Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Christians and Politics

Wow, started a firestorm, did I? This was a comment left on my blog regarding my faith in Jesus Christ, and my involvement in politics...

"Not that I have any problems with you being a Christian. I have a problem with the fact that you don't understand the fact that seperation between the Church and State is important, or you are not really different from Hamas who can seperate faith from the state. Comment on that man."

Ammm, Hamas kills people, I don't... you know, I believe in the “Thou shalt not kill” thing and the “turn the other cheek” concept. ;-) There's my comment on that, man.

I can't separate my faith from who I am, because it MAKES me who I am. Therefore, due to my beliefs, I can't lie, cheat, steal, I look "do unto my neighbour as I'd have him do unto me", look out for my fellow man, etc... I think we need more people like that, not less, in Federal politics... don't you?

As for the "Sep. of Church and State", I agree with others who have commented here that it was intended to keep the State out of the Church, NOT vice-versa. (ie - no official state religion) And don't forget, the "Sep. of Church and State" is a AMERICAN thing, not a Canadian one. (so much for the liberal left not wanting to be like the USA!)

If you want to try and say that you can't be religions and be in politics, then let's throw out the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and, to be fair, let's keep those darn atheists out too, since Humanism is also a defined system of belief... whoops, now we're into anarchy... let's not go there, eh?

I love the hypocrisy of the left... keep the Christians out of politics, but ensure that everyone else is diversely represented.

Yea, like I thought... HYPOCRITES.

posted by Christian Conservative @ 1:11 p.m.  

36 Comments:

  • At Tue Jan 31, 01:36:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Good to hear from you!!VF

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 01:38:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Nathan said…

    Hmmm... the turn the other cheek concept could have been in play here.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 02:02:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Touche Nathan, touche. I guess in commenting, as requested, I did get a little carried away.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 02:32:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There are other ways in which Christianity is like Islam too. They both hold belief in a god without evidence for one. They both have holy books which are self-contradictory and mostly fiction. They both have started wars in the spreading of their beliefs. And they both have tortured and killed unbelievers.

    In addition, the Christians believe in a person called Jesus Christ when there is no contemporary evidence that such a person ever existed. At least, Mohammed was a real person so Hamas is one up though though more primitive in their theology.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 03:11:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Looks like Jim Pettit lives in another space-time continuum...

    Last time I checked, there is lots of evidence for a creator. Last time I checked, archaeology has not contradicted a single point of history chronicled in the Bible, in addition to the Bible having the most documentary proof of similarity to its original autographs of any text ever written. Last time I checked there is an entire span of 2000 years of history that attests to the existence of a man named Jesus, from Nazareth, who lived around 30 years and claimed to be the Jewish Messiah.

    If all that is merely fiction and rumour, then I have a nice piece of real estate in southern Florida I am sure you'd be interested in.

    It must be hard work to live in that much denial. Ah well, at least he'll get his wish, to be free of the shackles of a nonexistent God when he dies.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 03:27:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Nathan said…

    It is easy to do for sure (get carried away) in these heady times. I get most carried away myself when I think of the the huge exxon profits they are making and the environmental destruction that comes along with that and our porky American lifestyle generally (I am American btw).

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 03:56:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The Romans were bureaucrats with extensive records but no mention of a Jesus Christ. The earliest mention of a person by that name comes many years after the supposed death. Even the early gospels treat him as a personification of a belief system rather than a real person. The later gospels seem to disagree on pertinant facts, like where he was born, showing they were made up on the spot and can't be relied upon.

    The suspicion is therefore that the existence a real person by that name is a misinterpretation of a mystery cult based on the Egyption god Horus rather than any folk memory that can be relied upon. Check out Horus. He came from a virgin birth, made miracles, raised a Lazarus from the dead, died and was resurected, etc. many hundreds of years before the supposed Jesus.

    As to the need to believe in eternal damnation before one can have morals or ethics, that speaks more about the state of believers than non-believers.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 04:29:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Brian Nash said…

    Well said Rob

    The History of Western civilization for the most part is the history of Christianity, from our laws to our customs and traditions almost all have root in Christian faith. The founders of thsi country were Catholics who accept the historical Evidence of Christ and Christians who put biblical principles into practice. Without Christianity Canada would not be teh Canada we know today

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 05:07:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Shawn Abigail said…

    No evidence Jim? You're either joking, right? Admittedly there is some question over Josephus, but Suetonius and Tacitus are fairly explicit. And when you say that the Bible is mostly fiction, I've got to question how you define the word "mostly", and how you would determine whether a specific statement is truth or fiction.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 05:08:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    If the best you can do is quote some sketchy and unsupported theories, made up to prop up the delusion that Jesus never existed, then you aren't going to get very far my friend.

