Unfortunately it seems likely that the non-Muslims who comment on the Gaza war don't understand Islam, and that the Muslim commentators don't admit that they have a bias, meanwhile Islam in fact plays a role in the Gaza war. A relevant summary:
Muhammad started his own religion when he was forty and immediately came into conflict with the other religious people of his community, mostly polytheists and Jews. Muhammad became a war general and spent the next ten years of his life trying to kill off the other religions around him. He succeeded.
During this time, every day he in essence gave war pep-talks to his troops. As most of their fighting was against Jews, most of the war pep-talks were against Jews. His followers wrote down everything he said every day, mostly in the form of scraps of paper containing short segments. When he died, his followers swept these scraps of paper together to make first the Quran, then the Hadith, as there were thousands of these scraps of paper.
The entirety of the Islamic literature reads, therefore, like a slow, hypnotic rant against Jews, and also against Christians, against polytheists, against other now obscure and defeated religions, and against all non-Muslim "disbelievers" in general.
Mostly though, it focuses on Jews. The first two main chapters of the Quran in fact are about Jews: chapter 2 "The Cow", criticizing the Jews for once worshipping a golden calf, and chapter 3 "The Family of Imran (Moses)", meaning all of the Jews. There's not much difference between any of the Quran or Hadith chapters though; they all continue along mostly in the same way as the first two and are titled variously by the scant amounts of other concepts sometimes explored in the chapters. Mostly it's all a slow, hypnotic rant against all Jews and other non-believers.
If you don't believe any of this, check it for a first time. You'll be shocked. Islam is an inherently discriminatory religion toward Jews, and that's really the basis of the aggression that comes out of Gaza and other places toward them.
Most revelatory of all in this regard is the fact (if you check your history books) that the Ottoman Empire participated in attacking Britain and the allies in World War 1, and Britain won over them, obtaining what is today the Gaza, Israel, and West Bank areas. There was never any Jewish theft. Britain wanted to let the Jews move into that land afterward, and it was their choice to do so, as it was the Brits' land.
The Jews were met with immediate violence from the Muslims, whose religion tells them to attack Jews. It got worse. Sick of the violence, the Jews declared independence for their territory and formed a state. This was fair and appropriate. Immediately, large groups of Muslims combined armies to try to massacre the Jews. They were repelled.
It never stopped. The Muslims tried to combine armies and massacre the Jews again, in '67. They were repelled that time too.
Then in 2007 Gaza started the Gaza War against the Jews, and have fought it every day since, including today. They've been rocketing Israel constantly since 2007; October 7th was just a sort of culmination.
By the way, declaring independence and forming a state was the pattern set for and by every other territorial area that was formed out of the Ottoman Empire- resulting in every Middle Eastern state you see today- Israel did nothing different, and did not need a reason to do it- Gaza and the West Bank have always had the same ability, but have torn themselves apart fighting each other instead, while the world continues to wait on them. Also, they need to not form a government that declares war against Israel as part of its foundation. That’s the other reason they haven’t formed any real states yet. No one would stop them from doing so if they did it without any war declarations. The concept that anyone else in the world would somehow be able to give them a state is bogus.
The real problem will be solved when the world has a conversation with Islam, telling them to give up the part about cursing non-believers: approximately half the content of the Islamic religion. Then the Gazans can live non-aggressively with Jews next to them. So as well with the West Bank, Jordan/Iraq/Syria/Libya/Yemen/Iran, the twenty-or-so other nations that don't accept Israeli passports, etcetera.
Before any moderators, members of this site, or non-members of this site, try to get me banned or give me -100 karma points, insisting that I’m biased or that I’ve made this up: I challenge you to read or watch any summary of the life of Muhammad and the first ten years of Islam, then to read the first hundred pages of any English translation of the Quran, then to read the sub-chapter “Fighting Jews” of the chapter “Jihad” of the Al-Bukhari hadith book, then to read Gaza’s government charter “The Hamas Covenant”. If you put in a few minutes a day it’ll take you about two weeks. Don’t complain about me asking you to do this much research; it’s not much and it’s a bare minimum I can think of for you to check my work. Then you’re going to ask the same question I asked, “Why haven’t I heard of this from anyone or any side reporting on the Gaza war?” I believe the answer is several-fold: one is that there is simply a shocking lack of bothering to do much research by even those most vocal about the conflict. Two is that those who know about this know that no outsider asked for support of Gaza would sympathize with them if they knew about this. Three is that this stuff is outrageous, and no one wants to be the deliverer of that outrage, or get accused themselves of making this up. Four (and you’ll have to read to understand this) is that the believers are told in general to not trust disbelievers, which would include not telling them the truth. If you believed someone else was going to Hell, but that they didn’t know about it, would you tell them? They’re not gonna like hearing it; why tell them? Count the number of times Muhammad says all Jews and disbelievers are going to Hell in the Quran. You’ll lose count by about page 25 and it just keeps going like that.
All the resources mentioned are easily available online for free in pdf form or otherwise; just do a search for each, and youtube has lots of good videos on Muhammad’s life. I also highly recommend you watch overhead-battle-analysis-style videos (like Kings & Generals channel & similar) to review every single early battle of Islam, in order. You may also want to watch some on the first few battles of Abu Bakr also, the guy who picked up Muhammad’s war banner after him and carried on the violent conquest of the entire Arabian Peninsula, eradicating one by one what used to be a diverse array of now-extinct local religions. You could check out a copy of the Quran translated or order one, which I also recommend. I have Pickthall’s translation as a hard copy and I recommend it; I also used three different online Qurans and three different online Al-Bukhari hadiths (I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making any mistake by reading some bad translation; turned out nope they all read like that).
And before anyone says, well, that kind of stuff is said in the Bible too… First of all, find it; second of all, if it says that kind of stuff even a handful of times in the Bible, that’s different from Islam’s thousand times saying it, over and over again- it’s really a different sort of book.
I want to say last that the Muslims aren’t “like this”; rather, they’re told to be like this, by a high-pressure, demanding religion. They’re also told I’m sure, as for Gaza, by their friends, parents, neighbors, grandparents, local TV stations, and government, what is truly an altered version of history, wherein the Jews “stole” Palestine. They’re taught to distrust anything that the West says against that, because they’re taught to distrust disbelievers- of course the disbelievers would lie about this stuff- “hasbara”. The Jews “stole” Palestine, so, they’re “occupiers”. They don’t want to sound racist because they know discrimination is not tolerated in the disbelievers’ world, so they say “Zionists”, in place of “Jews”. Underneath it, they’re not saying much to the outside world- just enough and in just the right ways to sound presumably appropriate and reasonable, legitimate. It’s like a big game to try to get what they want (Jews expelled or killed), or, as discussed above, it's that they unfortunately don't know any better cause they've been lied to themselves. To the extent that anyone knows this stuff though and hasn't mentioned it, I would feel that we’ve been lied to and played for fools, and it makes me want to say screw the Squad, Sanders, and the campus protests... all right here on American soil!!!! I trust the vast majority of Muslims are not like this. I think they are too afraid though to voice any opposition to any of the Muslims who are hardcore about this stuff, of which Gaza and the West Bank have become the best examples- I told you to read the Hamas Covenant so I’ll trust you’ll do it; meanwhile I’ll add that the guy who ran the West Bank, Abbas, wrote his own dissertation as a youth on his conspiracy theory that the Jews “did the Holocaust to themselves, to create false international sympathy and a pretext for stealing Israel”, and he has continued to educate the West Bank’s people with this line of reasoning, making “Nakba day” into a sort of mockery of anyone else’s Holocaust remembrances. Meanwhile Iran continues determined to one day lead the eradication.
If you care about caring, do the right thing- help educate others on what’s really going on in Gaza. It’s bigger than the past few months, it’s bigger than October 7^th, it’s even bigger than tens of thousands of casualties, and if we don’t do the right thing (demand and converse about how disbelievers have rights too), one day far in the future that total may be millions or billions. The time is now to resolve this between all of us, with words. Learn about and then be vocal about the unfairness of Islam. Demand rights. Have conversations.
To add to this goal, I offer the following:
I make this contract with Islam, whether they agree or not:
Disbelievers’ Bill of Rights:

1. The disbelievers have rights too.
2. The disbelievers have wonderful and diverse cultures of their own, that are not to be eradicated; Earth is good when its cultures are diverse and not homogenized.
3. The disbelievers are not going to Hell for disbelieving Islam.
4. The believers are not going to Paradise for eradicating the disbelievers.
5. There will be no “final day” where all the Jews are killed.
6. Jesus will not show up on the final day to personally kill all the Jews (Islamic eschatology).
7. Disbelievers have the right to not be discriminated against or degraded by the believers. Any disbelievers neighboring believers are not to have rocks thrown at them, suicide attacks launched at them, rockets launched at them, rifles or pistols fired at them, etcetera.
8. Disbelievers have the right to not tolerate any literature that discriminates against them or is derogatory or degrading toward them, or that advocates any sort of violence against them, or that proscribes any mistreatment of them.

