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BEWARE A NUCLEAR IRAN!
How many times have we heard the following arguments? Israel has nuclear weapons, so why single out Iran? Pakistan got nukes and we lived with it. Who is to say to say that the United States or Russia should have the bomb and not other countries? Iran has promised to use its reactors for peaceful purposes, so why Demonize Iran?
In fact the world has at least five reasons for singling out Iran to halt its nuclear development program – and it’s is past time that we spell them out.
First, any country that seeks “peaceful” nuclear power at the same time it is completely self-sufficient in energy production is de facto suspect. Iran has enough natural gas to meet its clean electrical generation for two centuries. The only rationale for its multi-dollar program of building nuclear reactors – and for its spending billions more to hide and decentralize them – is to obtain weapons.
Second, we cannot excuse Iran by acknowledging that the Soviet Union, communist China, North Korea and Pakistan obtained nuclear weapons. In each case, anti-liberal regimes gained stature and advantage by the ability to destroy Western cities. But past moral failures are not corrected by allowing history to repeat itself.
The logic of this excuse would lead to a nuclearized globe in which wars from Darfur to the Middle East would all assume the potential to go nuclear. In contrast, the fewer the nuclear players, the more likely deterrence can play some role. And if Iran were to go nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and other Arab autocracies would follow suit in order to preserve the prestige and security of largely Arab Sunni Nations. That would ensure, again, that almost any Middle East dispute involving, Shiite-Sunni tension, from Lebanon to Iraq, might escalate to a nuclear confrontation.
Third, it is simply a fact that full-fledged democracies are less likely to attack one another. Although they are prone to frequent fighting -- imperial Athens and republican Venice, for instance were in some sort of war about three out every four years during the 5th century B.C. and the 16th century, respectively – consensual governments are not so ready to fight each other. Thus today there is no chance whatsoever that an anti-American France and an increasingly anti-French America would, as nuclear democracies go to war. Likewise Russia, following the falloff communism and its partial evolution to an elected government, poses less of a threat to the United States than before.
It would be regrettable should Taiwan, Japan, South Korea or Germany go nuclear – but not nearly as catastrophic as when Pakistan did so, which is what allows it today to give sanctuary to bin Laden and the planners of 9/11 with impunity. The former governments operate with a free press, open elections and free speech, and thus their war making is subject to a series of checks and balances. Pakistan is a strongman’s heart beat away from becoming an Islamic theocracy. And while democratic India is often volatile in relations with its Islamic neighbor, the world is not nearly as worried about its nuclear arsenal as it is about autocratic Pakistan’s.
Fourth, Iran presents a uniquely fourfold danger. It has enough cash to buy influence and exemption from sanctions; it possesses oil reserves to blackmail a petroleum-hungry world; it sponsors terrorists who might soon be enabled to find sanctuary under a nuclear umbrella and to be armed with dirty bombs; and it has
a leader who talks as if he were willing to take his entire country into paradise – or at least back to the 7th century amid the ashes of the Middle East. Just imagine the recent controversy over Danish cartoons in the context of Ahmadinejad with is finger on a half-dozen nuclear missiles pointed at Copenhagen.
Fifth, the West is right to take on a certain responsibility to discourage nuclear proliferation. The existence of such weapons grew entirely out of Western science and technology. In fact, the story of global nuclear proliferation is exclusively one of espionage, stealthy commerce, or American and European-trained native engineers using their foreign-acquired expertise. Pakistan, North Korea or Iran have no ability themselves to create such weapons any more than Russia, China or India did. And any country that cannot itself create such weapons is probably less likely to ensure the necessary protocols to guard against their misuse or theft.
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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A FACT
THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE REASON TO ACCEPT THE KORAN AS
AUTHENTIC
It is generally accepted that Mohammed is the author
of the Koran. (But hotly disputed by many). No one really knows. How can we
know if he really wrote the words of Allah or if he created passages himself?
Who has the authority to vouch that no errors have crept into the Koran over
time? Who tells men to believe in the Koran? To what authority can these men
appeal? Islam has no priests, no pope or head Muslim, no official institution to guarantee the authenticity and integrity
of the Koran and its teachings, no authority to say that the Koran is inspired.
They have their teachers-leaders (imams) and their recorded traditions, but who
is to say they are not engineered? Mohammed cannot guarantee to men that he is
telling the truth about the Koran. He founded no lasting institution, and he
himself did not even name a successor.
