(no subject)

Virtually everything that Jesus says about the Old Testament law is geared towards encouraging a spiritual, rather than literal, interpretation.

Indeed, in the Gospel of John the idea of interpreting Jesus' words literally is mocked. For example, in John 3 a member of the Sanhedrin (who we can assume is reasonably well-educated and intelligent) is shown having trouble understanding that Jesus is using "born again" as a metaphor.

In several cases, his emphasis is on how people are harmed by the strict literalistic interpretation of the law. In the argument over picking wheat on the Sabbath, he even demonstrates how David, the pinnacle of Jewish identity, bent the Sabbath rules to keep from starving. He then cites the prophet Hosea, who wrote that God 'desires mercy, not sacrifice.' His message is that the Sabbath rules were never meant to be used to keep people from doing what they must do to live.

In his comments about divorce, he asserts that it is something which Moses put in the law, not God. This alone demonstrates that he does not believe that the scripture is the literal and infallible word of God.

When his disciples are criticized for eating without washing their hands, he argues that it is far worse for people to spread evil teachings than to eat with unwashed hands. He then cites Isaiah (another prophet) to accuse the Pharisees of promoting teachings which are not those of God but "rules taught by men."

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus illustrates how a priest or Levite would be required to walk past a man beaten and left for dead by the roadside, in order to preserve his "ritual purity." Jesus used the image of a Samaritan to make his point, because Samaritans were held with disdain by the people of Judea or Galilee. The Samaritan, though he might be unclean or apostate in the Judean mindset, is more of a 'loving neighbor' than the priest or Levite. This is not simply agitation against the priestly class (though it is that too) but an indictment of the mindset that puts scripture over human suffering.

I have in the past argued that Jesus was a member of a contemporary "liberal" rabbinical tradition (exemplified by Rabbi Hillel). This view sees God's Law as an eternal spiritual fountain of divine guidance, and the written law as but one instance of it. So Jesus' goal was to see past the written code to the spiritual laws underneath.

Previously I said that I thought that perhaps Jesus was being sarcastic when he said that "not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law," but now I believe it is more correct to suggest that he meant instead the spiritual law. He says this in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, which suggested in myriad ways that written law does not go far enough because rote adherence to it does not necessarily make one a better person.

(no subject)

"The actions on the part of the Florida court and the U.S. Supreme Court are unconscionable," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said Thursday, attacking judges who repeatedly had refused to order tube-fed nourishment restored to the brain-damaged woman.

"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay added in a statement issued hours after Schiavo's death at a Florida hospice. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," said the Texan. DeLay was a driving force behind legislation Congress passed two weeks ago that gave federal courts jurisdiction in an attempt to save Schiavo's life.

... DeLay complained of "an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president."

... Sen. Edward M. Kennedy took stronger exception. "I'm not sure what Mr. DeLay meant when he said 'the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,'" the Massachusetts Democrat said in a written statement. "But at a time when emotions are running high, Mr. DeLay needs to make clear that he is not advocating violence against anyone."

from Political Battle in Schiavo Case Rages On

Let's review. A little over a week ago, Congress gave the federal courts jurisdiction over a right-to-die case which should have remained in the state courts. The federal courts refused to touch it and scolded Congress for exceeding its authority. So, since Congress didn't get what it wants, its leaders are hinting at threats of impeachment and are looking at laws to restrict the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts.

I think it's not long before we have open warfare between the federal courts and Congress.

Meanwhile, Tom DeLay is under open attack from the Democrats for numerous ethics violations. Things are gonna get ugly.

(no subject)

There are unconfirmed reports now that Pope John Paul II has died.

(no subject)

Scientific American gives up and admits to being dazzled by the evolutionists (thanks to discoflamingo for the link):
Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

The governor of Maine signed a law offering civil rights protection on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Senate and House of Massachusetts have passed a stem cell research bill by a wide enough margin to override the governor's threatened veto.

Plausible Deniability -- perfected.

No evidence of weapons of mass distruction was ever found in Iraq, yet WMDs were cited as the reason for our "pre-emptive" strike. Without a threat to pre-empt, the invasion of Iraq looks like nothing but a move of imperial aggression. The president and former secretary of state and British prime minister and others who publically made the case were either (a) lying or (b) way off.

So yesterday a presidential commission blamed the CIA for massive intelligence failures regarding Saddam Hussein's alleged programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

After a year-long inquiry, the panel warned in a scathing report that the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, based on accusations that turned out to be false, had done damage to US credibility that "will take years to undo."

"We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," the commission said. "We simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude."

The panel warned that US intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of Iran and North Korea -- both locked in nuclear disputes with the United States -- may be "disturbingly" shaky. A chapter on the subject was classified.

from US intelligence 'dead wrong' on Iraq weapons: panel

Today, some fallout from the CIA. Agents' complaints and doubts were dismissed and buried by CIA leadership.

As former secretary of state Colin L. Powell worked into the night in a New York hotel room, on the eve of his February 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council, CIA officers sent urgent e-mails and cables describing grave doubts about a key charge he was going to make

On the telephone that night, a senior intelligence officer warned then-CIA Director George J. Tenet that he lacked confidence in the principal source of the assertion that Saddam Hussein's scientists were developing deadly agents in mobile laboratories.

"Mr. Tenet replied with words to the effect of 'yeah, yeah' and that he was 'exhausted,'" according to testimony quoted yesterday in the report of President Bush's commission on the intelligence failures leading up to his decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.

... That was one among many examples -- cited over 692 pages in the report -- of fruitless dissent on the accuracy of claims against Iraq. Up until the days before U.S. troops entered Iraqi territory that March, the intelligence community was inundated with evidence that undermined virtually all charges it had made against Iraq, the report said.

In scores of additional cases involving the country's alleged nuclear and chemical programs and its delivery systems, the commission described a kind of echo chamber in which plausible hypotheses hardened into firm assertions of fact, eventually becoming immune to evidence.

Doubts on Weapons Were Dismissed