Category Archives: Ideology

Pope’s Scientific Adviser Is Pantheist Malthusian

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A fascinating article on the scientist who advises the Vatican, Hans Schellnhuber, who believes in the Gaia hypothesis (the earth as a living creature), is a climate and population alarmist, and suggests that the population of the world should be 1 billion.

Schellnhuber, a supposed atheist, talks in quite religious terms – using the Hindu deity Shiva to represent physical events that have a negative impact on the earth:

Although effects such as the glaciations may still be interpreted as over-reactions to small disturbances — a kind of cathartic geophysiological fever — the main events, resulting in accelerated maturation by shock treatment, indicate that Gaia faces a powerful antagonist. Rampino has proposed personifying this opposition as Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.”

Of course, he does not mention that Shiva’s destruction is first of all divine  spiritual.

He also does not mention that the West has had the technology to induce massive changes in the environment for some time, and these technologies (mostly derived from weapons research) are far more culpable than anything done by ordinary people carrying on the daily business of living.

Not-so-coincidentally, Schellnhuber, a visiting professor at Oxford, advises former Stasi spy, Angela Merkel.

Worst of all, Schellnhuber is a proponent of world government to tackle climate change.

From the Catholic blog, Rorate Caeli:

Last but not the least he is an advocate of a very real form of “World Government”, also in the name of defeating the climate crisis. His ideas are laid out in “Expanding the Democracy Universe“, where among other things he discusses his dream of an Earth Constitution, a Global Council elected by the people of the whole world, and a Planetary Court with jurisdiction over the whole world and with the power to penalize violations of the “Earth Constitution”.

 

St. Peter Damian On Public Reproof

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I was worrying whether I ought to have criticized Pope Francis.

What right have I to judge his faithfulness to Catholic doctrine, when I am not a Catholic and not a regular church-going Christian either and certainly hold a few heterodox beliefs.

But then I came across this letter by St. Peter Damian, who got a lot of criticism for his forthright denunciation of homosexual clerics in his day (1007-1072 AD).

Unlike Pope Francis who famously said, “who am I to judge,” in reference to homosexuals, St. Peter Damian says, “Who am I not to judge…”.

[Christians are not supposed to “judge” (that is, condemn or consign to damnation), but they are explicitly instructed to “judge” in the sense of reprove, when their reproof might be the only means to save someone from more self-destructive actions.]

… I would surely prefer to be thrown into the well like Joseph who informed his father of his brothers’ foul crime, than to suffer the penalty of God’s fury, like Eli, who saw the wickedness of his sons and remained silent. (Sam 2:4) … Who am I, when I see this pestilential practice flourishing in the priesthood to become the murderer of another’s soul by daring to repress my criticism in expectation of the reckoning of God’s judgement? … How, indeed, am I to love my neighbor as myself if I negligently allow the wound, of which I am sure he will brutally die, to fester in his heart? …[48] “So let no man condemn me as I argue against this deadly vice, for I seek not to dishonor, but rather to promote the advantage of my brother’s well-being. “Take care not to appear partial to the delinquent while you persecute him who sets him straight. If I may be pardoned in using Moses’ words, ‘Whoever is for the Lord, let him stand with me.’ (Ezek 32:26)” [49]

 

 

Yossi Gurvitz: Eliminationism On The Rise In Israel

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From Mondoweiss in 2012, more from former yeshiva student Yossi Gurvitz on why he became radicalized:

Meantime, in Israel we are seeing the Jehovahiztion of the Israeli public. Ignorant, radical Jews are turning more to symbols of Jewish superiority than actual Jewish values. It’s getting harder to be a liberal except in Tel Aviv. Everyone is thinking about a second passport.

This is a spiral that will leave Israel more fanatic, more religious, less able to communicate with the western world– and ironically more part of the extremism of the Middle East. I’ve been writing about the Jewish Brotherhood. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, our extremists have never had to face reality and soften. Because even when they wield power they claim that the real power is the hands of the liberal elites.

Unlike the US, we have no constitution. No Basic Law grants equality. The Israeli religious right has blocked that. The only reason we have freedom of the press is because of the Supreme Court decisions. The right is already using this as a way of attacking the Supreme Court, which is becoming more fearful, less willing to use its power.

Unless something drastic changes, and it could happen– I’m betting on the J14 movement– liberal Israel is dying, and it won’t be in existence in 5, or 10 years. Some elements will be kept as a figleaf, for the Zionist Jehovahist regime. The liberals will leave, those who can.

When that happens, the liberal part of the US will no longer be so willing to defend Israel and its policies. Then without the US, Israel will be hanging by its threat to use nuclear weapons. It will become a second North Korea.

There’s a history here. In 2004 a Maariv columnist demanded that the government nuke France. Because France is an enemy of Israel, and about to collapse into a Muslim Republic, a supporter of Iran– so we should nuke them first. The editor was fired for publishing it after the French ambassador made an official protest. The Foreign Minister [Avigdor Lieberman] suggested when he was in the opposition, that Israel nuke the Aswan dam. So there’s a reason the Egyptians won’t meet him.

[Mondoweiss: Gurvitz also suggests Israel could lose the American right.]

Four days ago a church was desecrated in Jerusalem. As part of a pricetag attack. This happens all the time. When the pricetag people run out of Muslim targets, they will concentrate more on Christian targets. When that happens, the American Christian right will realize that the Israeli right is hostile to Christianity.

Why is all this inevitable?

Zionism as a force is dead. The people who are actually speaking in the name of Zionism are speaking in religious and metaphysical and mystical truths. They are not speaking in the secular Zionist tradition. A poll two weeks ago—about 70 percent consider themselves to be the chosen people. American Jews think we as Jews are chosen to carry out tikkun olam [social justice]. Israeli Jews think something different—we are the chosen people of God, we are chosen to do anything we damn well please. To take people’s land. Take peoples lives. There is actually no mainstream force standing against the Jewish brotherhood.

This is not just the religious people, it’s a large part of the secular people buying into it. Israel’s Jews refuse to accept the legitimacy of the marriage of Jews and non-Jews. You American Jews really don’t understand us. They think we’re gutsier… American Jews… think of Zionist liberals. They’re older, they’re still thinking about the late 70s, early 80s, the golden age of Israel’s liberalism.