    Earlier vs later gospels - I can only conclude you are considering discredited psuedepigrapha as on par with the 4 gospels, which have extant copies reaching back to the turn of the 2nd century (within a lifetime of the events) and verified by participants and those who knew them. A world of difference.

    As for the Romans, I seem to recall reading at least a couple of documents from the 1st Century, written by Roman officials citing the existence of Christ and His followers. Unless you contend those were forgeries too...

    I especially enjoy how you think that all these men, from disparate backgrounds, with different jobs, lives and beliefs, all suddenly came together in Judea, made up a cop-off of a Horus mystery religion, then proceeded to one by one get themselves killed the their belief in a nonexistent individual. Such mass insanity is quite frankly, unprecedented. You have to ask yourself, is it more likely that one man, yourself, unwilling to die for his belief, is right, or the legions of people from the 1st Century to now, who were crucified, burned, tortured, and slaughtered rather than renounce the "man who never existed".

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 06:00:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Allegations of persecution and martyrdom seem to be the stock in trade of every religion. It gives the troops a warm and fuzzy feeling about their bravery. Even Suetonius, who only mentions the persecutions of Christians around 64 C.E. in passing, doesn't make a big deal of it and doesn't mention a Jesus Christ at all. As for Tacitus, he wrote in the time of Nero, a long time later and treats the persecutions as simple government scapegoating of a minority.

    As most documents survive only as Christian monk-copied versions, their references to Christianity seem more to be later interpolations than what was originally written. As for the accuracy of the Bible, you should note that one early Christian commentator, Irenaeus, even disputed the crucifixion, saying that Jesus lived to a ripe old age.

    And as for Jesus being both of the house of David and coming from a virgin birth of a mother who wasn't from the house of David and being born in both Bethlehem and Nazareth, you can see why there are skeptics.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 06:49:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The term SECULAR properly means, and as used until recently, to the INCLUSION of all SECTS; ie: all religions. Purported "progressives" twist the term to EXCLUDE sects; to say "no religion".

    Next time you hear a politician or political supporter use the term, look for the exclusionary rather than the inclusionary context.

    True Liberals used to be inclusionary, but the Liberal Party is now the most elitist of all parties and has migrated towards this position for the past 20 years. Recent statements by the Young Liberals wing underscore the exclusionary nature of the partty the demand to see.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 07:26:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Maybe they just don't want any religion because they love communism, lol. :)

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 10:55:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I sort of find it amusing that a persons faith has to be left at the door when entering politics, but yet when a person of faith wants to do good and that good would benefit evrybody, and is in a position to do so, what are they to do? And say that this person of faith, who is in politics, does a good deed that benefits everybody, but later on down the road the good deed is considered politically incorrect because it blurs the line separating church and state. I ask what is to be done? Is the good deed banished? Recinded because it originated from a person of faith? If ones decides that it should, then the case can be made to abolish health care, because of what his name, some preacher from some hick province...somebody help me out here....

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 10:59:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Jim,

    I must say you're fighting your internal battle fairly well externally.

     

  • At Tue Jan 31, 11:29:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Brian said; "Maybe they just don't want any religion because they love communism, lol. :)".

    I think that's what it will always come down to. Communism and Socialism are all about the State being the God and whatever religion has to be subservient to the State (Russia, China, etc.). Either people are free to seek out God (or not, but have a choice) or they are oppressed and/or enslaved (and persecuted) by others and forced to be subject to people who, by human nature, easily become corrupt.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 05:03:00 a.m. EST, Blogger Shawn Abigail said…

    So we can debate the relative merits of Josephus, Suetonius and Tacitus, but realistically Jim to must admit your initial post in this thread was hyperbole. You were using exaggeration for the sake of emphasis.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 05:37:00 a.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I don't think that I was engaged in hyperbole.

    Since the days of Constantine, Christianity has been a destructive force, engaged in persecution of minorities (e.g. the gnostics), genocide (e.g. the Cathars), forceable coversion (e.g. South and Central America), and internal brutality (e.g. the Inquisition). Even today, Christianity maintains only a veneer of sophistication (and that only in comparison with Islam (e.g. the world is only 6,000 years old, Creationism, Intelligent Design).