Furthermore, I liberate all Muslims, with the following lines:
You don’t have to surrender to Islam, completely, if any of it seems wrong to you. For that matter, you can pick any religion, you can pick no religion, you can make up your own religion, you can institute your own renewal of Islam and start a new chapter on it; you can do anything you want on this planet, and no lightning bolt will strike you from anyone’s god. If the afterlife is real, then you’re going to it whether you believe in it or whether you disbelieve in it. If there’s Heaven and Hell, you’re going to Heaven for being a good person, Hell for being a bad person.
Also, Muhammad may have said that his teachings were “a Book”. However, Muhammad did not give any specifics instructions to make any book exactly in the fashion in which the Quran and Hadith and others (Kitube of Shia, Wahhabiism’s books, Salafist works etcetera) were made, and, I believe that Muhammad would have seen the error in making them in those exact ways- this would cause problems later- the format is too heavy on the disbelievers- it will someday make for a problematic relationship between different faiths- you should feel free to rearrange any and all verses, excluding as many as you like, reinterpreting any you like, to make any new Book that makes more sense for use as an every-day, all-time religious book: one that focuses on “the good stuff” and not the bad. Muhammad needed to rally an army every day. We don’t need that in our daily lives now that we’re all trying to put war away. This is the 21^st century. Nine nations use nukes, and two of them are Muslim (Pakistan, Kazakhstan). We need to right now make decisions that will put away all war inclinations between us forever. If you don’t like my way of doing it, come up with something better and suggest it. I say we can do it by having a conversation where disbelievers stick up for themselves and believers listen.
And, I suggest this interpretation: perhaps Allah wanted to include a sort of test, within Islam, to separate hypocrites from believers- Allah included a bunch of stuff telling you that disbelievers are bad and to attack them. Maybe it’s to see who rejects that, to send them to Paradise, and to see who decides to act on it, to send them to Hell.
There is plenty of evidence that this is true in Gaza right now. Why would Allah punish them unless they were bad? They have relentlessly attacked Israel for years. Maybe this is Allah’s punishment.
Also, you are free to associate with disbelievers, at any time and place, whatever they’re saying at the time. You can date and intermarry with disbelievers if you like. Try not calling them disbelievers and you’ll have luck.
I also state that I am a learned scholar (college degree earned, floor-to-ceiling stacks of nonfiction books read, research published) and I am authorized to make fatwa (judgments) and to issue tafsir (commentary/interpretations on holy works).
As a warning to angry-comment-posters: you may find that I can back up with references and examples every point I’ve made! Watch out!
That being said, am I wrong about anything? Please tell me if I have anything wrong; I can only do so much research and then sweep it all together off the top of my head. Let me know. I’ll apologize if I get something wrong and perhaps adjust my thesis.

British farms can grow cheap food — but at what cost?
By Jeremy Clarkson (The Sunday Times, May 26)
Quite rightly there’s been a lot of brouhaha and gnashing of teeth about the Welsh government’s weed-friendly farming policy. But the problem isn’t confined to Wales. Almost every government in the civilised world seems determined to ethnically cleanse farmers from the countryside. And it’s hard to see why.
Oh sure, they all say that farming makes a lot of carbon dioxides and that they have net zero targets to meet, but obviously that’s not the reason. Because what’s the point of keeping the global temperature down if there’s nothing to eat?
So if climate change isn’t the driver, why, all across Europe and America and Australia, is life being made so wilfully and unnecessarily hard for the people who feed us? And why in England did the number of farms fall from 132,400 in 2005 to just 104,000 in 2015? Well, bear with me on this one, but it’s necessary at this point to talk about my recent weekend city break in Copenhagen.
I’ve always said that if I were forced for some reason to leave the UK and I needed to live and work somewhere else, I’d go to Copenhagen. You eat dinner at a sensible time, not four in the morning, you’re never distracted by the beach, and you can have conversations with a van driver about how the krone is controlled by the European Central Bank. I know because I did. Here I spend most of my van-based conversations trying to explain what “fragile” means.
Everywhere you go in Copenhagen there are attractive people having lunch in attractive restaurants before going back to the office to design some more attractive chairs. They put their solar farms between the motorway and the railway line, and all around the canals and docks there are no unsightly railings. If you fall in, you just get out again. And if you can’t swim, well, that’s your own silly fault.
And then there’s the business of getting about, which is done on a bicycle. Unlike here, though, no one wears a helmet or that idiotic Stasi stormtrooper combination of black tights and black shorts. Cycling is not some BLT+, pro-Hamas, kick-out-the-Tories political movement. It’s just something you do to get about, because even the crappiest little car is about a million pounds. And there are no hills.
I love pootling about on a bicycle there, stopping for a cup of coffee and a pastry, or to look in a little shop that sells nothing but lampshades made from thinly sliced ash. If Carlsberg did cities, they’d look like this.
But even here, amid all the loveliness, we find the awful Lawrence Stroll plague of Tommy Hilfiger, Prada, Chanel, Bulgari, Gucci and all those other multinational emporiums for the terminally dreadful, which now dominate every city centre, high-end Caribbean resort and airport terminal in the world. Terry Wogan once said he’d like to machinegun everyone on Henman Hill. I feel the same way when I’m presented with a branch of Boss.
I’m told that these fashion, luggage and sunglasses shops are everywhere because they are the only ones that can afford city centre rents and I’m sure that’s true. So that’s good for the city, the landlords and stupid people in white trousers who think it’s OK to spend £850 on a pair of shoes because it says Prada on the instep.
It’s not what we want, of course. We want interesting shops full of interesting things and interesting people, and we think it’s silly to spend £850 on a pair of shoes. But lots of little shops all selling different things? That’s too difficult to organise. It’s much easier to call some twat on a yacht and ask him to send over a light dusting of Hilfiger and a spot of Saint Laurent.
Which brings me back to farming. I’m sitting here now on top of a hill in the Cotswolds and I can see four other farms, all run by farmers who do things their own way. There’s a chap not too far away who produces eggs in mobile hen houses. There’s a lady who’s passionate about organic produce. Then there’s my neighbour who seems to be persevering with oil-seed rape, and down in the valley there’s a brother and sister rearing pigs. It’s all small and higgledy-piggledy and charming. And it’s comforting to know that 90 per cent of Britain’s remaining farms are family owned. But if you stand back and look at the land as a business, you’d have to say, “Er, hang on a minute. This makes no sense at all.”
So I find myself wondering. Is this really what’s going on behind the scenes? Has the agricultural equivalent of Lawrence Stroll had a quiet word with the government: “Look, if you can get these pesky family farmers to sod off, I’ll buy the countryside, put in a bit of rewilding to keep the nutters happy and then use economies of scale to make all the food we need at a nice price.”
Think about it. My tractor is currently sitting in the yard because there’s nothing for it to do. But if I owned all the land from the south coast to the Wash it’d be working 24/7. Tomorrow I could send it to Hertfordshire to uproot hedges and pull down copses to make bigger, more economically viable fields, and the day after it would be in Dorset sprinkling some nitrogen on the barley.
It would all be a model of just-in-time efficiency and hydroponic tomatoes, and soon all of Europe’s farmland would be in the hands of four or five multinationals who could use freebies and dodgy handshakes to get government ministers to pass whatever legislation the shareholders wanted.
Under the present system farmers can’t really get governments to do anything as there are too many of us and we all have different needs. It’d be like asking a classroom of kids what they want for Christmas and expecting them all to say the same thing. There’s always going to be one that wants peace and love and another who wants a subscription to Pornhub. And a Ferrari.
If the multinationals move in that would all be solved. Plus, it would be good for the global economy, good for investors and food prices will probably fall. And to make it all even more palatable fields will be full of signs saying “Monsanto Inc. Growing sustainably for hard-working families in the community”. I think for certain the world’s governments have this utopian vision in their heads. Which is why their policies are so skewed against farmers and the present system. They’d much rather have five guys who speak their language and have pit passes at the Monaco Grand Prix every year than five thousand who come into town once a blue moon to spray government buildings with their disgusting manure.
You may think they have a point. You may like the idea of cheaper food, but do you want to wave goodbye to the hedgerows and the copses? And do you want the British countryside to be owned and run by a private equity outfit in Chicago? Or let me put it to you another way: do you want a hydroponic Tommy Hilfiger tomato? Because I don’t.
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Forget Eton, Keir will be too busy with racist chairs
With the loudest voices in Labour yelling about slavery, microbes and gender, Sir Starmer won’t have the chance to be radical
By Jeremy Clarkson (The Sunday Times, May 26)
The Conservative Party’s biggest problem is that it’s no longer the Conservative Party. And that’s because it’s been listening and taking inspiration from people who are talking, not those who aren’t. And I have some evidence to suggest that this doesn’t really work.
Many years ago, when Top Gear was a swashbuckling festival of tyre smoke and innuendo that came into your living room every Sunday evening like a drunken uncle, I just sort of did what felt right every week. But then I started consulting a small but very keen fan site in America to see what they were saying. And what they were mostly saying is that they wanted more cars and less cocking about.
This meant, when it was time to start preparing the following week’s show, their views would be front and centre in my head. My gut would tell me to do one thing, but these faceless uberfans would be telling me to do something else. And I found myself more and more doing that.
It was ridiculous. We were making a show for a weekly audience of 350 million people, but I was shaping it to keep maybe 25 American car nuts happy. I dreaded their displeasure on a Sunday night, and I’d do anything to avoid it. And that brings me back to the Conservative Party.
I can’t remember how many MPs they’ve got left now and there’s no point looking it up because by the time you read this, another one will have crossed the floor or been tied up by “bad people” or divulged secret information to keep blackmailers happy or said something Islamophobic or taken drugs or invited someone to “go back to Bahrain”. The list is endless, but whatever the number is, I’m willing to bet that every single one of them signed up because they wanted to be a tub-thumping Thatcherite iron person.
But you can’t be Mrs Thatcher now because then you’d be labelled “far right”. And that’s the same as being Hitler. Better, if you want a quiet life, to be a mouse. A Liberal Democrat. A cyclist. With one eye on hard-working families in the community and the other on River to the Sea sustainable diversity. So that’s what the Conservative MPs did. They listened to the people who were speaking and never thought to think about the views of those who weren’t. And now they are screwed. Bud Lite busted. Done. Rishi’s kids are probably already down for schools in America.
This means that in a few weeks, we will have a Labour government and many of my Tory friends find this a bit scary. They worry about the future of private education and things like a wealth tax and how well we’ll fare on the world stage when most of the people in government actively hate Britain.
I’m not worried though, because while Sir Starmer has made all sorts of left-wing noises over the years, he’s not going to be able to do anything profound because he’s going to be surrounded by the people who’ve been doing all the talking these last few years. And what they’re going to be talking to him about, most of all, is penises.
Penises will be our saviour. He may be sitting there thinking about how he can alter capital gains tax or abolish Eton, but it’s going to be hard to put any of his plans into action — because every five minutes, someone’s going to run in and say they’ve seen a willy in the ladies’. And he’s going to have to break off to deal with that.
And while he’s in the ladies’, asking Big John if he wouldn’t mind maybe using the gents’ in future, someone else is going to call him and say that there’s been some misgendering in the gatehouse which means he’ll have to miss his five o’clock about sustainable development in the birthing people space.
The next day, he’s going to really want to get a grip on the non-dom issue, but at 7am he’ll get an email from someone who’s “reaching out” to say that the antique chairs used in the Cabinet Office were probably made by slaves and that to display solidarity with Palestine, the chairs should come from Gaza. This will have to be discussed in a meeting where it’ll turn out that all the chairs in Gaza are broken, which will cause the whole room to descend into a frenzied and frothing attack on Israel. The non-doms, as a result, will be able to breathe easy.
And then it’ll be lunch and Sir Keir, being a vegetablist, will order a salad. But just as he’s about to savour that first mouthful, someone with sustainable armpit hair — but possibly no penis — will lean over and ask if he understands how many beetles and microbes had to be killed before that salad could be grown. So then there will be a debate about what food can be eaten by hard-working members of the cabinet’s vegetarian community and it’ll be decided that it’d be best if, in future, everyone got their sustenance from licking the pot plants.
Foreign leaders will be calling him but he’ll be prevented from taking the calls because one of the components in his phone was made in Tel Aviv; nor will he be able to talk to the Treasury about a mansion tax because this would involve maths, and maths — as we’ve learnt — is racist.
Meanwhile, outside the corridors of power, the doctors will continue to go to work, the nurses will still get paid, the garden centres will continue to be open, the supermarkets will continue to sell food and car showrooms will still be able to provide you with a new set of wheels. It’ll all be normal.
Because the penis people who’ve been talking and talking and talking these last few years will still be talking and talking and talking. Only now they won’t be outside the building. They’ll be inside — which means, mercifully, we won’t be able to hear them as they busy themselves with the endless task of achieving absolutely nothing at all.
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And here's an excerpt from the Sun column:
Three years ago, when my farm was being battered over the head by planners at West Oxfordshire District Council, I became so desperate that I went to London to see the minister in charge of this sort of thing: Michael Gove.
I explained the problem. Farmers were being told by central government to diversify if they wanted to stay in business. But if they tried, they were stopped by the planners in local government.
Gove pulled all the right faces and made all the right noises and I left knowing full well nothing would come of it.
But blow me down with a feather, it did. And this week farmers were told they could turn their disused barns into gyms or workshops or even houses without the need for planning permission.
That’s great news for everyone in the business. Except me. Because to help win the battle to keep my farm shop, I gave up the rights to convert my barn.
I think that’s called taking one for the team.
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Clarkson's columns are regularly collected as books. You can buy them from his boss or your local bookshop.
P.S. Apologies for the delay in posting this week's columns. I was traveling on Monday (Memorial Day, a holiday in the US).

