How can somebody purchase the stuff by using their credit card, and drop or dispute the payment later? i been using credit cards for 5 seven years since i came over America. There is one thing i still can't understand it. One example, my friend used to own a small fast food delievery store. Lot of his customer call in to place the food order and give their credit card information; then he manually enter the card number, then deiliver to them and get their signature on the printed slip, just like all the businesses do. But later he received the payment dispute notice from the credit card company. it seemed there is nothing he could do. It is like people ate the food, later just drop the payment they should make. One more story, last year i helped selling tickets for some kind of cherity concert. Lot of people were like playing nice bought the ticket to come, but a month later we receive disputed payment over a thousand. i don't know if they fix it or not. but anyway, How could that happen? people bought something and later legally refuse to pay for it?

Can you dispute a charge on your debit/credit card like you can if it is a regular credit card? For example, if you pay for goods or services with your credit card, you can go back and dispute the charges if an issue comes up. Can you do that if it is a debit/credit card? (Card was used to make a purchase on line, so no pin number was used).

Can you dispute a charge on your debit/credit card like you can if it is a regular credit card? For example, if you pay for goods or services with your credit card, you can go back and dispute the charges if an issue comes up. Can you do that if it is a debit/credit card? (Card was used to make a purchase on line, so no pin number was used).

exerperian credit report? I looked at my credit history today and I had to dispute 3 items- for example- credit card totals that I’ve already paid off!! 5 months ago. So my question is will they report these disputes to the other 3 credit report agencies or do I have to report to them? One more question once these disputes are corrected will my credit score go up? My score is 655

if i want to dispute a lot of information on my credit report, is there a limit to file a dispute to Equifax ? for example, if i want to dispute 10 items, is that too much??

Is this credit card a good choice for me...? I have bad credit... or none, i cant get approved for anything else and dont understand all the red tape! HELP! does anyone have this card? THE ORCHARD BANK CREDIT CARD 200 min security deposit 35 dollar annual fee Variable Rate Information Your APRs may vary. The rates are determined monthly by adding the Index (described below) and: 6.65% ("Spread") for the Customary APR for credit card purchases. 16.90% ("Spread") for the Cash APR for cash advances, including balance transfers, if applicable, and cash advances made by credit card check. 22.24% ("Spread") for the Default APR. For each billing cycle, the Index is determined in the month prior to the month in which the billing cycle ends. In that prior month, the highest (U.S.) "Prime Rate" published in the Money Rates Table of The Wall Street Journal is selected (the "Index"). If the Index has changed, the new variable rates will take effect with the billing cycle that ends on or after the first day of the month following the Index change. Grace Period for Repayment of Balances for Purchases You have 25 days from the date of the periodic statement to avoid a Finance Charge on new credit card purchases, provided you paid your previous balance in full. Method of Computing Balance for Purchases Average Daily Balance (including new purchases). Annual Fee $35 per year Minimum Finance Charge $1.00 for each billing cycle in which a Periodic Finance Charge is payable. Foreign Transaction Fee Finance Charge 1% of the U.S. dollar amount will apply to transactions made in a foreign currency. Cash Advance Fee:$5 or 5% on all cash advances, whichever is greater; unless otherwise disclosed. Finance Charges accrue from the date of transaction. Cash advances will be limited. Your cash advance limit is disclosed on your billing statement. Late Payment Fee: The Late Payment Fee will vary based on the amount of your outstanding balance on your Payment Due Date, and will be: $30 if your balance is more than $0 up to and including $1000; or $35 if your balance is greater than $1000. Overlimit Fee: $30. Accessing the full amount or most of your available credit may result in an overlimit fee. Credit Limit Increase (CLI) Fee: If requested and approved, a CLI fee of up to $50% of the CLI may be charged to your Account, depending on your creditworthiness. Closed Account Service Fee: $3.50 per month on closed accounts with a debit balance. The variable Customary APR will apply to credit card purchases. The variable Cash APR will apply to cash advances, including balance transfers, if available, and cash advances made by credit card check. If at any time your Account is subject to the Customary and/or Cash APRs, and you fail to make at least your Minimum Payment in time to be credited to your Account by the Payment Due Date, or your Account exceeds your credit limit, your entire Account balance will increase to the Default APR. Note: The Orchard Bank Secured MasterCard requires a minimum deposit of $200 for a minimum $200 line of credit. For more information on the Orchard Bank Secured MasterCard, see our Secured Card FAQs. At our discretion, payments are generally applied to interest, fees, and then principal balances. We apply your payments to lower APR balances before higher APR balances. The application of payments is subject to change at any time, without notice. IMPORTANT INFORMATION There is a maximum of two (2) Accounts issued by HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A. per customer. If within 90 days of your Account open date, you decide you do not want the account, you can call the customer service number provided on the back of your card to cancel. Any fees, if assessed, will be reversed at no cost to you if you have not used the card. IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PROCEDURES FOR OPENING A NEW ACCOUNT To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, Federal law requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an Account. What this means for you: When you open an Account, we will ask you for your name, address, date of birth, and other information that will allow us to identify you. We may also ask to see your driver's license or other identifying documents. Notice to California Residents: Except otherwise limited by applicable law, we may provide credit information about your account to our affiliates from time to time. This information may be used to qualify you for other credit offers. Married persons may apply for a separate account. Notice to New York Residents: Consumer reports may be requested in connection with the processing of this application and any resulting account. Upon your request, we will inform you of the names and addresses of any consumer reporting agencies which have provided us with such reports. Notice to Ohio Residents: The Ohio laws against discrimination require that all creditors make credit equally available to all creditworthy customers, and that credit reporting agencies maintain separate credit histories on each individual upon request. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission administers compliance with the law. Notice to Married Wisconsin Residents: No agreement, court order, or individual statement applying to marital property will adversely affect a creditor's interests unless prior to the time credit is granted the creditor is furnished with a copy of the agreement, court order, or statement, or has actual knowledge of the adverse provision. You must indicate your marital status for this application to be processed. INTEREST RATES AND FINANCE CHARGES Interest Rates The APRs on your Account are variable rates and are determined by adding a specified amount ("Spread") to an Index (described below). The APR is divided by 365 and rounded to the next highest hundred thousandth of a percentage point to determine your Daily Periodic Rate. The Daily Periodic Rate is used to determine the amount of Periodic Finance Charges (see Finance Charges). Monthly Index For each billing cycle, the Index is determined in the month prior to the month in which the billing cycle ends. In that prior month, the highest (U.S.) "Prime Rate" published in the Money Rates table of The Wall Street Journal is selected (the "Index"). If the Index has changed, the new variable rates will take effect with the billing cycle that ends on or after the first day of the month following the Index change. An increase in the Index will increase your applicable Daily Periodic Rates which may increase the Finance Charge due on your Account and may increase the Minimum Payment and Current Payment Due. Each time any APR changes, we will apply it to any existing balances, excluding any fixed rate Promotional or Introductory APR. Purchase APR Your variable Customary APR applies to credit card purchases. The Daily Periodic Rate is based on 1/365th of the Index plus 6.65% ("Spread"). For example, for billing cycles ending 5/17/07, the rate of FINANCE CHARGE would have been a Daily Periodic Rate of .04082% (corresponding 14.90% ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE). The minimum rate of FINANCE CHARGE is a Daily Periodic Rate of .04082% (corresponding 14.90% ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE). Cash APR Your variable Cash APR applies to cash advances, including balance transfers, if available, and cash advances made by credit card check. The Daily Periodic Rate is based on 1/365th of the Index plus 16.90% ("Spread"). For example, for billing cycles ending 5/17/07, the rate of FINANCE CHARGE would have been a Daily Periodic Rate of .06890% (corresponding 25.15% ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE). The minimum rate of FINANCE CHARGE is a Daily Periodic Rate of .05726% (corresponding 20.90% ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE). If at any time your Account is subject to the Customary and/or Cash APRs, and you fail to make at least your Minimum Payment in time to be credited to your Account by the Payment Due Date, or your Account exceeds your credit limit, your entire Account balance will increase to the variable Default APR. At our discretion, your Account may return to the Customary APR after five consecutive months of on-time payments of at least the Current Payment Due, without exceeding your credit limit. Default APR The Daily Periodic Rate for the variable Default APR is based on 1/365th of the Index plus 22.24% ("Spread"). For example, for billing cycles ending 5/17/07, the rate of FINANCE CHARGE would have been a Daily Periodic Rate of .08353% (corresponding 30.49% ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE). The minimum rate of FINANCE CHARGE is a Daily Periodic Rate of .08079% (corresponding 29.49% ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE). Finance Charges Finance Charges are the total of the greater of (a) Minimum Finance Charge, or (b) periodic Finance Charges, and any applicable (c) Cash Advance Fee Finance Charges, (d) Foreign Transaction Fee Finance Charge, (e) Credit Limit Increase Fee Finance Charge, (f) Closed Account Service Fee Finance Charges, and (g) Processing Fee Finance Charge. (a) Minimum Finance Charge. A Finance Charge that is assessed in lieu of a lesser periodic Finance Charge in any billing cycle in which a periodic Finance Charge is payable. This fee is $1.00. (b) Periodic Finance Charges. Periodic Finance Charges are computed by multiplying the Average Daily Balance for each category of transactions shown on your statement (e.g., purchases, balance transfers, cash advances) by the applicable Daily Periodic Rate and then multiplying the result by the number of days in the billing cycle. To calculate the Daily Balances, we take the beginning debit balance for each category of transactions each day, add any new transactions, any previous day's periodic Finance Charges, any assessed fees and charges, and subtract any payments and/or credits. If a debit transaction posts after the beginning of your billing cycle, but the transaction occurred prior to the beginning of your billing cycle, the applicable Daily Balance will be adjusted to include the transaction amount and any previous day's periodic Finance Charges for each day the transaction amount was outstanding prior to the beginning of the current billing cycle. Then, for each transaction category, we add the Daily Balances for the billing cycle together and divide the total by the number of days in the billing cycle. This is the Average Daily Balance for each transaction category. (1) Credit Card Purchases. Periodic Finance Charges begin to accrue on the date of the transaction and continue to accrue until payment in full is credited to your Account. However, there is a 25 day Grace Period on new credit card purchases. That means, if the New Balance shown on your last statement is paid in full by the Payment Due Date for that statement, periodic Finance Charges will not be imposed on new credit card purchases, provided the New Balance for the current billing cycle is paid in full by the Payment Due Date for that billing cycle. If, however, the New Balance is not paid in full by the Payment Due Date for the immediately preceding billing cycle, periodic Finance Charges will be incurred on new credit card purchases (i.e., purchases appearing for the first time in the current cycle) from the date of the transaction and on the previously billed but unpaid credit card purchases form the first day of the current cycle. (2) Cash Advances (including balance transfer and credit card checks). Periodic Finance Charges begin to accrue on the date of the transaction and continue to accrue until payment in full is credited to your Account. There is no Grace Period on cash advances. Periodic Finance Charges will be calculated using the Daily Periodic Rate in effect on the statement closing date. (c) Cash Advance Fee Finance Charges. Cash advances include all advances to get cash over the counter, through an ATM, balance transfers (if available), credit card checks, or other "cash-like" transactions (such as purchasing a money order, traveler's check, casino or betting chip, or a lottery ticket) as determined by us. A Finance Charge will be computed on the amount of each cash advance as of the date of the transaction. The Cash Advance Fee FINANCE CHARGE for all cash advances is 5%, subject to a minimum FINANCE CHARGE of $5, unless otherwise disclosed. (d) Foreign Transaction Fee Finance Charge. A Foreign Transaction Fee FINANCE CHARGE equal to 1% of the U.S. dollar amount is assessed on transactions made in a foreign currency, as of the transaction date. (e) Credit Limit Increase Fee Finance Charge. If you request and are approved for a credit limit increase ("CLI"), a CLI Fee FINANCE CHARGE of up to 50% of the CLI may be assessed to your Account, depending on your creditworthiness. (f) Closed Account Service Fee Finance Charge. A $3.50 per month FINANCE CHARGE is assessed to the Account for each billing cycle whenever that Account is closed with a debit balance. The application of any Finance Charge other than a periodic Finance Charge may cause the APR on the billing statement on which this Finance Charge first appears to exceed the Nominal APR. ACCOUNT FEES Annual Fee/Periodic Membership Fee Your Account is subject to a $35 Annual Fee for each year your Account is open or closed with a balance. If you close your Account within the first 90 days your Account is open, the Annual Fee is refundable so long as you have not used the Account. Late Payment Fee A Late Payment Fee is assessed for each billing cycle in which at least the Minimum Payment, and any amount past due, is not paid in time to be credited to the Account by the Payment Due Date. The Late Payment Fee will vary based on the amount of your outstanding balance on your Payment Due Date, or during the period up to 5 days after your Payment Due Date, as determined by us, and will be: $30 if your balance is more than $0 up to and including $1000; or $35 if your balance is greater than $1000. Overlimit Fee An Overlimit Fee is assessed if your Account balance exceeds the applicable credit limit at any time during a billing cycle. We may impose this fee even if we authorize or impose any charges that cause your balance to exceed the credit limit. This fee is $30. Other Fees and Charges Returned Payment Fee A Returned Payment Fee is assessed to your Account each time a payment check, automatic payment deduction, or other payment method is not honored or is returned unsatisfied by the bank or other financial institution. Any payment returned unsatisfied for any reason may be reposted to any type of transaction (i.e. cash advance, purchases, etc.) and Finance Charges may be reinstated back to the payment date at the APR being charged for that transaction. This fee is $30. Returned Check Fee A Returned Check Fee is assessed to the Account each time a credit card check, balance transfer check (if available), electronic check or other Account access device is returned unsatisfied by us for any reason. This fee is $30. Check by Phone A Check by Phone Fee may be assessed to the Account each time a payment is made by telephone, even if the payment is made by someone other than you. The amount of this fee will be disclosed at the time such payment is requested. Stop Payment Fee A Stop Payment Fee is added to the cash advance balance when a payment of a credit card check is stopped at your request. Payment may be stopped on a credit card check by notifying us in writing or by calling us at the telephone number listed on the Account billing statement, so long as such check has not already been processed. A stop payment request must include the check number, payee, amount and date of the credit card check on which payment is to be stopped. If a stop payment is requested by telephone, the call must be confirmed in writing within 14 days. A written stop payment will remain in effect for six months unless renewed in writing. This fee is $29. Send stop payment requests to P.O. Box 81622, Salinas, CA 93912-1622. Research Fee A $7 Research Fee is assessed to the Account for each sales slip copy, $3 for each statement copy, and $10 for each application copy upon request. ADDITIONAL TERMS Arbitration The Cardmember Agreement and Disclosure Statement ("Agreement") that you will receive with your card, if you are approved for credit, provides that certain disputes are subject to binding arbitration. Arbitration replaces the right to go to court, including the right to a jury and the right to participate in a class action or similar proceeding. Please read the "Arbitration" section of the Agreement carefully. YOUR BILLING RIGHTS What To Do If There's An Error In Your Bill YOUR BILLING RIGHTS - KEEP THIS NOTICE FOR FUTURE USE This notice contains important information about your rights and our responsibilities under the Fair Credit Billing Act. NOTIFY US IN CASE OF ERRORS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR BILL If you think your bill is wrong, or if you need more information about a transaction on your bill, write to us (on a separate sheet) at the address listed on your billing statement. Write us as soon as possible. We must hear from you no later than 60 days after we sent you the first bill on which the error or problem appeared. You can telephone us, but doing so will not preserve your rights. Please include the following information in your letter: Your name, account number and signature; The dollar amount of the suspected error; and Describe the error and explain, if you can, why you believe there is an error. If you need more information, describe the item you are not sure about. If you have authorized us to pay your Account bill automatically from your savings or checking account, you can stop the payment on any amount you think is wrong. To stop the payment, your letter must reach us three business days before the automatic payment is scheduled to occur. YOUR RIGHTS AND OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AFTER WE RECEIVE YOUR WRITTEN NOTICE: We must acknowledge your letter within 30 days, unless we have corrected the error by then. Within 90 days, we must either correct the error or explain why we believe the bill was correct. After we receive your letter, we cannot try to collect any amount you question, or report you as delinquent. We can continue to bill you for the amount you question, including Finance Charges, and we can apply any unpaid amount against your Credit Limit. You do not have to pay any questioned amount while we are investigating, but you are still obligated to pay the parts of your bill that are not in question. If we find that we made a mistake on your bill, you will not have to pay any Finance Charges related to any questioned amount. If we didn't make a mistake, you may have to pay Finance Charges, and you will have to make up any missed payments on the questioned amount. In either case, we will send you a statement of the amount you owe and the date it is due. If you fail to pay the amount we think you owe, we may report you as delinquent. However, if our explanation does not satisfy you, and you write to us within ten days telling us you still refuse to pay, we must tell anyone we report you to that you have a question about your bill. And, we must tell you the name of anyone we reported you to. Upon settlement of the dispute, we must tell everyone we report you to that the matter has been settled. If we don't follow these rules, we can't collect the first $50 of the questioned amount, even if your bill was correct. SPECIAL RULES FOR CREDIT CARD PURCHASES If you have a problem with the quality of property or services you purchased with a credit card, and you have tried in good faith to correct the problem with the merchant, you may have the right not to pay the remaining amount due on the property or services. There are two limitations on this right: (a) You must have made the purchase in your home state or if not, within 100 miles of your current mailing address. (b) The purchase price must have been more than $50. These limitations do not apply if we own or operate the merchant, or if we mailed you the advertisement for the property or services. HSBC Card Services Inc. and/or HSBC Card Services (II) Inc. provide processing services for HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A. You may write to us at the address shown on your billing statement or HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A., 1111 Town Center Drive, Las Vegas, Nevada 89144. Orchard Bank, Household MasterCard and HSBC credit cards are issued by HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A. in Las Vegas, Nevada and serviced by its affiliates HSBC Card Services Inc. and/or HSBC Card Services (II) Inc. Not available to those consumers residing outside the United States. Offer void for all existing Household Bank and Orchard Bank MasterCard Cardmembers. Important Information To receive, view, and save disclosures and Account Information electronically, you must have a personal computer equipped with Netscape 4.0, Microsoft Explorer 4.0 or AOL 5.0 or later, and either a printer, a hard drive, or other storage device. You must also have a valid email address. As paperless communication options become available, our cardholders will be able to choose which communications to receive electronically, and which to receive via standard mail. We will notify you in advance of sending such electronic disclosures and Account Information. You must notify us if your email address changes in order to continue receiving disclosures and Account Information electronically. You may withdraw your consent to receive disclosures and Account Information electronically at any time. However, if you withdraw your consent, future disclosures and Account Information will be sent via U.S. mail. You have the option to request any information that we have provided electronically in paper form. To notify us of your new email address, withdraw your consent, or to request a disclosure or Account Information in paper form, please contact us by calling the phone number on the back of your credit card or write us at Bankcard Services, P.O. Box 80084, Salinas, CA 93912-0084. Electronic Agreement: I agree to receive disclosures and other Account Information electronically. I confirm that I have the software and computer equipment that satisfies the requirement above and that I will download or print the disclosures and other card related communications for my records. Additionally, by clicking the YES button, I acknowledge that I am providing my consent to receive electronic communications Terms and ConditionsAnnual Percentage Rate (APR) for Purchases Variable Customary APR: 14.90%1 will apply. Minimum Customary APR: 14.90% Other APR's Variable Cash APR: 25.15%2 (Minimum Cash APR: 20.90%) Variable Default APR: 30.49% (Minimum Default APR: 29.49%) Variable Rate Information Your APRs may vary. The rates are determined

Posting credit and auto loan? Below, is an example on how my auto company posts my credit report. I don't know much about credit but, as it is posted seems incorrect. Does this seem viable for a valid dispute. It seems to me that there should be a credit limit. Please I need some advise. Account Number:35XXXX Current Status: PAYS AS AGREED Account Owner: Joint Account High Credit: $11,566 Type of Account :Installment Credit Limit:$0 Term Duration:45 Months Terms Frequency: Date Opened:10/2006 Balance: $12,692 Date Reported:06/2007 Amount Past Due:$0 Date of Last Payment:06/2007 Actual Payment Amount:$0 Scheduled Payment Amount: $429 Date of Last Activity:06/2007 Date Major Delinquency First Reported: Months Reviewed:8 Creditor Classification: Activity Description: n/a Charge Off Amount:$0 Deferred Payment Start Date: Balloon Payment Amount:$0 Balloon Payment Date: Date Closed: Type of Loan: Comments: Thank you, Brian

Posting credit and car loan? Below, is an example on how my car company posts my credit report. I don't know much about credit but, as it is posted seems incorrect. Does this seem viable for a valid dispute. It seems to me that there should be a credit limit. Please I need some advise.