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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HOW DOES Al-Queda PERCEIVE OUR WAR EFFORT!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to modern communications and the modern media, we are quite well
informed about how Al-Queda perceives things. Osama bin Laden is very
articulate, very lucid in the way he explains things. As he sees it,
and as his followers see it, there has been an ongoing struggle which
began with the advent of Islam in the 7th century with its drive for
world conquest and it has been going on ever since. It is an ongoing
struggle of attack and counter attack, conquest and reconquest, ending
so it seems in a final victory of the West with the defeat of the
Ottoman Empire in 1918 - the last of the great Muslim states - and the
partition of most of the Muslim world between the Western powers. As
Osama bin Laden puts it: "In this final phase of the ongoing struggle,
the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers - the
United States and the Soviet Union. Now we have defeated and destroyed
the more difficult and the more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union.
Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy." And
then followed what has become the familiar description of the Americans
and the usual litany and recitation of American defeats and retreats:
Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, one after another. The general theme was:
They can't take it. Hit them and they'll run. All you have to do is hit
harder. This seemed to receive final confirmation during the 1990' when
one attack after another on embassies, warships, and barracks brought
no response beyond angry words and expensive missiles misdirected to
remote and uninhabited places, and in some places -- as in Beirut and
Somalia -- prompt retreats.
What happened on 9/11 was seen by its
perpetrators and sponsors as the culmination of the previous phase and
the inauguration of the next phase -- taking the war into the enemy
camp to achieve final victory. The response to 9/11 came as a nasty
surprise. They were expecting more of the same -- bleating and
apologies -- instead of which they got a vigorous reaction, first in
Afghanistan and then in Iraq, and as they used to say in Moscow: It is
no accident, comrades, that there has been no successful attack in the
United States since then. But if one follows the discourse, one can see
that the debate in the U.S.A. since then has caused many of the
perpetrators and sponsors to return to their previous diagnosis.
Because remember, they have no experience, and therefore no
understanding, of the free debate of an open society. What we see as
free debate, they see as weakness, fear and division. Thus they prepare
for the final victory, the final triumph and the final jihad.
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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The United States 110th Congress, Whose Speaker Is a Newchurcher(Vatican II Catholic)
Of the 535 Members, One out of Three Is a Newchurcher(VaticanII Catholic)
And Six out of Seven Are Christian
Why Is It So Hard to Pass Legislation
In Conformity with Natural Law and Christian Morals?
A survey published by Americans for Religious Liberty finds that
Newchurchers(VATICAN II Catholics) hold 155 seats out of 535 in the new 110th Congress of the
United States, seated January 11, 2007. That's nearly one out of three.
The new Speaker of the House of Representatives is a Newchurcher(Vatican II Catholic). If
you add the other Christians, that comes to a total of 448 Christians,
or 84% of the entire U.S. Congress.
Why, then, is it so difficult to pass legislation that conforms to
Natural Law and Christian morals: against abortion, against "gay
marriage," etc.? Why is it so difficult even to get legislation against
the greatest moral crimes, such as partial birth abortion, which only
extremists in the United States advocate?
The answer is simple. These Newchurchers are not really Christian,
nor are many of the non-Catholic "Christian" denominations. Their faith
is not associated with the Bible, not to speak of Tradition. It is,
rather, associated with non-religious, secular, liberalist politics.
Senators John Kerry, failed 2004 U.S. Presidential candidate, and Ted
Kennedy, participant in the death of a young woman at Chappaquiddick
and proud "divorcee," who consistently vote against Natural Law and
Christian moral principles, are good examples of this ilk. They do not
hesitate to grab the Novus Ordo cookie( the Newchurch communion) for a photo opportunity, nor
does Donald Wuerl, the new Newchurch archbishop of Washington, D.C.,
hesitate to give the invalid cookie to them.
We wonder whether it ever occurred to this ilk, which dares to call
itself Christian, that if they actually represented Christian morality,
they have control of congress to enact the most far-reaching moral
programme ever attempted? But with Benedict-Ratzinger their nominal
head, a conciliar pope who advocates Modernist/Liberalist policies
himself, there isn't much difference any longer between the U.S.
Congress and Newpope(the present pope who has led the newchurchers out of the traditional Catholic Church).
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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WHAT
ME WORRY?
According to the census
bureau a new “American” crossed the border to join us once every 27 seconds in
2006. The unpunished intention of our rulers to replace us with foreign coolie labor
tells us that as a society we are completely lacking any sense of a past or a
future. Nobody who has any conception of the work, wisdom, virtue, sacrifice,
and heroism that went into the making of this country could possibly approve of
the transformation that is taking place.
