Sunday, August 31, 2014

The inconvenient truth is we’ve been sold a PUP on China which is ‘a totalitarian regime’




          


Claire Harvey

Claire Harvey Source: Supplied
         
China — what a great place. Fabulous. We love it. Solid friend to Australia. Won’t hear a bad word about the joint.
That, apparently, is the only ­acceptable opinion nowadays on the great nation to our north.
And when anyone raises even a murmur to the contrary, they’re a moron. A loose cannon. A threat to the balance of trade. Unrepresentative swill. If they have any sense, they’ll apologise quick-smart.
Just to be clear, this is not a ­defence of Clive Palmer.
It’s just a little note of puzzlement at the way his remarks about the ­People’s Republic have been almost universally interpreted by people with public voices — from politicians to journalists and academics.
Everyone in the public domain has been rushing to agree with one ­another in revulsion at the sentiments expressed by Clive and his PUP senator Jacqui Lambie.
Two weeks ago Clive Palmer said the Chinese were “mongrels” and “bastards”, that they operated a totalitarian regime, that they wanted to take Australia’s mineral resources without paying, and that they shot their own people. Palmer subsequently issued a grovelling apology to the Chinese ambassador.
Lambie followed her leader by warning “China is controlled by an aggressive, anti-democratic, totalitarian government. We need to ­double the size and capacity of our military right now”.
Well, smite me with a bolt of lightning for this heresy — but they’re right, aren’t they? At least half-right?
OK, so both went way too far, and Palmer certainly is hypocritical: he was a big China fan until his mining joint-venture with a state-owned ­Chinese company turned into an ­expensive, litigious disaster.

Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer.

Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer. Source: News Corp Australia

And it’s very easy to make fun of Lambie, with her scraped-up hair and wacky scarves, her fluency in Hansonese and bossy, exasperated string of non-sequiturs. But why can’t the rest of our politicians momentarily teleport themselves out of whatever Canberra wine bar they’re slurping viognier in, and hear her words as the rest of Australia hears them?
For all Lambie’s flaws, she delivers a line better than Bill Shorten: punchier, snappier, with more cut-through.
Lambie and Palmer’s China rhetoric may sound hysterical to those of us accustomed to more measured mumbling about human rights cough-cough-less-than-ideal-ahem.
But how do they sound to low-wage Australians worried about Chinese workers on 457 visas, or about Chinese investors driving the price of new apartments through the roof?
The truth, no matter how inconvenient, is that China is a totalitarian regime — a repressive place where ­arbitrary detention, forced relocation, land seizures, official corruption, police and military brutality, religious repression and interference with civil liberties go on every single day.

The Chinese national flag: Picture: Vincent Yu, AP Photo

The Chinese national flag: Picture: Vincent Yu, AP Photo Source: AP

As Palmer said, they do shoot their own people — in an estimated 4000 executions every year — and in the public square. I’m not talking about 1989 and Tiananmen Square.
I’m talking about the five protesters in Tibet shot dead just last week when they dared object to the arbitrary detention of a respected local elder; just a taste of how Beijing ­reacts to dissent.
So why has it become taboo to admit China’s glaring faults?
Well, we rely on them to buy our exports, to visit our tourist ­attractions, to fill our universities.
We need their cheap labour to make our $10 ­­T-shirts.
But the bigger, scarier truth is it suits Australia — and the rest of the Western world — for China to continue to oppress its people. Totalitarian regimes may represent evil in its most distilled form, but at least they are stable.
In the Middle East, we’ve seen in the past three years what happens when dictatorships fall.
We all loved the Arab Spring when it was Twitter and dancing in Tahrir Square — finally, a hint of freedom for the millions living under crazed dictatorships.
But the chaos that has followed is a bitter winter. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s depravity has been replaced by barbarians without faces, beheading men on their knees.


The truth, no matter how inconvenient, is that China is a totalitarian regime — a repressive place where ­arbitrary detention, forced relocation, land seizures, official corruption, police and military brutality, religious repression and gross interference with civil liberties go on every single day.