You have to understand what the religious right means when they say of leftists, the multitude, they are the erav rav. This means the ones who left Egypt, the mixed multitude. It is a concept in Kabbalah– the Amalekite Jew. A Jew who isn’t really a Jew. He looks like a Jew, thinks he’s a Jew, but he’s an enemy of God. It’s been used in the Knesset, the word erav rav.

If you think this Judaism is the wisdom of Israel, it’s not. This is the Judaism forced underground by the Christian regimes, censored time and again. It’s coming to the surface. Just about everyone knows this code here. What may change the picture is the J14 movement. It’s alive. It will be coming back after Passover. J14 has its faults, but it is the only movement that has put Israeli Arabs speakers out front. Many Palestinian Israelis are not quite happy with the result, but…. once Israelis realize that inequality harms everyone in Israel aside from the 1 percent, then they will begin to see the Palestinian as a partner in struggle. We’ve seen it in the north, if the movement isn’t crushed.

Liberals are dead, socialists are coming up. Most socialists are poised toward equality.

[Mondoweiss:  Tell us your story, Yossi.]

I was born in January 1970 in Petah Tikva. My parents are National Orthodox. My father is an electrical contractor who is in real estate. My mother is a housewife. I studied in the Yeshiva till I had a personal crisis and left the Yeshiva for the army in 1989. It looked like a liberation, strangely enough.

I started to do my bit for leftist ideology and got transferred to the Gaza Strip so I could stop the atrocities. That didn’t work very well. They hid them from me. I did manage to get my commander tried for slapping a Palestinian child. And one day they tried to abandon me in a refugee camp. [An officer] drove me to a refugee camp and told me to step out of the car, “your brother’s over there, go join him.” I cocked the gun, putting a bullet in the chamber. I didn’t point it at him, but he got the message, and he told me to drive back.

Everything I did was supportive of the occupation in every waking moment. I’m still doing penance. That’s the liberal trap. They say to you, You want to change the world, go there, be there. But it’s always compromising. It’s much bigger than you. You will go to prison if you don’t order the bulldozers to demolish the house.

I’m in the Meretz party. Meretz used to embody this liberal thinking. If you want to prevent atrocities, join the fighting units, serve in the territories where you can see atrocities, prevent them. That simply doesn’t happen.

I went to the university and got a degree in history. I had a personal crisis about not getting a master’s degree. I spent several years working in a chemical factory [in a clerical position]. I started blogging in 2002. I was writing on various forums in the 90s. Even before. In 2006 I stared my own blog. Friends of George. It is mainly a Hebrew blog. It quickly gathered steam. During the Second Lebanon war I started writing critically in ways that were not common. That attracted a lot of readers, also including a few death threats.

Recently I had my run in with the law. I was investigated for incitement two months ago.

Tell us about the radicalization of the left.

We see a radicalization on both sides. The leftists are becoming more radical and the right wingers, too. When I radicalized—and I did—I attracted more radicals. I’m going to the demonstrations; that’s the definition of a radical around here. Bil’in is basically a reenactment of the first intifada. Everyone is playing a part. No Palestinian is trying to throw a grenade, and generally in Bilin the soldiers don’t use lethal force….

I have really high hopes for what will happen in the next few months. I’m doing what I’m doing because I think it’s the right thing to do, but the Israeli government is using us to legitimize itself. ‘You see, we’re a democracy.’ The protests have very little influence on the general public. But they’re important because solidarity is important and it gets international coverage, which is always important.

[Mondoweiss: You say we American Jews don’t understand this Judaism. Elaborate.]

Rambam [Maimonides in the 12th century] writes, If a Jew has intercourse with a gentile child three years old and a day, the child should be executed for misleading the Jew, making him sin. Those texts are still valid. We don’t understand them, but they are valid.

These Jews …  took the elements of the religion that were nationalistic and have been slumbering for 100s of years and awakened it. They took the hatred of mankind which had persisted in Judaism for millennia and gave it voice and force. [In the former rabbinical tradition] the rabbis tried to housetrain Jewish messianism. The old way of thinking was, the messiah will lead Jews to victory. The rabbis made the messiah a supernatural being capable of talking to birds and animals. This mystical being was a dam against Jewish messianism in Ashkenazi Judaism, and the eliminationist elements against Christianity were held down by this teaching.

But once Israel was created, many Jews saw it as the end of the three oaths, the Shloshet Ha’Shvuot. Two of these oaths enjoin the Jews not to mass-emigrate to Eretz Yisrael and not to provoke the gentiles. The third orders the gentiles not to treat the Jews too badly.

Now Israel has the right to use force, and every demon that was pushed into the basement is up and has an M16.

– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/the-radicalization-of-yossi-gurvitz#sthash.BPCHaub9.dpuf

Pope Calls Chilean Protesters “Dumb”

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The NY Times on more peculiar conduct from the Pope:

Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse.

“The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

“Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said.”

When Israel Is Mighty

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Transcript of a revealing interview with Israeli writer, Yossi Gurvitz, translated by Dena Shunra. He describes how Talmudic Jews view the non- Jewish world and what Christians should expect in a world where “Israel is mighty.”

[Bolding, paragraphs, and headers are mine. Note that I use the more appropriate word Judaist, rather than Jew.]