That is not too surprising,
though. Since 1848 the descendants of the British colonists who created the U.S. have been a dwindling part of the
population. How many Americans are there today with such an inheritance? One in
twenty? One in fifty? In fact, those of us who fit that description are mostly
despised “rednecks,” while late-comers glorify themselves as a “nation of
immigrants.” Can there be any other example in history of a core population
being replaced by newcomers while retaining its name? A country without
cultural continuity can only be held together by abstractions—deceitful slogans
without any human content—and by constant fear of enemies. Orwell had it right.
People who are ignorant
of and indifferent to their background (and those who misrepresent it for
present-time advantage) are barbarians—that is, people without a civilized
culture. Our leaders view American society as a commercial enterprise in which
profit and consumption are the only values. After all, a customer is a customer
and yesterday is just a past opportunity for sales. Who worries about where the
customer comes from? As a society we have lost sight of the truth that economic
abundance is not a self-perpetuating technical trick but rests ultimately on
mental and moral qualities. Mental and moral virtues are declining in power and
the evidence is already there of the loss of prosperity that necessarily
follows.
But a society without
ancestors (bastards?) is not the worst of the American decline. The worst is a
lost future. Our forebear’s felled forests, planted trees, built houses, fought
wars in the consciousness that the benefits would accrue to their descendants
more than to themselves.
A people, who took any
thought to the welfare of their grandchildren, much less future generations of
their own blood, could not possibly tolerate the ongoing destruction of our
human environment by politicians and plutocrats. Burke defined civilization as
the awareness of the interconnection of past, present, and future. Conservatism
was the preservation of the essence of civilization amidst the inevitable flux
and chaos of existence.
But I can’t worry about
that right now. I have to watch Oprah and then go to the mall. Only in America.
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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WE HAVE TO FACE FACTS…………..
The Muslims ARE a danger!
I explained in my last entry some of the big problems within the present group that controls the Catholic Church and have changed it from what it is suppose to be). Here we have to face what Islam IS!
Christians who belong to different traditions live harmoniously together all over the world. By contrast, Muslims do not live harmoniously with Christians – or with any other non-Muslim group – anywhere in the world, and have never been able to do so, for reasons inherent in their ideology. Violent intolerance against “infidels” is mandated by their holy book, exemplified by their “prophet,” and firmly rooted in 13 centuries of recorded history.
Until a leading Muslim figure comes out and assures non-Muslims that he unreservedly rejects ‘sharia’, ‘jihad’, and discrimination in every shape and form – Sura 9.5 included – and until his position is supported by the majority of the Muslim world, the “stigma” will be every bit as justified as that against Communist dictators or National Socialism (Nazi’s).
This “essentialist view of Islam” is supported by experience. Attempts to reformulate the doctrine of ‘jihad’ in particular are not new, but they have failed because they oppose centuries of ‘orthodoxy’. As the author Clement Huart pointed out in 1907, “Until the newer conceptions, as to what the Koran teaches as to the duty of the believer towards non-believers … have more generally leavened the mass of Moslem belief and opinion, it is the older and orthodox standpoint on this question which must be regarded by non-Moslems as representing Mohammedan teaching and as guiding Mohammedan action.”
A century later, the willingness of a few to become what are objectively bad Muslims may be laudable in human terms, but it will do nothing to change the score. A reformed faith that would question the divine authority on which the institutions of Islam rest, or attempt to rationalistic selections or abatement to effect a change, would be Islam no longer.
Islam, founded by a man who cannot ‘prove’ that god spoke to him and in its eminently orthodox codification, threatens the world, and discriminates against lovers of freedom. We must do everything we can to keep this THREAT away from us. |
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE
All Hell is breaking loose in the Catholic Church (now called the Newchurch) since the Polish people forced Stanislaw Wielgus, Benedict-Ratzinger's appointee as Archbishop of Warsaw, to resign in the face of incontrovertible evidence that he was a spy against the Church from around the time of Vatican II to the fall of the Soviet government in 1989.
In Krakow, where JPII was Archbishop from 1964 to 1978, more Newchurch (name for the present false church administration in Rome) clergy are being fingered as having been spies for the Communist Secret Service. The stream of disclosures now promises to become a torrent. In JPII's Krakow, Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski is preparing to publish a book that will identify 39 priests whose names he found in Krakow's secret police files, three of whom are now bishops in the laceName>PolishlaceName> laceType>ChurchlaceType>. Everyone in Krakow and in Rome is wondering: will JPII's name turn up on that list?