Hi there two questions, one minor, one major:
I am a late 30s NYC-based semi-practicing Jew whose wife is in the process of conversion. I’ll be in Athens arriving Sunday for a conference and thought it would be a good opportunity for my wife to visit Tel Aviv and have a few nights experiencing Israel.
1(minor): I heard from this article that I might need to get a visa. Does anyone know what the process is or if it will affect my travel this Saturday/Sunday?
2(major): Is now an acceptable time to go to Tel Aviv (safety, chance of getting stuck/delayed there, etc)?
I know Israel is at war, but I felt it important with all the controversy and media attention for my wife and I to understand what’s going on with our own eyes.
The last time I went to Israel, it was right after college and I went because so many people kept asking me as a Jew for my opinion on a place I’d never been to which frustrated to me to no end. “Why did Israel do this?” “How did I feel about that?” How could I be an “ambassador” for a place I’d never been?
I felt I understood more after going. My hope is my wife will too.
It’s hard for me to understand what the situation is on the ground and how this war is going with the media here.
So I thought I’d ask here and see if anyone could give any info.
Thank you in advance.

I am ethnically Jewish from my mom’s side but live in a southern state in the U.S. where I know maybe 4 other jews. My mom lived in fear and married a catholic to try to avoid me experiencing the antisemitism she did which left me feeling so confused in my teens. I am 20 now but went to birthright in 2022 when I turned 18 to meet my people and get to know that part of me. Now all of my peers are pro-pally including my boyfriend and I thought I was too until the sly comments started getting to me. I don’t know where I stand because I feel so uneducated and immense guilt for going to Israel even though I felt so connected when I went. Even my partner has started saying things like “Oh well we see all of these pedophiles coming out and isn’t it odd that they all have jewish last names.” I feel so lost because I truly don’t know where I stand. I do believe in a 2 state solution because I am sick of the violence on both sides, I just don’t see how there can be a peaceful end for this war where Jews and Palestinians can feel safe.
Several of my peers have been using antisemitic tropes while discussing the conflict but when I say something, it’s just anti zionism and I am playing the victim card. Like ???? I have lost so many friends simply because they know I am jewish and they either haven’t asked me about the conflict and made up their minds or asked to double check that I’m one of the “good ones.” It’s so frustrating because they knew nothing of jews before becoming social media warriors and only have these tropes to know what we are “like.”
Anyways sorry for venting because I don’t have a clear cut view to respond to. It’s more of an identity crisis than political. I am very lucky to not have an identifying last name, but I don’t want to be like my family and hide under my appearance when I have just recently grown into myself. Thanks for reading!

I’m the third. Alex the parrot was the second. A man named Karl Schuster who lived in Berlin in the early 1900s was likely the first. In total, only three individuals are known to have overcome the natural cognitive limits of their species’ brains. Alex did no harm. Mr. Schuster, I’m afraid, may have inadvertently damaged reality. My transgression may be humanity’s undoing.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be like Alex.
What made Alex special? He is the only animal to have asked a question.
Lots of animals communicate. Whales and birds sing their songs to each other. Coyotes use barks and howls for identification. We’ve been teaching primates sign language since the 1960s. But these animal tweets and howls and signs aren’t language. There’s no grammatical structure. No deep concepts conveyed - just surface-level stuff. I’m here, they say. I’m threatened, or breed with me.
Animals manage to transmit information and even desires through their species’ form of communication. But none of the thousands of animals observed by science have ever asked a question. Except Alex.
Alex was an ordinary gray parrot, purchased at a pet store by a researcher studying animal psychology. Alex was taught to identify shapes and objects and to speak the name of the items he was quizzed on. One day, while being taught to identify different colors, Alex turned to a mirror and asked “What color is Alex?” This is the only known case of an animal asking a question. Even the famous gorilla who liked to pose for pictures with his kitten and the chimpanzee raised as a human child never managed to ask a question.
As you cuddle up on the couch with Mister Snugglekins the cat, or make Mister Woof Woof the dog beg for treats, think about what it must be like to have an animal mind. Animals’ brains cannot even conceive of the idea of asking a question. They can wonder things: When’s dinner? Is this new person a threat? But the notion of using communication to get answers is beyond their capacity. The gulf between us and our beloved animals is truly vast.
Now, let’s take the next logical step. Is there a mind - can there be such a mind - that is to ours like ours are to animals’? What thoughts are permitted by the laws of physics but are unattainable to the limited machinery of our brains? What if we could improve our own cognitive infrastructure, so our own minds could grasp these currently-unattainable ideas. What lies beyond the ability to ask questions? Hyper-questions? What are they like? What is their purpose? Is there hyper-love? Hyper-joy? What accomplishments lie beyond our grasp?
I used to believe that these ideas amounted to only pointless philosophical wondering. Just stuff to talk about while you’re passing the joint around. Then I learned about Alex, who somehow broke past the cognitive limit of animal thought. If Alex can do it, maybe it’s possible for a human to do it. Maybe, I thought, I can do it.
Unfortunately it is possible for a human to do it. And unfortunately, I did.
* * \*
In 2015, dozens of social media users posted images of a confused-looking elderly man slowly driving in circles in a Walmart parking lot. The emblem on the back of the car said he was driving Toyota Raynow. Toyota denies that a vehicle called a Toyota Raynow ever existed, even as a prototype.
* * \*
I’m not the first researcher to set off on a project to improve human cognition. The eugenicists whose work flourished at the dawn of the 20th century may have been the first people to search for ways to adjust to the human mind. Of course, they had their own spin on the endeavor that, let’s just say, didn’t age well. Take a look at this: an excerpt from the Proceedings of the Third Berlin Conference on Eugenics, 1904. (Translated from the original German by me)

The session on Friday afternoon was opened by Mr. Gerhard Van Wagenen, who presented the report of the Berlin Directed Intelligence Improvement Society. If we are to develop ways of improving the overall intelligence of the human breed, Mr. Van Wagenen argued, we must have, as a guide post, the ultimate limit of human intelligence. Only when we know this limit, can we pose the fundamental question of our effort: Are we to use selective breeding to improve average human intellectual fitness in a population, or are we to find ways of advancing the limit of human genius itself into areas that no individuals born to date have occupied?
Our immediate research goal was therefore to find individuals for whom the light of genius burned, not just at all, but brighter than the lights of all others of that intellectual rank. We sought to find the one individual currently alive who can look down on literally all the rest as his intellectual inferiors.
It is known that in the mass of men belonging to the superior classes there is found a small number who are characterized by inferior qualities. And in the mass of men forming the inferior classes, one can find specimens possessing superior characteristics. Therefore, we shall search wherever those of superior intellect may be found, without regard to their current station.