    In this day of science and rationality, there is no place for superstition and irrationality.

    The blind denial of evidence such as the suggestion that archaeology supports the Bible (It doesn't. See for instance the discovery that Solomon was only a local warlord and wouldn't have been the recipient of a visit by the Queen of Sheba), the ignorance of fact such as science having found sufficient understanding of the universe that there is no need for the use of God as an explanation, and the blatant whining that Christians are being rejected in politics and civil life instead of facing the fact that the largest census group in Canada are the non-religious, all show that Christianity is a spent force fading away.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 10:23:00 a.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Wow, Jim. Where to begin. You said it yourself, "In this day and age there is no room for superstition and irrationality".

    Do you drive a car? Are you a perfect driver? What if I judged all drivers as being dangerous based on an act of yours. Picking specific items and ignoring the balance to support an argument is narrow minded and certainly in the topic you've chosen to argue.

    Blind denial of evidence? My friend, I suggest it is you in blind denial. True Science cannot contradict true Religion as they have the same author. If you actually knew anything, perhaps you would have Einstein's attitude: after learning so much, he came to the conclusion, and wallowed in the fact, he knew even less than he did before. Please let me suggest reading the 5 Proof for the Existence of God. I'd love to read your rebuttals. Perhaps you might consider reading about Einstein, or Newton, and how they arrived at God through the very science which our world uses as the basis of most science.

    Your post suggests you have a closed mind and fixed narrow opinion which you support, for some unknown reason/motive, through the use of selective facts and/or a lack of broader topical and general knowledge.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 10:54:00 a.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Anonymous is the first person to post a reference. Unfortunately, I can't find "5 Proof of the Existence of God" on the Net. All I find is mention of Aquinas. Do you have a citation?

    The suggestion that it is me in denial shows a misunderstanding of the nature of proof. It is the Christians who are alleging the existence of God and that Jesus Christ existed, was the son of God, was truly described in the Bible, and was crucified by the Romans. Christians also allege that there is a trinity of God the father, God the son and a Holy Ghost. It is Christians who have to prove their case, not merely allege it.

    I see alternate explanations from what we know about the universe e.g. science vs God, a mystery religion vs the existence of a real Jesus, archaeology that contradicts the Bible, so I am skeptical about your claims. None of the statements on this thread to date cite any evidence for a God. In fact, they show faith rather than reason. If your argument is faith rather than reason, say so but I'd rather not base public policy on what I consider to be superstition.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 12:45:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    To me it is clear that there is a God based on scientific evidences. Though evolutionists scoff at the idea, the evidence is compelling to the open mind that has not already closed itself off.

    One of many reasons to believe God exists and has indeed created life is the relationship between DNA and protein.

    Since use of DNA to code protein production is the basis of all life on earth, in order for evolution to be true time, chance, and chemical reactions must cause the DNA to code protein production.

    The problem is that chemical reactions produce the wrong relationship for living systems. They scramble up DNA and protein units into deadly combinations that prevent, not promote, the use of DNA to code protein production.

    This is because DNA uses a series of bases (three at a time) to line up a series of R-groups (variable radical groups) that are part of the amino acid that "stick out" along the protein chain. And there is no chemical tendency for a series of bases to line up a series of R-groups in the orderly way required for life.

    All chemical reactions destroy the possibility of life being produced from DNA and protein. Time and chance do not help, because it is like trying to throw 13 on a pair of gambling dice. You can throw forever, but you will never get thirteen. The possibility is just not there, so the probability is zero.

    I have other reasons to believe, but this one is one that I find very illuminating.

    Since I can't say God bless,

    Government bless, Jim! :)

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 01:22:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    A great discussion going on here. I can only add that my faith is based on personal revelation. ( an experience that is too long to write about now.) But the reason behind my faith is not abstract ...it is very concrete.
    Archeology proves the Bible, history proves the Bible, and the other sciences point to a design, therefore a Designer. These are based on statements by non- Christians.I also realise that your mind is made up Jim.We won't try to confuse you with the facts.VF

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 01:32:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Thanks for that piece on DNA Brian.

    Jim, to turn your argument around, why do you believe in evolution? Upon which "proof" do you base it? Be careful which one you choose... most of the standard "theories" have been refuted and abandoned by most in science as being impossible... yet most of them will still say they believe it, they just "don't understand how it all works".

    Ammm, pardon me for being blunt, but isn't that the same "faith without proof" you were acusing us of?