THE TALMUD IS NOT IN A CONTINUOUS LINE OF DESCENT FROM THE TORAH
Now, we all know what the rabbis say is the origin of Judaism: Moshe passed the torah down to the elders, the elders passed the torah down to the prophets, etc…all the way down to the Talmud, and there were no changes. The central motif of the Jewish understanding of history is that there were no changes (in the religion). In other words, what the rabbis are saying now are merely minor refinements of what the rabbis had said during the time of the ‘Elders’ – the time of the Mishnah and the Talmud.
FOR JUDAISTS, THE TALMUD TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE TORAH
Now, first of all, the problem with this version of history is that it is completely baseless.
And second of all, that it has a few historical problems and these historical problems continue to this day, due to the fact that Judaism, as a religion, has been frozen in time for the last 1800 years.
Generally speaking, Rabbinical Judaism, as it appears in the Talmud – unlike what is generally taught in secular schools – the source of Judaism is not the Bible.
The source of Judaism is the Talmud.
HISTORY BETWEEN THE TWO TESTAMENTS WAS PRESERVED BY THE CHRISTIANS, NOT BY THE JUDAISTS
The people who wrote the Talmud are the ones who decided what books would be included in the Biblical canon. What they decided wouldn’t go in – didn’t go in.
So, for example, while the Catholic Church included the Books of the Maccabees in its version of the canon, Judaism did not preserve them, and in fact only the Greek version of them was preserved.
Whether there were Hebrew or Aramaic versions of them is an interesting question, but only Christianity preserved them. The Book of Judith. The Book of Tobias. Many other books, mostly dealing with the Jews of the Diaspora didn’t make it into the Jewish Biblical canon, and were only preserved by Christianity.
JUDAIST HISTORY BEFORE RABBINICAL JUDAISM – TALMUDISM – HAS BEEN ERASED
Now, the Judaism that preceded Rabbinical Judaism was pretty much erased from history. In other words, there’s not enough information to know what happened then. We know there were Sadducees, there were Pharisees – the Pharisees are the rabbinical Jews – there were Essenes – we don’t know anything about them for certain, and the reason we don’t know anything about them for certain is, that when their enemies were victorious, the Pharisees established more than 10 religious holidays to celebrate their victories over the Sadducees, they simply erased them from history. So you have to eke out a fragment [of information] out of a fragment [of information], so you can say, “Maybe it was like this” or “Maybe it was like that” – its impossible to know what really happened.
TALMUDISM IS FILLED WITH CONTEMPT FOR NON-JEWISH PEOPLE
What we do know is this: from very early on, Rabbinical Judaism is a Judaism that hates humans. It defines only Jews as humans – only Jews who believe in the religion as humans. Okay, lets get this exactly right: it defines only Jews who believe in the religion and are men – as full humans. And everyone else is some level of ‘other’, that must be pushed aside, or, in extreme cases, destroyed. Rabbinical Jewish law does not prohibit – okay, that’s not accurate. Rabbinical Jewish law prohibits the killing of a non-Jew, but it does not punish a person for doing so. In other words, if you kill a Jew, even a Jewish woman, even the slave of a Jew – and here it’s important to note that Orthodox Judaism has never abolished slavery – then there’s a penalty you have to pay. It could come to execution or it could be a fine. They didn’t have jails. But if you kill a non-Jew then you’re guilty, but there is no penalty. God will punish you. And that is – how shall I put it? – a bit problematic. When you say something is a crime, but there’s no punishment for committing it, then it’s not really a crime. That’s the Talmud.
A NON-JEW CAN BE KILLED WITH IMPUNITY
When you come to the writers of later exegesis, especially the Shulhan Aruch, by that point, he is already saying that there are situations where you can kill a non-Jew with impunity. Of course, it’s written in the 16th century, after the expulsion [of all Jews] from Spain [in 1492 C.E.] so he has to write what he wants to say in coded language. So he calls them “idolaters”. But just so you know, there weren’t any [pagans] left in that part of the world [by that point] – not in Europe, and not in the Muslim world. So he calls them “idolaters” or other such terms, but everyone knows who he’s talking about [non-Jews].
MAIMONIDES  PERMITS ADULT INTERCOURSE WITH THREE-YEAR-OLD GIRLS
The worst case, in my opinion, is the case of Maimonides, who decrees – first of all, he decrees that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a 3-year-old girl. That age of consent is – problematic [?!].
MAIMONIDES DECREES THAT NON-JEWISH THREE-YEAR-OLD FEMALE VICTIMS OF RAPE BY ADULT JEWS SHOULD BE EXECUTED
And second of all, he decrees that if a Jew rapes a three-year-old non-Jewish girl, then she must be executed. Her, not him – because she tempted him to sin. [See this.] And for this reason, you have to treat her like an animal that puts obstacles in a person’s way, and he quotes some verse about a bull or something like that.
THE WAYS OF PEACE
And the Rabbis know that the parts of the religion that are misanthropic, that are discriminatory to non-Jews – pose a problem for them. Because if they try to implement them – there are some rules that are very unpleasant, like that 3 year-old girl we were talking about. If they try to implement them, there will be a pogrom. So to avoid that situation, the Talmud defines two different states of reality. There is one called “Darkei Shalom” (Peaceful Ways). In other words, “This is the actual religious law, this is how you are supposed to act.” “However, because it would cause a huge mess, and people will die, so due to ‘Peaceful Ways’, you don’t act that way. ”
WHEN ISRAEL IS MIGHTY
Now, until what point does the “Peaceful Ways” rule still apply? Just as long as the other situation does not exist, which is “When Israel is Mighty.” That’s when there is a Jewish regime. It is independent, and it is merciless, it can do what it likes. Under those circumstances – its all over, you go back to the letter of the law. No more “Peaceful Ways”, no more nothing. Now, when you think of Jewish history, lots of people talked about the Hasmonean Wars, which is pretty much the only time that Jews wielded weapons, and they think about what the Hasmoneans did to the Hellenized Jews (who assimilated Greek culture) – which was to make them extinct, to destroy them. A small genocide. And I remind people of this frequently, every time Hanukah rolls around. But they didn’t stop there. They embarked on campaign of looting and conquest, and at the beginning, during their first 20 years, wherever they arrived, they would destroy the local temples. It was prohibited for a place that was under Jewish rule to have a Pagan temple. That’s what we’re talking about. They also forced the Edomites to convert to Judaism on pain of death. It was a forced conversion. Something we learn the [Spanish] Inquisition did later on. They took people and told them: ” Either you’re dead, or you’re converting to Judaism”. And things only got worse from there.
A MESSIAH IS WHOEVER CAN GET ISRAEL WHAT IT WANTS
Now, when religious Zionists look at reality, they say: “We’ve got a state. We’ve got weapons. We’ve got a Jewish army. This hasn’t happened for 2000 years”. “What this means is that God wants us to bring about the Messiah, that God wants us to build the temple”. They skip over all the conditions that are imposed by the Talmud on what a Messiah must be, and they go back to Maimonides. And they go back to Maimonides. And Maimonides says, “There is no difference between our time and the time of the Messiah, other than the subordination to kingdoms.” In other words, the only difference between the time of Maimonides – he died in 1204 – and the time of the Messiah, is who is subordinate to whom. Are the Jews subordinate to “kingdoms”, to other nations? Or can they subordinate other nations? And that is how Maimonides begins his Book of Kings. He explains what the rules are for a king, what a king can do. It emerges from the belief that, yes, there can be a king. You don’t have to first have a temple. You don’t need God to come down from the sky and point at someone and say, “That’s the Messiah”. You can have a king, and if he is victorious, then he’ll also be the Messiah. And then you look at what religious Zionists are doing about this. They want a Messiah. They want him now. There must be cleansings. Religious law prohibits contact with non-Jews. Of course, the Kosher laws prohibit you from eating with them. Other laws prohibit you from treating them fairly. You are forbidden to return a lost item to a non-Jew – except in order to “keep the peace.” There is no prohibition from stealing from a non-Jew – except in order to “keep the peace.” You can’t say “hello” to them – unless there is no alternative. And so on and so forth.
PSYCHOTIC EXCEPTIONALISM & BIGOTRY
There are all kinds of prohibitions that are entirely psychotic, that are based on a religion of vengeance. Religious Zionists have a serious problem with the fact that there are non-Jews here. The Land of Israel is supposed to be only for Jews. So, ironically, they would manage to get along with the Muslims, more or less, if we weren’t involved in a military conflict with them. Because according to Judaism, Muslims are not idolaters. Muslims believe in one God. They don’t have idols, they don’t have statues, they don’t have anything like that. So ironically, during the Medieval Era, Jews got along better with Muslims than with Christians. But what can you do? We conquered a territory populated mainly by Muslims, and the Muslims are fighting us – so those defenses fall away. And look, now they are starting to talk about genocide. You have the (book) Torat Hamelech (King’s Torah), which tells you that you can kill children if there is a reason to believe that one day they could cause harm. Now, if you killed someone’s entire family and left only him alive, he will indeed have a reason to cause harm. If you stole his lands, turned him into a refugee, tossed him to Jordan or Lebanon – he will indeed have a reason to cause harm. Many people have said that the book’s arguments are not sound according to religious law, and so on and so forth – but no one really tackled it head-on. And it’s no wonder that it became a best-seller. Because in general, what religious Zionists want is for the Land of Israel to be for Jews only.
JUDAISTS SEE CHRISTIANS AS ARCH-ENEMIES
Now the situation for the Christians, on the other hand, will be really bad, (according to Judaism) they are idolaters, and you will have to kill them, even if they do not resist Jewish rule. In Jerusalem, religious seminary students have a despicable habit: they urinate and defecate on Churches. If you go and talk to the Church staff, you will hear it from every Church. Spitting on clergymen in the street is something that happens every day. If the Priest has the gall to hit the person back, to slap him or something similar, then he is deported, quietly. They cancel his residence permit in the country. If you want to justify a pogrom, all you have to do is say the words “Missionary Threat”. And from that perspective, Christianity, which is the historical arch-enemy of Judaism, is going to get a serious beating once the religious Zionists are in power. The Christian Fundamentalists who send them money apparently don’t understand what they are dealing with. But you know, it’s really a case of “a pox on both your houses”.