Inferior classes? Intellectual rank? Try putting that in a research grant proposal today!
Mr. Van Wagenen and his assistants set out across Berlin and asked thousands of people a single question: “Of all the men you know who are still alive, who amongst them is the most intelligent?” They carefully reviewed the resulting list of thousands of names. They removed the duplicates and any female names that ended up on the list. (Those crazy eugenicists, right?) They tracked down each of these men who ranked as the smartest known by at least one male resident of Berlin, and asked them the same question, generating a second-stage list: the most intelligent people known to a group of individuals already considered very intelligent.
And they kept going. They generated the third-stage names, found those people and had them produce a list of fourth-stage names. And so on. This project took a year. There was a running joke in Berlin that Mr. Van Wagenen would only stop when the last name on the list was his own.
But, to Mr. Van Wagenen’s credit, he did not rig the study to identify himself or one of his patrons as the one individual who can look down on literally all the rest as his intellectual inferiors. Indeed, Mr. Van Wagenen eventually concluded that his year-long study was a failure.

A fraction of the people named, about eight percent, simply could not be found. We were appalled to note that a small percentage of the respondents identified themselves as the most intelligent man they knew. While the ultimate individual we seek could only truthfully answer with his own name, we took these first and second stage self-identifiers to be adverse to our research and ignored their input.
In a few hundred cases, pairs of individuals each identified the other. In smaller numbers we found sets of three, four, and even five men whose linkages formed closed loops of co-admiration, eventually working around back to the first man.
But the most striking feature of the data was that over three thousand lines of reported superior intelligence ended in the same name: Karl Schuster. Mr. Schuster had been a successful industrialist before suddenly retreating from public view later in life. Strangely, when we tried to find Mr. Schuster, we learned that he had, of his own volition, taken residence in the mental asylum located at Lankwitz.
He refused to see us when we paid a visit to his private room in the asylum. The only communication we had from him was a note related to us by the Lankwitz staff, in which Mr Shuster wrote:
“I’ve spent most of my life hiding from It. I have isolated myself here, with the notion that the confused noise of mental anguish that surrounds me would act as a form of concealment. I did not suspect I might one day be discovered by ordinary men. Please do not visit me here again.”
From his note, and the fact of his residence within the asylum, we must conclude Mr. Shuster had become a mental defective. Even more damaging to our research, we subsequently learned that Mr. Schuster was a Jew. This finding, unfortunately, invalidates our work. In the coming months, we will strive to find a protocol more suitable for investigation into the nature of superior intellect.

Let’s not be too hard on these anti-Semitic, white-supremacist eugenicists. I’m willing to cut them some slack because I’ve done far, far more damage to mankind than all of these guys combined. I should have listened to Mr. Schuster’s warning. I should not have let It find me.
* * \*
In 1954 a man arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport with a passport issued by the country of Taured. No such country exists, or ever existed. Despite the man being detained and guarded, he mysteriously vanished overnight.
* * \*
Where the eugenicists looked to make improvements in the human population over generations by controlling or influencing reproduction, I had a more ambitious goal - to make improvements to a specific human brain (my own) in-vivo. I set out to upgrade my brain while I was using my brain to figure out how to upgrade my brain. I had astonishing success.
I’m not going to tell you exactly how I did it, because it’s just too dangerous. I don’t mean because it’s dangerous to the person undergoing the process (which it is), but because doing so can lead It to notice you. I don’t care if you fry your own cortex. But having It eat even more of our reality will be a calamity.
The human brain consists of gray matter, which is the stuff that performs perception and cognition, and white matter, which deals with boring stuff like running your metabolism. The gray matter - your cerebral cortex - forms a nice thick layer on the outside of your brain. This layer wraps the white matter underneath. I found a way to use pluripotent stem cells to expand the thickness of my cortex. With careful dosing of the stem cell culture through a spinal tap, I created new layers of gray matter underneath my cortex. These new cells replaced the white matter that was there.
For reasons I don’t fully understand yet, the new cortical cells only become active when I have ingested a potent mixture of hallucinogens and antipsychotic drugs.
The process is arduous and very illegal. Experimentation on humans, even if the test subject is also the researcher, is extremely highly regulated. And the drugs I need to use are not available from the suppliers that the rule-following scientific community uses. This work was performed in isolation and in secret. No regulators. No administrators. No rules. Just pure scientific progress.
My laboratory is as unconventional as my approach to science. I’ve set up shop in an assembly of forty-foot shipping containers in the center of my heavily forested seven-hundred-acre plot of land. Privacy!
* * \*
Thousands of people have vivid memories of news coverage from the 1980s reporting that Nelson Mandela died in prison. In the reality that most of us know, Mandela died in 2013, years after his release.
* * \*
Uplift #1 - 3 cubic centimeters
By last October, after six months of stem-cell treatment, I estimated that I had added a total of three cubic centimeters of gray matter to my baseline cortex volume. I could already feel the effects of the diminished volume of white matter. My sense of smell and taste were all but gone. My fine-motor-control was diminished. I had weakness in my legs and arms. But I had three cubic centimeters of fresh cortex to work with. I only needed to activate it. To Uplift myself, as I came to call the process of thinking with an expanded brain.
I planned for the first Uplift as if I was planning a scientific expedition into an uncharted jungle - I stockpiled food and water. I stockpiled lots of drugs. I bought a hundred blank notebooks to record my uplifted thoughts in.
I filled a seven-day pill container with hallucinogens and antipsychotics. I scratched off the Monday, Tuesday, etc. labels on the pill compartments and relabeled them: hour 0, hour 1, and so on. I planned my first Uplift to last seven hours.
Over those seven hours, I learned how to make use of the new, extra capacity in my cortex. I filled notebook after notebook with increasingly complex thoughts. Here are a few excerpts:

Hour 1: The linguistic-mathematical relational resonance is far stronger than most have suspected.
Hour 2: Questions lacking prepositional multipliers of context prevent full expository [(relations)(responses)] yet, but (!yet) there is still an I in the premise.

By the fifth hour, I was fully Uplifted, asking hyper-questions and providing my own hyper-answers. What do the musings of a fully Uplifted mind look like? Page after page of this:

(((Imagine)Imagine[)Imagine)Relate->Time]<--Force(Animal,Object–>Think)

* * \*
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H.P. Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu
* * \*
Uplift #2 - 5.5 cubic centimeters.
I waited a few weeks before my next Uplift. I needed time to recover from the mental strain of the first experiment, and to wait for a new dose of stem-cells to produce even more gray matter.
Although I only spent a few hours in an Uplifted state in my first experiment, I felt diminished as I returned to baseline. Hyper-questions. Hyper-answers. Hyper-joy. All of these are wonderful to experience. Life can be so much more rich and full with a post-human cognitive capacity.
But, as I learned during my second Uplift, there is also Hyper-fear.
I descended from my second uplift by screaming and running naked in the snowy woods outside my laboratory. As the drugs wore off, the activated sections of the new parts of my brain shut down. Thoughts that were clear one moment became foggy, like waking from a nightmare.
I fell into a snowbank, breathing hard. Only a trace of what terrified me was left rattling in my tiny, baseline brain: It. It noticed me. I occupied Its attention.
What was It? I knew exactly what It was moments earlier, when I had more gray matter to think with. But now I was like a dog trying to grasp the idea of a question. I was still afraid, but I couldn’t understand the source of the fear.
I returned to the lab and warmed up. Then I reviewed what I had written in my notebooks during the ten hour session. Most of it was the same sort of advanced writings that my now-normal brain could not comprehend. But, somewhere towards the end of the session, perhaps just before I shed my clothes and ran into the woods, I wrote this:

I know what Schuster was hiding from. Find out information about Shuster.

When I recovered from the strain of my second Uplift, I drove to town, where I was able to access the Internet. I found some information about Schuster in the same archive where I found the proceedings from the 1904 eugenics conference.
A short article in a Berlin newspaper described the man who had been named by so many people who took Van Wagenen’s survey.

…Mr. Schuster, at the age of fifteen, had made significant contributions to machine design, metallurgy, and chemistry. He founded four companies which he ran nearly by himself, without a large management staff to insulate him from the workers and day-to-day engineering tasks…

It seems that most of the people who identified Mr. Shuster as the most intelligent person they knew had known him well at this time in his life.
Another article, written in 1905, described strange event at his funeral:

…Also present was a contingent of a dozen people who claimed to have been friends with Schuster during the five years he spent in America. Many who had known Schuster for his entire life stated that he had never been to America, let alone spent five years there. Did a group of people mistakenly attend the funeral of the wrong man?
Everyone in attendance had similar memories of him. All recognized his photograph on the coffin. Indeed, some of the America contingent had letters, written in Karl’s hand and signed by him, fondly recalling his time spent in the New England woods. It is as if there were two Schusters: the one who lived his life in Germany and the other who spent years in America.

Uplift #3 - 6 cubic centimeters
Perhaps I’ve allowed my cortex to consume too much of my white matter. I now have trouble with perceptions. The woods surrounding my laboratory have been transformed into a city. Where there were trees, there are now charming stone buildings from a European city. The song of birds and the whisper of the wind in the trees is gone too, replaced with streetcars and voices speaking German.
I prepared my pill container and notebooks for my third Uplift, as the sounds of a busting turn-of-the-century city rang through the metal walls of my laboratory.
Although I had dozens of blank notebooks prepared, I only made one page of notes during my third Uplift:

I met it today. I know what It is. It is alive. Not just alive. Hyper-alive.
It is built into the very material that logic and mathematics is made from. The digits of the square of pi, when computed to the billionth quadrillionth place, is a sketch of a fragment of its structure.
It consumes pieces of reality. It weaves them into its being, and leaves the tattered shreds of logic and causality to haphazardly mend themselves. It ate the circumstances of Karl Schuster’s life, leaving the ragged edges of different universes to stick and twist themselves back together, like shreds of a tattered flag tangling together in a gale.
It has only begun grazing on the small corner of Hyper-reality where humanity lives. Imagine a cow eating grass from a field. A field where humanity lives like a small colony of aphids on a single blade of grass. It likes it here. It likes the taste of reality here.
I tried to tell it to go away. That we are here and have a right to exist.
It replied to me, in its way. I found its words at the bottom of a twelve-dimensional fractal, woven into the grammar of a language with an infinite alphabet. It taunted me with a question: “What flavor is Alex?”