I get a refund during the grace period on a credit card statement, can I reduce the payment accordingly? I had a credit card statement of 1000. Within 4 days I get a refund of 200 during the grace period of 15 days. The payment date then follows 11 days later and the credit card company still try to take 1000 - so making my credit card a positive balance - which is not what I want! Can I insist on only paying 800? They then tell me that I will be charged to taking cash out of a positive balanced credit card. Can they do that? What is stupid is that if I dispute 200 - they will only take 800. Some credit card companies do not do this - but if you stop the direct debit (especially on a charge card) and just pay the actual account balance - then there is no charge. If I decide to pay my bill in 3 parts for example during the grace period so the total is paid then that is not a problem: as long as the whole amount is paid. Well that is effectively what is happening here - but one part is paid by the refund. How can this be justified?

If your last name is incorrect on an item on your credit report, can you have that item removed? For example if you have an item from an agency and your name is Bob Smith and on your credit report it says Bob Smith Jones. Could you dispute that information and get it removed?

If a transaction for a sale between 2 people is arranged on the internet? Which state could a small claims court case be filed in? Example: Lets say a seller is in Arizona and a buyer is in Montana and a transaction happened on eBay, but the buyer filed a dispute with her credit card and the money was reversed from the seller. The seller has all shipping records and e-mails proving that he did nothing wrong and that the buyer was trying to scam him buy getting the item for free. Since the transaction took place online, can the seller file a suit in his own state, or does it have to be in the buyers home state? Yes is not a valid answer so I don't know what you are talking about????

Unfair Billing, What to do? Our home was for the most part destroyed by fire in Decemberr 2006. The fire restoration company completed the job March of 2007. They submitted bills to us and we paid all along at first. We then began to notice that we were being billed for items that we were purchasing, such as tile, chandeliers, ceiling fans, etc. In addition, we noted that we were being billed for items not supplied to us, such as doors and windows. The billings were all going through an adjuster before coming to us for payment. The final billing from the fire restoration company included some credits, but the credits were not correct. Example: billed 100 plus 20. overhead and profit, yet credited 101. With the final bill of 18,000, taking these inaccurate credits into account the company owes us 987. They have retained a lawyer to collect the 18,000 but they owe us. What should we do? We are disputing the charges to their lawyer but what next?

Who owns your cell phone data, you or the phone carrier?

True or False !!!!!!!10 points for the correct answers!!!? (1) John C. Calhoun believed that a state could nullify a federal law (2) The Constitution requires the nation to have two political parties (3) Hamilton's argument for establishing a National Bank is an example of strict construction of the Constitution (4) Jefferson's position favoring the Louisiana Purchase is an example of loose construction of the Constititoin (5)The Nullification Crisis was caused by a dispute over the tariff (6) Abolitionists were American who wanted to get rid of the tariff (7) The main issue in the election of 1844 was expansionism (8) Temperance reformers wanted to prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages (9) In the original Constitution, women had the right to vote (10) Edgar Allan Poe is given credit for inventing the detective story

True or false, john C calhoun believed that a state could nullify a federal law? also true or false, The constitution requires the nation to have two political parties Hamiltions arguement for establishing a national bank is an example of loose construction of the constitution The nullification Crisis was caused by a dispute over the tareff The abolitionists were americans who wanted to get rid of the tariff the main issue in the election of 1844 was expansionism temperance reformers wanted to prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages In the original constitution women had the right to vote Edgar allan poe is given credit for inventing the detective story

Do you know you have a soul? Soon enough there will be no paper money, no dollars and no cents. Everyone will have a credit line of some sort, which will be a person’s source of sustenance. What lies in the future for mankind? I can guess with the best of them, and I think my guesses my hit home for some, and for some…oh I’m just a heretic madman. I eat food, I drink water, and I was born from a woman as well as from a man. To the common mind, that would make me human. Well as a human being I see things that could be detrimental to our well being as a race. We as Americans are comfortable compared to other countries in this world, basking in our freedom, and by my opinion we should bask away! We are free!! But…freedom doesn’t mean doing immoral things just because you can. That is not freedom. The concept of morals that many in society have without a doubt were birthed upon religious foundations. A common belief in a God, who will be coming back to harvest the righteous from the evils this world was infected with. This God made rules and sent a message of understanding to man, that his rules were meant not only to be preached about, but to be followed. Many of these rules from God that we understand to be righteous; are that way not because we know they are righteous, but because we also feel that it is. For example, helping those in need, or giving your time to do a good duty. You not only know that this is good within your mind, but you feel internally that it is good. Could that be your soul you feel? And if we have a soul doesn’t that prove that there is a God? Because this God we all know, no matter which religion, this God has told us about our souls. Thousands and thousands of years ago, when men were writing on papyrus and there were no cars, or computers, or planes, there was without dispute a belief in a God who talks to his creation and informs them that they are spiritual, of the spirit, the force, the energy, we contain souls!!! You know you have one… My question is, do you know that you have a soul? Or better yet…do you know your God?

why? are Iranians "less human" than the British sailors? I'm not gonna discuss whether Iran had the right to capture British sailors or not, since the border was disputed and as many believed it gave t space for both countries to claim that what they had done / said was right.What I wanna discuss is that why is it that 5 Iranian diplomats kidnapped by the U.S in Iraq (and one kidnapped in Turkey) are not considered as important as the British sailors?why is it that no one investigates to see if they're tortured but when it comes to British sailors they claimed they might have been tortured while they were not?the British sailors say we faced a crew with guns pointing at us. Did they expect flowers or even a pat on the back?what would the U.S or other countries do if they captured foriegners in their teritorial waters?(this could be right or wrong since the border was disputed) I'm sure if this had happened in another country's waters, the captives would be tortured, imprisoned and wouldn't be released so easily.(take Iranian diplomats for example) while the worst thing Iran's done to the captives was seperating the female sailor from the rest of the crew and then nothing.Iranians are kind people.why is it that the news talk about the sailors being blindfolded, but doesn't talk as much about the gifts they were given or how they were really treated.They just say "the past two weeks have been difficult", but they refuse to give any further information about how they were treated.(why? because it may give Iran publicity or credit?)yes, it'd be difficult for me if I were captured and were away from my family, but that doesn't mean that I'm hurt, tortured or......How can people / the media be so injustice and prejudice when it comes to Iran?Any answers relating other topics such as nuclear program will be ignored.Focus on the question itself.

why?Are Iranians "less human" than the British sailors? I'm not gonna discuss whether Iran had the right to capture British sailors or not, since the border was disputed and as many believed it gave t space for both countries to claim that what they had done / said was right.What I wanna discuss is that why is it that 5 Iranian diplomats kidnapped by the U.S in Iraq (and one kidnapped in Turkey) are not considered as important as the British sailors?why is it that no one investigates to see if they're tortured but when it comes to British sailors they claimed they might have been tortured while they were not?the British sailors say we faced a crew with guns pointing at us. Did they expect flowers or even a pat on the back?what would the U.S or other countries do if they captured foriegners in their teritorial waters?(this could be right or wrong since the border was disputed) I'm sure if this had happened in another country's waters, the captives would be tortured, imprisoned and wouldn't be released so easily.(take Iranian diplomats for example) while the worst thing Iran's done to the captives was seperating the female sailor from the rest of the crew and then nothing.Iranians are kind people.why is it that the news talk about the sailors being blindfolded, but doesn't talk as much about the gifts they were given or how they were really treated.They just say "the past two weeks have been difficult", but they refuse to give any further information about how they were treated.(why? because it may give Iran publicity or credit?)yes, it'd be difficult for me if I were captured and were away from my family, but that doesn't mean that I'm hurt, tortured or......How can people / the media be so injustice and prejudice when it comes to Iran?Any answers relating other topics such as nuclear program will be ignored.Focus on the question itself.

Old rationales for government growth (discredited) and terrible time of recruiting employeess : GOOD¡? If you say that government is too big and truly overweening, you elicit a surprising degree of agreement among people, even mainstream columnists, economists, and nearly everyone. Even government employees, who famously resent their bosses, might be quick to agree. If you hang outside the offices of the IRS in Washington, D.C., in the park at noontime where its employees take their lunch, you will get an earful of vitriol against the bureaucracy such as you wouldn't hear outside 1990s militia circles. Incidentally, the government is having a terrible time recruiting employees. Only 16% of college-educated workers say that they are interested in a government job. Among those without a college degree, there is twice the level of interest. Among people currently employed, those with managerial or professional occupations show a low interest level of 17%. Among those who want work to be challenging and enjoyable, only 9% thought a government job qualified. And, interestingly, among those who say they want to make a contribution to society, 90% said that non-government work in the private sector, whether for profit or non-profit, is the way to go. Now, what this means is that the smart set avoids government. Government work might still be attractive to people with fewer economic opportunities, but they are entering it for reasons that are not ideological. And for that reason too, they are less loyal to the public sector and glad to bail out if something else comes available. Most people view this as a very bad trend. I would only say that it is a significant trend, especially considering that in the heyday of government central planning, government sought to attract the best and the brightest. Often it did. Now, one might argue that if government were doing what it should be doing, this would be a good thing. But if government is doing many bad things, it is certainly not a bad trend for it to experience a brain drain. It is always a tragedy to see smart and entrepreneurial men and women be attracted away from productive employment in the private sector toward a position of power in the public sector. It makes us poorer to have the talents drained away from wealth creation toward wealth destruction. As for the very few good people in politics — Ron Paul is the great exception that proves the rule — they are true public servants only insofar as they work to diminish government power rather than increase it. So long as government is large and overweening, we are better off with a public sector that cannot attract the best and brightest. They should stay put where they can continue to expand the range of goods and services offered within the market framework. It is the market that provides us the means necessary to improve our standard of living, and the tools we need to maintain some degree of independence from the state. We often rail against incompetence in government. But before we go too far with this language, we need to consider that competence in government may be a far worse fate. We don't need genuinely competent antitrust enforcers, drug and food regulators, tax collectors, money manipulators, labor-law interventionists, gun grabbers, and environmental police. As H.L. Mencken said, we should be thankful that we don't get all the government we pay for. To be sure, we are paying far more today for government than ever before. Consider the real annual growth rate of total government outlays by presidents. Under Nixon, it was 3%. Under Carter, it was 4.1%. Under Reagan, 2.6%. Under Bush's dad, 1.9%, a figuring owing to the cuts in military spending. Domestic spending soared. Under Clinton, whom we all denounced as a socialist, it was 1.5%, the lowest rate in the postwar period. And under the present Bush, who promised less government? The real annual growth rate of total government outlays has been 5%, which compares to Johnson-era spending. The old rationales for government growth may have been discredited in the public mind. But they are alive in Washington, among the special interest groups, and among the media. I would like to identify the main ones. Rationale Number One: The Good Samaritan State. In this view of government, the state should act like the third person to come upon the poor man who had been beaten and robbed. They imagine a population that is divided among three types of people: victims, victimizers, and those who refuse to help. The victim classes we know all too well, because the litany is said again and again within the structure of labor law: the elderly, the very young, ethnic and racial minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities, the physically and mentally disabled, workers, the underpaid, people in rural areas, those who deal with urban overcrowding, people who breathe dirty air or eat chemically produced products, artists, the manufacturing industry, people with peanut allergies, the dyslexic, short people, fat people, the leisure deprived, and I've probably left out a hundred or so other groups. Among the victimizers, we similarly have a list: capitalists, racial and ethnic majorities, sexual majorities, the overpaid, managers and CEOs, people who live in gated communities, the well armed, consumers of cell phones, owners of mines, anyone living off a trust fund, fully abled men, and anyone who resents social managers telling them what to do. In the view of those who advocate the Samaritan State, these two classes of victims and victimizers are constantly at war. There is nothing but conflict between them. The loss of one is the gain of the other. These categories are fixed and unchanging. The lack of harmony of interests is built into the structure of the social and economic world. The remedy requires an institution that is relentlessly engaged in reweighing the power relationships between the two groups. The conflict cannot be finally ended, but justice requires that the victims are given an unending stream of compensation and that the victimizers are treated with disdain and punished for their very existence. Social justice thus requires that victimizers are reduced, disabled, denounced, and spat upon, while the victims must be exalted, fed, clothed, funded, and made whole. This is how the Left, broadly speaking, thinks the world works, and should work. It doesn't matter whether one considers oneself a hard Marxist or a soft social democrat, the intellectual tie that binds them together is the view that conflict and not cooperation characterizes the work of society in the absence of an institution dedicated to bringing about social justice. The institutional answer is, of course, the state. The state is the Samaritan who lifts up and exalts the meek, and smites the proud and powerful who would otherwise walk right past the poor person on the street, who is the very archetype of the victim in the leftist view of how the world works. But there are many things wrong with this view of society. In the parable, the victim was beaten and robbed. He was exploited only in a very narrow and old-fashioned sense: his person and property were violated. These are crimes against libertarian ethics, a system of thought that mirrors what every religious and ethical system has taught: do not kill and do not steal. In other words, he was not a victim of some hazy notion of Social Injustice. He was not discriminated against, exploited by an employer, made to work long hours, or denied a comfy living in his old age. There is a huge difference between being beaten and robbed, and having to pay high prices for prescription drugs. The great error of the Left is its inability to distinguish the injustice of violence from the supposed injustice of inequality of material condition. As for the Samaritan, he was not acting as an agent of the regime. He used his own money to help the victim. He got him back on his feet and paid his bills at the private clinic where he was deposited for care. The Samaritan did not rob someone else to give money to the man on the street. He presumably got his money justly by hard work and investment. He had no desire to keep the man dependent, nor to exercise power over him, tax him, regulate him, nor send him to war. The state is something very different. It has no income but that which it robs from someone else. It seeks its own gain at others' expense. It protects itself and promotes itself before the interests of everyone else. It is beholden to special interests who create and control its regulatory apparatus. It is not impartial. It sides with its friends over its enemies. Moreover, the state is an exploiter, a murderer, a violator of human rights. The typical response of the Left is to say that they want a state that does only good things such as share and care, and not bad things such as steal and kill. But this cannot be. We might as well wish for a lion that only purrs and cuddles, or a rattlesnake that only provides percussion accompaniment to mariachi music. The very nature of the state is that it exists only through and for compulsion. To imagine otherwise is not to face reality. Rationale Number Two: The Solomonic State. In the Bible we are told that King Solomon had "understanding exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand that [is] on the sea shore." And his "wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt." He was "wiser than all men" and "his fame was in all nations round about." He spoke "three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five." He "spake of trees, from the cedar tree that [is] in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." Now, I'm not here to dispute the Bible's account of Solomon's wisdom. But let us also recall that Solomon's rule later became close to tyrannical. His son Rehoboam inherited his power, and when the people begged for relief from Solomon's "heavy yoke," and instigated a full-scale crackdown: "My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions." To be wise and prudent is not characteristics of rulers. In fact, it is very dangerous to hope that they may be. If we set out to find such a person, and have fantastic power available to him when we believe he has arrived, we have set up the framework for tyranny. The founders knew that no man can be trusted with power. They attempted to construct a system that presumed that men were corruptible, and that there would be some means to dislodge them when their corruption showed. Still, today many people long for the Solomonic State as a means of dispensing justice. Unlike the Samaritan model, the goal here is not charity but the just wielding of the sword on behalf of the right and true. Thus should we seek out righteous men of learning and moral character who know what evil is and have the courage to stand up to it and destroy it. This model is what inspires this mentality. There are many problems with this model. One man might be very wise, even the wisest of all men. But as F.A. Hayek might remind us, all the accumulated knowledge in the head of one person is still infinitesimal as compared with the wisdom that emerges through social cooperation on the marketplace. We can consider the price of any good on the market as it stands right now, and know that this one price results from the accumulated decisions of millions of people across thousands and thousands of sectors of economic activity spread throughout the world. The knowledge is dispersed in a million directions and results from small decisions and actions by economic actors. But the result is a single indicator that assists in allocating resources better than any single mind could ever do. The model of the Solomonic State also imagines that somehow the social order we see around us cannot possibly have come about without a single will operating in society, some firm hand that has designed the order and keeps it running smoothly. People who think this way imagine that in the absence of this firm hand, there would be nothing but a Hobbesian state of nature, where society is a war of all against all and life is nasty, brutish, and short. Our age is notably lacking in the likes of Solomon, and so those who fear the Hobbesian state of nature turn to the managerial state to act wisely in the interest of justice and order, at home and abroad. They might not always like what the rulers do, but they consider the alternative to despotism more fearsome. They warn about the dread results of anarchism and liberty, where people senselessly kill and rob without consequence. They fear this liberty more than they fear the abuses of power. This, I submit, is the mentality of many conservatives and many on the Right. We see it in the affections they have for Bush, the Patriot Act, the war on terror, and how quickly people fall for any leader who uses Manichean rhetoric in defense of the latest nationalistic crusade. What these people need more than anything else is a familiarity with the insights of the old liberal tradition as represented by Jefferson, Bastiat, Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. They need to come to see how order is not the mother of liberty but its daughter. They need to see how society is harmonious not because of the state but because of the prevalence of human cooperation in the marketplace, where people work to trade to their own mutual betterment. People who fail to understand this become the unwitting servants of tyranny, particularly in the modern age when it is so obviously not wise but stupid and violent and presumptuous. They imagine that the state can posses godlike powers and bring justice and order, but they end up only empowering the worst elements in society, bringing injustice, and chaos. Now, you might say that the old liberal view of society is naïve. It might be in people's interest to learn to trade rather than steal but we live in a fallen world. If not for some overarching controlling force, people would loot each other unrelentingly and kill for fun. Now, to this I can say that it is true that some societies have not learned to make trading and peace significantly more prevalent than violence and killing. History is strewn with examples. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether a society that fails to learn the art of civilization will erect and sustain a state that will impose civilization on the people. I submit that history also teaches that when a people are brutal and uncivilized, the state is even more so. The state is rarely and maybe never better than the people it rules; in fact, it is almost always worse. Rationale Number Three: Log-Rolling. Given these two very different conceptions of the state, one favoring the welfare state and the other favoring a warfare state, why don't the visions cancel each other out? So intense is the desire of one group to have the state that it wants that it is willing to put up with another group's desire for its conception of the state. The two conceptions decide to cooperate and erect a state that purports to behave both like Solomon and like the Samaritan. That is the origin of the guns-and-butter state, or the welfare-warfare state, or the modern state as we know it, one that purports to meet every need. We see how this log-rolling works every day on Capitol Hill. One group wants more money for tanks and weaponry, and the other wants more for Medicaid and education. If both agree that politics is the art of compromise, they will put up with the other group's priorities in order that their own vision can be fulfilled. On the Right, we find that the love for the police power is more intense than the hatred of redistribution. On the Left, we find that the love of redistribution is more intense than the hatred of war and leviathan. They therefore work together to erect a massive and ever-growing executive. They are similarly unwilling to oppose the state in total. They fear that in doing so, the state as an institution will be discredited, and their conception of what the state should do along with it. Neither side particularly loves big government but both sides agree that it is better than the alternative of letting people alone. So they log-roll to support the public sector above all else, even when it means that they must sleep with their ostensible political enemies. Rationale Number Four: The Inflationary State. Now we come to the reason this system is able to perpetuate itself. And there is something of a mystery to explain here. No people anywhere will put up with a leviathan that grows and grows forever. At some point, the problem of funding state expansion will result in too much violence against property, and the people will revolt. Indeed, if the federal government had to collect all its revenue through a tax of any kind, leveled right now against the public, I submit to you that it would spark a tax revolt on a scale never before seen in modern history. Thus do we have the central bank to create money for the state. Thus do we have paper money that can be created in unlimited quantities. Thus do we have deposit insurance to make banks failure proof, so that the masses will never doubt that the credit pyramid is immortal. Thus do we have the Fed's power to manipulate interest rates and control the flow of credit to the system. An economist at Lehman Brothers sent us an interesting chart the other day. It compares the level of price increases across many Fed regimes. Under the first Fed governor Charles Hamlin, the dollar declined 8% in value. Under Thomas B. McCabe from the late forties, it declined 7.2%. Under Arthur Burns, wholly owned by Nixon, the dollar declined 42% in value. Under Volcker, Mr. Tight Money, it fell 40%. And under Greenspan, who has a reputation as a great inflation fighter, the value of the dollar in terms of goods and services fell fully 44%! Inflation serves the cause of the state by giving it room to run up debts without limit and fund its activities without making the people cough up more revenue. Indeed, that is the primary purpose of the inflationary state. People often say to me that a gold standard is impractical. In fact, that is not the case. It is very practical. It is the free-market answer. The state doesn't need to produce money any more than it needs to produce shoes or shirts or clocks. The problem is that we lack the political will to stop the inflation monster. Rationale Number Five: The Propaganda State. In every society control of educational institutions increases in tandem with the rise of the state. This is because the state needs these institutions to inculcate the civic religion of loving the public enterprise, and also because the less people know about the idea of liberty the more the state is provided the room to grow. Consider the Department of Education. Ever since its creation, every Republican administration has come to power with an intention to abolish it. But once they get in power, they find that bureaucracy has its uses. Instead of cutting or abolishing it, they increase the agency and give it more to do. The more the state does, the more the state sees the need to control public opinion by controlling the schools. Now, there is a point of optimism here. If any state could rule without propaganda, it would surely do so. Why then do states find educational control and the propagation of the civic religion in their interest? Because at some level, every state, in all times and places, is required to seek the tacit consent of those it governs. No state can control a society by use of the sword only and alone. It must also seek some degree of ideological conformity with its own goals. Otherwise its rule becomes threatened and destabilized. The other side of the coin is that states can indeed be destabilized by the ultimate counterrevolutionary tactic of providing alternative sources of education. As Mises said, all of history is a battle of ideas. Where the ideas of freedom are triumphant, liberty prevails. Where the ideas of freedom are buried and suppressed, despotism prevails. More from Lew: $25 Our pathway is clear. It is a choice of the Mises Institute not to mix in the mire of a political system that is wholly owned or attempt to seek favor from influential opinion makers. Our path is one of education, pursued with high-minded ideals, advanced using the most modern methods, and animated by the spirit of guerilla warfare. There are Misesians and Rothbardians strewn throughout the academic world, financial and banking houses, law firms, and in every walk of life, not only in this country but all over the world. We have worked for nearly a quarter of a century on a very radical project of advancing economic science and logic. We have pushed to keep the fire of freedom burning brightly. We have sought to teach anyone and everyone about the workings and benefits of liberty. We have come under pressure from left, right, and center. Yet the attention given to this body of ideas grows by the day. We can prevail against the Propaganda State. So long as we are free to do so and have the means available, we will continue to do so. This is our weapon against power. It is the most effective weapon anyone could ever possess. If we win this victory, we win all others. We thank you for supporting education for liberty, for supporting the Mises Institute financially and morally, and for being part of the revolutionary vanguard that sees through the errors of our day and imagines a brighter future of freedom, private property, and peace. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lew Rockwell