In Libya, the wicked 42-year reign of Muammar Gaddafi has been ­replaced by bearded Islamist maniacs dancing on top of burnt-out jumbo jets, declaring themselves the new government. Egypt today is even more of a global beacon for torture and oppression than it was under the dictator Hosni Mubarak.
As for Syria, the monstrous Islamic State controls everything east of Aleppo and is advancing on Damascus, with the likely encouragement of president Bashar al-Assad.
So China, controlled without dissent by the hard old men of the Politburo Standing Committee, is working in Australia’s most cynical interests.
No trade unions — that means our T-shirts are cheaper than ever. No ­regional independence movements — that means no possible disruptions to two-way trade. No rebel groups turning terrorist.
Australia’s leaders quietly hope China will take baby-steps towards something at least distantly related to democracy, just as long as nobody freaks them out by speaking the truth. Is this really the best we can do in our beautiful haven of free speech?

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    Taken from: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-inconvenient-truth-is-weve-been-sold-a-pup-on-china-which-is-a-totalitarian-regime/story-fni0cwl5-1227041564788

    Thursday, August 28, 2014

    "... the Bible tends to indicate that the river from the Garden of Eden originated in Judea and from there became four heads".

    The Lost Rivers of the Garden of Eden

    Where is Eden?
    The quest for pinpointing the exact location of the Biblical Garden of Eden and the four rivers almost rivals the quest for the location of fabled Atlantis. And the theories that abound are almost as numerous as the interpretations of the seven days of Genesis. Before tackling this question let's review what is written in Genesis about the four rivers:
    And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
    (Genesis 2:10-14 KJV)

    The Bible says that a single river flowed "out" of Eden and then does something that most rivers DO NOT do; specifically, split into four separate "heads" or rivers that flowed downstream, all fed from a common single river source. Almost all rivers start from a single source or are fed by multiple sources (tributaries). For example, the Ohio River actually begins where two rivers (the Monongahela and Allegheny) flow together at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The Ohio River terminates when it flows into the Mississippi river as one of that river's many tributaries. So the names of rivers are an arbitrary thing, usually denoting only a portion of a greater complex stream system, with one stream flowing into another, which in-turn, may flow into yet another. This pattern of rivers, as observed in nature, is just the opposite of what the Bible describes about the river of Eden.
    For that reason, nobody has been able to look at modern maps of the regions mentioned in Genesis and figure out exactly where the Garden of Eden was, at least by the present topography of the lands of the Middle East. Only one river of the four, the Euphrates, is known by the same name in modern times. It presently originates in the mountains of Turkey and terminates when it merges with the Tigris River near the Iraq/Kuwait border region. Many have speculated that the Tigris is the river Hiddekel.
    Tigre and Euphrates rivers
    This has led to speculation that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in Turkey. This is assumed because the present headwaters of the Euphrates River originate in Turkey, as do the headwaters of the Tigris.
    Others have proposed that the other end of the Euphrates River, where it meets the Tigris, may be the true location. This requires interpreting the Tigris river as one of the other three (the Hiddekel), then interpreting a tributary confluence of rivers as a river head, and then locating at least two more rivers (or old river beds) as the other missing two. Having done so, they then claim that the Garden of Eden was near present day Kuwait. This is a convenient solution, but not one supported by the literal wording of the Bible or the geological and geographical realities of what river "head" means, i.e. headwaters or source of origin.
    You will notice that the present day headwaters of both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in Tuekey very close to each other in mountainous terrain. Logically, one would assume that if two of the rivers started there, the other two must have done so, as well, if Turkey was the location of Eden. Neither the Pison nor Gihon rivers are ever mentioned again in the Bible. However, the Hiddekel River is:
    "And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;"
    (Daniel 10:4 KJV)