Update to the Proceedings of the Third Berlin Conference on Eugenics, 1904
Mr. Gerhard Van Wagenen provided the committee with an update on his finding that the individual Mr. Karl Shuster was strikingly-well-represented in the responses of his survey on intelligent men. Mr. Van Wagenen writes:
Upon further reflection of the results of my survey, I returned to Lankwitz again to try to meet with Mr. Schuster. I arrived to find his ward in an uproar, as only a few minutes prior to my arrival, Mr. Schuster had been found missing. The preceding letter, which is reprinted here in its entirety, was found in Mr. Schuster’s room. While the letter does not indicate where he went or even how he managed to slip away from the asylum unnoticed, it does show the extent of his derangement. His detailed descriptions of question-asking birds, strange events from the future, and even methods of biological manipulation unknown to science are not the product of a mind that we wish to recreate. Perhaps intelligence, as a phenomenon of nature, is more complicated than we are able to appreciate with our current notions of science. If I may speculate even further, perhaps Intelligence is a phenomenon we should avoid study of, lest we learn things about ourselves that it is best not to know.

”In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and *said to them, “I feel compassion for the crowd because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.” And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” And He was asking them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.” And He *directed the crowd to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them. And He kept giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the crowd. And they also had a few small fish; and after He blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well. And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces. Now about four thousand were there, and He sent them away. And immediately He entered the boat with His disciples and came to the district of Dalmanutha. And the Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him. And sighing deeply in His spirit, He *said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” And leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side. And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, *said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?” They *said to Him, “Twelve.” “When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they *said to Him, “Seven.” And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?” And they *came to Bethsaida. And they *brought a blind man to Jesus and *pleaded with Him to touch him. And taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He was asking him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and was saying, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.” And Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He was asking His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.” And He continued asking them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter *answered and *said to Him, “You are the Christ.” And He warned them to tell no one about Him. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter openly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and *said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”“ ‭‭Mark‬ ‭8‬:‭1‬-‭38‬ ‭LSB‬‬
”And as they *approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He *sent two of His disciples, and *said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. And if anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.” And they went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they *untied it. And some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. And they *brought the colt to Jesus and put their garments on it; and He sat on it. And many spread their garments in the road, and others spread leafy branches, having cut them from the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!” And Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. And on the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. And seeing at a distance a fig tree that had leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And He answered and said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening. Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He was not permitting anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. And when evening came, they were going out of the city. And as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. And being reminded, Peter *said to Him, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered and *said to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. For this reason I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. [But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.”] Then they *came again to Jerusalem. And as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders *came to Him, and began saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?” And Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question, and you answer Me, and then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men’?”—they were afraid of the crowd, for everyone was regarding John to have been a real prophet. And answering Jesus, they *said, “We do not know.” And Jesus *said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”“ ‭‭Mark‬ ‭11‬:‭1‬-‭33‬ ‭LSB‬‬
”And six days later Jesus *brought with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and *led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three booths here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone. And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.“ ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭17‬:‭1‬-‭13‬ ‭LSB‬‬
”And when they had approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” And this took place in order that what was spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your King is coming to you, Lowly, and mounted on a donkey, And on a colt, the foal of a pack animal.’ ” And the disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their garments on them; and He sat on the garments. And most of the crowd spread their garments in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. And the crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were crying out, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” And when He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He *said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.” And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the marvelous things which He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant and said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” And Jesus *said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. Now in the morning, when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. And seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He *said to it, “No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.” And at once the fig tree withered. And seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither all at once?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” And when He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the crowd; for they all regard John as a prophet.” And they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.” He also said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered and said, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. And the man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered and said, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They *said, “The first.” Jesus *said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even regret afterward so as to believe him. “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. Now when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his fruit. And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” They *said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.” Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This has become the chief corner stone; This came about from the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation, producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He *was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize Him, they feared the crowds, because they were regarding Him to be a prophet.“ ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭21‬:‭1‬-‭46‬ ‭LSB‬‬
”Now it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper regions and came to Ephesus and found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard if the Holy Spirit is being received.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” Then Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. Now there were in all about twelve men. And after he entered the synagogue, he continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some were becoming hardened and were not believing, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he left them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that cloths or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out. But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to invoke over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I implore you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Now seven sons of one named Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them, subdued all of them, and utterly prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Also, many of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and were burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. Now after these things were finished, Paul purposed in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” And having sent into Macedonia two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. Now about that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen; these he gathered together with the workers of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity is from this business. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable crowd, saying that things made with hands are not gods. And not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be considered as worthless and that she, whom all of Asia and the world worship, is even about to be brought down from her majesty.” When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began crying out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” And the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia. And when Paul wanted to go into the assembly, the disciples would not let him. Also some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and repeatedly urged him not to venture into the theater. So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the meeting was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together. And some of the crowd concluded it was Alexander, since the Jews had put him forward; and having motioned with his hand, Alexander was intending to make a defense to the assembly. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single cry arose from them all as they shouted for about two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Now after calming the crowd, the city clerk *said, “Men of Ephesus, what man is there after all who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the image which fell down from heaven? So, since these are undeniable facts, you ought to keep calm and to do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess. So then, if Demetrius and the craftsmen who are with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are in session and proconsuls are available; let them bring charges against one another. But if you want anything beyond this, it shall be settled in the lawful meeting. For indeed we are in danger of being accused of a riot in connection with today’s events, since there is no cause for which we can give as an account for this disorderly gathering.” After saying this he dismissed the meeting.“ ‭‭Acts‬ ‭19‬:‭1‬-‭41‬ ‭LSB‬‬

This one will get a bit graphic
I am a very anxious person, I work for the Mexican government classifying every note and article from every newspaper before they are published so the president amongst other government officials can be informed for their Mañanero
I am used to covering local, national, and international news, I am regularly exposed to graphic images and stories but what is coming from Palestine on the last months, what happened last night in Rafah will scar me forever, I can't even imagine the psychological effects that will haunt the survivors of this Genocide that have had to witness their family, friends and Neighbours die squashed by rubble, starve to death, blown up or burnt to death... the smell alone is enough for your body to register trauma but unfortunately it's not over, sadly the people that survived last night are not guaranteed to survive tomorrow
I wonder if Ethan will have more sympathy for the Palestinian people now that they have burned or if he was specifically wanting for them to light themselves on fire.
I wonder if Ethan will talk about the decapitated babies and address the fabricated claims he has been spreading since the images of real decapitated Palestinian babies have gone viral
Lets get one thing straight, even if Ethan claims he doesnt want to talk about Palestine for his mental health, he is keeping up.
Thats why he was able to describe how good Aaron Bushnell was at burning and rant about his sacrifice being meaningless, Ethan knows Israel bombs hospitals but has not issued a correction,
Ethan knows that the Israeli claims of Decapitated Babies were fabricated, just like he has most likely seen the pictures of the Palestinian decapitated babies and the fire in the Rafah refugee camp designed to kill civilians while Zionists laugh and cheer
Recently there was a clip posted on this sub of Ethan and Hasan, on a leftovers episode, where Ethan made Hasan stay past the accorded recording schedule to watch a video of a pro Palestinian protest where they were allegedly chanting Burn the Jews. I wont go into weather or not that clip was fabricated but i will highlight the h3pocresy.
It is not ok to chant Gas/Burn the Jews, but in my opinion its worse to Literally burn families of refugees... but we can expect silence from Ethan, Hila will probably deny it like she denied the daily abusive living conditions of the Palestinian people under the Israeli apartheid.
The way Ethan is fast to claim Palestinians rape Israelis and its undisputable but there is not enough evidence that Israelis rape Palestinians. That the IDF takes Palestinian Prisoners, children and adults alike, and subjugates them to inhumane conditions, including systemic rape-
The way Ethan likes to conflate that the Liberation of Palestinians = A call for the genocide of Jews while a LITERAL GENOCIDE OF Palestinians is happening as an effort to justify the genocide
He did not speak for Sidra, He did not speak for Hind, he will not speak for the schools, hospitals, and residential areas, he will not speak for the targeted. doctors, journalists or aid workers.
Ethan claims that its the audience that can't pull themselves to see both sides, but it is him who self-proclaims to be biased it is him who is trying to change the viewers minds with fabricated propaganda, it is him who incites online harassment by mobilizing his audience. giving them the script of what to say
He claims he is not a Zionist even tho his definition of Zionism is "a home for jews" because he KNOWS that the ideals he follows and pushes call for "a home for ONLY jews"
Ethan states he pulls himself all the way to the middle straight up calling it apartheid but only as a way to try to convince his audience to give Israel the benefit of the doubt while it bombs hospitals
This man is the pinacle of racism, he hates everyone and thats supposed to clear his name?
This is the part where I share a little about myself, I have health issues and am constantly feeling like am dying/wanting to die. but a part of me will never stop fighting for this life, I see the Palestinians fighting for their life and their freedom. I see them living in conditions I would never want to be in, I see the world fighting for their rights, protesting and raising awareness, i see people using their platforms for good. fundraisers, adoption and sponsorship programs of people doing anything and everything they can to help....
And then I see Ethan and Hila, I see the crew, people I used to support, people I used to believe in. standing their ground on Zionist propaganda, on dehumanizing rhetoric and misinformation. I see their audience spreading their misinformation like an STD
some people may say I am mentally ill for coming back to this sub to complain about this random imbecile, but to that I say that being exposed to this prick has made you ableist . some people may think that being active in this community means I do not have a life and don't practice what I preach, but If my life means anything I will be here to talk about my experiences and the damage that H3 is inflicting... do I watch the show anymore? no... as i said i dont believe Ethan or Hila will ever issue a correction or engage meaningfully with this topic. and I feel confident that there is nothing they can produce that will reverse the damage they have done
They could change their position and start doing good-faith advocacy work but that is not going to happen.
They are quite literally shit people, Ethan more than the others, but they all swallow the misinformation Ethan and Hila shit out, they all laugh at Ethan being racist, homophobic, fatphobic, misogynistic, a rape apologist, a human trafficking apologist, a pedophile apologist, a genocide apologist, a classist, and a thief
Whoever stands behind him after all of this is just as bad, if you see that and see entertainment or comedy you are part of the problem.
sorry if this post is a mess i am going through a lot rn