State : Neither Samaritan Nor Solomon ?? Mises? If you say that government is too big and truly overweening, you elicit a surprising degree of agreement among people, even mainstream columnists, economists, and nearly everyone. Even government employees, who famously resent their bosses, might be quick to agree. If you hang outside the offices of the IRS in Washington, D.C., in the park at noontime where its employees take their lunch, you will get an earful of vitriol against the bureaucracy such as you wouldn't hear outside 1990s militia circles. Incidentally, the government is having a terrible time recruiting employees. Only 16% of college-educated workers say that they are interested in a government job. Among those without a college degree, there is twice the level of interest. Among people currently employed, those with managerial or professional occupations show a low interest level of 17%. Among those who want work to be challenging and enjoyable, only 9% thought a government job qualified. And, interestingly, among those who say they want to make a contribution to society, 90% said that non-government work in the private sector, whether for profit or non-profit, is the way to go. Now, what this means is that the smart set avoids government. Government work might still be attractive to people with fewer economic opportunities, but they are entering it for reasons that are not ideological. And for that reason too, they are less loyal to the public sector and glad to bail out if something else comes available. Most people view this as a very bad trend. I would only say that it is a significant trend, especially considering that in the heyday of government central planning, government sought to attract the best and the brightest. Often it did. Now, one might argue that if government were doing what it should be doing, this would be a good thing. But if government is doing many bad things, it is certainly not a bad trend for it to experience a brain drain. It is always a tragedy to see smart and entrepreneurial men and women be attracted away from productive employment in the private sector toward a position of power in the public sector. It makes us poorer to have the talents drained away from wealth creation toward wealth destruction. As for the very few good people in politics — Ron Paul is the great exception that proves the rule — they are true public servants only insofar as they work to diminish government power rather than increase it. So long as government is large and overweening, we are better off with a public sector that cannot attract the best and brightest. They should stay put where they can continue to expand the range of goods and services offered within the market framework. It is the market that provides us the means necessary to improve our standard of living, and the tools we need to maintain some degree of independence from the state. We often rail against incompetence in government. But before we go too far with this language, we need to consider that competence in government may be a far worse fate. We don't need genuinely competent antitrust enforcers, drug and food regulators, tax collectors, money manipulators, labor-law interventionists, gun grabbers, and environmental police. As H.L. Mencken said, we should be thankful that we don't get all the government we pay for. To be sure, we are paying far more today for government than ever before. Consider the real annual growth rate of total government outlays by presidents. Under Nixon, it was 3%. Under Carter, it was 4.1%. Under Reagan, 2.6%. Under Bush's dad, 1.9%, a figuring owing to the cuts in military spending. Domestic spending soared. Under Clinton, whom we all denounced as a socialist, it was 1.5%, the lowest rate in the postwar period. And under the present Bush, who promised less government? The real annual growth rate of total government outlays has been 5%, which compares to Johnson-era spending. The old rationales for government growth may have been discredited in the public mind. But they are alive in Washington, among the special interest groups, and among the media. I would like to identify the main ones. Rationale Number One: The Good Samaritan State. In this view of government, the state should act like the third person to come upon the poor man who had been beaten and robbed. They imagine a population that is divided among three types of people: victims, victimizers, and those who refuse to help. The victim classes we know all too well, because the litany is said again and again within the structure of labor law: the elderly, the very young, ethnic and racial minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities, the physically and mentally disabled, workers, the underpaid, people in rural areas, those who deal with urban overcrowding, people who breathe dirty air or eat chemically produced products, artists, the manufacturing industry, people with peanut allergies, the dyslexic, short people, fat people, the leisure deprived, and I've probably left out a hundred or so other groups. Among the victimizers, we similarly have a list: capitalists, racial and ethnic majorities, sexual majorities, the overpaid, managers and CEOs, people who live in gated communities, the well armed, consumers of cell phones, owners of mines, anyone living off a trust fund, fully abled men, and anyone who resents social managers telling them what to do. In the view of those who advocate the Samaritan State, these two classes of victims and victimizers are constantly at war. There is nothing but conflict between them. The loss of one is the gain of the other. These categories are fixed and unchanging. The lack of harmony of interests is built into the structure of the social and economic world. The remedy requires an institution that is relentlessly engaged in reweighing the power relationships between the two groups. The conflict cannot be finally ended, but justice requires that the victims are given an unending stream of compensation and that the victimizers are treated with disdain and punished for their very existence. Social justice thus requires that victimizers are reduced, disabled, denounced, and spat upon, while the victims must be exalted, fed, clothed, funded, and made whole. This is how the Left, broadly speaking, thinks the world works, and should work. It doesn't matter whether one considers oneself a hard Marxist or a soft social democrat, the intellectual tie that binds them together is the view that conflict and not cooperation characterizes the work of society in the absence of an institution dedicated to bringing about social justice. The institutional answer is, of course, the state. The state is the Samaritan who lifts up and exalts the meek, and smites the proud and powerful who would otherwise walk right past the poor person on the street, who is the very archetype of the victim in the leftist view of how the world works. But there are many things wrong with this view of society. In the parable, the victim was beaten and robbed. He was exploited only in a very narrow and old-fashioned sense: his person and property were violated. These are crimes against libertarian ethics, a system of thought that mirrors what every religious and ethical system has taught: do not kill and do not steal. In other words, he was not a victim of some hazy notion of Social Injustice. He was not discriminated against, exploited by an employer, made to work long hours, or denied a comfy living in his old age. There is a huge difference between being beaten and robbed, and having to pay high prices for prescription drugs. The great error of the Left is its inability to distinguish the injustice of violence from the supposed injustice of inequality of material condition. As for the Samaritan, he was not acting as an agent of the regime. He used his own money to help the victim. He got him back on his feet and paid his bills at the private clinic where he was deposited for care. The Samaritan did not rob someone else to give money to the man on the street. He presumably got his money justly by hard work and investment. He had no desire to keep the man dependent, nor to exercise power over him, tax him, regulate him, nor send him to war. The state is something very different. It has no income but that which it robs from someone else. It seeks its own gain at others' expense. It protects itself and promotes itself before the interests of everyone else. It is beholden to special interests who create and control its regulatory apparatus. It is not impartial. It sides with its friends over its enemies. Moreover, the state is an exploiter, a murderer, a violator of human rights. The typical response of the Left is to say that they want a state that does only good things such as share and care, and not bad things such as steal and kill. But this cannot be. We might as well wish for a lion that only purrs and cuddles, or a rattlesnake that only provides percussion accompaniment to mariachi music. The very nature of the state is that it exists only through and for compulsion. To imagine otherwise is not to face reality. Rationale Number Two: The Solomonic State. In the Bible we are told that King Solomon had "understanding exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand that [is] on the sea shore." And his "wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt." He was "wiser than all men" and "his fame was in all nations round about." He spoke "three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five." He "spake of trees, from the cedar tree that [is] in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." Now, I'm not here to dispute the Bible's account of Solomon's wisdom. But let us also recall that Solomon's rule later became close to tyrannical. His son Rehoboam inherited his power, and when the people begged for relief from Solomon's "heavy yoke," and instigated a full-scale crackdown: "My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions." To be wise and prudent is not characteristics of rulers. In fact, it is very dangerous to hope that they may be. If we set out to find such a person, and have fantastic power available to him when we believe he has arrived, we have set up the framework for tyranny. The founders knew that no man can be trusted with power. They attempted to construct a system that presumed that men were corruptible, and that there would be some means to dislodge them when their corruption showed. Still, today many people long for the Solomonic State as a means of dispensing justice. Unlike the Samaritan model, the goal here is not charity but the just wielding of the sword on behalf of the right and true. Thus should we seek out righteous men of learning and moral character who know what evil is and have the courage to stand up to it and destroy it. This model is what inspires this mentality. There are many problems with this model. One man might be very wise, even the wisest of all men. But as F.A. Hayek might remind us, all the accumulated knowledge in the head of one person is still infinitesimal as compared with the wisdom that emerges through social cooperation on the marketplace. We can consider the price of any good on the market as it stands right now, and know that this one price results from the accumulated decisions of millions of people across thousands and thousands of sectors of economic activity spread throughout the world. The knowledge is dispersed in a million directions and results from small decisions and actions by economic actors. But the result is a single indicator that assists in allocating resources better than any single mind could ever do. The model of the Solomonic State also imagines that somehow the social order we see around us cannot possibly have come about without a single will operating in society, some firm hand that has designed the order and keeps it running smoothly. People who think this way imagine that in the absence of this firm hand, there would be nothing but a Hobbesian state of nature, where society is a war of all against all and life is nasty, brutish, and short. Our age is notably lacking in the likes of Solomon, and so those who fear the Hobbesian state of nature turn to the managerial state to act wisely in the interest of justice and order, at home and abroad. They might not always like what the rulers do, but they consider the alternative to despotism more fearsome. They warn about the dread results of anarchism and liberty, where people senselessly kill and rob without consequence. They fear this liberty more than they fear the abuses of power. This, I submit, is the mentality of many conservatives and many on the Right. We see it in the affections they have for Bush, the Patriot Act, the war on terror, and how quickly people fall for any leader who uses Manichean rhetoric in defense of the latest nationalistic crusade. What these people need more than anything else is a familiarity with the insights of the old liberal tradition as represented by Jefferson, Bastiat, Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. They need to come to see how order is not the mother of liberty but its daughter. They need to see how society is harmonious not because of the state but because of the prevalence of human cooperation in the marketplace, where people work to trade to their own mutual betterment. People who fail to understand this become the unwitting servants of tyranny, particularly in the modern age when it is so obviously not wise but stupid and violent and presumptuous. They imagine that the state can posses godlike powers and bring justice and order, but they end up only empowering the worst elements in society, bringing injustice, and chaos. Now, you might say that the old liberal view of society is naïve. It might be in people's interest to learn to trade rather than steal but we live in a fallen world. If not for some overarching controlling force, people would loot each other unrelentingly and kill for fun. Now, to this I can say that it is true that some societies have not learned to make trading and peace significantly more prevalent than violence and killing. History is strewn with examples. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether a society that fails to learn the art of civilization will erect and sustain a state that will impose civilization on the people. I submit that history also teaches that when a people are brutal and uncivilized, the state is even more so. The state is rarely and maybe never better than the people it rules; in fact, it is almost always worse. Rationale Number Three: Log-Rolling. Given these two very different conceptions of the state, one favoring the welfare state and the other favoring a warfare state, why don't the visions cancel each other out? So intense is the desire of one group to have the state that it wants that it is willing to put up with another group's desire for its conception of the state. The two conceptions decide to cooperate and erect a state that purports to behave both like Solomon and like the Samaritan. That is the origin of the guns-and-butter state, or the welfare-warfare state, or the modern state as we know it, one that purports to meet every need. We see how this log-rolling works every day on Capitol Hill. One group wants more money for tanks and weaponry, and the other wants more for Medicaid and education. If both agree that politics is the art of compromise, they will put up with the other group's priorities in order that their own vision can be fulfilled. On the Right, we find that the love for the police power is more intense than the hatred of redistribution. On the Left, we find that the love of redistribution is more intense than the hatred of war and leviathan. They therefore work together to erect a massive and ever-growing executive. They are similarly unwilling to oppose the state in total. They fear that in doing so, the state as an institution will be discredited, and their conception of what the state should do along with it. Neither side particularly loves big government but both sides agree that it is better than the alternative of letting people alone. So they log-roll to support the public sector above all else, even when it means that they must sleep with their ostensible political enemies. Rationale Number Four: The Inflationary State. Now we come to the reason this system is able to perpetuate itself. And there is something of a mystery to explain here. No people anywhere will put up with a leviathan that grows and grows forever. At some point, the problem of funding state expansion will result in too much violence against property, and the people will revolt. Indeed, if the federal government had to collect all its revenue through a tax of any kind, leveled right now against the public, I submit to you that it would spark a tax revolt on a scale never before seen in modern history. Thus do we have the central bank to create money for the state. Thus do we have paper money that can be created in unlimited quantities. Thus do we have deposit insurance to make banks failure proof, so that the masses will never doubt that the credit pyramid is immortal. Thus do we have the Fed's power to manipulate interest rates and control the flow of credit to the system. An economist at Lehman Brothers sent us an interesting chart the other day. It compares the level of price increases across many Fed regimes. Under the first Fed governor Charles Hamlin, the dollar declined 8% in value. Under Thomas B. McCabe from the late forties, it declined 7.2%. Under Arthur Burns, wholly owned by Nixon, the dollar declined 42% in value. Under Volcker, Mr. Tight Money, it fell 40%. And under Greenspan, who has a reputation as a great inflation fighter, the value of the dollar in terms of goods and services fell fully 44%! Inflation serves the cause of the state by giving it room to run up debts without limit and fund its activities without making the people cough up more revenue. Indeed, that is the primary purpose of the inflationary state. People often say to me that a gold standard is impractical. In fact, that is not the case. It is very practical. It is the free-market answer. The state doesn't need to produce money any more than it needs to produce shoes or shirts or clocks. The problem is that we lack the political will to stop the inflation monster. Rationale Number Five: The Propaganda State. In every society control of educational institutions increases in tandem with the rise of the state. This is because the state needs these institutions to inculcate the civic religion of loving the public enterprise, and also because the less people know about the idea of liberty the more the state is provided the room to grow. Consider the Department of Education. Ever since its creation, every Republican administration has come to power with an intention to abolish it. But once they get in power, they find that bureaucracy has its uses. Instead of cutting or abolishing it, they increase the agency and give it more to do. The more the state does, the more the state sees the need to control public opinion by controlling the schools. Now, there is a point of optimism here. If any state could rule without propaganda, it would surely do so. Why then do states find educational control and the propagation of the civic religion in their interest? Because at some level, every state, in all times and places, is required to seek the tacit consent of those it governs. No state can control a society by use of the sword only and alone. It must also seek some degree of ideological conformity with its own goals. Otherwise its rule becomes threatened and destabilized. The other side of the coin is that states can indeed be destabilized by the ultimate counterrevolutionary tactic of providing alternative sources of education. As Mises said, all of history is a battle of ideas. Where the ideas of freedom are triumphant, liberty prevails. Where the ideas of freedom are buried and suppressed, despotism prevails. Our pathway is clear. It is a choice of the Mises Institute not to mix in the mire of a political system that is wholly owned or attempt to seek favor from influential opinion makers. Our path is one of education, pursued with high-minded ideals, advanced using the most modern methods, and animated by the spirit of guerilla warfare. There are Misesians and Rothbardians strewn throughout the academic world, financial and banking houses, law firms, and in every walk of life, not only in this country but all over the world. We have worked for nearly a quarter of a century on a very radical project of advancing economic science and logic. We have pushed to keep the fire of freedom burning brightly. We have sought to teach anyone and everyone about the workings and benefits of liberty. We have come under pressure from left, right, and center. Yet the attention given to this body of ideas grows by the day. We can prevail against the Propaganda State. So long as we are free to do so and have the means available, we will continue to do so. This is our weapon against power. It is the most effective weapon anyone could ever possess. If we win this victory, we win all others. We thank you for supporting education for liberty, and for being part of the revolutionary vanguard that sees through the errors of our day and imagines a brighter future of freedom, private property, and peace. : Mises Institute