Semitic Semantics

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The word Jew is a very protean term, referring at times to race and at times to culture or religion. The correct term today should be Judaic or Judaist.

This leads to constant confusion, misdirection, and contradiction, to the advantage of the ruling class, which claims the mantle of ancient Israel.

But what we call Jews today are a mixed race people quite different from the Hebrew Israelites, who are now, retroactively and erroneously, equated with them.

The correct term for today’s “Jews” should be Judaics or Judaists.

 

ASHKENAZY JEWS

Most of the people who call themselves Jews today have partial descent from converts from Khazaria, a medieval East European kingdom wedged between the Muslim and the Christian world, which chose the Hebrew faith as a way to survive.

The Khazarians intermingled with Eastern European people in the surrounding regions and later moved into Germany, becoming today’s Ashkenazy (European) Jews.

The Ashkenazim constitute much of modern Jewry (Khazarian Judaists), it is said.

This may or may not be true, because statistics about Jews (Khazarians of Judaist culture) seem to vary wildly.

The Khazarian theory of Ashkenazy origin has been vindicated, according to some people, by the research of Israeli geneticist Elhaik, but it has its detractors.

They claim it is simply an anti-Semitic canard.

Even critics of the theory, however, admit that there is ample European (in the maternal line) and “non-Semitic” Middle-Eastern blood (in the paternal line) in modern Ashkenazy Jews (Khazarian Judaists).

But, shockingly, their maternal descent from Europeans means that the Ashkenazim are irrefutably not ethnic Jewish (Judahites), according to Jewish (Judahite) law.

I repeat, the DNA evidence proves that according to Jewish law, Ashkenazim are not of Jewish (Judahite) descent, because Jewish (Judahite) law requires the mother to be Jewish.

SEPHARDIC JEWS

The rest of the modern Jews (Judaics), a far fewer number, is descended from the Edomites (Idumeans) who were living in Judea at the time of Jesus.

That is why they were called Jews, to begin with.

Jew is simply the short form for the word, Judean or “of Judea.”

The word Judean/Jew thus had nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

It referred simply to people living in the region of Judea.

The Idumeans/Edomites living in Judea were forcibly circumcised and incorporated into the Israelite (Hebrew) religion under John Hyrcanus, in the 2nd century BC.

Their numbers included many of the Pharisees who lived in the time of Jesus, most of whom were killed in the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

This was the fate of most of the male population in Jerusalem.

The females were enslaved by the victorious Romans.

The Jewish men who survived the destruction lived on in the land, converting to Christianity and then Islam.

Eventually, they became the people we know today as Palestinians, who are thus also a mixed race, although probably less so than the dispersed Edomites.

