Does God have a conscience?

I think Israel, the guilty party with their illegal, immoral and unnecessary attacks on Gaza, should be paying for the rebuilding.  They were wholly responsible for US$4.5 to US$5 billion worth of destruction in fifty days and many thousands of casualties, mainly non-combatants.  2,100 killed, including over 500 children.

Between the three Gazan wars, Israel was bumping off Hamas fighters - called extra judicial assassinations.  That was suspended with their indiscriminate killings of Gazans over the fifty days.  Yet, Israel is God's one and only Chosen/Favoured nation that is meant to be a blessing to all the other 190 nations!

Do you have no conscience, Derek?  Does God not have a conscience?

Letter to SASRA

Comment on your article: '1914-2014, the same but different'

IN EXPLANATION for even those Christian believers who try and avoid employment in the arms trade and the armed forces:  By our taxes and the parties we vote for, we are all implicated in the Middle East violence.  I think, we all have blood on our hands - even the most righteous of the righteous of the Lord.

SASRA stands for Soldiers Airman Scripture Readers Association

It was very good to have your area rep, Mike speak at our morning service yesterday at Hasbury Christian Fellowship.  I was the guy who spoke to him afterwards about compromising Christians serving in the military who have to put their allegiance to their Commander in Chief before their allegiance to their Lord and Master - or their conscience, for that matter.

Even if the Lord was/is yet another man of violence and aggression, I think the 1914-18 war was a most inappropriate action for true Christians to be engaged in.

Our politicians were in far too much of a hurry to declare war on Germany.  They knew that our island status had deterred Germany from including an invasion of our shores in their 1914 war plans.  The mainland of Europe (and conquering France and Russia) was their preoccupation.  In other words, we committed an act of aggression when our country was not in danger of being attacked.  Not even in serious danger of invasion, even after we declared war on Germany.  Not at any time during the 1914-18 half of the 20th century world war.  Therefore, our declaration of war was illegal, as it was not an act of self defence, in my opinion.

Defending Belgium neutrality from an outdated 1839 treaty by going to war was all too late when German troops were sweeping through the country and all we had was a far too small an army of only five divisions of 'Old Contemptibles', as you put it in your article.  Our army was no match for the German army in August 1914 - and the politicians and military knew that.  Yet, they still foolishly marched off to war instead of biding their time, bringing in conscription and re-arming, in case they did have to defend Britain's shores.

Our premature declaration of war was strongly argued for by Churchill in July 1914 in order to defend the biggest empire in the history of humanity and to maintain the balance of power in Britain's favour.  Again, for Christian believers to be fighting for an empire is a total betrayal of their Saviour, Lord and Master who, even before His ministry began, rejected empire building in the temptations.  Even if, as so many believers argue that the Prince of Peace is in favour of violence and aggressive acts, they have to admit he was against earthly empires.

In His time we had the Roman Empire; now we have the US/UK/NATO empire ruling the world and deciding what is allowed and what is not.  For Bible believing Christians to defend and promote earthly empires and, in so doing, reject the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, is a betrayal of the Gospel.  When that involves them having to accept that Christ was a man of violence that is, in my book and the Bible (and possibly the Koran), nothing short of blasphemy.

The one World War in two halves was the culmination of centuries of off and on warfare between the supposedly Christian Western European nations - including the true, Bible believing, born again Christians who should have had no truck with gladly going off to Europe to kill Germans on the 4 August 1914.  That decision led to the Nazis and World War part two: '39-'45.  The Muslims have had 1400 years of far less violence and aggression and killing - until their patience, finally snapped with 9/11.  This came about after nearly one hundred years of military intervention, British duplicity and coercion in the Middle East by the Western Christian powers.  Churchill seems to have started it with his decision to convert our coal fired warships to oil when he was First Lord of the Admiralty.  He then had to secure Muslim oil for that purpose.   Militant, extremist, militaristic Islam is now as rampant in the Middle East, as Judeo/Christian militarism is in that region.

In my opinion, the three great Abrahamic faiths are morally flawed.  More so now than they have ever been from the sheer level of violence and of human inhumanity to human.  There seems little difference to death by beheading or death by fire and flame.  One man beheads another (Muslims) or mass, anonymous, push button death by being vapourised or bombed to smithereens (Jews and Christians).  The USA Empire, like the Roman Empire from 300 AD, is devout and is largely a Jewish/Christian majority - both nominally and in practice.