Hi everyone,
This is a bit of a strange one - But I (M23) am looking for some advice about a situation that happened at my LGS last week.
First of all, I'm a gay man and (not to be stereotypical) have quite feminine characteristics and dress in a way that most people would understand that I was a gay person. My local LGS has lots of kind people and I've only ever had extremely positive experiences in my 2 years of going there every Wednesday evening for Casual Commander.
Due to the community, we don't have 'fixed pods' but tend to join up with whoever is available to make pods of 4, 5 or 6. It happens that since August of last year, I generally arrive at the LGS at the same time as some other guys, so we have tended to stick together most weeks in a pod of our own - Meaning that I haven't managed to play with loads of other people, just the odd few newbies who might join to get a game or two in.
As you'll all know, Commander is growing with popularity all the time, which means that I've been seeing more and more new faces most weeks and now the LGS is doing so well that they're opening an upstairs area as the amount of players who attend on Wednesdays has outgrown the space we had been assigned for Commander beforehand.
Anyway, I happened to get to the LGS last Wednesday about 90 minutes sooner than I was forecast too - so I ended up joining a table with 3 guys on it (all about 18-21 I would assume) 2 of which I had seen around but never played with before and 1 newbie. I asked if they'd be happy for me to join, they said yes, and so I took a seat and introduced myself - I asked all their names and made a joke about how I'd struggle to remember them but I'd try my best.
I got my playmat out and asked what kind of game they wanted. It was now that I realised that these 3 were friends outside of the LGS and the 2 had brought the newbie guy to play in a pod for the first time with a precon. We all agreed on precon-level and started rolling for high. There was the usual banter, nothing too crazy, and then one of the guys asked who everyone was piloting, I turned around my copy of Zaffai (one of the precon commanders) and the guys just said "Oh that's gay" - I was a bit taken-back, as I hadn't heard that use of the word "gay" for a while, but I just brushed it off, laughed and moved on - Chalking it down to just a bit of a joke.
We got playing and the conversation of the guilds came up after a few rounds. The same guy commented that the "gayest guild" was Izzet (my commanders colours) and the other two laughed. It really stuck out to me this time, but I laughed again and replied with "How fitting that I'm playing it then", there was a bit of a chuckle, but the game got going again soon after.
Everything was fine again for a few rounds and I was starting to really enjoy these guys' company, but then the stompy green player (the one who had said the gay jokes before) swung into his friend, who called him a 'c**k sucker'. This really stood out, but I just sat there stonefaced and didn't laugh this time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not easily offended, but this was starting to feel like a bit more than just some mates having a laugh together. It kind of ruined the atmosphere for me, because it reminded me of being sat around the same sort of guys at high school, feeling like that scared little gay kid again - Which I resented.
The game developed and I wasn't speaking a word, I would just declare attacks and blocks and do my turns, that was it. The joking started to venture into true 'edge-lord' territory, and there were further jokes at the expense of Jews too (those were particularly abhorrent, and I wouldn't feel comfortable even repeating them). It all left a really bad taste in my mouth.
I finished the game in 3rd place and just picked up my stuff and moved to a different table, waiting for my usual pod to arrive, they did and we had a great night.
I tried to forget all about it, but now it's approaching Wednesday again, I'm starting to feel like I don't even want to go to the LGS, which has never happened to me before.
I wasn't offended or upset, it just felt so backward and I'm worried for any of the other players to play with them, I know for a fact that we have quite a few LGBTQ+ people at our LGS, and even some who are still pretty young (16-18 young) - I know that hearing jokes like that would have crushed me when I was that age.
Obviously I'm never going to play with them again, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I should do? - I thought about telling the LGS owners, but I'm also an adult so I don't want to feel like I'm being a tell-tale. I thought about maybe warning the other gay people about them, but then I don't think it's fair to brand them as homophobic based on 1 interaction with them either. Or maybe I'm just being a little upright?
Any advice would be appreciated and I'd be interested to know if anyone has ever had to deal with a similar situation before and what they did to resolve it.
Thanks in advance!

I'm not going to discuss the faking controversy because I am not entitled to do that, nor do I think it is relevant. The only thing that matters is the behavior and actions of DD in their videos, not what they think or know but what they put out to the world, both on an educational and a personal level.
I am still a minor and started watching DD's videos at a ridiculously young age considering the serious, triggering topics and persona of the videos, no matter how educational and un-harmful they tried to paint themselves as.
I was introduced to them (like very many others) through Anthony Padilla's video. The topic was new and interesting, and discussed in an open, liberal way, which was something I was raised to favor – put things as they are, stigmas aside, and maybe learn things you wouldn't have otherwise about people.
I wasn't very familiar with AP's content, clueless about life as children are, and not a native English speaker, therefore easy to influence. And I'm not just talking about the DID content itself, but in general – I could watch DD saying things that I wouldn’t even understand were sexual and not realize because of the language barrier, and everything being so subtle. The famous "I look like I'm naked but promise I'm not" footage seemed silly to me (a girl) and definitely not intentional. How messed up.
I watched the sex advice video thinking it's legitimate at my age because of the "educational" context and how open and healthy it allegedly is. That was at an age legal to YouTube but definitely not over 18, and it's crazy I even had access to it. I'm lucky to not have been in a sexual relationship that would require such advice, and also have my mother as a guide I can always seek if I have questions about sex, but not all people are like that.
I have a friend who dated someone with some sort of dehumanizing / dissociation disorder, and this friend's parents are somewhere on the line between non supportive to abusive. They could've easily watched this video or something similar and be misled, possibly damaging their view on healthy relationships and sex for life.
I've seen people here talking about their romanticization of this mental illness and racist depictions and I truly hope my view of it isn't too distorted now. I was very passionate about learning and destigmatizing mental health because of a few close friends of mine, and this seemed like an informative, educational and even fun place to do so. I said it, FUN. My general YouTube experience was of entertainment, and fangirling over different alters being presented as so special with unique roles or whatever was sadly something I did.
The videos started to feel wrong somewhere along the Sergio costa trials, with a few thoughts like "why the hell are they revealing so much about their personal life and legal case online? why are they talking about suicide attempts and being used when people could use it to abuse them?" popping up more and more as I grew up and became less clueless. It didn't matter though since they weren't ever active for a long period of time, but I do remember unsubscribing and re-subscuribing a few times.
I started seeing things more negatively with one community post from five months ago, that is titled "some quick updates". They start by talking about how they still need some time off and wishing happy holidays to trauma survivors, but the rest of the post was dedicated to "raising awareness about Palestine".
For some context, I am Israeli and am experiencing this war in first person. I do feel bad for the people in Gaza, every life matters (people feel the need to ask that just because I am a Jew and want to live) and I'm not here to educate you about this topic, it's truly not your business and not what I'm here to discuss.
I will just say what matters and affected me: the October 7th massacre happened during a holiday while I was away from home and couldn’t go back for another two weeks, because of the tension there might be in my city - having a population of both Jews and Arabs, with attacks from the Arab side out of nowhere a few years ago. my dad was recruited for almost six months and my mom was left to take care of me and four more siblings on her own. I spent all my time on social media seeing how literally everyone in my generation hates us, blames us and denies the rape of our women if not justifies it, falling for the victimization of Hamas. The stress caused me to have an epileptic outburst.
that post hit hard. I was genuinely shocked to see this one person who claims to be a true victim of misinformation and activist for education falling for propaganda and ranting about shit that allegedly happens in the middle east when they live in England. They were talking about PTSD related seizures when they were shoving their nose into put me in literal danger, both from murder or bombing and from epilepsy.
They went on saying how they can’t create content but are not ignorant, and I realized that it was all an attention game. They can't help with the issue because they are not a politician or a fundraiser (for anyone but themselves), no one asked them what they think or blamed them of saying "the wrong thing", but that's the next trending topic on tiktok so they have an opportunity to make people validate them. It was not long enough after the beginning of the war for anyone to know what was really going on, but the so called educational channel on MENTAL ILLNESSES had to step in on an unrelated topic. What a way to chase clout.
I've seen another user here say that they were friends and cried about Palestine together. Again, I am not saying you shouldn’t sympathize with people going through war – it's damn hard for both sides. But that's another level of delusion, making people dying about yourself. Especially when there are a whole bunch of wars happening right now and them not speaking up about any of them (hypocrisy 101).
I continued to watch their videos as they are not that special on the hating Israel matter, but this opened my eyes – I was raised skeptical about things I see online, but I had no other accessible source on the topics they usually cover. This war just made me stop trying to sugarcoat my thoughts on people's actions in general, and DD is truly in a creepy situation. No person in such vulnerable position should put themselves out there like that or make videos with their persecutors.
It’s not enough to say "my tiktok is unrelated to this project" when you are literally promoting it on the channel. Asking strangers to fund your complicated, long going legal case is misleading the blind. The last video was honestly so messed up, describing the qualities of allegedly real people you share a body with and mostly as "firm, straightforward", and then this "loveable, funny, fun favorite" shit for mike… are you telling about yourself or describing an OC?
I don't know what the hell is going on with this person, but they seem off mentally, which I guess is obvious... idk, I wish they weren't the most popular source of education about DID, but I guess this cheap entertainment is what people consume best. I regret watching some videos. Others seemed so informative and fed my curiosity, but I can't know what's exact and what's real when they are the only source I consumed. I honestly don't know if I wanna dig deeper into such a complicated, hard topic.