The converted Idumeans (including, probably, some Idumean-Israelites) living in Judea were the people whom Jesus claimed in Revelation 3:9  were of the “synagogue of Satan” and were not really Jews (Judahites).

To be clear, in saying this, Jesus was not really referring to the Idumean ethnic heritage.

Some of the Idumeans had mixed with the native Israelites around them by then, so that some of the converts  may actually have been partly descended from the northern Israelite tribes that had been conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC (722 BC) and then dispersed in Assyria, Babylon, and in Israel and Judea.

Credit: keyway.ca

Map Of The Assyrian Empire

These dispersed tribes were the so-called Lost Tribes.

That suggests that some  of the Idumeans too probably had some Israelite or even Judean blood in them.

But Jesus was really talking about the beliefs of the Idumean converts, not their genes.

They followed a mixture of the pure faith taught by Moses and the Prophets with the pagan beliefs of the Canaanites and Hittites, with whom the Edomites, since the days of Esau, had intermarried.

The Idumean (Edomite) converts to Israelite faith were after all descended from Abraham, as they claimed.

But, they were not – and never had been –  descendants of Judah (Judahites).

As I noted earlier, Judahite is one of the two origins of the abbreviated term, “Jew.”

The other is Judean – referring to the area, Judea.

The Idumeans/Edomites  did not follow Jewish customs fully but added pagan beliefs.

These semi-pagan mixed Idumean-Israelites in Judea, along with other Idumean-Israelites in the surrounding regions and in the Hebrew or Israelite diaspora that was settled in Babylon and in Egypt, supposedly emigrated all over the Middle East and into regions of Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany, England) in the centuries immediately after Christ. These dispersed tribes became what we call today Sephardic Jews. Sephardic is derived from the old Jewish name for Spain, Sefarad.

Some claim that the Jews were scattered because the Romans dispersed them, although exiling conquered people was not characteristic of the Romans, who usually left some of the vanquished to till the soil.

Of course, is always possible that the Romans made an exception for the Jews, in response to the ferocity with which they resisted conquest.

More likely, the Jews who intermarried with European women in the first and second centuries after Christ were traders who were Levantine converts, rather than original Israelites of any kind.

In any case, it is a fact that the maternal stock of current Sephardic Jews is European, not Near Eastern, and dates back to this Jewish diaspora.

To repeat, Jewishness is traced through the maternal line, and since these diasporic Idumean-Israelites spawned what we call the Sephardic Jews, they too, by Jewish law, are not Jews.

Like the Ashkenazy, but even more so, the Sephardim took with them the pagan lore of Babylon and Egypt.

This religion contradicted the Torah teachings of the Israelites.

It was replete with astrology, gnosticism, ritual practices, esoteric texts, angelology and demonology.

TALMUDIC JEWS VERSUS TORAH JEWS

Now, the Hebrew Bible of the Ashkenazy and Sephardic Jews is called TaNaKh  and it includes the Law, the Prophets, and other writings.

But these are not held in as much veneration as the interpretations of the TaNaKh by the Jewish sages (Rabbis).

The Rabbinical interpretations were codified in the centuries after 200 AD and form the written text (Talmud) of what in Jesus’ time was still oral and referred to as the Tradition of the Elders.

IDUMEAN JEWS OF JESUS’ TIME VERSUS ASKHENAZY JEWS OF TODAY

Jesus felt that the Elders had subverted the original faith in Yahweh with a ritualistic, formulaic legalism that killed the spirit of true faith and substituted notions of racial purity for purity of faith.

Jesus denounced this perversion of the Hebrew faith in the strongest possible terms.

But since the current crop of Ashkenazy Jews is most likely unrelated to the original Idumean-Israelite Judeans whom Jesus denounced, it is quite incorrect to claim that animosity by non-Jews toward the Ashkenazy leadership today (the Rothschild financial cabal) has anything whatsoever to do with the enmity between the Idumean-Edomite Judeans and Idumean-Israelite Judeans, on the one hand and Jesus, on the other.

In short, the accusation that the Gospels are the origin of current “anti-Semitism” is bogus  and an anti-Christian slander.

The current Jews are not the descendants of the Israelite-Idumean mixture whom Jesus cursed.

They were utterly destroyed in 70 AD.

Moreover, the genealogical records necessary to prove genetic descent from any of the tribes of Israel, were destroyed with the Temple at the time.

Without these, any subsequent claims of descent are either tenuous or completely specious.

What Jesus said then to the Judeans and Judahites of his time does not and can not automatically attach to the Ashkenazy and Sephardim today, on the grounds of genetic descent.

Contemporary Judaists are mostly a Euro-Turko-Mongolic people, with, at most (although not certainly), some small admixture of the original Israelite blood.

This is true also of the Sephardic Jews, who have a better claim to a partial descent from the Idumean-Israelite mixture.

They too cannot be blamed for deicide, as it used to be called.

According to the Gospel, in the final destruction of Jerusalem, all of Jesus’ enemies during his ministry were judged for the blood they had shed in their own life-times.

They were judged, as well, for the blood-shed of all past history, from the archetypal crime of Abel’s murder onward to the death of Jesus.

That chapter in history was closed on the cross.

It is finished, as Jesus said.

Neither the current Ashkenazy Jews nor the current Sephardic Jews have anything to do with it.

But, in so far as they adopt attitudes and beliefs that resemble those of the Pharisees, they, as well as all other people of any or no faith, are culpable for their own wrong beliefs and actions.

To sum up, there is very little or no genetic descent of current Jews from the ancient Idumean-Edomites (and Idumean-Israelites) who persecuted Jesus.

There is only the possibility of  spiritual descent.

And that possibility is shared equally by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and anyone else who hurls curses at Jesus Christ.

Spiritual descent is a matter of choice and belief.

It comes about when people adopt the attitudes and beliefs of the Pharisaic persecutors of Jesus.

TALMUDIC JUDAISM AND KABBALISM

The writings of the Elders were codified in the Talmud in 200 AD and 500 AD, and thereafter, and to them were added, in the later middle ages, texts like the Zohar and Kabbalah.