    I'll gladly say that I believe because of faith... and that faith has been supported and proven to me over and over again since. Have you ever experienced God "speaking" to you Jim? Not an audiable voice, but yet, still clearly speaking. I doubt you have, and it's not something that can be explained, yet many Christians would be able to say that they too have experienced that. I'll put this to you bluntly too... why would God waste His time speaking to someone who has already made up their mind that He doesn't exist? He's given us the Bible, and if you start out rejecting that right off the bat, there isn't much hope that you'll ever come to understand faith.

    Jim, I agree with you on one point, sort of. You said "Since the days of Constantine, Christianity has been a destructive force, engaged in persecution of minorities (e.g. the gnostics), genocide (e.g. the Cathars), forceable coversion (e.g. South and Central America), and internal brutality (e.g. the Inquisition)." I'd agree in large part to that, but what was it exactly that Constantine did in the third century? That's right, the foundation of the Catholic Church, of which I would NOT consider myself a part of in any way, shape, or form. (Thank goodness for Martin Luther, et. al.) Most of those things that you list can be directly attributed to the Vatican, and not to individuals who chose to truly follow Christ and "turn the other cheek".

    That's why I see no problem being involved in politics... I'll never force my faith down other people's throats, but you can rest asured that I'll tell everyone around me that Christ is the only hope there is in this world, and that His arrival back here on this earth could begin anytime now...

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 01:42:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There are two things to understand also about 'christians'. One is, not everyone who claims to be one is, there are many who will find themselves rebuked and rejected because their deeds were evil, and also true Christians struggle with sinful desires and are not immune from them as we can see in Romans Chapter 7. This adequately explains all kinds of abuses by people who take up the garb of religion, yet don't actually posses it.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 02:18:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    WOW! This conversation has already pushed me to 550 comments... and number 550 was... oops... it was me. ;-)

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 05:01:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Being a new blogger...what does this nice lengthy conversation have to do with bloggingtories??
    You say potatoe...so Jim doesnt believe...some days I dont....what you believe and what I dont believe used to be very private...when we get into political debates that include religion we scare the hell out of people...I would love to see a Conservative party in power for the next 10 years...but..Jim has a right to question Christians, Christain values, Muslims Values what ever floats his boat...this party is about a different direction in government....now, as a new blogger and a new Conservative Party member please tell me my approval of SSM was not in vain. Let freedom ring folks, even for the goofy ones.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 05:01:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Early in this thread someone denounced religion as being the cause of wars and the death and striff associated. But the real facts are that the antireligious communists are resposable for the murder of more of there own citizens, in less than one century, than all wars, famine' disasters and desease combined! Less than 90 years!! 150,000,000 dead. Give me that old time religious strife anyday.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 05:30:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Ahh, hey george, what's up? Anyway, It's ok for people like Jim to have strong opinions, even if thoughtful analysis does show them to be in error.

    Now just because something makes people uncomforatable doesn't mean it should be said... After all, if religion really is a 'private matter' what good does it do us personally? It's very nature is meant to be shared.

    Now sure I know sometimes we need to tone it down a bit and not get our undies in a wad. But, if we can have healthy dialoge on (both) sides, I think even though we may or may not agree we can still respect and tolerate each other.

    If Jim truly has these reasons he has given not to have faith, I would hope that our little chat here would somehow help him or others that have such questions as well.

    Cheers george, hope the wife's doing well.

    Brian

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 06:16:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    I'm all for rational discussion! The main point of my original post was to point out that many on the left say that everyone's voice is valid, unless you're a Christian... then they expect us to shut up.

    Come on... why not let us speak and "celebrate diversity"? LOL!

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 07:14:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There have been a number of points made so I have to organize my response.

    First, the concept of evolution is not new. It was known to the ancient Greeks and understood by the educated in Europe long before Darwins. Plant and animal breeders used it commercially. What was missing was the mechanism.

    Second, Darwin initially found it in finches in the Galapagos when he saw that the beak size of finches was related to the amount of rainfall. He spent considerable time there and observed the type of seeds that grew depended on the rainfall and the birds that survived were those whose beaks were adapted to the surviving seed.

    Third, Darwin deduced that those birds who were adapted to the seed that survived would have more offspring than the birds who weren't and would gradually (actually in the case of the finches rather rapidly) dominate the population i.e. survival of the fittest though he didn't use that term.