Repentance and salvation should begin and end in the House of the Lord.

With best wishes and every blessing

Tim

What a true patriot I am!

Letter to his PA

So far, I have read most of Owen's speech that is good to read (Owen Paterson MP: speech to Global Warming Foundation on 15 Oct).

Could you please tell him that I have generated for the national grid, 4,700 kWh in the first eleven months of having 24 solar panels on the E/W facing roofs of my three storey 1967/68 terraced house, here in the West Midlands.

Before I went for solar electricity we used 2,200 kWh from 12 October 2012 to 11 Oct 13.  In the next twelve months, I used 1,300 kWh (to 11 Oct 14) that I imported from the grid for use when the panels were not generating electricity or, not generating enough.  Therefore, 4,700 minus 1,300 equals 3,400 kWh for others to use and all free of finite fossil fuels.  This is a remarkable achievement that could be replicated by every other roof in the land.  My small, three bedrooms, terrace house is a mini-power station.  And what a true patriot I am!

Complete withdrawal from Afghanistan - today!

4,000 Afghan soldiers killed this year, alone and 453 UK soldiers killed since 7 October 2001, Radio 4 announced.

Scottish independence by stealth!

Before the referendum, they had 50% independence; now, all of a sudden, 60%!

In less than three weeks after the Scottish Parliament fell 5% short of getting, supposedly, 'full' independence, more tax raising powers - the hallmark of what independence means - was granted to them.

Radio 4 News had, "For the first time in more than 300 years, a Scottish government has delivered a budget in which it can levy and collect some of its own taxes.  These are a property transaction tax to replace stamp duty and a landfill tax.  "These new responsibilities will generate a small proportion of the devolved budget and Holyrood's share of UK funding will be cut accordingly."

True national hero who has not had to engage in warfare to be a hero.

​

Dear Ian Kirk-Smith - and copied to my war voting MP, James Morris Esq

I drove over to a meeting with Ludlow Quakers last night to hear your outstanding and veteran, national hero, John Lynes speak about the history of the Middle East and its present turbulence.

For 

​one

 decade, John 

​was

 part of Christian Peacemaker Teams, observing and recording man's inhumanity to man.  He explained that such work does have a moderating effect in abating violence.  If these brave men and women are held, they and their spouses have signed that no ransom is to be paid and no rescue launched.

From last night's meeting I have concluded that talking to terrorists is invariably done, sooner or later and that Islamic State, that we call murderous barbarians, akin to Hamas trying to wipe iron clad Israel off the face of the earth with pinpricks on a map, are wanting a caliphate based on the First Caliphate of the 7/8th century.  John said that it was a golden age of Islam, with a level of civilisation well ahead of that of Europe. 

​

 Jews and Christians mostly lived peacefully in Muslim countries, but often had to pay an additional tax.  Before the 18th century, Jews were certainly better treated by Muslims than by Christians.

I was reminded that Islamic State is fighting for a caliphate free from Western interference, and modeled on earlier caliphates.  Perhaps, we can hardly be surprised at that after 100 years of off and on Western military intervention and of British duplicity in the Middle East!

Further, can UK aerial bombing of Islamic State be justified when our Parliament chose to commence air strikes only after two American held hostages were beheaded in retaliation for American bombing of Islamic State?  Free humanitarian gifts from the air for all the refugees would be more in line with the life and teaching of the non-violent Christ of the Gospels whom some Muslims feel that the 'Christian' West should be following.

Finally, when I mentioned to the organiser that I was a visitor, he kindly gave me a copy of the outreach issue of 'The Friend' and invited me to write when I said, "What I would really like is for Quakers to conscientiously abstain from voting for the three main political parties who so love to conduct their crimes of aggression and warfare in the Middle East."  I might also have added that there might be a non-violent Green Party candidate standing, however, that would fit the bill nicely for the ethical voter!

Yours sincerely

Lawless Israel does not bother with the inconvenience of a court of law

FROM  Christian Peacemaker Teams website - http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2014/09/23/al-khalil-hebron-israeli-military-locates-and-kills-suspects-kidnappings-and-murde 

Early this morning, Tuesday, 23 September 2014, the Israeli military discovered the hiding place of and killed Amer Abu Aisha and Marwan Qawasmeh, the two suspects in the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli settler youth in June.