Either JPII was a Communist spy, or he was part of a cover-up of presbyters under him collaborating with the Communists against the Church -- an excommunicable offense. The only alternative is that Karol Woytyla was an incompetent Newchurch bishop, guilty of gross negligence. Moreover, Poles are beginning to ask: did Benedict-Ratzinger, JPII's personal gauleiter, also participate in the cover-up as head of the Doctrine of the Faith and JPII's principal advisor?
Most researchers who have delved into the archives of the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, or Communist Secret Service, estimate that thousands of the country's presbyters -- as many as 10% -- collaborated with the secret police to some degree. Newchurch's undeserved reputation for moral "purity" has been crucified forever. Cardinal Glemp, a Newchurch bishop in Poland since 1979, told an Italian news agency last year that the overall percentage was 15%, and was likely to have been much higher in major cities. Poles are now enraged at Newchurch and Benedict-Ratzinger for letting the news media disclose these crimes rather than itself researching the archives and coming clean. It appears that the Newchurch principles that brought about the Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal are still very much alive.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, himself involved in the appointment scandal, tried to weasel himself and Newpope out of blame, but that attempt has been derided because in December 2006 Benedict-Ratzinger stated that he "nourishes full trust in Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus and, in full awareness, has entrusted him with the mission of pastor of the Archdiocese of Warsaw." Simultaneously, Benedict-Ratzinger's Newchurch officials in Poland were already examining the documentary evidence and concluding that Wielgus was guilty as sin. Then, when Newchurch officials publicly denounced Wielgus on the basis of the documentary evidence, Benedict-Ratzinger attempted to ram through the appointment and stood by Wielgus while all the time he knew that Wielgus was lying by denying the allegations that Benedict-Ratzinger knew to be true. |
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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Faith, Logos, and Antichrist: A Post Scriptum on Regensburg
“God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature” is the essential statement in Emperor Manuel’s verbal duel with his Persian interlocutor, which Pope Benedict quoted in his now famous Regensburg lecture last September. “Faith is born of the soul, not the body.”
The world outlook based on this simple yet essential adage is light years away from the Verse of the Sword (9:5), the essential message of the Kuran. It is, in fact, so diametrically opposed to it that we may be forgiven for concluding that Muhammad’s “inspiration” was indeed supranatural, but not divine.
The timeless Kuranic dictum to all faithful, to fight the rest of us infidels until we pay the poll tax (Jizya) with the trembling hand of abject submission, has a whiff of sulphur to it. It conclusively denies the possibility of “peace” (short of Islam’s global triumph), or even of peaceful co-existence. “Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” is an injunction both unambiguous and powerful.
Of course, Karen Armstrong, John Esposito et al. will reply with the verse “la ikraha fiddeen” (“no compulsion in religion”), but they will do so to deceive and misguide us. Verse 2:256 is not at all a proof that forced conversion is against Islam. Verse 2:256 does not leave non-Muslims free to make their religious choices unmolested and un-coerced, in accordance with their conscience and free will. As contemporary Islamic scholars explain, there is no compulsion in making the choice of whether you want to be a Muslim or not. Once that choice is made, however, your options are bleak—death or submission—if it is the wrong choice: “Faith and rejection, iman and kufr, cannot be forced upon one by others. So Islam does not say that others must be forced into Islam; that if they become Muslims, well and good, and if they do not, they are to be killed, that the choice is theirs.” (In the same spirit, there was no compulsion to accept Communism under the 1936 Soviet constitution, but its insufficiently enthusiastic embrace meant death in the Gulag.)
The difference among Islamic scholars on 2:256 is that of degree, not kind. Some assert that it has been abrogated not only by 9:5 but also by 9:73 (“O Prophet, struggle with the unbelievers and hypocrites, and be thou harsh with them”). Other scholars—more “tolerant” ones, we might say—said 2:256 has not been abrogated, but it had a special application: it was revealed concerning the People of the Book (Jews & Christians), who should not be compelled to embrace Islam if they submit to the rule of Islam and pay the Jizya. It is only the idol worshippers who are compelled to embrace Islam and upon them 9:73 applies. As al-Nahas points out in An-Nasikh wal-Mansukh, “this is the opinion of Ibn ‘Abbas which is the best opinion due to the authenticity of its chain of authority.” In exempting the Jews and the Christians from 2:256, the ulema agree that pagans and atheists can and should be compelled to accept Islam by force.