    This reference by the prophet Daniel comes from a vision he had while with the children of Israel during the Babylonian Captivity. This would put Daniel somewhere in the area of present-day Iraq and would make the present-day Tigris river a fairly good candidate for the "Hiddekel" river spoken of by the prophet, as it is the only other great river known in that region today. But the Bible says that this river "that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria" and a historical map of the location of Assyria, shows that the Tigris actually goes southeastward.
    Map of Assyria
    Keep in mind that the geographical area known as "Assyria" is not so easy to pin down. Although the Assyrian Empire was centered near Nineveh, the actual empire also extended into what is also present-day Syria and Palestine. However, lacking a better candidate, and knowing that the prophet Daniel was in that geographical area at the time of his visions, the Tigris appears to be the best possible modern-day candidate for the Hiddekel River.
    Region around Assryia
    We now must search out the probable locations of the other two rivers. It is here that the theories that the Garden of Eden was either in Turkey or Kuwait starts to lose credibility.
    First, let's identify the geographical region of the Pison river. The Bible says: "Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold" and gives us two good clues. There is a recently discovered "Fossil River" that runs from the western mountains of Saudi Arabia towards Kuwait. This old river course is now nothing more than a dry riverbed. It was detected by satellite imaging. Many have speculated that this may be the ancient Pison, as it has been dry since about 3,500 to 2,000 BC. Although Saudi Arabia could marginally qualify for the land of Havilah, the fossil riverbed that flows across it had its origins in the mountains bordering the eastern side of the present day Red Sea, south of Israel.
    Kuwait River in proximity to Euphrates
    It should be pointed out that those mountains are mirrored by another range of mountains on the western side of the Red Sea. The Red Sea is a tectonic spreading zone and part of the Great Rift system that runs from northward in Turkey, down through the Dead Sea, down through the Red Sea and southward deep into the African continent. Obviously, when that mountain range was split by the Rift the source waters of the proposed Pison river would have dried up.
    But this proposed river path may be somewhat of a "red-herring" because it does not seem to naturally "fit" the overall pattern. An even better fit may be for the river to have flowed down what today is the Gulf of Aden south of present day Yemen (southern tip of Arabia). Yemen has both gold and onyx and the eastward trending fault branch from the Afar triangle would have been a natural riverbed in the days prior to Noah's flood (when sea levels were lower than today).
    Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
    If this was indeed the Pison River, one of four that flowed out of the main one rising in the Garden of Eden, it does not correspond with the present-day headwater source of the Euphrates or Tigris up in Turkey. What's more, the geography of the last remaining river, the Gihon, further complicates the problem.
    The Gihon is spoken of as: "Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia" which is the African land area west of the Red Sea and southward. Of course, the political boundaries of what we call Ethiopia today were certainly different in Biblical times, but the general area is correct. And if a river formerly flowed down what is now the Red Sea basin and southward into Africa at the Afar Triangle, it would certainly fit the description of a river that "compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia." (Genesis 2:13)
    If we have correctly identified all four rivers, we now have 2 rivers (Euphrates and Tigris) originating today out of Turkey and another running down what was is now the Red Sea south of Israel and deep into Africa, following the path of the present-day Great Rift system. For the moment, we will also include the previously discussed "fossil river" running through Saudi Arabia. Look at the same map again:
    The Four rivers
    The yellow lines show the paths of the four rivers as proposed from what we have discussed so far. You should note that we did not trace over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to their present-day sources, but terminated them close to the Great Rift fault zone line. You will also note that we have not continued the proposed path of the "Gihon" beyond the top of the Red Sea, and have terminated the proposed "Pison" at the Great Rift fault zone line.
    All 4 of these rivers have one thing in common: All are connected to the Great Rift system. And that is the key to the mystery. Two rivers presently originate out of Turkey to the north and two other fossil rivers flowed south of Israel. The geographical "center" of these four points of flow is neither Turkey nor Kuwait; the center is somewhere near the general region of present day Israel and Jordan.
    The Bible itself lends further credence to Israel (or someplace nearby) as the location of the Garden of Eden. If you run the name "Eden" through a search of the Bible, among several references the following ones provide some insightful clues:
    "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him."
    (Ezekiel 31:3-9 KJV)