The killing took place on the first floor of a wood factory in the Hai El Sharma neighborhood near Hebron University after a firefight.  The building has three floors:  the first is a wood factory; the second contains shops and the third is residential.  Due to the live ammunition, small bombs, and tear gas thrown into the building by the soldiers, a fire started, which burned one of the two suspects almost beyond recognition.  The blasts from the bombs, and the military tractor used to cave in the building also damaged adjoining homes and buildings.

The military took the bodies to the Israeli DCO at 9:00 a.m.  Families identified them and retrieved them for burial.  According to Muslim religious law, the bodies must be buried before sundown the same day as the death.

During the course of the morning people began to gather; clashes between the Israeli soldiers and Palestinians ensued and soldiers shot at least three people, one in the chest and one in the head, but no one died.

Following a 12:30 prayer service, Abu Aisha and Qawasmeh were buried in Hebron’s Shuhada cemetery with thousands of family, friends, and neighbors attending.

Life for the unborn and the dying but death for the rest!!

Joan asked me for evidence, the other evening.  All I can offer is an absence of specific evangelical engagement in stopping the killing of civilians in our UK wars of aggression on first Communists and, now Muslims.  Working in the UK's major arms industry and in the armed forces has never been off limits for 95% of true, born again Christians for the last 1700 years.  Yet, it was 95% unheard of for the followers of the Way in the first 300 years.  Indeed, some Bible believing Christians (in line with Deuteronomy 20 v 1-20 and, in Joshua and Judges) argue for the extermination of Hamas, Islamic State, and all jihadists, as the West achieved over the Nazis in 1945 and as the Nazis failed to do with the Jews and the other minority groups in Germany.  All out total war is the only answer!

Yet, there are specific evangelical organisations campaigning for the life of the unborn and for the prolonging of life for those who, like me, want the option to be assisted to die in their last days or hours.  No evangelical campaigning organisation for the poor civilians in the prime of life, who don't want their life ended, who get cut down by our immoral but so well-meaning and foolish foreign policy!  Hence, my jaundiced thinking now, compared with my young, know it all, idealistic, Westhill days of Eric Rolls rightly calling my RE teaching "dogmatic and doctrinaire".  I did not last long!

Death of Alan Henning

Dear James Morris

Your vote last week helped to seal the fate of Alan, who is now dead.

You have always been in full agreement with a foreign policy, since the War of Terrorism began on the 7 October 2001, that has killed, injured and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Perhaps, millions in 13 years of warfare and rising.  You and your fellow politicians, so well meaning but deluded, have slaughtered innocent men, women and children in lands far from our shores and, it has now led to the rise and advance of Islamic State, it seems.

Deluded because your foolish foreign policy led to 7/7 in London, the death of drummer Lee Rigby and others, when your unethical foreign policy was supposed to make the UK safe from such horrors.

Think again.  Develop a more empathic and sensitive conscience.  Work for more humane and tolerant foreign policies that will implement UN resolutions and that stop the sale of our weapons ending up in the arms of Islamic State.  Our weapons should be there in case we get invaded by a foreign power or, put at the disposal of the UN.  Not to attack other countries in a crime of aggression.  Or, to be sold to any old dodgy regime - democratic or dictatorial makes not a scrap of difference - that we prop up with our armaments of every size, shape and description.

Tim

re Stephanie's letter to Archbishop Welby

Excellent letter, Stephanie that I fully agree with.

I wrote this before I read Jeremy Bowen, 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', published

For me, vapourising mainly Muslims, largely civilians since the 7 October 2001, in horrific fire and flame from our safe, secure, aircraft cockpits or missile launchers or from our computers operating drones, is far more reprehensible than one-to-one beheadings of a handful of 'Christian', Western journalists and aid workers.  And, their deaths it seems, came from the reactivation of our attacks on the Muslim military in Iraq.  This time, known as Islamic State.

Since we have our democratic, capitalist 'Judeo-Christian' states, even in the very heart of the Arab Middle East (Western-aligned Israel is our regional superpower), is it really so surprising that some fundamentalist Muslims want their own Islamic state on what they strongly believe to be holy, Muslim soil for only Muslims to tread?  We even have much difficulty in letting them have two or three Muslim schools in Birmingham!

There seems to be almost total incomprehension of the Muslim point of view, as well as abject ignorance of the non-violent Christ of the Gospels, whom many of us in the wicked West claim to follow!