    Fourth, Darwin didn't know why the beaks were different in different birds or how beak size was inherited. This awaited the findings of Watson and Crick of DNA in the 1950s.

    Fifth, DNA is a very stable substance which can duplicate itself with few errors. In addition, it can be split and combine with DNA from another animal of the same species i.e. similar DNA with only a few differences, so as to allow variation in the offspring that the environment can determine whether the variation is successful while at the same time avoiding substantial differences.

    Sixth, DNA does a lot of things and is part of a complex system but one thing it does well is code for proteins, the building blocks of cells.

    Seventh, proteins work by folding into shapes and the shapes works with other protein shapes in a similar manner to a lock and key. Chemicals are a product of multiple protein interaction i.e. they are far removed from the DNA and don't interfere with its operation (the description of DNA problems in the previous message is wildly inaccurate.

    As I am not a biologist, I'll stop there and turn to the allegation that the Bible is supported by archaeology and history as it was difficult to fit this into a discussion of evolution.

    Basically, I don't know what history the person is talking about but, as for archaeology, the evidence is that it does not support the Bible. I mentioned the findings about Solomon being only a petty warlord. It seems that applies to David too. The people of the Bible were minor players, similar to their neighbours, who are remembered only because they wrote a boastful epic. To believe the Bible would be like believing in the Green Hornet because there are such things as cars and the Green Hornet has cars.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 07:49:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "Fifth, DNA is a very stable substance which can duplicate itself with few errors. In addition, it can be split and combine with DNA from another animal of the same species i.e. similar DNA with only a few differences, so as to allow variation in the offspring that the environment can determine whether the variation is successful while at the same time avoiding substantial differences."

    Jim, we are talking about DNA before, note - *before* it already exsisted. I am not talking about after that point. Where did that original DNA come from? You are right in saying you are not a biologist.

    "Sixth, DNA does a lot of things and is part of a complex system but one thing it does well is code for proteins, the building blocks of cells."

    Again I am talking about the creation of DNA before it existed.

    "Seventh, proteins work by folding into shapes and the shapes works with other protein shapes in a similar manner to a lock and key. Chemicals are a product of multiple protein interaction i.e. they are far removed from the DNA and don't interfere with its operation (the description of DNA problems in the previous message is wildly inaccurate."

    The description is not 'wildly innacurate'. It is not. It is simplified, but not innacurate. You obviously don't understand what I'm talking about. The parts that DNA are constituted of do not, and will not, line up in the way required for live in any primordial soup concoction. This is why I mentioned chemical reactions, for this is how they say DNA was formed in the primordial soup. So when you say 'chemicals are far removed...' etc, it shows you have no idea what I was talking about. Where did it come from, the original DNA, Jim? It is obvious you didn't even understand my original argument.

     

  • At Wed Feb 01, 09:35:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    For the last few years, a number of respected archaeologists have posited that the biblical accounts of Jerusalem as the seat of a powerful, unified monarchy under the rule of David and Solomon are essentially false.

    The most prominent of these is Israel Finkelstein, chairman of Tel Aviv University’s archeology department, whose 2001 book, "The Bible Unearthed," written together with Neal Asher Silberman, became an international best seller. The lynchpin of his argument was the absence of clear evidence from the archeological excavations carried out in Jerusalem over the last century.

    “Not only was any sign of monumental architecture missing,” he wrote, “but so were even simple pottery shards.” If David and Solomon existed at all, he concluded, they were no more than “hill-country chieftains,” and Jerusalem, as he told The New York Times, was “no more than a poor village at the time.”

    But now comes word of a most unusual find: The remains of a massive structure, in the heart of biblical Jerusalem, dating to the time of King David.

    Eilat Mazar, the archeologist leading the expedition, suggests it may be none other than the palace built by David and used by the Judaean kings for more than four centuries. If she is right, this would mean a reconsideration of the archeological record with regard to the early First Temple period. It would also deal a deathblow to the revisionist camp, whose entire theory is predicated on the absence of evidence in Jerusalem from this period. But is she right? According to the book of Samuel, when David conquered the Jebusite city of Jerusalem around the year 1000 B.C.E., he did not destroy it, but instead left it standing, including its great citadel to defend the city along its northern approach.

    In this city, today known as the City of David, a neighborhood just to the south of Jerusalem’s Old City, he added a few things as well - most notably a palace built by master craftsmen sent by the Phoenician king Hiram of Tyre, who had concluded an alliance with David against their mutual enemy, the Philistines.

