Divine punishment, the pointlessness of the peace process, and the disgraceful Richard Goldstone

Greetings.

Jewish date:  11 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath ’Emor).

Today’s holidays:  Day 26 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Festival of Ridvan (Bahá’í Faith), Fourth Sunday of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. T (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Manes (Thelema), Apostle and Evangelist Mark (Greek Orthodox Christianity).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Reform Immigration For America | Racial profiling? Not in our America!”, “Tell Obama to Further Support Malaria Vaccine Research - Take Action Today @ The Hunger Site”, “Friends of the Earth U.S.:  Tell the Obama Administration to Reject a New Pipeline for the World's Dirtiest Oil”, “CARE:  Child Marriage:  A Promise of Poverty”, “Health Care for America NOW! | Demand Our $$ Spent on Health Care Not Profits”, “Take Action: TrueMajority.org:  WITH WALL STREET OR WITH US?”, “Stop senseless wolf killing in our country! - The Petition Site”, “Take Action | Earth Day Network”, “Take Action: Speak out for Sudan | Save Darfur”, “MoveOn.org Political Action: We need a criminal investigation of Wall Street”, “Tell Big Banks: Party's Over - The Petition Site”, and “Close the Loophole: Help Close the Gun Show Loophole. Keep Guns Out of the Hands of Criminals.”.  (My posting got put off due to working on a review of the Uplift Series, so there is a big backlog.)

Topic 1:  “Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women”:  Considering that Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi is not a prophet, HOW DOES HE KNOW?  Also to be noted, but which he does not seem to realize, is that it takes two to tango.  Therefore the young men allegedly being tempted into adultery should be held accountable for their failure to resist temptation.

Topic 2:  The periodic anti-Semitism roundup:  “Anti-Israel Programmer Suspended by Montreal Campus Radio” (baseless accusations), “A taboo that harms Arabs too” and “The False Religion of Mideast Peace: And Why I'm No Longer a Believer” (forget the peace process; the way things are now it will not work).  On the bright side (submitted by Harold), “Palestinian Zionist Organization is Founded”.

Topic 3:  “South Africa: Religious Uproar Over Jewish Judge Who Criticized Israel”.  To make a long story short, the man from which the disgraceful Goldstone Report takes its name will not be attending the bar miṣwah ceremony of his grandson, as people really hate his guts and do not wish to be around him.  “This isn’t about Goldstone, it’s about Judaism” and “Condemn His Report, But Welcome Goldstone” argue that despite the fact that Richard Goldstone has committed has done something truly despicable, he should not be barred from attending the bar miṣwah ceremony because that is simply not the way Jews are supposed to behave.

Topic 4:  For today’s religious humor:  “You know your haircut’s bad”:



Peace.

Aaron

Is Utah going to be destroyed by a comet on March 1?

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Terumah).

Today’s holiday:  Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time/Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “MoveOn.org Political Action: Toyota: Stop lobbying against car safety”.

Topic 1:  “BIBLE CODE PREDICTIONS: 2010” (noted in “Utah to be destroyed by a comet! Or not!”).  According to this site, based on hidden codes in the Hebrew Bible, Utah is supposed to be destroyed on March 1 by a comet impact.  I have no trust in Bible codes.  YHWH is quite capable of giving direct messages, and the Hebrew Bible is full of them.  Some of these messages, such as “do not worship idols” and “treat the poor well”, proved difficult for people to keep and thus were repeated by the prophets over and over again so that even someone who is not particularly bright can see they are there.  Looking for hidden codes, as demonstrated in Michael Drosnin’s heretical The Bible Code, is an easy way for people to latch onto the Hebrew Bible (or whatever scripture they hold dear) as important and completely ignore the text’s actual message.  I also have grave doubts that the methodology of Bible codes is actually valid; The Skeptic's Dictionary reports that the unlikely message “The Bible Code is a silly, dumb, fake, false, evil, nasty, dismal fraud and snake-oil hoax.” was found hidden in Drosnin’s The Bible Code II:  The Countdown.  If one can find a message as long, unambiguous, and unlikely to be intentional as that hidden in such a book, one can forget about the short, ambiguous, messages of the Bible codes being real.  But to be open-minded, I have decided to put the predictive power of this dabbler in Bible codes to the test.  Therefore I have put “Comet destroys Utah” on my calendar for March 1, and we will see if it really comes to pass.  If it does (which would be surprising, since one would think a state-annhilating comet would have been noticed by astronomers already), then the Bible-coder will have something to gloat about.

Topic 2:  “Was Haiti Punished for Sin?”:  Rav Shmuley Boteach has clearly read Job and knows that bad things happen to those who do not deserve them.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “Basement cat”:


Peace.

Aaron