What do you think of this web site about Bush being 1 Anti-Christ? Nice Guy? or the Devil's Spawn? He snorted cocaine ... He dodged the draft....His friends knew him as an alcoholic womanizer with a bad temper....a complete failure at business until his wealthy friends bailed him out. Yet within a few short years he was elected Governor of Texas, and quickly catapulted into the White House, in spite of losing the popular vote. He was re-elected with last minute help from Osama Bin Laden, in spite of high disapproval ratings. He still couldn't think his way out of a wet paper bag .....and yet he's declared an endless war and instituted some of the most radical political changes in American history .... ....... How has He done it? I submit to you that George Walker Bush is the ANTI-CHRIST. The violence and destruction that started when Bush first entered office, is likely to culminate in the apocalypse, just as predicted in the Bible, over 2,000 years ago. ( I first posted this on Geocities over four years ago, before the 2000 election, to sound the alarm. Tragically, nobody listened. Now the World Trade Center has been hauled off for scrap, the Constitution is in tatters, our civil rights in ruins, and our nation is off fighting a Holy War in the Middle East..) The Evidence: Let's look at exhibit 1: The Number of the Beast The Bible gives us a way to prove whether or not a person is the Antichrist. Rev 13:18 says: "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." That is, the number 666. St. John the apostle, the author of Revelation, was a Jew who wrote in Greek, though he did his thinking in Hebrew. He knew that every Hebrew letter has a numeric equivalent, and that's how the number 666 originated. Gematria is the process of adding up or counting the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in a word or name. Here is a table that list the Hebrew letters and the numbers that correspond. PLATE I.- TABLE OF HEBREW LETTERS Hebrew/Chaldee Letters Name Sound or Power Roman Letters Used Numerical Value Aleph Beth Gimel Daleth He Vau Zayin Cheth Teth Yod Caph Lamed Mem Nun Samekh Ayin Pe Tzaddi Qoph Resh Shin Tau a (soft breathing) b, bh (v) g (hard), gh d, dh (flat th) h (rough breathing) v,u,o,w z, dz ch, h (guttural) t (strong) i, y (as in yes) k, kh l m n s o, aa, ng (guttural) p, ph (f) ts, tz, j q, qh (guttural) r sh, s th, t A B C,G D E V,W Z H,Ch T I,Y K, C L M N S O,U P Tz Q R Sh Th 1 (Thousands are 2 denoted by a 3 larger letter; Thus 4 an Aleph larger 5 than the rest of 6 the letters 7 among which it is, 8 signifies not 1, 9 but 1000). 10 20 final = 500 30 40 final = 600 50 final = 700 60 70 80 final = 800 90 final = 900 100 (The finals are not 200 always considered as 300 bearing an increased 400 numerical value) (note: the letter 'S' has a different value depending upon whether it's used to form a hard or soft sound as in 'bus' or 'Bush'): If you add up the name 'George Bush' in Hebrew letters it comes out: G = 3 (gimel) e = 5 (heh) o = 70 (ayin) r = 200 (resh) g = 3 (gimel) e = 5 (heh) B = 2 (beth) u = 70 (ayin) s = 300 (shin) h = 8 (cheth) total = 666 (Antichrist) I challenge anyone to find another powerful world leader, either now or in the past, whose name adds up to 666 in Hebrew. Unlike Hebrew, the letters of the English alphabet don't automatically have a numeric value. The way numerologists convert names into numbers is through a simple numerical code. The most common method used by numerologists today is the Pythagorean System, named for the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, who invented it in the fifth century BC. It looks like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z If you add up the numbers of his full name using this system, according to the table above you get 7+5+6+9+7+5 for George, +5+1+3+2+5+9 for Walker, and +2+3+1+8 for Bush, which all adds up to a total of 78 = 7+8 = 15 = 1+5 = 6. The other method used in numerology is the Chaldean System, which has its roots in ancient Babylon, and is closely related to the Hebrew Kabbala: It looks like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B C D E U O F I K G M H G Z P J R L T N W Q S X S If you add up the numbers of his name using the Chaldean System you get 3+5+7+2+3+5 for George, +6+1+3+2+5+2 for Walker, and +2+6+3+5 for Bush, which adds up to a total of 60 = 6+0 = 6. Once again the number is 6. But hold on, because we’re not done yet. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. The computer you're using to read this can only understand numbers, and ASCII is the numerical representation of characters like ‘A,B,C’ or an action of some sort. now if you add up Bush's name in ASCII code, you get 71+101+111+114+103+101 for George, 87+97+108+107+101+114 for Walker, and 66+117+115+104 for Bush, which totals up to 1617 = 1+6+1+7 = 15 = 1+5 = 6. To recap: George Bush's name is equal to 666 if we use the Hebrew letter equivalents. It also equals 666 when we use the two most commonly used systems in numerology, together with ASCII code. Bush has another name used to identify him politically. A Republican from Texas. If you add up Republican in the most commonly used Pythagorean system you get 9+5+7+3+2+3+9+3+1+9 = 51 = 5+1 = 6. If you add up Texas you get 2+5+6+1+1 = 15 = 1+5 = 6. And if you add up Texas Republican you get 15 + 51 = 66. (Ever wonder why George Herbert Walker Bush Sr. left out the 'Herbert' when naming his son? George = six letters, Walker = six letters, and BushJr (or 'Busche', which was the original German spelling of their name) = six letters. = 666. Once again, the number of the beast.) But hold onto your hat, because there's more. Revelation says the number of the beast (the Antichrist) is 666 – it does not explicitly say this is the number of his name, though that could be part of it. So let's continue with the second number used by numerologists, the date of his birth. Mr. Bush was born July 6, 1946. If you add up all the digits in his date of birth you get 7+6+1+9+4+6 = 33 = 3+3 = 6. The third number used by numerologists is the "fate" number. There are two ways to find the number. Many numerologists find the fate, destiny, or ‘lucky’ number by taking the day of the month you are born, and reducing if necessary. Since Bush’s birth day is the 6th of July – no reduction is necessary. The other way is by adding the three components of the date of birth to a sum before reducing. Bush’s birth date is 7/6/1946 = 7+6+1946 = 1959 = 1+9+5+9 = 24 = 2+4 = once again, our third 6. However, to be absolutely certain that we’re dealing with the Antichrist, consider that you can also identify a man by the most important dates in his life – the day of his marriage, or the dates of his children’s birth, for instance. However, since it's the Antichrist we're considering, the most important dates in his life will be the dates on which he acquires world power. These dates will also be readily available to people everywhere, so that anyone can check to see whether a world leader is the Antichrist. Bush's first step in attaining world power was achieved on that fateful day Mr. Bush was first elected governor of Texas - his first elected office - on November 8, 1994. Again, just by adding up the digits we get 1+1+8+1+9+9+4 = 33 = 3+3 = 6. Then he was inaugurated as Governor of Texas on January 17, 1995. = 1+1+7+1+9+9+5 = 33 = 3+3 = 6. After losing the popular vote on November 7, 2000, Bush took his next giant leap towards world domination when he was inaugurated president of the United States on January 20, 2001. 1+2+0+2+0+0+1 = 6. Another six to replace the one he had as Governor. There you have it - 666 - the number of the Beast, any way you care to add it up. The number of his name in Hebrew = 666. The number of his name using the Pythagorean system = 6. The Chaldean system = 6. ASCII code = 6. The number of his birthday = 6. His lucky number = 6. The number of the date when he was first elected Governor = 6. When he is first inaugurated Governor = 6. The number when he was inaugurated president of the United States = 6. The number of the man/beast named George Walker Bush = 666. What are the chances? The chances of anyone's name being equal to 666 in Hebrew are at least one in a thousand. The chances of each of the others by themselves is 1 in 9. Using the law of cumulative probability, we can figure the chance of all these things occurring together in the same man to be 1 chance in (1,000 x 9 x 9 x 9 x 9 x 9 x 9 x 9 x 9), or 1 chance in 43,046,721,000. That's about seven times the current total world population. Since the Bible says that the Antichrist will be the most powerful leader in the world, and George Bush has already attained that goal, we would need to see another 43,046,721,000 most-powerful world leaders come and go, before we would have an even chance of another world-leader as strongly associated with the number 666. If all the future most powerful world leaders lasted only an average of 4 years, followed one right after another - as with a single presidential term - it would take over 172 billion years before we'd have a fair chance of seeing another world leader as strongly associated with the number 666. Unfortunately, according to the latest estimates, our sun will burn out in another 4-5 billion years. Therefore, it's extremely unlikely that another world leader will ever again be as strongly associated with the number 666 as George W Bush. There is still one more very remarkable piece of evidence: Bush declared his candidacy for president on June 12, 1999, at a mid-day Bar-B-Q in Iowa. By turning the day into a product of simple addition, we easily come up with the date 6/(6+6)/1999. That's a right-side up 666 next to an upside down 666, separated by a 1 that is holding the place for 1,000 years. The 1,000 years is the millennium of peace, which the Bible says will come after Christ defeats the Antichrist (the right side up 666) and rules the world for 1,000 years. Then, after the 1,000 year millennium, Satan will once again be released from hell (the upside down 666, as in coming up from hell). He is then defeated and thrown into the lake of fire forever (Revelation 20:7-10). So what are the chances? Obviously, the chances of any other world leader introducing himself to the world on 6/6+6/1999 are nil - it simply didn’t happen. Bush is the only one and he is the only leader in history who is so intimately connected to what must be the most inauspicious day in world history. Numerology was widely used in the early church, and St Augustine encouraged its teaching as a basic part of Christian education. In the Bible, seven is considered to be a perfect number because God created the world in 7 days. Six is considered to be an imperfect or sinful number, because it falls just short of the perfect number seven, in the same way our sins fall short of the mark. Mankind was created on the sixth day, and it was through mankind that sin came into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve. So the association of the number six with evil, as expressed in the book of Revelation, has its origins in the first few pages of Genesis, at the very beginning of the Bible. Exhibit 2 : Nailing the Beast Revelation 13:1-2 “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns upon its horns, and a blasphemous name upon its heads. And the beast I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have a mortal wound, but the mortal wound had been healed.” This beast in Revelation is based upon one that first appears in the book of Daniel: Daniel 7: 7-8 “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast- terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully.” So what are we to make of this confusing symbolism? What do the horns represent? What do the heads represent? What do the crowns mean? What does the body symbolize? It's not that difficult to figure out, now that we know who the Antichrist is. This beast is the image of an empire – the final world empire, and the one that gives rise to the Antichrist. Its body is likened to a leopard, because according to Victorinus, a father of the early church "“This signifies the kingdom of that time of Antichrist, and the people mingled with the variety of nations.” The spots on the leopard represent a multi-national, multi-racial, and multi-cultural 'melting pot'.. This was once the case with Rome, and is currently the case with the United States of America. The mouth is like a lion because Americans speak English, and the United States was once an English colony, and England has always been represented by a lion on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom. The bear is the symbol of Russia, and the bear-like feet of the beast are symbolic of how the only other superpower for forty years was the Russian bear, but now the US is walking all over what was formerly Russian territory, and it now has its ‘feet’, or military bases planted in countries that were once part of the USSR, like Uzbekistan and Kyrgistan. It says this beast comes out of the sea, and this is in reference to the New World, which was discovered by navigators like Columbus. The United States came out of the sea in the sense that at the time of St. John’s vision, it was assumed that the only thing west of Europe and east of the orient was water and the end of the world. The United States, as part of the 'New World', seemed from the perspective of the Biblical or ‘Old World’, to come up out of the water, and literally rise out of the sea. Daniel says this beast is different from the previous beasts. Because unlike all the others, the American Empire isn't headquartered in Europe or the Middle East, and the United States doesn’t formally colonize and occupy other nations (at least before Iraq), but it maintains military bases around the world, and its ships, planes and missiles are able to reach clear around the world, and that's what makes the United States an Imperial super-power. Horns symbolize power or virility, and the horns of the beast represent the powerful men who have come to rule over the American empire. Daniel says quite explicitly (Dan 7: 24) “the ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones. (the Antichrist)” America acquired superpower status, and gained the reach of a world-class Empire, when it acquired the nuclear bomb - at the very end of WWII. Since then there have been exactly ten “kings” or post-war presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, BushSr, and Clinton. The prophecy from Daniel says that after these ten presidents, there will appear another one, an arrogant “little horn”, which is the Antichrist, George W Bush. It says this “little horn” is unlike the other ten presidents, and this is in reference to the fact that Bush had no popular mandate, that he lost the popular vote by over a million votes, and was appointed to office when five un-elected judges on the Supreme Court stopped the counting of votes in Florida. This never happened before in American history, and it makes him different from his predecessors – that and his arrogance, dishonesty, law-breaking, and lust for world power. It also says that “three of the first horns (10 presidents) were uprooted before it.” Bush is a far-right Republican, and this in reference to the fact that when Bush Jr came to office, right-wing conspiracies had already uprooted and destroyed the presidencies of three previous key Democratic presidents, thereby changing history and sabotaging a more moderate course for the nation: John Kennedy, by assassination, Jimmy Carter, through the Iran hostage crisis “October Surprise” , and finally the Monica Lewinski sex impeachment. (which ultimately damaged Gore, as part of the Clinton/Gore presidency.) In all three of these right-wing conspiracies, there was direct involvement by the Bush crime family. Crowns are always associated with kingdoms, and the ten crowns on the ten horns represent the ten kingdoms or imperial powers whose power was eventually assumed by this particular beast, which is the United States. There were ten imperial powers over the past several hundred years, which became the European heirs to the power of the Roman Empire. At one point or other the United States, the ultimate and final heir to the Roman Empire, has either beaten these weaker empires outright in war, or assumed the power and sphere of influence they once commanded. These empires were the Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian, Byzantine/Ottoman, German /Holy Roman, Russian, Italian and French. The American beast, a former colony of these European Imperial powers, now proudly wears their crowns like scalps or trophies. This is symbolic of the US presidents who have wielded their power since WWII, when the power of European imperialism was broken.. Finally, what about the seven heads? Just as the ten crowns represent the power held by ten empires that divided the power of Rome, the seven heads are the seven world-class empires which for a time ruled over all the known world, of which Rome was only one. These seven master empires in chronological order are Babylon (both Old and New), Egypt, Assyria, Medo-Persia, Greece or Macedonia, Rome, and finally the United States. Islam once conquered a large area of the Middle East, but they never had a cohesive, world-class Empire. This also doesn’t include the Chinese, Inca, Mongol or Mayan Empires, because they were too far removed from the Biblical world, which includes the Mediterranean world of the Middle East and Europe. This area remains the critical heart of the Biblical world, even today. It doesn’t include empires like the British and Ottoman, because their power was actively contested by contemporaries, and they never held the sort of ‘sole superpower’ status that once marked Rome, and currently defines the USA. The head with a mortal wound that was healed is the Roman Empire/Nero, which seemed to have been dead for the last 1500 years, but now has been resurrected in the American Empire/Bush. All the other world-class empires were more or less continuous – whenever one was defeated the next sprang up on its heels. In that sense, from the perspective of the Biblical world, there was one continuous world empire that never seemed to die until Rome was finally defeated by the Christian church. This is the 'Whore Babylon' spoken about in prophecy - a premier line of world-class empires that first began with Babylon, and continues on with six other world class empires - the "seven mountains on which a woman sits" (Rev 17:9). A woman who keeps putting on different makeup - but it's always the same old whore. These empires not only dominate the world militarily, but economically and culturally as well. The “blasphemous name” written across the seven heads of the beast (and it says ‘name’, not ‘names’) are the seven letters B-A-B-Y-L-O-N. It also says about these seven heads or empires, that as of the time of the writing of Revelation (95 AD), (Rev 17:10) “five have fallen (Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece), one is (Rome), the other has yet to come (USA), but when it does, he (George Bush – the Antichrist) must remain for a little while.” When the American World Empire moved into Afghanistan and Iraq, in order to dominate and remake the middle east by force, it was a signal that the last World Empire, the Antichrist, and the final days had arrived. Many people wrote to me that Bush can’t be the Antichrist because “the Antichrist will come from Europe” or “the Antichrist will come from the Middle East”. But when pressed to back up their claim, they could not. Whether we like it or not, the evidence proves the Antichrist could only come from the United States of America, and it is none other than George Walker BushJr = 666. Exhibit #3: Daniel's Perspective On Current Events Here is a running commentary on a prophecy of Daniel concerning the Antichrist – one remarkably similar to what we are reading in our daily newspapers: Daniel 8:1-17 In the third year of King Belshazzar's reign, I Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision I saw in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam (located in Iraq just east of Babylon)...I looked up and there before me was a ram with two horns (Saddam Hussein), and the horns were long (Saddam once had the fourth most powerful army in the world). One of the horns was longer than the others but grew up later (his forces were divided into the regular armed forces and the Republican army. The Republican army was formed later and eventually grew into seven elite divisions that became the backbone of his forces.). I watched the ram as he charged towards the west, the north and the south. (Saddam was causing a lot of trouble in the Middle East - sparring with Israel in the west, then brutally suppressing the Kurds in the north, and finally invading and occupying Kuwait in the south, which triggered the first Gulf War.) No animal could stand up to him, and none could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. (By 1990, Iraq had become the greatest military power in the region, and was on the verge of acquiring nuclear capability. This would have enabled him to overrun Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the Persian Gulf oil states.) As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn came from the west (United States military forces under President George HW Bush), crossing the whole earth without touching the ground (US forces were either shipped across water or airlifted in from across the globe). He came towards the two-horned ram (Saddam's forces) they had seen standing by the canal (the straights of Shatt Al Arab, an important oil-producing region shared by Iraq and Kuwait, and crucial in the conflict. Kuwait was later found to have been slant drilling for Iraqi oil.) and charged at him in great rage. I saw him attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering his two horns. (the air war that proceeded ground action in the Gulf War shattered and demoralized the dug-in Iraqi forces, both the regular army and the Republican Guard.) The ram was powerless to stand against him, the goat knocked him to the ground and trampled on him, and none could rescue the ram from his power. (US ground forces then rolled right over Saddam's forces. Other Arab nations in the region were either neutral in the conflict or openly supportive of US military intervention.) The goat became very great, but at the height of his power his large horn was broken off. (After the War American prestige and power in the region soared. Yet in spite of world-wide acclaim and a job approval rate of over 90%, George WH Bush nevertheless lost the presidency a year later, and was no longer commander-in-chief of the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen.) And in its place four prominent horns grew up towards the four winds of heaven. (Having retired from politics, his power and reputation was now in the hands of his four sons: George, John (aka “Jeb”), Neil & Marvin. It was up to them to redeem the family’s name and power.) Out of one of them (that is, from one of his four sons) came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. (George W Bush started out failing at everything, and spent most of his adult life drinking. He had no power to speak of – his horn was very small. Then at the age of 48 he was suddenly elected governor of the southern state of Texas. He gained more power when he was appointed to the presidency, and moved east to Washington DC to assume the office. Now he's sent American forces off to conquer or ‘democratize’ the Middle East, also known in the Bible as 'beautiful land'.) It grew until it reached the host of heaven and it threw some of the starry hosts down to earth and trampled on them. (Here we have a picture of an arrogant leader whose great power has gone completely to his head. He challenges the authority of heaven by pretending to be on a divine mission to attack other nations.) It set itself up as great as the Prince of the host; (With 'Operation Infinite Justice', Bush compared his bloody justice to that of a patient and merciful God) it took away the place of daily sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was brought low. (The United States invaded and destroyed numerous Mosques in the pursuit of fundamentalist Moslem ‘terrorists’. It has also proclaimed that any Islamic state offering them sanctuary will be attacked.). The heavenly host was delivered up (many innocent civilians are being slaughtered by American forces - over 650,000 at last count , an Iraqi casualty rate that's the same as killing about 8 million Americans, or the entire population of New York City - and delivered up as angels before God), and the little horn (George W Bush) raised itself impiously against the regular offering and cast true religion to the ground; (though he claims to be a Christian, and a man of peace fighting against forces of evil, just the opposite is the case. He is a violent and profane man consumed by greed and a lust for power; he persecutes and murders the poor to increase the profits of the rich, and trades blood for oil.) It succeeded in all he did, and truth was thrown to the ground (for a short time his 'war on terrorism' was very successful. He won every military battle and announced 'mission accomplished'. He fooled a lot of people with lies about WMDs, while pretending he's fighting for freedom and democracy. ). Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, "How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled? -....." He said to me, "It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated." (The ‘war on terrorism’ will last about six and a half years, causing an unbelievable amount death and destruction. Then Bush/the Antichrist will be removed by God, and peace restored to the Middle East)....While I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there before me stood one who looked like a man. (Jesus, the son of God) And I heard a man's voice calling, "Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision." As he came near the place I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. "Son of man," he said to me, "understand that the vision concerns the time of the end." (This vision is about the last days - the time of the Apocalypse and the battle of Armageddon.) Exhibit #4a: the Bush/Nero Connection The term "antichrist' was first used in the most recent books of the Bible, ( 1 John 2:18) " many antichrists have made their appearance." Most Biblical scholars believe that St. John was referring to members of a Gnostic Christian cult. For the early church, all those actively working against the spirit of Christ were considered antichrists, whether or not they call themselves Christians. As St. Augustine put it: “There you have the Antichrist – everyone who denies Christ by his works.” At the same time, the early church believed that there would be one individual, a single man whose evil deeds would far exceed all the others; and this Antichrist would make his appearance just before the second coming of Jesus. Jesus called him ( Mark 13:14) "the abomination of desolation" Paul referred to him as the ( 2 thess 2:3) "man of sin" and "son of perdition". John in his letter and in his Revelation to the church called him "the beast" or "antichrist." Most scholars now believe that the antichrist in the book of Revelation was Nero, emperor of Rome from 54 - 68 AD. Nero was the first emperor to persecute the church with a vengeance, blaming Christians for the burning of Rome, and torturing them to death in the Forum. Both St. Paul and St. Peter were executed by Nero. After Nero committed suicide, it was widely believed that Nero was still alive in Parthia (the Middle East), hiding out (much like Elvis), and that he would return to reclaim his throne. As late as the fifth century AD, Lactantius (240-320 A.D.), Jerome (340-420 A.D.) and St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) all assumed that the Antichrist would turn out to be some kind of resuscitated Nero. Were they wrong? Certainly Nero the man never returned from the dead, and the church eventually looked elsewhere for the antichrist - but that doesn't invalidate the prophecy. Nero has indeed returned, but not as Nero the Roman emperor. He's returned in spirit as George W Bush, the 43rd (P)resident of the United States.. Nero was only a foreshadowing of the last antichrist. This final and most powerful antichrist in history is prepared to finish the campaign that began with Nero almost 2,000 years ago. Most Biblical historians, including Barclay, believed that 666 was in reference to Emperor Nero. The Hebrew transliteration (without vowels) of Nero's Latin name, Caesar Nero, (QWSR NRWN) adds up to 666 using the Hebrew alphabet above. But St. John gave us this number (666) rather than his name (Nero) so that we could identify him today. Because as I have already demonstrated conclusively in exhibit #1, George Bush has the mark of the beast like no other man in human history. The Beast and His Brain: One of the mysteries of Revelation has been the identity and connection of a second beast who rescues the antichrist and serves as his prophet. Rev 13:12 "He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast." Carl Rove became Bush's alter ego when he rescued Bush from political death after his defeat in a Congressional race, and since 1993 he has served as the brains and the cleverness of the antichrist. There is even a new best-selling book by that title "Bush's Brain". No mere presidential advisor has ever held so much power. Every decision Bush makes is calculated and spun by Rove for political effect, with absolutely no regard for the truth. A true prophet divines the will of God in order to help lead a nation in the path of truth and righteousness. But a false prophet like Rove can predict the moods and weaknesses of the people and manipulate public opinion through the skillful use of fear, in order to advance his evil agenda. Exhibit #4b: the Bush/Herod Connection George W. Bush is closely related to the House of Windsor and the British Royal Family, and he is related to just about every other Royal family in Europe. In fact, George Jr. is more closely related to British royalty by blood than his own father. Why? The blue-blood of the Pierce family running through his mother's veins. Bush is not only the wealthiest president we've ever had, he's also the purest aristocrat ever to sit in the White House. Why is this so important to our discussion? Because in his recent book, The Antichrist and a Cup of Tea, author Tim Cohen has meticulously documented why he believes the Antichrist must be someone who, like Bush, is closely related to the British Royal family. Though Cohen's prime suspect seems to be Prince Charles, clearly George Bush is a much better candidate for the role. Bush's bloodline is also tied into the 13th bloodline of the Illuminati. According to some, the Illuminati are a group of rich, powerful, satanically inspired families who have conspired throughout history to rule the earth, even to the present day. This thirteenth or 'royal' illuminati bloodline is the one that is widely believed to lead directly to the final Antichrist. Noted British author David Icke has traced the Bush bloodline as far back as Phillip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, who established the Greek World Empire. From that point, the Bush bloodline passes through the principal ruling families of the Roman Empire and eventually through European royalty as well. He is also descended from Queen Cleopatra, royal consort to Julius Caesar. Icke comments that "She also bore twins with Mark Anthony, who has his own connections to this line and its many offshoots" Marc Anthony happens to be the great-Grandfather of Emperor Nero. So now there is also a definite blood connection between Emperor Nero, the original Biblical prototype for the Antichrist, and George W Bush. One branch of the Bush bloodline also passes directly through Herod the Great, the Judean King who originally tried to murder Jesus as a child, and he is related to Herod Antipas, who murdered John the Baptist and turned Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified. Exhibit #4c: the Bush/Judas Connection Understanding the psychology of Judas Iscariot is a good way to understand the Antichrist. Judas was a model or template for the way the Antichrist would betray Christ, even while pretending to be a disciple and follower of Christ. You could say that George Bush is the spiritual reincarnation of Judas Iscariot, since he thinks, acts, and is motivated in precisely the same way. Judas is the disciple who betrayed Jesus for money. Thirty pieces of silver to be exact. The Bible is very clear that is what he did, and what actually happened. But it doesn’t tell us how he rationalized this betrayal in his own mind. It doesn't say because it was basically only a rationalization, and it really didn’t matter. But it is also clear that Judas did not see himself as a greedy man who sold out Jesus for money, even though that’s exactly what he did. The same is very true with Bush – and with many Christians today. We know that Judas was a greedy man because the Bible tells us he kept the money, and it also says that he was a thief. (John 12:6) So he must have been stealing all along. At one point, Judas objects that Jesus is being anointed with spikenard, a costly ointment. He rationalizes how it could have been sold and used to help the poor. But he really didn’t want to help the poor – he only wanted the money for himself. In the same way Bush rationalizes that his tax cuts for the rich were really to stimulate the economy, and to provide jobs and prosperity for the poor. In truth he cares nothing about the poor, and in fact the poor in America are poorer and more numerous since he came to power. Like Judas, Bush was put in charge of the government purse, and he has bankrupted the nation and enriched his wealthy cronies. He is a thief. Exactly like Judas, he uses staged photo-ops and a feigned concern for the poor - as he did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - as a cover for his continuing theft from the government purse. Eventually Judas even sold Jesus out for money. But it's obvious he didn’t understand the real extent of his betrayal till the very end, anymore than Bush will. It's only at the very end, when Judas finally saw himself for what he really was, and understood what he had actually done, that he threw away the money and hanged himself. He committed suicide because he couldn't live with the truth of what he had become. You see, Judas had deceived himself as much as he deceived everyone around him. Jesus constantly warned about the deceitfulness of riches, (Mark 4:19) but it’s not a warning Judas took very seriously. Nor has Bush. So what kind of rationalization did Judas give himself for betraying Christ for money? Did he tell himself it was to compel Jesus to take a more aggressive stand against Roman occupation? Had he convinced himself that he could hurry along coming of the Kingdom of God? In spite of all the miracles, had he convinced himself what a lot of other people believed – that Jesus was crazy, a charlatan, or that he needed to be stopped for his own good? Whatever rationalization he gave himself, it was not the real reason. The real reason was greed. In the same manner, Bush has betrayed and lied to his own countrymen, and gotten us involved in a bloody war in Iraq. He told us it was over weapons of mass destruction, but that was a lie. He's still telling himself it's to establish freedom and democracy in the Middle East, but that's a lie and a rationalization as well. The real reason is greed for oil. Why was it that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss? Isn’t it because he didn’t yet understand the depth of his betrayal? So why should we expect Bush to understand? The fact that Judas didn’t understand until the very end, did not make him any less evil, or his actions any less reprehensible. It is our actions that matter, not how good we are at rationalizing them. It is the 655,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children killed, and 3,000 American lives wasted - that's what matters. Spinning and rationalizing is something the most evil people are best at doing. Including Bush. new exhibit! Exhibit #5 Photographic Evidence According to "Satanism In America" the Il Corduno or "horned hand" is a sign of recognition between practicing Satanists. Here is a picture of the salute taken from a Satanic manual. Notice how it is a one-handed salute, and that the palm of the hand faces outward. The following are just a few examples among the numerous times where Bush has been seen flashing the 'devil's salute'.- even at his second inauguration. His explanation? According to Bush, he's not giving the internationally recognized sign for devil worshippers. According to him, he's giving the sign of the University of Texas Longhorns. But this doesn't hold water for two very good reasons. #1 George W Bush never attended the University of Texas. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University. The University of Texas law school then turned him down flat, because his record at Yale was so bad. But family connections enabled him to get into Harvard Business school. Nobody in their right mind goes around continually flashing the sign of a college they never attended, a college that rejected him. He likely did pick it up at college, but while attending Yale, and after joining a Satanic cult called "Skull and Bones". #2 There is another very good reason why his alibi just doesn't wash. Bush really isn't flashing the sign of the Texas Longhorns at all. This following is a picture of a University of Texas student giving the Longhorns salute. Notice how BOTH hands are used, and the back rather than the palms of the hands are facing outwards, to simulate a Texas Longhorn. It is apparent Bush is definitely NOT giving the University of Texas Longhorns salute. Rather, he's giving the Satanic 'horned hand' salute. Now he's even got his wife doing it! BTW: Laura also killed her boyfriend and got away with it. (Some have emailed me to say that many people in Texas use the same salute. That's irrelevant. Even if everyone in Texas does it (which is doubtful) - it's still a satanic salute, no matter who does it. It's Satanic because that's how the salute originated, and how it is interpreted by most people throughout the world today. Bush knows exactly what he's doing, and how it's seen and interpreted around the world. As a publicly elected (or appointed) representative of our government, he has a responsibility not to say or do something that might reflect poorly upon our nation. He knows it's Satanic, and yet he continues to do it. Therefore, he's intentionally flashing a Satanic salute.) Exhibit #666: Psychological Proof The Antichrist is the greatest deceiver of all time. The Bible indicates he will even pretend to be religious. In fact, he will ultimately pretend to be God, and be worshipped as God half way through the Apocalypse. More than any other president Bush wears his religion on his sleeve - both for political gain, and to deceive the world. Presidential assistant David Kuo quit his post because he was convinced that Bush had deceived conservative Christians. Bush says that God (rather than the Supreme Court) chose him to lead the nation, and he sees himself on a divine mission. Bush told an Amish group in Pennsylvania that "God speaks through me." Another story that ran in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz tells how Bush had told Middle East leaders that " God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did” What's important about these voices Bush is hearing, which are effectively telling him to go kill people, is that Jesus consistently taught his disciples to overcome evil with good, rather than with bombs and bullets and violence, and, "all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Mat 26:52) It is eminently reasonable to assume that the voices Bush is hearing are not coming from God at all, but from Satan. It is also reasonable to assume that the devil does not desire peace, but war, death, and destruction. Why is it that when ordinary citizens hear voices telling them to go kill people, we lock them up for the safety of themselves and the community? Yet when Bush hears voices telling him to kill, many evangelical/fundamentalist Christians rejoice, and pretend he was chosen by God. Along with hearing voices, the degradation of his cognitive and verbal skills has been striking, when compared with where he was just ten years ago. “Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home. It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.” In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be doing “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration." In another much-under-reported story, a very prominent Washington psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank has diagnosed Bush as a very paranoid and sadistic megalomanic. In his new book, Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, he writes that Bush's years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function" and he "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated." His diagnosis? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office . . . before it is too late." Unfortunately, Democrats have taken impeachment off the table - at least for now. Dr. Frank's conclusions have been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School. Bush seems to have fooled a lot of people into believing he really is God. One man in Florida said what may people on the religious right are saying, "this is the first time I felt God was in the White House." There is even a website dedicated to his worship called "Bush IS LORD". How's that for an abomination? (Some have e-mailed me to say that Bushislord.com is only a parody site. but the Bible says that the Antichrist will be worshiped as God, whether seriously or not. See below for the more serious Bush worshippers. As far as Bush not being the Antichrist because he's not very popular around the world, that mistake stems from a confusion over the antichrist as a system of values vs. the Antichrist as an individual. American culture is still very popular around the world, even though Bush is very unpopular. If the singular Antichrist was popular and beloved all around the world, how do you explain the battle of Armageddon, when the Antichrist will be violently opposed and overthrown by the rest of the world?) Chuck Baldwin is founder and pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. He has a daily syndicated radio talk show on the Genesis Communications Network called “Chuck Baldwin Live” Chuck says: “many people attribute to Bush god-like qualities, which actually makes him a better candidate than Clinton was…I do believe that Bush possesses more deceptive qualities than Clinton did and, therefore, is more dangerous...one of the chief characteristics of the coming antichrist is that he appears "as an angel of light...Bush' s acceptance by the overwhelming majority of Christian people proves the country is ready for the Antichrist." Now listen to what the most renowned prophet of the Christian era has to say in exhibit 7: Exhibit #7: Nostradamus Michel Nostradamus (1503-1566) a French physician and astrologer who wrote over 900 predictions concerning the fate of the world. Written in four-lined rhyming quatrains, they were to be become famous for their astonishing accuracy. Note: A quatrain circulating around and attributed to Nostradamus: "The village idiot" etc. is a hoax, and it was not written by Nostradamus. That being said, the devil does hide the truth behind a lie, and the Antichrist's most important identifying trait is his ability to deceive. What better deception than to play the idiot? Hitler was once ridiculed and compared to Charlie Chaplain, but the world eventually discovered he was anything but a joke. Bush openly remarks that his greatest advantage lies in the fact that people tend to "mis-underestimate" him. The devil's most powerful weapon lies in the fact that we often underestimate his great cunning. I'm not denying that in may ways Bush is a complete idiot - however the principalities and powers guiding his actions are not stupid. Not by a long shot. Nostradamus outlined three distinctly different and progressively worse Antichrist figures, the last one being the bloodiest of all. The first two Antichrists have already come and gone, namely Napoleon and Hitler. So we are now waiting for the final Antichrist. Using this information as background, we can now focus on details concerning the final Antichrist, according to the prophesies of Nostradamus: century 6 quatrain 13 A doubtful man shall not come far from the reign The greatest part will uphold him A capital will not consent that he should reign. His great chair he shall not be able to maintain. This one is pretty straightforward, and it concerns the man who tried to stop the AntiChrist's rise to power: "A doubtful man shall not come far from the reign" = Everyone doubted Gore had a chance, but he ended up nearly capturing the presidency. "The greatest part will uphold him." = He won the popular vote. "A capitol will not consent he should reign" = The right-wing US Supreme Court in the capital Washington DC stopped the counting of votes in Florida to ensure Gore's defeat. "His great chair he shall not be able to maintain." = He also lost the office of Vice President. century 2 quatrain 62 Ma-bus then will soon die, there will come A horrible slaughter of people and animals: At once vengeance is revealed coming from a hundred hands, Blood, thirst and hunger when the comet will run. This gives us a clue to the last Antichrist's name, the sign of his coming, and the slaughter he will initiate before being removed. His rise to power is associated with a comet, and it was during the spectacular show of the Hale-Bop comet that Bush's own political star rose like a comet - he assumed his first elected office in '95 when Hale-Bop was first sighted, and by the time the comet reached its brightest stage in '97, he was already being talked about as the next president. "will soon die" may mean after the comet dies and the antichrist assumes power (the presidency), "will come a horrible slaughter " referring to the coming apocalypse in the middle east. "vengeance is revealed coming from a hundred hands" refers to the western alliance formed to take revenge for the bombings of the WTC and the Pentagon. "MA-BUS" is also short for ‘the AMerican, Bush’, just by inverting the first two letters and leaving out the last H, which is already silent in Latin languages like French, the language of Nostradamus. It is also a combination of MR.Bush, where the R looks like a capital A. Mabus is also a combination of MAgog and Bush, a reference to Bush’s given name in a Satanic cult. (Bush was named ‘Magog’ in the scull and bones society.) Homework assignment: Write down the first two letters of Mabus – Ma, turn them around 180 degrees, and hold it up to a mirror, Mabus becomes gW Bush. Note: Nostradamus also misspelled that Hitler's name, calling him "Hister" (Hysterical Hitler?) century 2 quatrain 30 One who the infernal gods of Hannibal Will cause to be reborn, terror of all mankind Never more horror nor the newspapers tell of worse in the past, Than will come to the Romans through Babel (Iraq). “ The AntiChrist, aka MA-BUS aka 'MAgog Bush'aka the AMeircan BUSh, is strongly associated with a reincarnated Hannibal. Hannibal was a general from Africa who invaded Italy with his elephants in order to conquer Rome. But he failed to deliver the final crushing blow. Sound familiar? Colin Powel is another general, originally from Africa, who also marches with the elephants (Republicans). Just like Hannibal, Powel launched an attack in the first Gulf War, but he failed to go all the way Baghdad to remove Saddam, just like Hannibal failed to capture Rome itself.. “Never more horror… than will come to the Romans through Babel (Iraq).” This Quatrain equates the United States with Rome, and tells us that it is because of the current war in Iraq, that the United States (the new Roman Empire) will suffer a bloodbath like the world has never seen before. century 8 quatrain 70 He will enter, wicked, unpleasant, infamous, tyrannizing over Mesopotamia (Iraq). All friends made by the adulterous lady: the land dreaded and evil in aspect. This indicates the antichrist (Bush), not desiring peace, will bully and 'tyrannize' Iraq. The 'adulterous lady' is the statue of liberty, lady liberty, a symbol of America, that followed the Antichrist to satisfy their greed and thirst for power (and oil). America's 'friends' are the allies bullied into aiding American aggression in Iraq. century 10 quatrain 66 The chief of London by the American reign, The isle will divide thee from Scotland by frost; They will have again as King one who is so false an Antichrist, That he will put them altogether in a conflict; The 'chief of London' is Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain, and it indicates that America is telling him what to do. 'Divide thee from Scotland by frost' dates this prophecy by indicating how Scotland recently voted for home rule and convened their first Parliament since 1707. 'Have again as king...' indicates how Bush, the American Antichrist, is making British foreign policy like a king - and the fact that his family is descended from British royalty. 'Put them altogether in a conflict.' says he will drag both Britain and America into war in the Middle East. Century 1 quatrain 50 From the three water signs Will be born a man Who will Celebrate Thursday as his feast day. His renown, praise, rule and power will grow on land and sea, Bringing trouble to the East. Bush was born on July 6 = Cancer, one of the three water signs. He was born in America, which celebrates its birthday on July 4 = Cancer. He was born in New Haven Connecticut, which was founded by Puritans on March 17, 1638 = Pisces, another water sign, though he claims to be from Texas, which on March 2, 1836 became a Republic = again Pisces. The Thursday "feast day" is an obvious reference to Thanksgiving, which identifies the Antichrist as an American president. It indicates he will have considerable military success at first, but in the process stir up ancient fears and sunni vs shiite hatreds, that will eventually lead to the battle of Armageddon . century 10 quatrain 72 The year 1999, seventh month, From the sky will come a great King of Terror. To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, Before and after Mars to reign by good luck. In June of 1999, Bush formally declared his candidacy for president, and by a July he was already calling himself the president. It is important to understand it was not just a mistake. The AntiChrist receives his authority from Satan - not from God, and not from men. By "mistakenly" calling himself president before any election had been held, Bush was announcing to the world for the first time in July of '99 that he was Satan's chosen ruler - the AntiChrist. Likewise the first AntiChrist, Napoleon, crowned himself emperor. And again the second AntiChrist aka Hitler never waited to receive a popular mandate before seizing power. Like Hister, Ma-bus aka 'AMerican- Bush', aka MAgog Bush, used thugs to enforce his authority in Dade county. If Bush had won the popular vote, and had not stolen the election in Florida, it would have been conclusive evidence that he was not the third AntiChrist. Secondly, the quatrain refers to the fact that Antichrist will come into the world from the sky - the French word can also be translated as 'heaven'. George Bush was born in 'New Haven' Connecticut. (Scripture says Jesus will also return from heaven, and the antichrist is the counterfeit of Christ.) Thirdly, it indicates that after the US gets bogged down and weakened by a religious war in the Middle East, it will be Communist China's good luck to be able to overrun what's left of the world in the style of Genghis Khan! Still not convinced? Exhibit #8: Bush's Secret Alliance With EVIL You won't read about it in the New York Times, let alone hear about it on the FOX network, but the current occupant of the White House is not only an ongoing member of one of the most evil and Satanic cults in America, but his family got rich helping Hitler come to power and exterminate six million Jews. George W Bush was/is a member of the "skull and bones" society. There's even a movie about it. And no, this isn't just another harmless Greek fraternity. It’s a secretive, satanic cult for the jaded and self-appointed elites at Yale University. The upper crust of the upper crust – with only 15 new initiates selected from each graduating class. Bush wrote in his autobiography it was, "so secret, I can't say anything more." But I can: We know that initiates undergo torture, kiss a scull, press a human femur bone to the initiates backside, act out a throat slashing ritual murder, and they pledge allegiance to a figure dressed up as Satan. They are also compelled to relate their entire sexual history while masturbating in a coffin. Bush had the name "Magog" , because he had the most extensive illicit sexual background of all the new initiates. And of course, Gog and "Magog" are names directly connected with Satan and the Antichrist in Revelation (20:8). The following is a short clip from a video taken by investigative journalist Ron Rosenbaum on April 14, 2001: Scull&Bones Clip The words and imagery of the cult are heavily centered on death, as they repeat the same mantra over and over, till it is burned into their conciseness: THE HANGMAN EQUALS DEATH! THE DEVIL EQUALS DEATH! DEATH EQUALS DEATH!’ Initiates are instructed to "die to the barbarian world" so that they can be reborn in the "The Order," a brotherhood of Satan. In a new and more recent twist, in addition to being cross examined by Satan, initiates are also being cross-examined by a member dressed up as George W Bush, aka "Magog", who hurls vulgar profanities and says thing like "I’m gonna kill you like I killed Al Gore." Some may want to dismiss all this as somewhere on the extremely poor-taste edge of college hijinks, but it’s much more serious than that. Such a darkly obscene and prolonged ritual cannot help but have a lasting impact on the souls of young initiates. Oaths to the devil taken in jest are nevertheless taken in fact. It's also important to point out that scull and bones cult members do not resign after graduation - like born again Christians they consider themselves to be born again into “the order” forever- only they're reborn in Satan, and not the Holy Spirit. They even have their own hideout called Deer Island, where former Bones members bring their families for summer reunions. A secluded hideaway is located in the St. Lawrence River, and owned by the Deer Island Club Corporation, a shell company operated by Skull and Bones members. The Scull and Bones Satanist Elites maintain their cultic relationships their entire lives - mostly by helping each other gain positions of influence and world power, in order to make more money. A satanic mafia for the super-well-connected. Though Bush kept going bust in the oil business, his comrades from scull and bones helped bail him out, and it was they who would later give him his start in politics. Bush was also involved in torture at Delta Kappa Epsilon, at a time when he was President of the fraternity. One pledge recalled how this "compassionate conservative" took great pleasure in branding him with a red hot iron, leaving him with scars which he carries to this day. When the hazing scandal broke in the campus newspaper in the late '60s, Bush tried to defend the illegal torture as a "harmless prank", but the fraternity was fined and the branding practice halted. It's little wonder that he still considers illegal torture a 'harmless prank': When he was a boy he also used to sadistically insert firecrackers into frogs and blow them up for kicks. Little wonder that under his leadership, for the first time Americans are engaging in the shameful and counter-productive practice of torturing prisoners in places like Abu Ghraib Prision. Then there's the Bush family alliance with the greatest evil in history - Adolph Hitler. Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush, also a 'scull and bones' man, got rich first by helping the Nazis come to power, then helping Hitler build the war machine that would decimate the world, and then even benefiting from Nazi slave labor and the extermination of millions of Jews. Auschwitz was built near coal deposits so that slave labor could be used in one of Prescott Bush's holdings, the Silesian American Corporation. Even after the US declared war on Germany, Prescott Bush continued violating the Trading With the Enemy Act, until the government finally shut him down late in 1942 - but not before making him rich, and establishing the Bush family as a power in American politics . Exhibit #9: The latest Antichrist Poll Results are in: According to the latest results of a non-partisan online poll, 52% of the public now firmly believes that George W Bush IS in fact the The Antichrist! Wow! That's over half of the public, and a far higher percentage than with any other person. Even Osama Bin Laden came in at only 2%. Seems like the word is finally getting out. An article in Seattle Weekly asks the question "Is Bush The Antichrist?" . While obliquely referring to this page as but a "whimsical 666-numerological riff", it quotes the Rev. Rich Lang of Seattle's Trinity United Methodist Church who says of Bush "He has the spirit of the Antichrist. Literally, break the word apart. It is a spirituality that is anti-Christ." Exhibit #10 (Rev 13:14-15) " that they should make an image to the beast..and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Check out the clip about "Jesus Camp," one of many fundamentalist training camps where little children are being indoctrinated as warriors, and taught to grovel and worship before the image of their Glorious Leader, George W. Bush. To better inform the p