The Talmud, Zohar, and Kabbalah explicate, in sometimes mystic, sometimes racial, sometimes moral or legal terms, the TaNaKh, formulated in writing some thousand years earlier (approximately 500 BC) by the Hebrew-speaking people that constituted the ancient nation called Israel.

The Talmud, Zohar, and Kabbalah also add completely new teachings, esoterica, occult texts, and mysticism, some of which is deeply antagonistic to the austere spirit of the Torah.

Some of the Talmud’s and Kabbalah’s teachings are truly amoral and perverse.

Others are profoundly wise and could have been spoken by Jesus himself.

The ancients Israelites included both the Judeans (the Israelite tribes living in Judea, descended from Judah and Benjamin) and the northern tribes (the descendants of the other sons of Israel/Jacob:- Reuben, Naphtali, Dan, Gad, Manasseh, etc.).

Is any of this Hebrew stock to be found among contemporary Jews?

Surely there could be some genetic ties, or, at least, similarities, between both groups.

But, equally surely, these genetic markings are mingled with the genetic markers of many other groups, because of centuries of intermarriage.

Race-mixing was always in the history of the Israelites.

EDOMITES, HITTITES, AND MOABITES

Esau, the brother of Jacob in Genesis, who is the forefather of the nation of Israel, intermarried with the pagan Hittites.

But, so did Jacob’s own descendants, the Israelites.

So did the sons of Judah or the Judahites (Jews, in short form).

Ruth, the ancestress of  Jesus, belonged to the Moabites, one of the deadliest enemies of the Israelites and Judahites.

ABRAHAM’S SEED IS JESUS

Given this history, how can anyone claim that Israelite or Judahite is a term for a pure genetic stock?

Yet, they do.

Many naive Jewish people today – and Christian dupes –  consider modern Jews both a pure ethnicity and a unique religion.

A people set apart and a culture set apart.

The Bible states otherwise.

Abraham and Isaac were counted as righteous, long before Jacob was called Israel and long before Judah sired Judahites and before Israelites ever set foot in Judea.

Righteousness preceded both Israel and Judea, both Judah and the Judahites.

The seed of Abraham in whom the whole world was blessed was not any supposed Master Race of Israelites or Jews, with genetic superiority to the rest of mankind.

This is a toxic carnal and ethnocentric revision of the Hebrew scriptures.

The blessed seed (singular) of Abraham was not a people, but a person – a unique prophet, like Moses.

He was the uniquely begotten and uniquely sacrificed “son,” like Isaac.

The blessed seed was Jesus, to whom all nations were to be gathered, according to the divine covenant with Abraham.

As a matter of record, people of all nations have been gathered into belief in Jesus.

The moral reign of Jesus Christ is visible all around us, despite all the blood-shed and mayhem wrought by those who would erase God from the history of man.

The Good Shepherd who gave his life for his flock is a figure beloved all over the world. 

Christ’s moral reign does not offend anyone but reprobates, no matter what their religion.

Muslims and Hindus accept Jesus as a divine messenger.

Righteous Jews have seen through the calumnies of the Rabbinate and accepted Christ’s moral status.

But there is no nation in the world that would accept without a fight the divine right of a Master Race of Jews to rule as overlords of the earth.

 

 

 

 

Suckers For Israel: The Pentecostal Bonanza

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Blogger Charles Sullivan describes how Israel is reaping financial support from the massive growth of the world-wide (and, in Orthodox Christianity’s eye, heretical) Pentecostal movement:

Many people do not realize that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing Christian religion in the world with an estimated 497 million followers world-wide and expected to top 1 billion by 2025(1) This is a sharp contrast to the 13 million people who call themselves fundamentalists.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed in Israel, who have wanted their share of this Pentecostal growth in their country. They see it as a serious economic contributor and a powerful political alliance.

Pentecostalists have inherited and modernized the fundamentalist end-time system that believes the end of the world will come with the establishment of Israel as a geographical entity, with borders very similar to what was outlined in the Bible, the return of the Jews from exile, and Armageddon — a final war between Israel and all its enemies.

Persons of Jewish heritage that support the formation and expansion of Israel on religious grounds are standardly called Zionists. Most media outlets define Christians who align with the Zionist movement as Christian Zionists. The greater Evangelical community, Pentecostals in particular, do not use the term themselves. The majority, if asked directly if they are Christian Zionists, would not even know what the speaker is talking about and would categorically say no, though the overwhelming majority do fit within the definition. Some Pentecostals may even feel insulted with them being identified this way. Most would simply think they are following what the Bible tells them to do.

Pentecostalism has a major doctrinal difference over fundamentalism that is important to understand: it promotes personal involvement rather than being a third party observer.

This may seem trivial, but it has serious ramifications.

The Fundamentalists who previously monopolized the Evangelical perspective on Israel do not believe Christians can personally intervene in the events and circumstances that will ultimately unfold into the end of the world. Their support is done en-masse with visible spokespersons such as Hal Lindsey, Bob Jones or John Walvoord.

Pentecostals understand the future events from a prophetic perspective. Prophetic can mean God speaking directly to a person to complete an objective. The cause does not necessarily need to be rational, predictable or major.

This could be a financial commitment, planting trees, political involvement, volunteering, helping in immigration, all night prayer vigils, fasting, raising specialized cattle, evangelism, etc.

For example, some have heard God call them to help Jews return to the Holy Land. One of the better known Christian organizations, Ebenezer Emergency Fund’s Operation Exodus, was started by a prophetic vision to the South African Steve Lightle.(2)

Dreams facilitate some to unusual acts. Like Bruce Balfour, a Canadian affiliated with the pentecostal based Maranatha Evangelistic Association. He believed he was called of God in dreams to plant trees in Lebanon.(3)

Others feel called to expedite God’s plan for the end. Clyde Lott, a cattle rancher and an ordained National Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ Minister in the United States, had an epiphany from God to raise red heifers according to Old Testament requirements for the new Temple.(4)

It can be financial giving. Maoz Israel Ministries — a messianic Jewish ministry in Israel relates on their website about a 9 year old boy, Christian, who believed God had called him to send his $10.00 of birthday money for Israel.(5) This may not seem like much, but this is a grassroots event that Christians are doing all over the world. One Jewish fundraiser, Yechiel Eckstein, has raised over $250 million dollars from roughly 400,000 Christian donors(6) alone. This market is seen as a veritable gold mine by the Israeli Government.