We are born as humans only, and it is our parents who indoctrinate us into different religions. This is why 99.9999% of children raised in Christian families adopt Christianity.
Even in this modern era of communication, the conversion rate to Islam is not even 0.0001%. This implies that 99.9999% of people born into non-Muslim families by Allah's design are destined for eternal hellfire, regardless of their good deeds and humanity throughout their lives.
Is this truly Divine Justice?
Our sense of humanity clearly tells us that this is the Greatest ZULM (injustice) ever against mankind. There is no greater injustice in the universe than billions of innocent people being condemned to eternal hellfire simply because they were born into non-Muslim families by Allah's design.
Alone this injustice is ENOUGH to leave the religion, as it goes against humanity.

Islamist's Excuse: Everyone has HEARD about Islam and thus have a Chance to Accept it
An Islamist wrote:

Allah is not unjust. Even though 6 billion people are born into non-Muslim families, Islam is prevalent worldwide. They have heard about it and have every opportunity to accept Islam.

Response:
We absolutely don't agree with it.
If 99.9999% of people are unable to accept Islam after taking birth in non-Muslim families, then there is a REASON for it.
In order to accept Islam, it is not enough to just HEAR about its existence, but one has to do a Long Research to become convinced it to be the only true religion.
How strange, Islamic preachers tell ex-Muslims that they need to be an EXPERT in Islam before leaving it. But they don't put the same condition of being an expert and having a PhD degree before entering Islam. Are these not DOUBLE STANDARDS?
For example, Muhammad claimed that her mother was in hellfire:

Sahih Muslim, Hadith 976b: The Apostle of Allah visited the grave of his mother and he wept, and moved others around him to tears, and said: I sought permission from my Lord to beg forgiveness for her but it was not granted to me (while she failed in accepting the religion of Hanif, and died as non-Mulsim).

But the question remains: what chance did a woman have in that era of ignorance to accept the religion of Hanif?
In Islam, the followers of the religion of Hanif were those who, during the pre-Islamic period of Jahiliyyah, renounced idolatry, Christianity, and Judaism. They followed monotheism and the religion of Abraham, which emphasized submission to God in its purest form.
There were barely four followers of the religion of Hanif in Mecca. Two of them later abandoned Hanifism and became apostates. She likely never encountered any of them directly.
It is nearly impossible for someone to convert to another religion merely by hearing about it. Several factors contribute to this difficulty, including:

• Indoctrination from childhood into the family's religion, making rebellion almost unthinkable.
• Immense pressure from family, tribe, and society against leaving the religion of one's ancestors, particularly challenging for women.

Did Muhammad's mother truly have an equal chance of becoming a Muslim compared to those born into Muslim families by Allah's design?
If you acknowledge that she didn't have equal chances, it implies an admission that Allah indeed committed an injustice against the 99.9999% of non-Muslims who were not born into Muslim families by His design.

Islamist's Excuse: Creation of the Universe is proof of Allah
Another Islamist wrote:

Allah says in the Quran: "Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and night there are signs for people of reason" (Quran 3:190). Thus, Allah is not unjust (ZALIM), and all people who are born into non-Muslim families have a full opportunity to accept Islam.

Response:
It's important to recognize that the claim of divine creation is not unique to Islam; virtually all religions assert that their god or gods are responsible for creating the heavens and the earth.
Challenges for Lay People: For an average person, determining which religious claim about creation is true, is almost impossible. Each religion's scriptures make similar assertions about their deities being the true creators, leaving a layperson with no clear way to discern which is correct. One has to do a lot of research work on all religions to determine which religious god actually created the universe.
Scope of the Argument: The argument about the creation of the heavens and the earth pertains solely to the question of whether a god exists, not to which specific god of which specific religion. This argument does not provide definitive proof of the existence of any particular "religious god", including Allah. Furthermore, modern science offers alternative theories about the creation of the universe that challenge these religious claims.
Empirical Data: Empirical data does not lie. It proves the notion that this creation of the universe argument fails to convince the vast majority of people born into non-Muslim families. Despite the universal presence of this argument in religious texts, 99.9999% of individuals born into non-Muslim families do not convert to Islam based on this reasoning. According to Islamic belief, this means they are destined for eternal hellfire, which raises questions about the fairness of such a system.
Conclusion: While the creation of the universe is often cited as evidence of a god, it does not specifically prove the existence of any particular "religious god" (i.e. Allah in case of Islam). It may be any god who created the universe. And one need to do a lot of research work before determining which specific religious god created the universe. Moreover, this argument does not effectively lead to the widespread acceptance of Islam among those born into non-Muslim families, highlighting a significant issue with the claim of universal opportunity to accept Islam.

The Background Story: Why did Muhammad start claiming that all non-Muslims are fuel of hellfire?
In reality, the underlying motivation for this doctrine was political. Muhammad's companions hesitated to engage in wars with their own Meccan relatives, causing frustration for Muhammad. Thus, Muhammad began proclaiming that disbelief in his prophethood would result in eternal damnation, regardless of one's good deeds, as a means to coerce compliance.
In the early days in Medina, Muhammad attempted to gain favor with the Jews by asserting that all Jews and Christians who do good deeds would go to paradise

Quran 2:62: Rest assured that whosoever from among the Muslims or the Jews or the Christians or the Sabaeans believes in Allah and the Last Day, and performs good deeds, he will have his reward with his Lord and he will have no cause for fear and grief]

However, as conflicts with the Meccans arose (who were relatives of the migrant Muslims and they showed hesitance to fight against their own relatives), Muhammad changed the message of verse 2:62. To motivate his followers to fight against their own relatives, he now claimed that despite their good deeds, those relatives would end up in eternal hellfire for not accepting his prophethood. This shift was intended to diminish any love they felt for their relatives and fill them with the necessary animosity to fight against them.
Then Muhammad started telling his companions that his mother, father, uncle Abu Talib and his grandfather Abdul Muttalib are also in hellfire (source), so that his companions started feeling hatred against their own non-Muslim relatives, and didn't feel hesitation to fight against them.
******
The Direct Link to this article for future use:
https://atheism-vs-islam.com/index.php/why-creation-and-testing/313-allah-s-test-the-greatest-zulm-injustice-against-mankind

We are born as humans only, and it is our parents who indoctrinate us into different religions. This is why 99.9999% of children raised in Christian families adopt Christianity.
Even in this modern era of communication, the conversion rate to Islam is not even 0.0001%. This implies that 99.9999% of people born into non-Muslim families by Allah's design are destined for eternal hellfire, regardless of their good deeds and humanity throughout their lives.
Is this truly Divine Justice?
Our sense of humanity clearly tells us that this is the Greatest ZULM (injustice) ever against mankind. There is no greater injustice in the universe than billions of innocent people being condemned to eternal hellfire simply because they were born into non-Muslim families by Allah's design.
Alone this injustice is ENOUGH to leave the religion, as it goes against humanity.

Islamist's Excuse: Everyone has HEARD about Islam and thus have a Chance to Accept it
An Islamist wrote:

Allah is not unjust. Even though 6 billion people are born into non-Muslim families, Islam is prevalent worldwide. They have heard about it and have every opportunity to accept Islam.

Response:
We absolutely don't agree with it.
If 99.9999% of people are unable to accept Islam after taking birth in non-Muslim families, then there is a REASON for it.
In order to accept Islam, it is not enough to just HEAR about its existence, but one has to do a Long Research to become convinced it to be the only true religion.
How strange, Islamic preachers tell ex-Muslims that they need to be an EXPERT in Islam before leaving it. But they don't put the same condition of being an expert and having a PhD degree before entering Islam. Are these not DOUBLE STANDARDS?
For example, Muhammad claimed that her mother was in hellfire:

Sahih Muslim, Hadith 976b:
The Apostle of Allah visited the grave of his mother and he wept, and moved others around him to tears, and said: I sought permission from my Lord to beg forgiveness for her but it was not granted to me (while she failed in accepting the religion of Hanif, and died as non-Mulsim).

But the question remains: what chance did a woman have in that era of ignorance to accept the religion of Hanif?
In Islam, the followers of the religion of Hanif were those who, during the pre-Islamic period of Jahiliyyah, renounced idolatry, Christianity, and Judaism. They followed monotheism and the religion of Abraham, which emphasized submission to God in its purest form.
There were barely four followers of the religion of Hanif in Mecca. Two of them later abandoned Hanifism and became apostates. She likely never encountered any of them directly.
It is nearly impossible for someone to convert to another religion merely by hearing about it. Several factors contribute to this difficulty, including:

• Indoctrination from childhood into the family's religion, making rebellion almost unthinkable.
• Immense pressure from family, tribe, and society against leaving the religion of one's ancestors, particularly challenging for women.

Did Muhammad's mother truly have an equal chance of becoming a Muslim compared to those born into Muslim families by Allah's design?
If you acknowledge that she didn't have equal chances, it implies an admission that Allah indeed committed an injustice against the 99.9999% of non-Muslims who were not born into Muslim families by His design.

Islamist's Excuse: Creation of the Universe is proof of Allah
Another Islamist wrote:

Allah says in the Quran: "Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and night there are signs for people of reason" (Quran 3:190). Thus, Allah is not unjust (ZALIM), and all people who are born into non-Muslim families have a full opportunity to accept Islam.