Mortgage company dispupts my fax tranmission report? Please.... I need help. I have been faxing my tax bills to my mortgage company. I got a notice from from my municipality saying that my tax bills have not been paid. I contacted my mortgage company and they say that they have never received the tax bills I forwarded to them via fax. My fax transmission report says "ok" on all the faxes I have sent. They are disputing everything I sent them, and therefor they are wanting to charge me the 10% penalty my municipality will charge. They said that although my report says it went, that it doesn't mean they received it (WTF). I feel as if I am being cheated. I sent everything to them on time, they for example didn't pay my March bill until late November, and I'm told they will "try" to credit me for the penalty. Due to all of this I am told that my property will have a lien at the end of this month. Any insight on fax transmissions?? btw my faxes went to one sole individual's computer.... Mortgage company disputes... sorry I didn't know (if they are willing) to send my taxes bills direct. I had asked to speak with a manager and I was told they weren't available. I then asked to talk to the manager's manager and I was told there wasn't another manager higher up than that. I did my part and HOMEQ is trying to charge me hundreds in penalties that are unjust. I'm unleashing the beast within me tomorrow, watch out customer service reps. It pisses me off because I already spent more than a half hour on hold today. DURING MY OFFICE HOURS The mortgage company did finally see their fault. thanks for everyone's input.