    In this passage the Bible says that the Assyrian was in Lebanon. Spiritually speaking, the "trees" in this passage refer to men and leaders. Cedar trees are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as references to Lebanon (Judges 9:15, Psalms 29:5 & 104:16, Song of Solomon 5:15, Isaiah 2:13, Jeremiah 22:23 and more).
    Notice also in the last of the passage that the Spirit associates the trees with "Eden" that "were in the Garden of God." Lebanon, although not a part of modern political Israel, was a part of the Biblical lands ruled by the Kings of Israel in times past. From this we can infer that the Garden and the source of the rivers of the Garden was somewhere close to the land of Lebanon.
    Assuming this postulation is correct, that the source of the four rivers was somewhere near Lebanon, the interconnection of the river systems would need to be somewhat like the map below:
    Rivers tied to Great Rift Trace
    What roughly emerges, when all four rivers are connected to trace of the Great Rift fault system, is a complex river network emerging from a common point of origin that flows both north and south, with each north and south extension splitting into two separate streams, for a total of four rivers. That adds up to four separate heads.
    Of course, to propose such a reconstruction one would have to assume that the present day headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates were not the main source headwaters in ancient times. It is possible that there could have been older main tributaries previously flowing from Lebanon which were, at that time, the main headwaters of those two rivers.
    But the so-called Kuwait River, which has been proposed as the lost river Pison, does not seem to match with the common denominator of the others, that is the Great Rift and branching fault systems. Based on the description of its path in the Bible which says, "compasseth the whole land of Havilah" and knowing from the geology of present day Yemen that onyx can be found there, then this part of the verse, "where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone" suggests an alternate path for the River Pison, to the south of Yemen, and that would give us the path indicated by the blue and yellow markings on the next graphic.
    When all factors are considered (Bible text and geology), I believe the paths indicated by the dotted lines on the large map below are probably where those rivers flowed. And a southern path around Yemen puts the fourth river squarely into the basin of the Great Rift system, flowing east from the upwelling Afar Triangle.
    Four river of Eden paths
    These paths meets the requirement of the Biblical text because the single river water source, originating from high ground somewhere in or near present day Israel, hits the Rift Valley, then would have flowed both north and south along the path of the Rift zone, with both the north and south forks each splitting a second time when intercepting other fault zones.
    Fault map of middle east
    Keep in mind that the course of rivers around and through the vicinity of the Great Rift fault system may have changed or dried up because of block faulting all along the Rift zone. Certainly Horst and Graben faulting along the Rift could, and would, change the surface topography. Horst and Graben faulting is defined as "elongate fault blocks of the Earth's crust that have been raised and lowered, respectively, relative to their surrounding areas as a direct effect of faulting. Horsts and Grabens may range in size from blocks a few centimeters wide to tens of kilometers wide; the vertical movement may be up to several thousand feet."
    Horst and Graben faulting
    Image courtesy of Dr. M. Mustoe www.tinynet.com/Graben.html
    But when did this happen? The most likely time frame would be in the years immediately following Noah's Flood. Keep in mind that the Bible says there was a significant geologic event that happened 101 years after Noah's Flood - The "Earth was divided" (see: Genesis 10:25 & 1 Chronicles 1:19). The Bible also describes what was probably tectonic/volcanic activity in the Rift valley in Abraham's days (the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - See Genesis 19:28).
    Imaging of the Dead Sea indicates that, at one time, the river bed of what is now the Jordan River once flowed across the land surface that is now at the bottom of the Dead Sea. This suggests that there was Horst and Graben faulting at the southern end of the present Dead Sea, which abruptly terminated the former flow of that river southward. And that stream was probably the feeder channel to the ancient Gihon River, which ran down the floor of what is now the Red Sea into Ethiopia and through the Rift basin south from the Afar Triangle. Supporting coincidental evidence for this is the fact that fish species down in the African Rift valley river and lake systems are very similar to those found in the Jordan River system:
    Note: The aquatic life of the African lakes and rivers belongs to the so-called Ethiopian zoogeographical region. According to Annandale, the explanation of the Ethiopian affinity of the fish fauna of the Jordan is that the Jordan formed at one time merely part of a river system that ran down the Great Rift Valley. The Jordan was one branch of this huge river system, the chain of lakes in East Africa represents the other; and together they opened into the Indian Ocean. See R. Washbourn, The Percy Sladen Expedition to Lake Huleh, 1935, Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statements, (1936), p. 209. (Source website: The Great Rift and the Jordan)
    Now, returning to the general area of Lebanon as the Biblical location of the Garden of Eden and the water source for the four rivers, let us take a look at the present-day geology and topography of that area. This map shows a great deal of block faulting in the area of Lebanon just north of modern day Israel.
    Faulting in Lebanon and Iraq
    Below is a satellite image of the entire area. You will note from the topographical relief that, had waters once flowed out of this area, they would naturally flow northward into the Euphrates Fault system river basin. At the time of the Garden of Eden the main headwaters of the Euphrates could have come from that direction. If the water flow at that time continued northward along the path of the Great Rift, it would also intersect the present-day Tigris river basin.
    Satellite Photo of Dead Sea region
    41G-120-0056 Dead Sea Rift Valley, Israel and Jordan October 1984 Seen from an altitude of 190 nautical miles (350 kilometers)
    The prominent bodies of water along the Rift zone in this photo are the Dead Sea (bottom) and Sea of Galilee (top). They are connected by the Jordan River which flows south. Before the Earth was divided by the Rift, the mountainous land on both the Israeli and Jordanian sides were joined. You are looking at "ground zero" of what was once the Garden of Eden.
    Here is another important point to remember. The Bible says that the river flowed out of Eden, but nowhere does the Bible give a geographical size for what constituted the actual area of Eden. Therefore, the actual source of the waters could have been south of Lebanon. More specifically, those waters could have originated in or near Jerusalem in present-day Israel, or even up welled from a massive spring under the sea of Tiberius.
    The Israel/Lebanon region as the location of Eden and the lost river finds considerable support in the Bible. Support for this line of reasoning is found in the fact that God considers the land of Israel as His Holy land. It was upon one of the mountains in the "land of Moriah" (Genesis 22:2) where Abraham was told to sacrifice his son (a type of the Lord's sacrifice of Jesus). Solomon was told to build the Temple "at Jerusalem in mount Moriah" (2 Chronicles 3:1) and Jerusalem was where the Lord Jesus was actually crucified. By extension, we can assume that when God sacrificed an animal to cover Adam and Eve with its skin (Genesis 3:21), that animal was a Lamb (Revelation 13:8). Therefore, we can be certain from the typology that Adam and Eve, and the center of the Garden of God, were somewhere at or very near geographical Jerusalem.
    Now, what exactly do those spiritual realities have to do with the location of the river of Eden? In the future, when the Lord Jesus Christ establishes His Kingdom and Righteous Temple in Jerusalem, the Bible speaks of a river flowing from below the Temple. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of seeing this in a vision:
    Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar. Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins. Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many. But the miry places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt. And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.
    (Ezekiel 47:1-12 KJV)