The foremost Islamic scholar of all time, Ibn Khaldun, summed up the mainstream consensus—the consensus that is valid to this day—when he defined systemic violence as a religious duty based on the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert all men to Islam either by persuasion or by force. He readily concedes that “Islam is under obligation to gain power over all nations.”
The orthodox Islamic rationale for compulsion—e.g. that given by Ibn al-‘Arabi—is worthy of dialectical materialism’s somersaults; we find that “no compulsion” actually means compulsion, and that “freedom” is only the freedom to accept revealed truth:
The Prophet said: I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah. This Hadith is taken from the words of Allah, “Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah” (2:193). If someone asks how can people be compelled in the truth when the mere fact of compelling indicates a violation of the will of the one compelled?—the first answer is that Allah sent Mohammad calling people to Him, showing the way to the truth, enduring much harm . . . until the evidence of Allah’s truth became manifest . . . and His apostle became strong, He ordered him to call people by the sword . . . hence there is no more an excuse after being warned. The second answer is that people first are taken and compelled, but when Islam becomes prevalent . . . their faith strengthens and finally becomes sincere.
Translated into the language of contemporary and equally mainstream Islamic discourse, with “reasonable” people there is no need for compulsion because “after all the clear proofs, the logical reasoning and the manifest miracles there is no need for force at all.” But with those who persist in their obstinate refusal to be reasonable and convert (or submit), coercion is both legitimate and necessary. After all is said and done, the authorities at al-Azhar hold, jihad is “a divine obligation: the Muslim is always mindful that his religion is a Qur’an and a sword . . . the Muslim is forever a warrior.”
It is therefore inevitable that imperialism is immanent to Islam, as Ephraim Karsch argues persuasively. The apologists assert that Muslims are called by the Kuran to strive for peace, but the “peace” is possible only under an all-pervasive Islamic rule. Such “peace” does not only have the negative meaning of the absence of war. It is a positive state of security, attainable once all infidels are killed, converted or subjugated.
Islam may use the rational form, but in substance it is implacable in the view that only Allah creates our acts and enables us to act, and we are but transmission belts with a preordained balance of debit or credit that determines our destiny in the hereafter. A Muslim’s prayer is not “communication,” and it is offered in the hope of placating a capricious and unpredictable Master. The Master, Allah, is so transcendent as to be devoid of personality.
As then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger wrote back in 1979, “the unrelated, unrelatable, absolutely one, could not be a person. There is no such thing as a person in the categorical singular.” In the end, Allah the unknowable and un-personable, is served out of fear, obedience, and hope of bountiful heavenly reward. Islam explicitly rejects the notion that “he who has my commandments and keeps them, he is it who loves me.” (John, 14:21) The Kuran states the opposite: “Say, If ye love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins.” (3:31) This “love” is a means of winning love and forgiveness. It is the “love” of the self, the very opposite of true love; pure sulphur yet again…
In lieu of the sordid “interfaith dialogue,” the lasting benefit of the Regensburg controversy is that it forced some of us to reconsider the claim that three “great monotheistic religions” share common roots and “believe in the same God.” But do Christians believe in the same God that Muslims say they worship?
Of course we do not.
The formal argument first. It is clear and fairly simple. The Christian God of the Creed is trinitarian: the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen; the Son, our Lord and Savior, eternally begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life. This is the orthodox faith, “which except a man shall have believed faithfully and firmly he cannot be in a state of salvation.”
The doctrine of the Deity of Christ is essential. Unless the Son is truly God and “one with the Father,” Christians would be idolaters. If He were but a prophet, Christians would be foolishly entrusting themselves to a created creature in the vain hope of salvation. Islam, on the other hand, violently and explicitly rejects and condemns the Christian doctrine of God (Kuran 4:171), the Trinity (5:37), and the deity of Christ (5:72, 5:17), and Allah unambiguously condemns Christians as disbelievers worthy of destruction (9:29-30). Muhammad’s insistence that there is a heavenly proto-Scripture and that previous “books” are merely distorted and tainted copies sent to previous nations or communities means that these scriptures are the “barbarous Kuran” as opposed to the true, Arabic one. (Let’s leave aside for a minute the puzzling question of how any degree of “distortion” of the Kuran could produce either an Old or a New Testament.) The Muslim Tradition also regards the non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas, and not the New Testament, as the one that Jesus taught. To cut the long story short, orthodox Islam teaches that it alone worships one true God that Judaism and Christianity tell lies about—lies for which Christians and Jews will be punished in hell.