    According to archeological evidence, Jerusalem was already an ancient city, founded some 2,000 years before David arrived, and fortified with walls as much as 1,000 years before. Because of its unique topography - a high hill nestled between two deep valleys that converge at its southern point, graced with abundant water from the Gihon spring, and exposed to attack only along a ridge from the north - the location was ideal for the capital of David’s kingdom.

    Based on this evidence, coupled with textual clues as to the topography - as described in the book of II Samuel (5:17), when the Philistines mustered in Emek Refaim, David “descended to the citadel,” implying that the palace was higher up on the mountain than the citadel itself - Mazar formulated her proposal as to the location of the palace in a 1997 article in Biblical Archaeology Review .

    “If some regard as too speculative the hypothesis I shall put forth in this article,” she wrote, “my reply is simply this: Let us put it to the test in the way archeologists always try to test their theories - by excavation.”

    Few living archeologists were better suited for this mission, as Mazar has extensive experience both in excavations at the City of David and at the Phoenician town of Achziv along the coast north of Haifa.

    Indicators for the palace would include monumental structures dating to the late-11th or early-10th centuries B.C.E.; distinctive Phoenician-style building, which would have been out of place in the Judean mountains; and a new building created just to the north of the borders of the older Jebusite city, resting on new land, rather than on destruction layers.

    Remarkable evidence

    Of course, any additional archeological markers, such as inscriptions, pottery shards, or interior architecture, would further confirm such a find. In early 2005, after securing the necessary permits and the support of the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center (which also publishes Azure), the Hebrew University, and the City of David Foundation, Mazar began digging.

    The evidence she found is remarkable. It includes a section of massive wall running about 100 feet (30 meters) from west to east along the length of the excavation, and ending with a right-angle corner that turns south and implies a very large building.

    Within the dirt fill between the stones of the great wall were found pottery shards dating to the 11th Century B.C.E.; this is the earliest possible date for the walls’ construction.

    Two additional walls, also large, running perpendicular to the first, contain pottery dating to the 10th Century B.C.E. - meaning that further additions were made after the time of David and Solomon or during their reign, suggesting that the building continued to be used and improved over a period of centuries.

    The structure is built directly on bedrock along the city’s northern edge, with no archeological layers beneath it - a sign that this structure, built two millennia after the city’s founding, constituted a new, northward expansion of the city’s northern limit. And it is located at what was then the very summit of the mountain - a reasonable place indeed for the palace from which David “descended.”

    This immediate evidence fits well with other archeological finds from the site, as well. In 1963, the renowned archeologist Kathleen Kenyon reported finding a Phoenician “proto-Aeolic capital,” or decorative stone column head dating to the same period, at the bottom of the cliff atop which the new excavation has taken place.

    Kenyon wrote that this capital, along with other cut stones she found there, were “typical of the best period of Israelite building, during which the use of Phoenician craftsman was responsible for an exotic flowering of Palestinian architecture. It would seem, therefore, that during the period of monarchic Jerusalem, a building of some considerable pretensions stood on top of the scarp.”

    Clay signet

    In the early 1980s, Hebrew University’s Yigael Shiloh uncovered the enormous “stepped-stone” support structure which now appears to be part of the same complex of buildings.

    And in the new excavation, Mazar has discovered a remarkable clay bulla, or signet impression, bearing the name of Yehuchal Ben Shelemiah, a noble of Judea from the time of King Zedekiah who is mentioned by name in Jeremiah 37:3, evidence suggesting that four centuries after David, the site was still an important seat of Judean royalty.

    This matches the biblical account according to which the palace was in more or less continuous use from its construction until the destruction of Judea by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.

    So, is it David’s palace? It is extremely difficult to say with certainty; indeed, no plaque has been found that says on it, “David’s Palace”; nor is it likely that such definitive evidence will ever be found.

    And yet, the evidence seems to fit surprisingly well with the claim, and there are no finds that suggest the contrary, such as the idolatrous statuettes or ritual crematoria found in contemporary Phoenician settlements.

    The location, size, style, and dating are all right, and it appears in a part of the ancient world where such constructions were extremely rare and represented the greatest sort of public works.

    Could it be something else? Of course. Has a better explanation been offered to match the data - data which includes not only archeological finds, but the text itself? No.

    There will be no shortage of well-meaning skeptics, including serious archeologists, who, having been trained in a scholarly world weary of exuberant romantics and religious enthusiasts prone to making sensational, irresponsible claims about having found Noah’s Ark, will be extremely reluctant to identify any new archeological find with particulars found in the Bible.