    And this corresponds with what John said about the New Jerusalem:
    And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
    (Revelation 22:1-2 KJV)
    Since the original "Tree of Life" was in the Garden of Eden, does it not make sense that when the Lord makes all things new again the future "Tree of Life" would be restored to its proper place? And that place is in Israel, the same place upon the mountains of Moriah (Jerusalem).
    Yes, the Bible tends to indicate that the river from the Garden of Eden originated in Judea and from there became four heads. A forensic study of the region's geology tends to support the theory over the alternatively proposed locations of Turkey or Kuwait. What we have not shown is a geologic model for the source of these waters originating from the area of Jerusalem. Keep in Mind that Jerusalem sits just west of the Great Rift Valley. It is quite possible that the legendary river of Eden originated from a massive artesian aquifer, the source of which has long since been disrupted by block faulting along the Rift. We know for a scientific fact that there is a considerable amount of "fossil" water under the Middle East in the deep-rock sandstone aquifers of the region such as the Nubian sandstone aquifers and equivalent formations.
    Also keep in mind that in the days of Adam and Eve a "mist" went up and watered the face of the Earth within the Garden (Genesis 2:6). Fountains of waters (underground waters under pressure gushing upwards) would certainly be a logical source for the generation of such a mist and would be a logical feed-source for such a river. Certainly, we cannot exclude this possibility.
    In summary, although the modern-day geology and topography of the Middle-East does not readily reveal the exact location of the Garden of Eden and the four rivers source, guidance by faith from the Holy Bible and a forensic study of the region's geology reveals the matter. The available data appears to suggest that present-day Israel was the central location of the Garden of Eden.
    ....

    Wednesday, August 27, 2014

    Leave us alone, China tells the Pope: Officials warn Francis not to 'interfere' in atheist country's religion after he said he wanted to visit

    • China is one of few countries with no diplomatic relations with the Vatican
    • It has had little contact the country's 1949 communist revolution
    • Francis said he wanted to visit Communist state 'as soon as tomorrow'
    Chinese officials have warned Pope Francis not to 'interfere' with their country's religion, following a series of overtures from the pontiff to the officially atheist nation.
    China is one of few countries that has had no diplomatic relations with the Vatican and little contact since shortly after the country's 1949 communist revolution.
    As he returned from Korea at the end of last month Francis said he wanted to visit the Communist state 'as soon as tomorrow'.
     