“One God” cannot be trinitarian and infinitely transcendent. Christians and Muslims cannot be both right. Their convergent paths do not lead to the same hilltop.
Unlike the Christian faith in God revealing Himself through Christ, the Koran is not a revelation of Allah—a heretical concept in Islam—but the direct revelation of his commandments and the communication of his law. Christian God “comes down” and seeks man because of His fatherly love. The Fall cast a shadow, the Incarnation makes reconciliation possible. Allah, by contrast, is unknowable and so purely transcendent that no “relationship” is possible. He reveals only his will, not himself. Allah is “everywhere,” and therefore nowhere relevant to us. He is uninterested in making our acquaintance, let alone in being near to us because of love. We are still utterly unable to grasp his purposes and all we can do is what we have to do, to obey his command.
Allah’s absolute transcendence means that he cannot be fathomed, only worshipped. It is by virtue of being infinite, not loving, that he is inseparable from his creation. His absolute sovereignty means that his “closeness” to man is not a two-way relationship; man’s experience of Allah is impossible. Any such attempt would imply heretical encroachment on his absolute transcendence. Ultimately, Allah’s absolute transcendence means that he is everything and nothing. He cannot be grasped by the human mind and is greater than we can comprehend. Every thought about him is insufficient and false.
This is emphatically not the “same God” we believe in. Judging by Islam’s fruits through the ages, we’d be fully justified to conclude that “Allah” is His arch-enemy . . . |
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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A MURDER IN CHICAGO
On Friday December 8, 2006, the City of Chicago experienced a
horrendous triple murder in a high-rise office building that has
affected many thousands of people in the community, the Irish Freedom
Committee included. A friend and lawyer of the IFC was tragically
slain in his offices along with two other men, and their legal
assistant wounded, by a deranged gunman who forced his way past
security to lock himself and his victims inside their offices.
Michael McKenna was a patent and trademark attorney who assisted the
Irish Freedom Committee since 1998 towards securing trademark
protection for the IFC name, and has advised us in protecting the name
from misuse. Michael dedicated many long hours to our organization
and was a respected friend.
Michael devoted his life to many charitable causes, including working
as a tutor at Chicago housing projects and raising money for AIDs
research and children's hospitals on numerous bike marathons. He will
be remembered by all who knew him for his warmth, humor, generosity,
and great love for his family.
The Irish Freedom Committee extends our deepest condolences to the
friends, co-workers and family of Michael McKenna. Michael is
survived by his wife Suzanne and their two-year old son, and three
adult children from his previous wife who passed away five years ago.
Please send condolence cards to the McKenna Family:
McKenna Family
C/O Irish Freedom Committee
P.O. Box 11417
Chicago IL 60611
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| Posted by Daniel Gorham at | | | |
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It should be pointed out at the start that St. Thomas had no unreasoned hatred of the Mohammedans. Rather, he prized their scholarship (although he disputed its conclusions), as the Mohammedan scholars in Moorish Spain, such as Averroes (whom St. Thomas called "The Commentator" [on Aristotle], as he called Aristotle "The Philosopher") had translated many Greek works into Latin. It is said that St. Thomas did not have an acquaintance with Greek in the thirteenth century, as such knowledge had been substantially lost in the West during the so-called Dark Ages, until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the Greek scholars fled Constantinople for the West and were instrumental in starting the period known as the Renaissance, which prized its reacquaintance with the classical Greek authors.
St. Thomas's statement on Mohammed and his followers, found in his Summa Contra Gentiles, a more approachable treatise for many, who are challenged by the scholarly depth of his Summa Theologica. As a matter of fact, the Summa contra Gentiles was written to counter the philosophy of the Mohammedans, who had taken possession of large parts of Spain, who were not expelled until some 200 years latter, in 1492, by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel. St. Thomas calls a spade and space and conforms to what we hear in the present day of things such as the seventy virgins awaiting Mohammedan murderers:
He [Mohammed] seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.
He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to Divine Inspiration, for a visible action that can be only Divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of Truth. On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms -- which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms.
Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and the New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place faith in his words believe foolishly. (Lib. I, Chapter 16, Art. 4
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