its begining to make sence...allah? IS ALLAH THE GOD OF BIBLE? Sam Shamoun This study examines the crucial question that needs to be addressed which is whether the God presented in the Quran is indeed the same God revealed in the Holy Bible. The Quran alleges that the God of Islam, Allah, is indeed the God of Abraham and hence the God of Scripture, Yahweh Elohim. But is this the case? Are we to assume that just because the Quran states that Allah is Yahweh of the Bible that both Jews and Christians are obligated to believe this to be true? Or do we examine the nature and attributes of Allah in order to compare them with the biblical portrait of Yahweh to find if this is the case? This process of examination is essential since our objective is to discover the true nature of God, a process whose outcome entails eternal consequences in regards to man's future destiny in the afterlife. After all, if Allah is the God of Abraham then Jews and Christians are wrong for not embracing Islam. But if Allah is not Yahweh, then Muslims are not worshiping the same God only with a different name. We will examine certain qualities of Allah as stated in the Quran and briefly compare them to Yahweh and see where the evidence leads us. The reason why we are comparing Allah to Yahweh as opposed to contrasting Yahweh to the quranic portrait of Allah, using the Quran as the standard, is due to the fact that it is Islam that claims to worship the same God of the Holy Bible. Thus, the burden of proof rests upon the Muslims to defend this contention since they believe Allah is the same as Yahweh. AUTHOR OF EVIL The Holy Bible teaches that God cannot be tempted by evil and neither tempts anyone with evil; evil being understood as referring to immorality and sin. James 1:13 (c.f. Psalm 5:4-5; Habakkuk 1:13) Yet, the Quran teaches that Allah is the author of evil: Verily, the hypocrites seek to deceive Allah, but it is He Who deceives them. And when they stand up for As-Salat (the prayer), they stand with laziness and to be seen of men, and they do not remember Allah but little. S. 4:142 Hilali-Khan And (the unbelievers) schemed and planned, and Allah schemed also, and the best of schemers is Allah. S. 3:54 Remember how the unbelievers schemed against thee, to keep thee in bonds, or to slay thee, or get thee out (of thy home). They scheme and plot, but the best of schemers is Allah. S. 8:30 So they schemed a scheme: and We schemed a scheme, while they perceived not. S. 27:50 The term for scheme in Arabic is makara which denotes one who is a deceiver, one who is conniving, a schemer. It is always used in a negative sense. Allah is thus seen as the best of deceivers, the premiere schemer and conniving one. This is not simply a Christian perspective but one thoroughly endorsed by Muslim theologians as well. For example Dr. Mahmoud M. Ayoub in his book, The Quran and Its Interpreters, Vol. II The House of Imran, brings up the question of "how the word makr (scheming or plotting), which implies deceitfulness or dishonesty, could be attributed to God." (Ibid. [1992 State University of New York Press, Albany], p. 165) After listing several Muslim sources he quotes ar-Razi as arguing that "scheming (makr) is actually an act of deception aiming at causing evil. It is not possible to attribute deception to God. Thus the word is one of the muttashabihat [multivalent words of the Quran]." (Ibid., p. 166) In fact the Quran furnishes plenty of examples on some of the methods Allah adopts in devising evil: Remember in thy dream Allah showed them as a few: if he had showed them to thee as many, ye would surely have been discouraged, and ye would surely have disputed in your decision: but Allah saved you: for He knoweth well the (secrets) of (all) hearts. S. 8:43 Allah is said to have shown the opposing fighting forces as few to Muhammad since if he had shown them as they actually were, the Muslims would have been afraid to fight. Hence, Allah had to use deception in order to encourage the Muslims to fight in his cause. And when We desire to destroy a city, We command its men who live at ease, and they commit ungodliness therein, then the Word is realized against it, and We destroy it utterly. S. 17:16 Allah commands men to sin in order to destroy them completely. They (Jinns- demon spirits) worked for him (Solomon) as he desired ... then when We decreed death upon him, nothing showed them his death except a little creeping creature of the earth, which gnawed away at his staff. And when he fell the Jinns saw clearly how, if they had known the unseen, they would not have continued in the humiliating penalty (of work). S. 34:13-14 Allah deceived the Jinns into working for Solomon by preventing the latter's death from being disclosed to them, otherwise they would have stopped their work. Allah also deceived both Christians and Jews into thinking that Jesus was crucified when in fact "it was so made to appear unto them", seeing that he never was crucified or killed. S. 4:157 According to S. 9:51, nothing befalls Muslims except what Allah has ordained. And in S. 14:4, we are told, "Allah leads astray whomsoever He will and guides whomsoever he will." And, "Whomsoever Allah guides, he is the one who follows the right way; and whomsoever He causes to err, these are the losers. And certainly We have created for hell many of the jinn and the men; ... Whomsoever Allah causes to err, there is no guide for him; and He leaves them alone in their inordinacy, blindly wandering on." S. 7:178-179, 186 "If thy Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one People: but they will not cease to differ. Except those on whom thy Lord hath bestowed His Mercy: and for this did He create them: and the Word of thy Lord shall be fulfilled: ‘I will fill Hell with Jinns and men all together.’" S. 11:118-119 Not only does Allah guide people astray, but also has created men specifically for hell. To make matters worse, he even ordains the evil one commits as we have already seen in S. 17:16 and further clarified by this Muslim tradition: Abu Huraira reported Allah's Apostle as saying: Verily Allah has fixed the very portion of adultery which a man will indulge in, and which he of necessity must commit (or there would be no escape from it)." Sahih Muslim #6421, 6422 To even imagine that Allah causes adultery is not only horrendous but disqualifies him from being the God of Moses. A keen reader might raise the objection that the Bible itself indicates in several places that God had intended to do evil to certain nations and individuals such as Absalom in 2 Samuel 17:14. Or that Jeremiah had been deceived by God in Jeremiah 20:7: "O LORD, thou hast deceived me and I was deceived." King James Version Firstly, in regards to 2 Sam. 17:14 as we had noted earlier God does not tempt anyone with moral evil in the form of sin but brings upon man calamity as a consequence of their sins. In fact, the term which the King James translates as evil is the Hebrew ra. Accordingly, some Hebrew scholars see it as being derived from the word ra'a which means to "break, smash, crush." (Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testaments, p. 232) Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible gives various meanings some of which include adversity, affliction, calamity, distress, evil, grief (#7451 of the Hebrew Dictionary Section). Thus, the evil God poured out upon these individuals was not immorality like that of the Quran but judgement upon the wicked due to their persistence in sin and a refusal to come into repentance. The Hebrew term for deceive used in Jeremiah 20:7 is pathath. Strong's lists it as #6601 in the Hebrew section with the following meanings; allure, enlarge, entice, deceive, flatter, persuade, silly. In light of the wide range of meanings, there is no reason to assume that Jeremiah meant that God was actually deceiving him. In fact the context itself shows that the word can only mean "persuade" since Jeremiah is complaining that God is persuading him to continue his ministry, even though he doesn't want to: "O LORD, You induced me, and I was persuaded; YOU ARE STRONGER THAN I, AND HAVE PREVAILED. I am in derision daily; Everyone mocks me. For when I spoke, I cried out; I shouted, ‘Violence and plunder!’ Because the word of the LORD was made to me A reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, Nor speak anymore in His name.’ But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not." Jeremiah 20:8-9 NKJV God was therefore insisting that Jeremiah continue and did so by constant persuasion. This passage has nothing to do with deception whatsoever. Another possible objection would be the King James rendering of Ezekiel 20:25 where God says to Israel that he "gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgements whereby they should not live." This strongly suggests that God is the author of evil. The context of the passage is referring to Israel's reluctance in observing God's holy commands, which prompted God to hand them over to their own desires (all of chapter 20). Scripture clearly teaches that when God sees that a nation refuses to embrace the truth he has revealed, the Lord then hardens their hearts that they might continue in their wickedness. This is done that he might bring upon them the judgement that they deserve for their evil (c.f. Romans 1:18-32; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). Therefore, God does not give them unholy commands but allows them to embrace statutes which are evil. This is the meaning of the Hebrew text as accurately reflected in the New King James Version: "Therefore, I also gave them up to statutes that were not good, and judgements by which they could not live." Yet, the Arabic makara does not allow for other possible meanings. And the Quran itself gives examples of Allah using deception and sin to fulfill his will. AUTHOR OF ABROGATION According to the Quran Allah reveals a verse only to have it canceled out a short time later: None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten but We substitute something better or similar- Knowest thou not that Allah has power over all things? S. 2:106 When We substitute one revelation for another- and Allah knowest best what He reveals (in stages)- They say, "Thou art but a forger"; But most of them understand not. S. 16:101 This leaves us with the difficulty of having a God who does not remain consistent and often changes his revealed purpose. This being the case, how is one to know that the promises of such a Being in regards to eternal security can be trusted? Just as he changes his mind in relation to the revelation, he can also decide to change his mind in regards to the believer's ultimate destiny without anything stopping him from doing so. This is different from Yahweh of the Holy Bible who does not change and as such can be totally trusted in fulfilling all his promises: God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good? Numbers 23:19 For I, Yahweh, do not change. Malachi 3:6 If we are faithless, he remains faithful; he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:13 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8 Because the God of the Bible is immutable he can promise, "Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35). Two responses can possibly be presented and often are by Muslims. The first is the fact that abrogation is not referring to the Quran but to previous scriptures such as the Bible. Unfortunately for the Muslims making this argument, this interpretation cannot be defended in light of S. 87:6-8: By degrees shall We teach thee (Muhammad) to declare (the Message) so thou shalt not forget, except as Allah Wills: For He knoweth what is manifest and what is hidden. And We will make it easy for thee (to follow) the simple (Path). It becomes obvious that certain parts of the revelation given to Muhammad will eventually be caused to be forgotten, since Allah later willed it. The second response often presented is that the Bible clearly speaks of God regretting to create man or having repented of bringing on a certain disaster which he had planned to do. (c.f. Genesis 6:6; Exodus 32:14) There are basically two responses for this assumed Muslim allegation. First, both the Holy Bible and the Quran use anthropomorphic language in describing both the nature and acts of God. For instance, both books speak of God's eyes, hands and feet without implying that these things are to be taken literally. The purpose of using such language is to communicate certain incomprehensible truths of God in human language in order for man to grasp certain realities of the divine nature. Hence, statements such as God having regrets is used to communicate certain realities to man in relational terms, i.e. that God identifies with our human condition and grieves for man's fallen state, having compassion for him. Secondly, the reason for indicating that God refrained from fulfilling an act he had decreed is an indication of his divine patience. God does not desire to destroy the wicked but to save them, desiring that they come into repentance: Say to them: "As I live", says the Lord God, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?" Ezekiel 33:11 Likewise, if a nation which has been promised prosperity turns to wickedness, God will also refrain from fulfilling his promises of blessing. This is pointed out in Jeremiah 18:7-10: "The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster I thought to bring upon it. "And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and plant it, if it does evil in My sight, so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I would benefit it." An example of this is seen in I Kings 21:29 where God had sworn to destroy Ahab for his wickedness, but decided against it: "See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son, I will bring the calamity on his house." Or God deciding not to destroy Ninevah after seeing their sincere repentance and humbleness: "Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it." Jonah 3:10 These examples indicate that certain warnings are given specifically to lead the person(s) into right standing with God, and are not given as a sign that the matter has been sealed and there is no averting the disaster. AUTHOR OF HISTORICAL ERRORS The Quran contains historical errors which implies that Allah is not an Omniscient Being, since an all-knowing Being would be able to accurately recall historical events. Below is a list of just some of the many problems we find in the Quran. * In S. 17:1 we are told that Muhammad was taken to the farthest Mosque, Masjid al-Aqsa. The problem with this is that the Aqsa Mosque had not been erected since Abd al-Malik only built it in AD 691. It cannot be referring to the Temple in Jerusalem since that was destroyed by the armies of the Roman general Titus in AD 70. * S. 18:9-26 alludes to several men and their dog who slept for approximately 309 years only to be awakened in perfect condition. * According to S. 18:83-98, Alexander the Great called Zhul Qarnain, "the Two Horned One," was a Muslim who traveled till he found the Sun literally setting in a muddy spring. When we keep in mind that the title "the Two Horned One" was a title given to Alexander in pre-Islamic times, the Muslim attempts of trying to deny this fact utterly fails. * According to S. 4:157 the unbelieving Jews boasted by saying, "We killed the Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah." The only problem with this is that the unbelieving Jews never admitted that Jesus was Messiah and would not have killed him if they had believed that he was their long-awaited Messianic Deliverer. The unbelieving Jews had Jesus killed because they believed he was a false Messiah: "And they began to accuse him, saying, ‘We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and CLAIMS to be Christ a king.’" Luke 23:2 NIV * Christians are accused of worshiping Mary and Jesus as two gods apart from the true God: And behold! Allah will say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, Worship me and my mother ... " S. 5:116 Christ the son of Mary was no more than an apostle- many were the apostles that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how Allah doth make His Signs clear to them ... S. 5:75 In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: "Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His Will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all - every one that is on the earth..." S. 5:17 This presumes that since Mary ate food and could be destroyed by Allah she could not possibly be divine. This gives the misleading impression that Christians believe that she is more than simply human. In fact, the Quran proceeds to accuse Christians of worshiping three gods: "They do blaspheme who say: Allah is the third of three (inallaaha thaalithu thalaatha)" S. 5:73 "... so believe in Allah and His apostles. Say not three (thalaatha): desist: It will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah ..." S. 4:171 According to Muslim biographer Ibn Ishaq in his work, Sirat Rasulullah, a Christian deputation from Najran came to debate Muhammad on the person of Jesus. Accordingly, these Christians allegedly believed that Jesus, "is God; and He is the son of God; and He is the third Person of the Trinity, which is the doctrine of Christianity." (Alfred Guilliame trans., The Life of Muhammad [Oxford University Press, Karachi], p. 271) He goes on to say, "They argue that he is the third of three in that God says: We have done, We have commanded, We have created and We have decreed, and they say, If He were one He would have said I have done, I have created, and soon, but He is He and Jesus and Mary. Concerning all these assertions the Quran came down." (Ibid., pp. 271-272) The errors in the Quranic teaching on what Christians believe becomes apparent to anyone familiar with the basics of Christian doctrine. Firstly, Christians have never taken Mary as a goddess alongside God. Secondly, Christians have never said God is three or the third of three which is tritheism, three separate gods forming a unity; as opposed to Trinity, ONE God who exists in Three distinct yet inseparable Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thirdly, Christianity has never taught as part of its doctrine that Jesus is the third Person of the Trinity. Rather, he is the Second Person, with the Holy Spirit being the third Person of the Godhead. Matthew 28:19 Fourthly, Muslims believe that Allah of the Quran is the same as God the Father of the Holy Bible since they do not believe in God the Son, Jesus Christ, nor in God the Holy Spirit who to Muslims is the angel Gabriel. This again causes a problem since if Allah is indeed the same Person as God the Father then the Quran is wrong in saying that Christians believe that the Father is the third of three. Christians teach that the Father is the First Person of the One True Godhead, not the third deity of three gods. And finally, Christians do not believe that Allah is the Messiah, or that God is the Messiah since this implies that Jesus is the entire Godhead, which would be modalism. The correct and biblical statement is that Jesus is God, since this suggests that although Jesus is fully God by nature he is not the only Person who shares the essence of Deity perfectly. The Bible also teaches that both the Father and the Holy Spirit are fully God. * Mary the Mother of Jesus is confused with Mary the sister of Aaron and Moses, the daughter of Amram: Behold! The wife of Imran (i.e. Amram) said, "O my Lord! I do dedicate unto thee what is in my womb"... When she was delivered, she said: "O my Lord! Behold! I am delivered of a female child ... I have named her Mary... " S. 3:35, 36 "And Mary the daughter of Imran, who guarded her chastity.." S. 66:12. "... They said: O Mary! Truly an amazing thing hast thou brought! O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste." S. 19:27-28 "Then Mary (Heb. Mariam), the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand ..." Exodus 15:20 "The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and to Amram she bore Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam." Numbers 27:59 This is an error of nearly 1400 years! How could Moses' sister Mary be Jesus' mother, making Moses his uncle? Muslims give two responses in trying to deal with this anachronism. First, it is stated that the expressions "sister of Aaron" and "daughter of Amram" refers to Mary's lineage, i.e. that Mary was a descendant of Aaron and Amram of the tribe of Levi. Unfortunately for Muslims, this assertion cannot possibly be the case since Mary was a daughter of Judah and a descendant of David: "Now Jesus Himself began his ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed the son of Joseph, the son of Heli ... the son of David ... the son of Judah." Luke 3:23, 31, 33 The words, "as was supposed," are given to clarify the fact that it is Mary's genealogy which is being presented, with Joseph acting as the male representative. This is supported by extrabiblical documents such as the Jewish tractate of the Talmud, Chagigah, where a certain person had a dream in which he saw the punishment of the damned. There, "He saw Mary the daughter of Heli amongst the shades." ( John Lightfoot, Commentary On the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica [Oxford University Press, 1859; with a second printing from Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1995], vol. 1, p. v; vol. 3, p.55) In the book of Hebrews we are told that, "it is evident that our Lord ( Jesus ) arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood" Heb. 7:14. And, "I ( Jesus ) am the Root and Offspring of David, the Bright Morning Star." Revelation 22:16 It is therefore impossible for Mary to be a descendant of Levi, since both the orthodox Jewish understanding and the biblical record agree that Messiah would arise out of Judah (c.f. Genesis 49:10-12; Matthew 22:42-45). Someone might interject at this point and suggest that the Bible calls Elizabeth a relation of Mary: "Now, indeed, Elizabeth your relative also conceived a son in her old age..." Luke 1:36 NKJV This seems to imply that Mary is of Levitical descent, since Elizabeth is addressed as one of Aaron's descendants. (Cf. Luke 1:5) The term used for relative in the Greek is syngenes. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich define it as: a. " The adjective refers to a person of common origin, i.e., belonging to the same family, race, tribe, or people. It can then mean 'related' in disposition, 'corresponding', 'analogous', or 'similar.' b. The noun means 'relationship' by descent or disposition, then more broadly 'analogy' (e.g. between deity and humanity, or ideas and the senses, or the stars and human destiny), whether in philosophy or popular belief." (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, abridged in one volume by George W. Bromiley [Eerdmans, 1985], p. 1097) Hence, Elizabeth and Mary were related in the sense of being of the same race of people, i.e. the Israelites. But this meaning seems to be unlikely since this could be said about any other Israelite woman's relationship to Mary. It seems more likely that Elizabeth and Mary were blood relatives. This being the case, this still wouldn't prove that Mary was of the tribe of Aaron. All this would prove is that Elizabeth had Judean blood in her, since Levites were allowed to marry women from any of the twelve tribes: "The woman he (the Levitical Priests) marries must be a virgin. He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a woman defiled by prostitution, but only a virgin from his people." Leviticus 21:13-14 NIV Ezekiel, in his vision of a restored priesthood and temple, further clarifies this point: "They shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman, but only virgins of the offspring OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL, or a widow who is the widow of a priest." Ezekiel 44:22 ESV The Holy Bible even provides an example of a priest who had married a woman from Judea, who was actually a descendant of king David: "Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah. But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king's sons who were about to be put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death." 