    Others, driven by a concatenation of interests, ideologies, or political agendas, will seize on any shred of uncertainty in the building’s identification to distract attention from the momentousness of the find. Both groups will invoke professionalism and objectivity to pooh-pooh the proposition that this is David’s palace.

    Don't be swayed

    They will raise the bar of what kind of proofs are required to say what it was to a standard that no archeological find could ever meet. Or they will simply dismiss it all as wishful thinking in the service of religious or Zionist motives.

    There are two good reasons not to be swayed by such claims. The first is that even if this is not in fact David’s palace, there is no doubt that we are still talking about an archeological find of enormous moment. Whether it is a citadel, someone else’s palace, or a temple, it is the first-ever discovery of a major construction from the early Israelite period in Jerusalem to date.

    This alone is enough to overturn the hypothesis of Finkelstein and others that Jerusalem at the time of David was a “poor village” incapable of being the capital of an Israelite kingdom.

    No longer is it reasonable to claim, as did Tel Aviv University’s Ze’ev Herzog writing in Haaretz in 1999, basing his claim entirely on the absence of just this kind of evidence, that “the great unified monarchy was an imaginary historiosophic creation, invented at the end of the Judean period, at the very earliest.”

    On the contrary: Now we have a major Israelite compound dating to the time of the unified monarchy, firmly establishing Jerusalem as a major city of its time.

    For this reason, important voices in the archeological world have already begun declaring the find to be of great importance, even as they reserve judgment as to its identification as David’s palace.

    “Due to all the possible historical implications, we need to look carefully at the pottery and to further excavate the area,” Seymour Gitin, director of archeology of W.F. Albright Institute in Jerusalem, told a nespaper. Yet he adds, “this is an extremely impressive find, and the first of its kind which can be associated with the 10th Century (B.C.E.).”

    The normally reserved Amihai Mazar of Hebrew University, one of the most esteemed scholars in the field of biblical archaeology and author of the standard textbook, "Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000–586 B.C.E., has described the discovery as “something of a miracle.”

    Yet beyond this, there also are good reasons to identify this building, at least provisionally, as the very palace described in the book of Samuel. This is methodologically sound, so long as we are willing to admit that future evidence could emerge, or a better theory be proposed, that might prompt a different conclusion.

    Burden of proof

    Right now we have before us two things: We have a biblical text describing in detail the creation of a Phoenician-style palace by David high up on a particular mountain, around the end of the 11th or beginning of the 10 Century B.C.E. And we have a grand structure of the Phoenician style dating from the same time, on the summit of that very mountain, located with assistance from the text and previous archeological discoveries.

    This was not stumbled upon, moreover, but carefully hypothesized, and the current dig was proposed as the test. The likelihood of this happening by chance is extremely small.

    Is this absolute proof? No. But it is enough to shift the burden of proof.

    “You can never be sure about this sort of thing,” Mazar says. “But it seems that the theory that suggests this to be the very palace described in the book of Samuel as having been built by David is thus far the best explanation for the data. Anyone who wants to say otherwise ought to come up with a better theory.”

    This is neither wishful thinking nor an imagined past, but good science.


    from:
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1503183/posts

    Also there is this: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-04/huoj-hue041303.php

     

  • At Thu Feb 02, 08:42:00 a.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Brian, I think we are talking at cross purposes.

    The nature of science is that we start from what we know. We then speculate, test the consequences, and reject those speculations which don't pan out. As there are many people involved in the work, we can start in different places e.g. chemistry, biology, ecology. What we are finding is consilience (See Edward O. Wilson, Consilience), that what is learned in chemistry supports i.e. is consistent with, what we learn in biology to the extent that, though we started in different places, the gap between two different avenues of speculation is narrowing.

    A similar phenomenon is occuring in time. Though we started with the present, we are able to trace processes in geology, DNA, physics back in time so that, in astronomy, we have a reasonable understanding back to a split second after the start of the universe. In biology, we are proceeding to the point near the first cell.

    The process is not yet complete. DNA is clearly an evolved molecule and we don't yet know what proceeded it though we have some guesses. RNA looks to be a good candidate and some of its components seem to form naturally so it could have evolved from a primordial soup. We even see some of its ingredients in interstellar clounds, formed by basic chemistry and sunlight.

