwlIv8kKVBf%2DKHmxYtrzOSIo1Vqa0hl52bJJ4fG%2DhYf8%5FLnn7SNNxK1MMy16q6b2RKfXLhoCwS9RjXO2Mn4%5FeOONZY5%2Dy105BIUtXjxJ0DN1LC%2DfVC2C4%2E&yargs=www.atheists.org Note::: Yes this is Copyright material but it is posted here as though it is resource material to get back to... because the web as it is... getting back to reference links is almost impossible sometimes... Atheists have a Great sense of Humor!! Beth
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