    Scroll down for video
    Pope Francis has made a series of overtures to the officially atheist nation of China
    Pope Francis has made a series of overtures to the officially atheist nation of China

    Vice president of the state-authorised Catholic Patriotic Association Liu Yuanlong said: 'China will always safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity and it never allows foreign forces to interfere with religion. The Vatican should respect China in terms of the personnel of a diocese.'
    Francis spoke after receiving a positive response to two goodwill telegrams he sent to President Xi Jinping as he flew over Chinese airspace en route to Korea.

    He told journalists on the plane that the Vatican respects the 'beautiful noble and wise Chinese people'. 'The Church only asks for liberty for its task, for its work.'
    Meanwhile the Sistine Chapel Choir is set to perform on Chinese territory for the first time in September, with performances in Hong Kong, Macao and Taipei, Taiwan.
     
    Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall, at the Vatican

    Although they are not scheduled to sing on the Chinese mainland, the authorities had to give approval for the Hong Kong concert.
    While in Korea Pope Francis told Catholics from across Asia to evangelise the continent, even with others suspicious or intolerant of the church.
    'On this vast continent which is home to a great variety of cultures, the church is called to be versatile and creative in her witness to the Gospel through dialogue and openness to all,'
    'In this spirit of openness to others, I earnestly hope that those countries of your continent with whom the Holy See does not yet enjoy a full relationship may not hesitate to further a dialogue for the benefit of all,' the pope said.

    Thursday, August 21, 2014

    Manu as the Indian Version of Noah

    matsya_the_fish_incarnation_of_vishnu_hj56
    .... 

    In this chapter only I shall diverge from the New Testament, to the Old. Kersten, beginning on p. 40 (Chapter Three), has a section 'Who Was Moses?', parts of which are worth recalling given the significant rôle played by Moses in my first article:
     
    · The name of the man who laid down the social and religious laws in ancient India was Manu. The lawgiver of the Egyptians was called Manes.
    · The Cretan who codified the laws of the ancient Greeks – laws that he had learned in Egypt – was called Minos.
    · The leader of the Hebrew tribes and the promulgator of the Ten Commandments was called Moses.
    · Manu, Manes, Minos and Moses, foremost contributors to the world's humanity, all belonged to the same archetypal pattern. All four stood by the cradle of important civilizations of the ancient world. All four laid down laws and instituted a theocratic priestly society.
    In Sanskrit, manu signifies a man of excellence, a lawgiver…..
    My comment: Menes, (Kersten's Manes), is considered to be the first unifying king of Egypt at the beginning of Egyptian dynastic history. He is probably, however, the mighty 12th dynasty pharaoh Amenemes I/III (= Menes) – whom I have equated with the 4th dynasty's Cheops (Egyptian Khufu) as the oppressive 'new king' of Exodus 1:8. As such he – rather than his younger contemporary Moses (Egyptian Musa) – was likely the prototype for the Cretan reformer king Minos. The Sanskrit manu is, as we are going to find, the name given in the Vedas to the hero of the Flood, and may therefore be a variation of the name Noah (MaNU = NOah?).
    Kersten gives an interesting Indian 'take' on Moses' serpent miracle before pharaoh:
    manu … are endowed [by God] with an aura of mystery …. In their skilled hands, every physical phenomenon is transformed to become a manifestation of a heavenly power, which they can summon or suppress at will.
    Conjurors ('magicians') in both Israel and India, for instance, certainly knew how to put a snake into a catatonic trance, before transforming it back to its original condition – a feat still performed by Indian fakirs. ….
    Kersten at least accepts (p. 41) "that Moses was a genuinely historical figure". But he follows the old chronology in assuming that Moses' Law (Torah) had for its precursor Hammurabi of Babylon's law code. And similarly (p. 43):
    Nor is Moses the originator of monotheism. The notion of a single, invisible and immortal God, the Creator of the Universe, a father of love and goodness, of compassion, sensibility and trust, had long already been in evidence in the Vedas and in the tradition that became the Nordic Edda. Zarathustra, founder of Zoroastrianism, also expressly proclaimed his God to be the One and Only.
    In the Papyrus Prisse (dating about one thousand years before Moses) God says of himself: 'I am the unseen One who created the heavens and all things. I am the Supreme God, made manifest by Myself, and without equal. I am yesterday, and I know the morrow. To every creature and being that exists I am the law'.
    This One God without equal was referred to in Egypt as 'the nameless', 'the One Whose name cannot be spoken', long before Moses: Nuk pu Nuk 'I am who am'. (Compare this with the account in Exodus 3:14, where God declares: 'I am that I am').
    … [Moses'] 'miracles' are … for the most part based on much older traditions – for instance, on the legend of the ancient (originally Arab) god Bacchus, who crossed the Red Sea on foot, who inscribed laws on stone tablets, whose armies were led by columns of fire, and from whose forehead shone rays of light.