2 Chronicles 22:10-11 The foregoing demonstrates the plausibility of Elizabeth's mother being from the line of David, from the tribe of Judah, accounting for her being related to Mary. Elizabeth could also be an aunt to Mary, see the entry on Luke 1:36 in the Bible Commentary section. Muslims are not to be blamed for taking the phrase "brother of" as a reference to Mary's lineage since Muhammad also used a similar line of reasoning to cover up this error. In Sahih Muslim Mughirah ibn Shu'bah narrates: "When I came to Najran, they (the Christians of Najran) asked me: You read ‘sister of Harun' (i.e., Mary), in the Quran, whereas Moses was born well before Jesus. When I came back to Allah's Messenger I asked him about that, and he said: ‘The (people of old age) used to give names (to their persons) after the names of Apostles and pious persons who had gone before them.'" #5326 Again, Ibn Abi Ahaybah and Ahmad and Abdel Hameed and Muslim and At-Tirmidhi and An-Nassaa'I and Ibn Al-Mundhir and Ibn Abi Haatim and Ibn Hibbaan and At-Tabaraani and Ibn Mardaweih ans Al-Bayhaqi in ad-dalaa'il, narrated that Al-Mughirah Ibn Shu'bah said: "The Prophet of God (PBUH) sent me to the people of Najran. They asked me: DO you see what you read? O sister of Harun while Moses precedes Jesus with such a long time? He (Al-Mughirah) said: So I went back to the Prophet and mentioned that to him. He told me: "Would you tell them the folk used to be called after Prophets and pious people who preceded them?" (Jalaaluddeen As-Suyuti, Ad-durr Al-Manthur) The only difficulty with Muhammad's statement is that the Jews before and during the time of Christ never used this phrase in this manner at all. Not one single reference from the Bible, either Old or New Testaments, the Jewish literature before the birth of Christ, or even the Jewish Talmud and Targums after Christ can be found to support Muhammad's assertion. This is simply a gross error which cannot be swept away. The second argument is actually a clarification of the first in that it is suggested that both the Bible and the Quran furnish further evidence for the term "sister of" being used to imply ancestry: "His (Zechariah) wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth." Luke 1:5 It is obvious that the term "daughters" is speaking of Elizabeth's lineage and is not to be taken to literally mean that her father was actually Aaron the brother of Moses. Again it is unfortunate for Muslims that this argument does not help them, but actually serves to weaken their argument. Although the Bible does use the phrases "son of," or "daughter of" to refer to ancestry, it never uses the terms "brother of" or "sister of" to indicate this fact. A few examples of the former usage include: "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound- think of it - for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath'?" Luke 13:16 "And Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham." Luke 19:9 "And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, 'Have mercy on us, 0 Lord, Son of David.' " Matthew 20:30 Scripture never addresses a person as a "brother of Abraham," or "sister of David" when wishing to imply lineage. Hence, the Muslim position cannot be defended biblically. The second example is from the Quran where Salih is called Thamud's brother: "We sent ( aforetime ) to the Thamud, their brother Salih ..." S. 27:45 The term brother here refers to kinsmen, not actual bloodbrothers, exemplifying the many different ways the term is used. Once again the problem is far from being resolved since the term "brother" is used to address Salih's contemporaries, not his ancestors. This implies that to call Mary Aaron's sister meant that Mary and Aaron were contemporaries, living at the same time. Unlike the Quran, the Holy Bible contains no historical errors. Most attacks on the Bible stem from arguments from silence, i.e. the fact that no independent archeological research has been discovered in support of certain recorded biblical events. Yet, such arguments only prove that as of yet archeology has failed to furnish evidence against an event reported in the Bible. Other attacks center on the precise dating of certain archeological findings which some see as contradicting the Holy Bible's chronology. Again, one cannot say that the Holy Bible is in error when archeologists themselves are divided over the precise dating of certain discoveries. This is especially so when one realizes that there are certain archeologists who provide evidence which they feel proves that the data corresponds perfectly with the Bible's chronology of the events in question. This is far different from archeology providing evidence to show that certain events did not occur in the same manner in which the Bible says it did. In fact, not one archeological discovery has ever proven the Bible wrong; discovery after discovery has demonstrated the amazing historical accuracy of scripture. The following quotations from the world's leading archeologists affirms this fact: "Nowhere has archeological discovery refuted the Bible as history." ( John Elder, Prophets, Idols and Diggers [New York; Bobs Merrill, 1960], p. 16 ) "Near Eastern archeology has demonstrated the historical and geographical reliability of the Bible in many important areas. By clarifying the objectivity and factual accuracy of biblical authors, archeology also helps correct the view that the Bible is avowedly partisan and subjective. It is now known, for instance, that, along with the Hittites, Hebrew scribes were the best historians in the entire ancient Near East, despite contrary propaganda that emerged from Assyria, Egypt, and elsewhere." (E. M. Blaiklock, editor's preface, New International Dictionary of Biblical Archeology [Grand Rapids, MI; Regency Reference Library/ Zondervan, 1983], pp. vii-viii) The late William F. Albright, one of the world's foremost archeologists, stated: "There can be no doubt that archeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition." (J. A. Thompson, The Bible and Archeology [Grand Rapids, MI; Eerdmans, 1975], p. 5) Nelson Glueck, world renowned archeologist, concurs: "As a matter of fact, however, it maybe clearly stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a single biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible." ( Norman Geisler & Ron Brooks, When Skeptics Ask; A Handbook on Christian Evidences [Wheaton, IL; Victor, 1990], p. 179) It should be noted that both Albright and Glueck were not conservative Christians and did not believe in the inspiration of scripture. Their conclusions were based strictly on the archeological data, forcing them to make the above admissions. This cannot be said of the Quran with all of its historical and scientific mistakes. AUTHOR OF CARNAL PLEASURES The Quranic paradise is totally different from the biblical portrait of heaven. In Allah's paradise, we find sexual and carnal pleasures for believers to engage in throughout eternity: But give glad tidings to those who believe and work righteousness, that their portions is Gardens, beneath which rivers flow, every time they are fed with fruits therefrom, they say: "Why, this is what we were fed with before," for they are giving things in similitude; And they have therein damsels (Arabic - Houris ) pure (and holy); and they abide therein (forever)." S. 2:25 But to those who believe and do deeds of righteousness, We shall soon admit to Gardens, with rivers flowing beneath, their eternal home. Therein they have damsels pure and holy; We shall admit them to shades, cool and ever deepening. S. 4:57 Of a rare creation have We created the Houris, and We have made them ever virgins, dear to their spouses, of equal age with them for the people of the right hand. S. 56:35-38 But for those who fear Allah is a blissful abode, enclosed gardens and vineyards, and damsels with swelling breasts (Arabic - Kawa'eb), their peers in age, and a full cup. S. 78:31-34 (Arberry and Rodwell translate this part correctly, see also this overview page) The orthodox Islamic understanding of these references are that Muslim men shall have a host of swelling breasted maidens to engage in sex with, who return to their virginal state after intercourse. The paradise of Yahweh is one that is devoid of such carnality, being filled with the infinite love and joy of God instead. Hence, the believers' reward is to dwell with God forever in eternal glory: "Jesus answered and said to them, 'The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." Luke 20:34-36 "The kingdom of God is not food or drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Romans 14:17 "And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Revelation 21:3-4 AUTHOR OF FOREIGN WORDS The Quran claims to be in pure Arabic speech: We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran, in order that ye may learn wisdom. S. 12:2 "An Arabic Quran, wherein there is no crookedness..." S. 9:28 And We know very well that they say, "Only a mortal is teaching him." The speech of him at whom they hint is barbarous- and this is Arabic, pure and clear. S. 16:103 But according to Arabic scholars the Quran is not in pure Arabic, containing dozens of foreign words: Abariq, S. 56:18, Persian Adam, S. 2:34, Akkadian Araik, S. 18:31, Persian Firdaus, S. 18:107, Pahlavi Fir'awn, S. 73:15, Syriac Habr, S. 9:31, Hebrew (Haver) Istabraq, S. 18:31, Persian (Istabar) Sakina, S. 2:248, Hebrew Sijjil (baked clay), S. 105:4, Persian Taghut (idols), S. 2:257, Syriac (Teghutha) Zakat, S. 2:110, Syriac (Zkhutha) Zanjabil (ginger), S. 76:17, Pahlavi Muslims respond by presuming that all living languages adopt words from other cultures, and it is therefore not an error for the Quran to contain foreign words. This argument only works in regard to imperfect human beings who continually adopt and adapt to other cultures and customs. Unfortunately for Muslims, this argument will not work for an all-powerful Being who is the Originator of human language. Such a Being is capable of inspiring his word in perfect Arabic completely devoid of foreign words, especially when he himself states that the Quran is in pure Arabic. This is even more so in light of the claim that the Quran is the eternal speech of God, i.e. that the Quran existed (on an eternal tablet) before the creation of human language. How can God's speech contain foregin words when these foreign languages did not exist in eternity? As one Muslim writer stated: The Qur'an itself repeatedly asserts that it is a unique and inimitable "Arabic Qur'an" (12.2, 13.37, 16.103) in order to communicate its meaning in a perfect manner to a people who took great pride in the expressive quality of their language. Much of the early discussion about the linguistic components of the Qur'an centred on the presence, or otherwise, of non-Arabic words in it - of course, based on the premise that it was essentially an Arabic text. The verses referred to above became the key supportive texts for those who argued that the Qur'an did not contain any non-Arabic terms. The earliest exegetes, particularly those associated with 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abbas (d. 68/67-68), a cousin of Muhammad, freely discussed a large number of non-Arabic words in the Qur'an. Hadith literature credits Ibn 'Abbas and "his school" with having a special interest in seeking their origin and meaning. Later eminent scholars of the Qur'an such as the philologist/exegete Abu 'Ubayd (d. 838), however continued to argue that the Qur'an contained foreign words. Others such as Ibn 'Atiyyah (d. 541/1146), Suyuti (d. 911/1505), and 'Abd al-Rahman al-Tha'labi (d. 1468) tried to reconcile theology with linguistic principles. They argued that the foreign words in the Qur'an came into Arabic through the ancient Arab's contacts with other languages in foreign travel and commerce but that they had been thoroughly Arabized by the time of the Prophet [Sam- If this were so then there would have been no need to highlight the fact that these foreign words had become part of the language since this would have been common knowledge to native Arab speakers like Ibn Abbas. That an explanation was needed to explain why foreign words appear in the Quran demonstrates how weak this Muslim claim actually is!] Various theories were evolved to resolve THE CONTRADICTION between the notion ascribed to Ibn 'Abbas and the one which subsequently gained greater acceptance, i.e., that the Qur'an does not contain any foreign terminology. To deal with the actual occurrence of words in the Arabic language that were also found in non-Arabic languages, some of these scholars, such as Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi (d. 204/819) and Tabari, developed the notion of tawafuq (coincidence). They argued that both Arabic and other languages employ the same words with identical meanings and that this uniformity of meaning was purely coincidental. The idea of any language or discourse being absolutely free from expressions or words used in another language is alien to one of the most basic linguistic principles, i.e., the inter-relatedness of human speech. While this may sound trite, two factors, however, ensured that this notion was rejected by the "orthodoxy": first, the Qur'an IS NOT REALLY REGARDED AS HUMAN SPEECH BUT RATHER GOD'S AND GOD'S SPEECH CANNOT BE SUBJECTED TO ANY LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES. Indeed, as is commonly known, Qur'anic Arabic became the standard of Arabic grammar. (The problem of God's speech of necessity having to coincide with human speech for effect and meaning remains.) Second, for the "orthodoxy", God's own eternalness and self-subsistence fused with those of His revelation. The Qur'an and its language thus came to be viewed as equally timeless and independent of any "non-divine" elements, non-Arabic included. The fact of God's revelation occurring in Arabic (or any other language for that matter) alongside the insistence that this is the unmediated medium which was used by God raises an interesting question: If all comprehensible language and speech is the result of social interaction THEN DOES THIS IMPLY THAT GOD IS ALSO 'LIMITED' OR CONFINED TO THE LIMITATIONS OF LANGUAGE? If so, then WHAT DOES THIS IMPLY FOR THE ALL-POWERFUL NATURE OF GOD? (Farid Esack, The Qur'an - A Short Introduction [Oneworld Publications, Oxford 2002], pp. 68-69; bold and capital emphasis mine) AUTHOR OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS Not only does the Quran contain foreign words, but according to Arabic grammarians it also contains grammatical mistakes: The Qor'an contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning, adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number- illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referent- and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects ... To sum up, more than one hundred Qor'anic aberrations from the normal rules and structures have been noted... ( Ali Dashti, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Muhammad [Costa Mesa, Ca. 1994; Mazda Publishers], pp. 48, 50) A few examples include the following passages: * S. 7:56 - "The mercy of Allah is near" Arabic - "inna rahmata Allahi qaribun min al-mohseneen." The word qaribun is the predicate of rahmata Allahi, and as such should match in gender. Since rahmata is feminine the word qaribun (which is masculine ) should be qaribah, its feminine form. * S. 7:160 - "We divided them in twelve tribes" Arabic - "wa qata'nahom 'ethnata 'ashrata asbatan." In Arabic, any noun which is counted by a number above ten should be singular, as is the case in S. 7:142; 2:60; 5:12; 9:36; 12:4. As such the Arabic asbatan should be sebtan. * S. 5:69 - "Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Sabians, and the Christians, whosoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, and works righteousness- no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow." Arabic- "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu was-Saabi'uuna wan-Nasaara man'amaana bilaahi wal-Yawmil Aakhiri wa 'amila saali-hanfalaa khaw-fun 'alay-him wa laa hum yah-zanuun." According to scholars, the Arabic Saabi'uuna has been wrongly declined. Compare the same grammatical structure found in the following suras: S. 2:62- "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu wan-Nasaara was-Saabi'iina..." S. 22:17- "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu was-Saabi'iina wan-Nasaara..." In the last two suras the term was declined correctly, Saabi'iina, as opposed to Saabi'uuna. This is due to the word inna found in the beginning of the sentence causing a form of declension called "nasb" (as in the cases of accusative or subjunctive) with the "yeh" being the "sign of nasb". But the word Saabi'uuna is given the case of 'uu, a sign of "rafa" ( as in cases of nominative and indicative ). Accordingly, the verse in 5:69 is wrong. * S. 91:5 - "By the heaven and that which built it." Arabic- "was-samaaa-i wa maa ba-naahaa." The word ma is impersonal in Arabic. Yet, the subject of the verse is Allah, heaven's Creator. As such the word man, meaning "him who", should have been used instead of the impersonal ma. It should be pointed out that it is not only Arabic scholars who have discovered dozens of grammatical mistakes within the Quran, but Muhammad's very own companions in the past have also admitted this fact. The Muslim scholar Ibn al-Khatib in his book al Furqan quotes Muhammad's wife Aisha as saying: "There are three grammatical errors in the Book of Allah, they are the fault of the scribe: In 20:63 ... And in 5:69 ... And in 4:162." (Muhammad M. abd al-Latif Ibn al-Khatib, Al-Furqan [Dar al-Kutub al-Elmiyah, Beirut], p. 91) After seeing the first standard copy of the Quran, Islam's third Caliph Uthman proclaimed, "I see grammatical errors in it, and the Arabs will read it correctly with their tongues." (Ibid., p.90) For the Quran to be the word of Allah and for Allah to be God one should find no grammatical mistakes, especially since Muslims claim that the Quran contains no human element whatsoever. Muslim view is that the Quran was dictated word for word to Muhammad, which implies that Allah is the Author of these grammatical errors. This disqualifies Allah from being God, especially Yahweh God of the Holy Bible. To avoid this problem, Muslims assert that the Quran was revealed in a style called balaagha, which is an eloquent method of expressing the Arabic. Due to this feature, the Quran is not required to be grammatically correct since its aim is at eloquence. Once again this assumption serves to undermine the Muslim position. It may be true that a document written by man cannot be both grammatically correct and still retain an optimum level of eloquence, since a human writer most often sacrifices one literary feature over the other. But this cannot be said of God since he can easily produce a book which contains both perfect grammar and eloquence without ever sacrificing one for the other. This the Quran fails to do. ALLAH AND OATHS A real point of difference between Allah and Yahweh is that Yahweh swears by himself, since there is nothing greater for him to swear by: For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself. Hebrews 6:13 For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Hebrews 6:16 Hence, every time God makes a pledge he swears only by himself to insure believers that he will do all that he promises: "I have sworn by Myself; the word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that to Me every knee shall bow..." Isaiah 45:23 "I swear by Myself, says the LORD." Jeremiah 22:5 Yet, Allah swears by things less than him: Swears by the Quran By the Quran, full of wisdom. S. 36:2 By the Quran, full of admonition. S. 38:1 Swears by the sky and constellations By the sky and the night visitant S. 86:1 Nay verily: By the moon, and by the night as it retreateth, and by the dawn as it shines forth. S. 74:32-34 By the star when it goes down. S. 53:1 Swears by the pen By the pen and by the record which [men] write. S. 68:1 Swears by the city Nay I do swear by this city. S. 90:1 Swears by the Creation By the night as it cancels [the light]; by the day as it appears in glory; by the Creation of male and female. S. 92:1-3 The fact that Allah swears by practically anything and everything, while Yahweh swears only by himself, makes it very difficult for the two to be the one and the same God. ALLAH IS NOT TRIUNE The final proof that Allah is not Yahweh Elohim of the Holy Bible is that Allah is not a trinity. According to the Holy Bible, there is only One true God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Galatians 3:20). Yet, at the same time Scripture affirms that this One God eternally exists in three Persons: The Father "...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..." 1 Peter 1:2 The Son "... looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ..." Titus 2:13 The Holy Spirit "But Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit... you have not lied to men but to God." Acts 5:3-4 Three in One "... baptizing them in the Nam e(singular- implying unity) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit..." Matthew 28:19 But the Allah of the Quran is not any of the three Persons mentioned above. For example S. 112 states, Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, The Eternal, Absolute-, He begetteth not, Nor is He Begotten; And there is none like unto Him. S. 112: 1-4 Allah does not "beget" meaning that Allah has no children either in a spiritual or carnal sense. Thus, Allah can never be the Father. Nor does he allow himself to be "begotten", i.e. does not take on human nature such as God the Son did when he became man for our salvation. Finally, in orthodox Islam the Holy Spirit is not God, but the angel Gabriel. This fact separates Allah from ever possibly being the same God that Christians worship. Furthermore, we read in I John 2:22-23: "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also." Thus, to the Christians Allah cannot be the biblical God since the inspired New Testament record teaches that anyone denying the Father and Son as God is Antichrist. One common Muslim allegation needs to be briefly addressed before concluding. In Exodus 31:17 it says that after Yahweh created the universe, he rested on the Sabbath and was refreshed. This description is not befitting God since he never fatigues nor does he need to be refreshed. In response to this, as we have already noted scripture often uses anthropomorphic language in describing God's relations with man. The context of this passage deals with the necessity of Sabbath observance as a sign between God and Israel, and as such God is speaking to his covenant people in relational terms. Just as God rested on the seventh day, it is important for Israel to do likewise especially in light of the fact that they are the chosen people of God and must imitate him by observing all his commands. Furthermore, the term for Sabbath in Hebrew is shabat. It is listed in Strong's as #7673 with the following meanings: to stop, to cease, to rest, to end. Also, the term "refreshed" doesn't necessarily mean that God needed to take a breather after creating the universe anymore than the expression "my heart was refreshed" implies fatigue. Rather, it refers to God rejoicing over the goodness of his creation. Thus, these terms do not imply that God literally needed to rest and be refreshed. It simply means that after the formation of man God stopped his work of creation and rejoiced at the fact that all creation up to that point was very good. (c.f. Genesis 1:31) This interpretation is consistent with the clear teaching of Scripture that God never fatigues: "He will not allow your foot to be moved- He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." Psalm 121: 3-4 "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable." Isaiah 40:28 To then try and use Exodus 31:17 as a prooftext while neglecting the overall context of scripture is rather poor exegesis and unscholarly, since the Bible is clear that God has inexhaustible power and energy. Our brief examination of Allah as presented in the Quran leads us to conclude that he cannot possibly be the same God worshiped by Abraham and as described in the Holy Bible. The contradictions in attributes and nature between Yahweh and Allah are too numerous to pass over, and cannot be reconciled. With that in mind, we must point out another major difference between the two; namely that the God of the Holy Bible gives an assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord, something which Allah never guarantees: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life. John 5:24 And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. John 12:47 The Bible clearly teaches that there is no other way for man to be saved, since Jesus alone can guarantee eternal life, something which the Quran cannot promise any Muslim: "Jesus said to him, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through me.'" John 14:6 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 The reason why Christ alone can promise salvation is because he alone paid the penalty for sin which is death. By his death on the cross Christ provided the only acceptable sacrifice to God on behalf of sinners: "Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation) a sacrifice offered which satisfies the divine justice of God) in his blood ..." Romans 3:24-25 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23 It is therefore up to Muslims to decide whether to accept Jesus Christ as Yahweh's Son and the Savior of the world and receive the assurance of eternal salvation. Or continue to worship Allah of the Quran who never promises Muslims the joy of knowing that their sins have been forgiven, giving them the assurance of eternal salvation. The choice is left for the reader to decide. NOTE TO THE READER We are well aware that the name Allah is used by Arab speaking Christians for the God of the Bible. In fact, the root from which the name is derived, ilah, stems from the ancient Semitic languages, corresponding to the Mesopotamian IL, as well as the Hebrew-Aramaic EL, as in Ishma-el, Immanu-el, Isra-el. These terms were often used to refer to any deity worshiped as a high god, especially the chief deity amongst a pantheon of lesser gods. As such, the Holy Bible uses the term as just one of the many titles for Yahweh, the only true God. Yet the problem arises from the fact that Muslims insist that Allah is not a title, but the personal name of the God of Islam. This becomes problematic since according to the Holy Bible the name of the God of Abraham is Yahweh/Jehovah, not Allah: God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am Yahweh (YHVH) and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty; BUT BY MY NAME, YAHWEH, I did not make myself known to them." Exodus 6:2-3 Therefore, Christians can use Allah as a title but not as the personal name for the God of the Bible.