Some may feel inspired to accelerate armageddon. In 1969, Dennis Michael Rohan, an Australian sheep shearer and Pentecostalist, “acting upon divine instructions”(7) attempted to and almost succeeded in burning down the Al-Aksa Mosque situated on the Temple Mount.(8)

The call to prayer for Israel is big with Pentecostals. Robert Stearns, who grew up in an Assemblies of God Church, the world’s largest pentecostal denomination, helped organize the annual Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, “instituted with the endorsement of hundreds of Christian leaders from around the world, representing tens of millions of Christians”.(9) It is arguably the biggest annual protestant rite held in the world.”

Now all we need to know is how these Pentecostal groups were actually conceived and if Zionists were instrumental in their birthing, just as they were with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

“Conservative” Catholic Papers Fire Pope Critics

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“First Things,” a conservative Catholic paper, has fired Maureen Mullarkey for criticizing Pope Francis, going to the extent of publicly ridiculing her conservative views.

Other supposedly conservative Catholic papers have also fired Pope Francis detractors:

Adam Shaw, a Fox news website editor, was fired from a Catholic News Service gig.

The National Catholic Register has fired Patrick Archbold, using liberal talking-points to make its case.

Why are all these “conservative” Catholics suddenly so eager to echo the Liberal party-line?

Were they ever real conservatives?

Are they under pressure from bigger bosses?

Are we only now finding out the extent of the subversion and infiltration of conservative Catholic circles at the behest of the ruling cabal?

As a non-Catholic, I can only feel intensely sorry for traditionalists of that faith.

And more than ever I am thankful that I have never  put all my faith “in princes nor in the son of man,” no, not even (or, maybe, especially) when they claim to speak infallibly.

Note:

I really do not have a major problem with the content of most of what Pope Francis has said publicly (from urging people to care about the poor, to supporting refugees, to asking us to care about the environment).

What I don’t like is the overwhelming priority he has given to these social issues over reaffirming the Church’s teachings on the family and on sexuality….a reaffirmation that is much more needed than the repetition of concerns voiced often enough by political groups.

Even Francis’ social teaching is marred by his ignorance of economic science and his partisanship on man-made global warming.

And all of his exhortations ring hollow when you realize how closely they follow the globalist agenda that is pushed by the intelligence agencies.

 

Catholic “Spirit Of Francis” Is Treacle, Not Manna

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An excellent piece by Rod Dreher, explaining why he left the Roman Catholic Church and joined the Orthodox:

In 2002, when the clerical-sex-abuse scandal broke nationwide, the full extent of the rot within the church became manifest. All that post-Vatican II happy talk and non-judgmentalism had been a facade concealing what then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later Pope Benedict XVI — would call the “filth” in the church. Many American bishops deployed the priceless Christian language of love and forgiveness in an effort to cover their own foul nakedness in a cloak of cheap grace.

During that excruciating period a decade ago, rage at what I and other journalists uncovered about the church’s corruption pried my ability to believe in Catholic Christianity out of me, like torturers ripping fingernails out with pliers. It wasn’t the crimes that did it as much as the bishops’ unwillingness to repent and the Vatican’s disinterest in holding them to account. If the church’s hierarchy cannot commit itself credibly to justice and mercy to the victims of its own clergy and bishops, I thought, do they really believe in the doctrines they teach?

All this put the moral unseriousness of the American church in a certain light. As the scandal raged, one Ash Wednesday, I attended Mass at my comfortable suburban parish and heard the priest deliver a sermon describing Lent as a time when we should all come to love ourselves more.

If I had to pinpoint a single moment at which I ceased to be a Roman Catholic, it would have been that one. I fought for two more years to hold on, thinking that having the syllogisms from my catechism straight in my head would help me stand firm. But it was useless. By then I was a father, and I did not want to raise my children in a church where sentimentality and self-satisfaction were the point of the Christian life. It wasn’t safe to raise my children in this church, I thought — not because they would be at risk of predators but because the entire ethos of the American church, like the ethos of the decadent post-Christian society in which it lives, is not that we should die to ourselves so that we can live in Christ, as the New Testament demands, but that we should learn to love ourselves more.

Flannery O’Connor, one of my Catholic heroes, famously said, “Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.” American Catholicism was not pushing back against the hostile age at all. Rather, it had become a pushover. God is love was not a proclamation that liberated us captives from our sin and despair but rather a bromide and a platitude that allowed us to believe that and to behave as if our lust, greed, malice and so forth — sins that I struggled with every day — weren’t to be despised and cast out but rather shellacked by a river of treacle.

I finally broke. Losing my Catholic faith was the most painful thing that ever happened to me. Today, as much as I admire Pope Francis and understand the enthusiasm among Catholics for him, his interview makes me realize that the good, if incomplete, work that John Paul II and Benedict XVI did to restore the church after the violence of the revolution stands to be undone. Though I agree with nearly everything the Pope said last week in his interview and cheer inwardly when he chastises rigorist knotheads who would deny the healing medicine of the church to anyone, I fear his merciful words will be received not as love but license. The “spirit of Pope Francis” will replace the “spirit of Vatican II” as the rationalization people will use to ignore the difficult teachings of the faith. If so, this Pope will turn out to be like his predecessor John XXIII: a dear man, but a tragic figure……

There is, of course, no such thing as the perfect church, but in Orthodoxy, which radically resists the moralistic therapeutic deism that characterizes so much American Christianity, I found a soul-healing balance. In my Russian Orthodox country mission parish this past Sunday, the priest preached about love, joy, repentance and forgiveness — in all its dimensions. Addressing parents in the congregation, he exhorted us to be merciful, kind and forgiving toward our children. But he also warned against thinking of love as giving our children what they want as opposed to what they need.“Giving them what they want may make it easier for us,” he said, “but we must love our children enough to teach them the hard lessons and compel them toward the good.”