    My comment: Kersten is seriously a victim of the conventional chronology here. Firstly, Zoroaster appears to be in fact, at least in part, the Persian version of Moses, as we shall see at the bottom of this page from Kersten's own admission. [Though Hebrew legends identify Zoroaster with Baruch, scribe to Jeremiah; a point that I shall be taking up at another time]. Secondly, Kersten is wrong in saying that the Papyrus Prisse - with its extraordinary metaphysical likenesses to the Book of Exodus - long pre-dates Moses, since the latter needs to be shifted back from Egypt's New Kingdom era (where convention places him) to the Old Kingdom. Thirdly, I would have thought that the Bacchus legends were extremely late, post-dating Moses by any estimation. And indeed Kersten himself will locate them to the 8th century BC on p. 129.

    Rama
    Still on p. 43, Kersten gives an account of the Indian Moses, Rama, the first part of whose name I find has some resonance with Moses' full Egyptian name Re-mu-sa (or Musare), Rama = Remu? His chronological estimation for Rama's era is hopelessly exaggerated, however. The Ramayana, attributed to the poet Valmiki, was written down during the first century A.D., although it is thought to be based on oral traditions that go back six or seven centuries earlier – still however much later than Moses:
    The Indian epic called the Ramayana tells the story of the hero Rama, who led his people on a journey through the heart of Asia finally to reach India more than five thousand years ago. Rama, too, was a great lawgiver and a hero of extraordinary powers. He caused springs to gush forth in the deserts through which he led his people (cf. Exodus 17:6), provided them with a kind of manna to eat (cf. Exodus 16:3-35), and suppressed a virulent plague with the sacred drink soma, India's 'water of life'. Finally he conquered the 'promised land', Sri Lanka, he crossed the sea via a land bridge apparently exposed by the low tide at a place still known as the Bridge of Rama. Like Moses, Rama is depicted with rays of light streaming from his head (the flames of the enlightened one …).
    Zarathustra
    P.44
    Zarathustra, like Moses, also possessed a sacred fire that he could put to use in various ways. According to the Greek [sic] writers Eudoxus, Aristotle and Hermodoros of Syracuse, Zoroaster (that is, Zarathustra) lived about five thousand years before Moses, and like him, was of royal blood, was taken from his mother, and was left exposed to the wild. In his thirtieth year [more like Jesus than Moses in regard to his age here] he became the prophet of a new religion. [Now back to the Moses' likenesses] Heralded by peals of thunder, God appeared to him robed in light, seated on a throne of fire on the holy mountain Albordj, encircled by flames. There, God bestowed on him His sacred law. Finally, Zoroaster likewise wandered with his followers to a remote 'promised land', and came to the shores of a sea where, with God's help, the waters parted so that His chosen people might cross the sea on foot. [55]
    In his section 'The Tomb of Moses in Kashmir', commencing on p. 45, Kersten argues that Kashmir was the actual 'promised land'. Given the geographical names to be found there, it certainly appears to have become a later 'promised land' for the people of Israel. ... Kersten takes "five landmarks in relation to Moses' burial site (Deuteronomy 34:1-7)", namely, Mount Nebo (in the Abarim mountains), Mount Pisgah, Beth-peor, Heshbon and the plains of Moab, and claims – not entirely unconvincingly – to have found these same names "in one well defined location" of Kashmir. Beth-peor he identifies with Bandipur ("formerly Behat-poor"); Heshbon as Hasba or Hasbal, Mount Pisgah "now Pishnag", plains of Moab, now "plains of Mowu"; and Mount Nebo, "also called Baal Nebu or Niltoop". But that is not all. On p. 57 Kersten writes:
    Of more immediate interest is the fact that well over 300 of the names of geographical features, of towns, regions and estates, and of tribes, clans, families and individuals in the Old Testament can be matched with linguistically related or phonetically similar names in Kashmir and its environs.
    Here I give only a few of these names as listed by Kersten:
    Name in Kashmir
    Amal
    Asheria
    Attai
    Gomer
    Name in the Bible
    Amal
    Asher
    Attai
    Gomer
    Bible Reference
    1 Chronicles 7:35
    Genesis 30:13
    1 Chronicles 12:11
    Genesis 10:2