    Your argument is that the whole process can't have happened because you can't see how it can happen. I won't attribute to you the corollory (though others have stated it) that if you don't know how something can have happened then some supernatural force must have done it. Scientists refer to this belief as the tooth fairy theory. Scientists prefer to say that we merely don't know the answer yet, not that we never will.

    Of course, scientist take the knowability of the universe on faith. But theirs is a faith justified by the enormous success of the scientific approach. Religious people, on the other hand, must worry about the erosion of their explanation for things. As science explains more and more, religion explains less and less and God can be found only in the gaps which are disappearing.

     

  • At Thu Feb 02, 10:02:00 a.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "Sixth, DNA does a lot of things and is part of a complex system but one thing it does well is code for proteins, the building blocks of cells."

    "Seventh, proteins work by folding into shapes and the shapes works with other protein shapes in a similar manner to a lock and key. Chemicals are a product of multiple protein interaction i.e. they are far removed from the DNA and don't interfere with its operation (the description of DNA problems in the previous message is wildly inaccurate."

    Ok now that you know I am talking about 'primordial soup' enter in again the process of DNA coding protien production.

    DNA does not code protien production on it's own. It CAN NOT do that, it MUST do it in a living CELL, not primordial soup! And RNA can not naturally occur either, so some scientists are now talking about some sort of 'pre-RNA', which they don't even know what it is, they can't tell you, because it doesn't exist. So even the first little piece in the puzzle isn't possible in primordial soup, but even if they had it, there is a TREMEDOUSLY MORE complex set of barriers in the way of DNA coding protien production which is the basis of life on earth.

    Anyway, my point is, in primordial soup you can't even get to the beginning point, which is DNA or RNA. Go on from there, even if you had DNA, it can't code protien production in the way required for life, because it must do it in a living cell, and it's an amazing process. Just like aluminum does not fly on it's own (it flies in a created airplane), DNA does not code protien production in the way required for life on it's own.

    To make one protien according to the instructions of JUST ONE DNA molocule, a cell needs over 75 'helper molocules', all working together IN HARMONY, to make one protien, or R-Group, series as instructed by one DNA base series. A few of these are messenger, transfer, and ribosomal RNA; yet most are highly specific protiens.

    When it comes to translating DNA's instructions for making protiens, the real heroes are the activating enzymes. Enzymes are protiens with special slots for selecting and holding other molocules for speedy reaction. Each activating enzyme has five slots, two for chemical coupling, one for energy (ATP) and most importantly two to establish a non-chemical three base code name for each different amino acid R-group.

    Now the living cell requires at LEAST 20 of these activating enzymes, or translases, one for each of the specific R-group/code name (amino acid/tRNA) pairs. Even so, the whole set of translases (100 specific active sites) would be WORTHLESS without ribosomes (50 protiens plus RNA) to break the base coded message of heredity into three-letter code names; DESTRUCTIVE without a continuously renewed supply of ATP energy to keep the translases from tearing up the pairs they are supposed to form; and VANISHING if it weren't for having translase protiens that are continuously and rapidly wearing out because of the destructive effects of time and chance on protien structure!

    As science explains more and more, evolution becomes more and more inexplicable, because it is not supportable by the science on which it is based. You can wait around for some explanation, but I guarantee you will be waiting and never recieving, and it will then be too late to change your mind, because the science itself leads to the conclusion that it's not viable.

    Now you said, "scientist take the knowability of the universe on faith." Well now I'm glad you said that. Because you don't believe what you do based upon undeniable provable facts beyond all argument, you choose NOT to believe because simply, you DON'T WANT to, and try to come up with as many reasons as you can to justify it. You believe what you do on faith.

    You say evolutionists have all these reasons based on science... well they do have lots of theories, but actually the more you look act science the more problems their theories have! But then they hide behind, "well we don't know everything yet" they don't have a pre-RNA, they don't have any explanation as to how DNA can code protien production in the way required for life or any such thing because it isn't possible.

    Who's going by faith Jim? Looks like you are. And since your ridicule of Christians 'just going by blind faith' is ruined, since YOU go by faith, my faith is shown to be supported by science, not disproved by it, like yours is.

     

  • At Thu Feb 02, 03:57:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    ...If I'm not going overboard and being a jerk about it, that is... :)

     

  • At Thu Feb 02, 07:10:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Good for you man. I really appreciate your willingness to speak what you believe, regardless of the pressure out there to bend to what's popular. I like what you said and I like that you have guts enough to say it out loud.
    Blessings,

     

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