Orthodox View Of Catholic Dogmas

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A list of the main doctrinal differences between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic are given in a piece cautioning against unwise one-world ecumenism:

1. The Eastern Orthodox reject the Roman Catholic notion of purgatory (Ware, T. The Orthodox Church. Penguin Books, London, 1997, p.p. 255 and Aghiorgoussis, Maximos. The Dogmatic Tradition of the Orthodox Church. Copyright:  © 1990-1996. http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article8038.asp 08/18/07).

2. The Eastern Orthodox number the ten commandments as they originally were (Mastrantonis, G. The Ten Commandments. Copyright:  © 1990-1996 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7115.asp 05/14/07) and not as the Roman Catholics number them.  Those of Rome combine the first two, even though that is not what those such as Clement of Alexander (2nd century) did (Clement of Alexandria. Stromata, Book VI).

3. The Eastern Orthodox believe in baptism by immersion (Ware, p. 278). The Roman Catholics usually employ sprinkling.

4. Most of the Eastern Orthodox (presuming no abortive devices are used), as do most others, believe in “the responsible use of contraception within marriage” (Ware, p.296 and Harakis S. The Stand of the Orthodox Church on Controversial Issues. http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7101.asp 8/20/05). The Roman Catholic position seems to be much more limited.

5. The Eastern Orthodox reject “the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin” (Clendenin D.B. ed. Eastern Orthodox Theology, 2nd ed. Baker Academic, 2003, p.67).  That is a Roman Catholic dogma (Ott L.  Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.  Translated into English by James Bastible. Nihil Obstat: Jeremiah J. O’Sullivan.  Imprimatur + Cornelius, 7 October 1954.  Reprint TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1974, pp. 199-202).

6. The Eastern Orthodox teach that presbyters (which they call “priests,” but we in the Church of God) tend to call “ministers” or “elders”) can be married (Damaskinos Papandreou, Orthodox Metropolitan of Switzerland. The Orthodox Churches and Priestly Celibacy. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/damaskinos_celibacy.htm viewed 02/04/08). The Roman Church requires celibacy for all presbyters, even though that was not its original position (Fortesque A. Transcribed by Marie Jutras. Eastern Monasticism. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X. Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).

7. The Eastern Orthodox, similar to the Church of God, teach that, “Christians must always be ‘People of the Book’ “ (Ware, p.199). Yet, throughout history, the Church of Rome has tended to place more emphasis on the Living Magisterium and non-biblical sources for much of its doctrines.

8. The Eastern Orthodox do not observe Ash Wednesday.  The Church of Rome admits that it added this observance in the Middle Ages (Thurston, Herbert. “Ash Wednesday.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 4 May 2009 ).

9. The Orthodox do not believe in the concept of “papal infallibility.” That concept became a dogma for the Church of Rome in the 19th century (at Vatican I) (McBrien, Richard P. Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to Benedict XVI. Harper, San Francisco, 2005 updated ed., pp. 20-22).

10. Many (though not all) of the Eastern Orthodox, like the Church of God, believe that God has a plan of salvation that can occur at the time of the final judgment. (Ware, p.255).  The Roman Church rejects the idea that salvation can be available after the first death and this has been clearly stated by Pope Benedict (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1021. Imprimi Potest + Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Doubleday, New York, 1994, p. 153).

11. The Roman Catholic view of eternal torment is rejected by the The Eastern Orthodox (Ware, p. 262).

12. Neither the Orthodox nor Protestants believe that the jurisdiction of Rome has any real bearing on apostolic succession.

It perhaps should be pointed out that the Orthodox, who generally make less pronouncements than the Vatican tends to, condemned the papacy as a major heresy in 1848:

” 2. Hence have arisen manifold and monstrous heresies which the Catholic Church, even from her infancy, has been forced to combat with the panoply of God, and ‘ the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,’ and has triumphed over all unto this day, and will triumph to the end, ever shining forth brighter and stronger after the struggle.

” 3. Of these heresies some have altogether perished, some are in their decline, but others nourish more or less, until the time of their overthrow, when, being struck with the lightning of the anathema of of the seven (Ecumenical Synods, they become extinct, even though they last for a thousand years; for the orthodoxy of the Catholic Apostolic Church, as inspired by the living Word of God, alone endures for ever, according to the infallible promise of our Lord…—Matt, xviii. 18.

” 4. Of these heresies widely-diffused was formerly Arianism, and now is the Papacy, which, though still flourishing, shall, like the former, pass away and be cast down, and a great voice from Heaven shall cry, ‘ It is cast down.’—Rev. xii. 10…

” 10. Every one of our brethren and children in Christ clearly perceives that the words of the present Bishop of Rome, like those of his anti-synodical predecessors, are not words of peace and compassion, as he says, but of deceit and quibbling, tending to self-aggrandisement; but the orthodox will not be beguiled therewith, for the Word of the Lord is sure—’ A stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.’

(Encyclical Letter of the Eastern Orthodox, 1848. As cited in The Benares magazine, No. 31, 1851. W.H. Haycock, 1851. Original from Oxford University Digitized, Nov 24, 2006, pp. 370-371,373)

Perhaps it should be mentioned that “Rev. xii. 10” teaches about the “accuser of the brethren” (a reference to Satan in verse 9) being cast down. Thus the Orthodox officially seem to have condemned the papacy as Satan the devil.

Not only does the Orthodox Church consider the institution of the Papacy and the doctrine of Papal infallibility heretical, it considers many – not all – of the instances of stigmata and visions exhibited by Catholic saints to be evidence not of sanctity but of  delusion and vainglory, especially when they are sought out deliberately.

Although I wouldn’t go so far as to call such displays Satanic, I agree that more than a few are the results of a misguided effort of will, very similar to the efforts of some yogis and ascetics in Hinduism and similarly lacking in moral content, while sometimes providing grave opportunities for moral depravity.

Asceticism (what is called tapas in India) and mental focus can lead to psychosomatic symptoms (markings on the skin, sensations) as well as psychic abilities – siddhis -(levitation, bilocation) of all kinds, but whether this is always a saintly thing, or even good, is the question.

In many cases (not all), the Orthodox answer, “no,” is the correct one.

The heart, as the Bible points out, is endlessly self-deceiving.