    Rather though than this being an Israelite influence in Kashmir at the time of Moses, it was more likely a Jewish influence about a millennium later, consequent upon the Babylonian Captivity, with a subsequent Jewish influx into Persia, Afghanistan and Kashmir. Perhaps this immigrant people, like the Afghanis who Kersten says (p. 56) "trace their lineage back to King Saul of Israel and call themselves "Ben-i-Israel"," were in fact scattered members of Saul's tribe of Benjamin taken captive from Judah. The Book of Esther (11:2) indeed records Benjaminites living in Persia's capital of Susa; Queen Esther herself being one of them. Apropos to this situation. Kersten tells on p. 58:
    The inhabitants of Kashmir are different from the other peoples of India in every respect. Their way of life, their behaviour, their morals, their character, their clothing, their language, customs and habits are all of a type that might be described as typically Israelite. Like present-day Israelis, the Kashmiris do not use fat for frying and baking: they use only oil. Most Kashmiris like boiled fish, called fari, eaten in remembrance of the time before their Exodus from Egypt – 'We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely' (Numbers 11:5).
    Butchers' knives in Kashmir are made in the half-moon shape typical of the Israelites, and even the rudders of the boat people (Hanjis) are of the similarly typical heart shape.
    The men wear distinctive caps on their heads. The clothing of the old women of Kashmir (pandtanis) is very similar to that of Jewish women, and like them they also wear headscarves and laces. Like young Jewish girls, the girls of Kashmir dance in two facing columns with linked arms, moving together forwards and backwards to the rhythm. They call their songs rof .
    After bearing a child, a woman of Kashmir observes forty days' seclusion for purification; this, too, is a Jewish custom (Leviticus 12). Many of the older graves in Kashmir are aligned in the east-west orientation, whereas Islamic graves normally point north-south. A great number of such graves are to be found in Haran, Rajpura, Syed Bladur, Sahib, Kukar Nagh and Awantipura. In the cemetery at Bijbihara, the place where the bath and stone of Moses are located. There is also an old grave that has an inscription in Hebrew.
    The Flood
    Moses' burial is thought by the locals to have occurred in Kashmir in that defined region that we discussed earlier in connection with Mount Nebo. And Solomon's Temple is said to have been built there [50]. P. 49: "Kashmir is still known among the local Muslim population as Bagh-i-Suleiman, the 'Garden of Solomon'."
    As for the Flood, since more than 250 versions of it have been recorded worldwide - indicating a common human ancestry (which is supported genetically, via mitachondrial DNA) - it is to be expected that India would also have its own version. Indeed it is given in the Vedas (the Indian equivalent of the Old Testament). Thus Kersten (p. 52):
    The gods had decided to cleanse the world with an enormous flood, but Manu, the great seer and sage, was to be exempted in order to preserve the human race. The god Vishnu thereupon took on an earthly incarnation for the first time as an avatar, in the form of the fish Matsya, and revealed himself to Manu on the bank of a river. The fish warned Manu that the earth was soon to be submerged, and that everyone living on it would perish. He ordered the sage to build a ship to carry himself and his family, as well as the seven great Rishis (seers), the seed of every plant, and one pair of each kind of animal. And he was also to take the Vedas, to ensure that the sacred texts were preserved.
    Just as the construction of the ship was completed, the great rains began, the rivers burst their banks, and Vishnu as the fish positioned himself at the prow of the boat, his horn above the water. Manu fastened a rope to the horn, and the fish pulled the ship safely through the raging elements until they found shelter on the peaks of the Himalayan mountains (cf Genesis 6-8). The Vedic Flood lasted 40 days - a duration that coincides exactly with that described in the account of the Flood in Genesis.
    The Indian account distinguishes between the hero's family and seven sages; whereas according to the Genesis account, Noah's saved family members numbered seven (with Noah being the eighth). Noah was, according to St. Peter (2 Peter 2:5) “the eighth preacher of righteousness”.
    The Indian hero takes on board also the sacred Vedic texts; just as Jewish tradition has it that Noah took on board the Ark the sacred records of his ancestors (or toledôt).
    In one account of the Flood in Polynesia "the hero is", according to Kersten (p. 52), "even called Noa".