Response:
It's important to recognize that the claim of divine creation is not unique to Islam; virtually all religions assert that their god or gods are responsible for creating the heavens and the earth.
Challenges for Lay People: For an average person, determining which religious claim about creation is true, is almost impossible. Each religion's scriptures make similar assertions about their deities being the true creators, leaving a layperson with no clear way to discern which is correct. One has to do a lot of research work on all religions to determine which religious god actually created the universe.
Scope of the Argument: The argument about the creation of the heavens and the earth pertains solely to the question of whether a god exists, not to which specific god of which specific religion. This argument does not provide definitive proof of the existence of any particular "religious god", including Allah. Furthermore, modern science offers alternative theories about the creation of the universe that challenge these religious claims.
Empirical Data: Empirical data does not lie. It proves the notion that this creation of the universe argument fails to convince the vast majority of people born into non-Muslim families. Despite the universal presence of this argument in religious texts, 99.9999% of individuals born into non-Muslim families do not convert to Islam based on this reasoning. According to Islamic belief, this means they are destined for eternal hellfire, which raises questions about the fairness of such a system.
Conclusion: While the creation of the universe is often cited as evidence of a god, it does not specifically prove the existence of any particular "religious god" (i.e. Allah in case of Islam). It may be any god who created the universe. And one need to do a lot of research work before determining which specific religious god created the universe. Moreover, this argument does not effectively lead to the widespread acceptance of Islam among those born into non-Muslim families, highlighting a significant issue with the claim of universal opportunity to accept Islam.

The Background Story: Why did Muhammad start claiming that all non-Muslims are fuel of hellfire?
In reality, the underlying motivation for this doctrine was political. Muhammad's companions hesitated to engage in wars with their own Meccan relatives, causing frustration for Muhammad. Thus, Muhammad began proclaiming that disbelief in his prophethood would result in eternal damnation, regardless of one's good deeds, as a means to coerce compliance.
In the early days in Medina, Muhammad attempted to gain favor with the Jews by asserting that all Jews and Christians who do good deeds would go to paradise.

Quran 2:62:
Rest assured that whosoever from among the Muslims or the Jews or the Christians or the Sabaeans believes in Allah and the Last Day, and performs good deeds, he will have his reward with his Lord and he will have no cause for fear and grief].

However, as conflicts with the Meccans arose (who were relatives of the migrant Muslims and they showed hesitance to fight against their own relatives), Muhammad changed the message of verse 2:62. To motivate his followers to fight against their own relatives, he now claimed that despite their good deeds, those relatives would end up in eternal hellfire for not accepting his prophethood. This shift was intended to diminish any love they felt for their relatives and fill them with the necessary animosity to fight against them.
Then Muhammad started telling his companions that his mother, father, uncle Abu Talib and his grandfather Abdul Muttalib are also in hellfire (source), so that his companions started feeling hatred against their own non-Muslim relatives, and didn't feel hesitation to fight against them.
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The Direct Link to this article for future use:
https://atheism-vs-islam.com/index.php/why-creation-and-testing/313-allah-s-test-the-greatest-zulm-injustice-against-mankind

Jewish families in Ireland for ‘six, seven, eight generations’ report heightened tension

Ireland’s new Chief Rabbi has challenged President Michael D Higgins over remarks the latter made on Friday describing claims of anti-Semitism in Ireland as “irresponsible”.
Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said on Sunday that Jewish families who had lived in Ireland for “six, seven, eight generations” had told him that never before had they felt such a “tension” or “their viewpoint as Jewish people so delegitimised”.
Speaking outside the Dáil at a march in solidarity with Israel, organised by the Ireland Israel Alliance, he said, “I speak of the viewpoint of the Jewish community in Ireland. I’m not talking about Israeli Jews that live here – although they certainly concur. I’m talking about the core of the Irish Jewish community.”
Their viewpoint was “what President Higgins and so many others fail to realise”, he said.
He emphasised that “we must be careful not to takes things out of proportion. We are so grateful that we are physically safe, that for the most part there has not been any physical violence against Jewish people as we have had in other countries in recent months. We are so grateful to this country that we are safe.”
Speaking to the Irish Examiner last Friday President Higgins said it was “absolutely outrageous to be abusing the Jewish community” by saying that there is widespread anti-Semitism [in Ireland]. He continued: “I don’t think it is helpful if people representing the Jewish state seek to encourage fear where it doesn’t exist by saying to people: ‘All of us now and anyone of Jewish faith must feel afraid’; that is grossly irresponsible.”
It would be “very wrong”, he said, to blame members of the Jewish community for the actions of the Israeli government.
In his address outside the Dáil, Chief Rabbi Wieder said the climate in Ireland now was “one in which many members of the Jewish community here feel deeply isolated and hurt”.
Not a week passed since October 7th “that I haven’t had people tell me they feel uneasy in the street when wearing something that identifies them as Jewish, or at work. That they are negatively judged, that they are seen as the outsider, as the ‘other’,” he said.
“Our voice as Jewish people in support of Israel, and in expressing the environment as we experience it here on the ground, is not being listened to,” he said.
He recalled how he and other senior members of Ireland’s Jewish community met President Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin last Thursday, “the day before he made these comments”.
“For much of the hour we spent together, President Higgins lectured us about the atrocities being committed by Israel in Gaza,” he said.
He had hoped “that perhaps I could open his eyes as to the experience of the Jews in Ireland, that maybe he would listen to myself and to lay leaders of the community when we told him what long-standing Irish Jewish families are feeling”.
“Judging from his comments, it seems that the only thing President Higgins took from our meeting is that there are many Irish Jews who are against preventing aid from getting in to Gaza. That is most certainly true. But why was that the only thing he could say on behalf of the Irish Jewish community?
“Why does he still fail to accept the affinity that the vast majority of Irish Jews feel with the state of Israel” and “why is he unmoved when he was told by a senior member of the Jewish community, that as much as it pained him to say it, he did not want his grandkids brought up in Ireland if this was the environment they would have to deal with?” Chief Rabbi Wieder asked.
Higgins ‘lectured us about the atrocities being committed by Israel’, says Chief Rabbi in Ireland – The Irish Times

Amal Clooney, yes, wife of George, was one of the three “experts” that advised the ICC to equate Western democracy with Islamic terror.

Middle East heat indices aside, the truest hot spot on the planet is, always, wherever the Israel Defense Forces happens to be killing Muslims, no matter the reason.
Jews taking the lives of Arabs always commands the world’s attention. Muslims killing Muslims—such as the savage sectarian violence between Shi’ites and Sunnis, with a body count in the millions—is never newsworthy.
A cause of death brought about by Jews, however, is of special interest to the “human rights” community. Jews fighting for their survival after the Holocaust, Israelis facing unambiguous existential threats—that’s precisely when the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court all awake from their naps. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International re-enact the Maytag Repairman TV commercial—watchdogs over Jews alone, even before Israel has the chance to retaliate.
Remember how words like “de-escalate” and “ceasefire” entered the public discourse almost instantly after the Oct. 7 massacre?
For the entirety of Israel’s brief history, it has been forced to defend itself against Arab armies and Islamic terrorists—in Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973; against Palestinians murdering random Israelis during the first and second intifadas in 1987 and 2000, respectively; against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006; and Hamas in Gaza in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2023.
Each campaign was waged in self-defense. Not once was Israel the aggressor. Peace treaties were eventually negotiated with Egypt and Jordan—but Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and, of course, Iran have never retired the language denying Israel’s existence and promising its elimination.
And, yet, that’s not how Israel’s existential vulnerability gets reported. The public ignorance about the genocidal maniacs who are Israel’s next-door neighbors is truly astounding. Decade after decade and hundreds of thousands of rockets launched, indiscriminately, not at Israel’s army but its civilian population centers.
Why do you think the Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems, and roadside bunkers and bomb shelters, became a national priority? Suicide bombings, car rammings, knife-wielding assassins—that’s the reason for the shared-border security barriers and checkpoints.
Despite this backdrop of one-sided aggression, it is Israel that the world pressures into ceasefires. The tiny Jewish democratic state, surrounded by bloodthirsty theocratic Muslims, is always accused of disproportionate responses in its defense.
How do I know that Israel’s just wars against Muslim fanatics gets twisted in the public imagination, the moral lines blurred, the focal points unrecognizable? Name a single student protesting against Israel, and cheering wildly for Hamas barbarians, who is aware of any of Israel’s wretched history with its many warring neighbors. Name a single college professor who teaches this history rather than the antisemitic agitprop that goes by the names “settler-colonial enterprise,” “apartheid” and “genocide.”
I’ll wait. Take your time. Good luck.
Jews are simply not permitted to defend themselves in war, or against terrorism—no matter the cause or provocation—if it means the loss of a Muslim life. The world much prefers the Holocaust to a Jewish state preserving its sovereignty and existence.
No further proof is required than recent events. The carnage on Oct. 7—the beheading of Jewish babies, gang-raping of Israeli girls, kidnapping of Holocaust survivors—and the continued withholding of hostages are mere incidental news, of no special importance in explaining why the IDF must prevail.
And yet the Biden administration, which loudly declared its disapproval of any renewed Israeli incursion in Rafah, quietly now acknowledges that Israel somehow managed to evacuate 950,000 Gazans from the city. Its military operations have become more targeted and limited, too.
Still, that didn’t deter the ICJ from calling upon Israel to halt its military offensive immediately, just when Hamas’ remaining battalions, weapons stockpile and tunnel escape routes were being destroyed by the IDF.
How convenient—coming to the rescue of Islamist butchers, allowing them to reconstitute and live to kill more Israelis, gradually taking aim at the whole of Western societies.
It was a busy past few weeks for international tribunals. The ICJ had competition. The ICC prosecutor announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and the terrorists who head Hamas in Gaza. (The actual leadership is slumming in five-star Qatari hotels, scanning real estate listings, looking for new ways to squander the international aid meant for ordinary Gazans.)
That’s right: If the warrants are granted, an avowed terrorist responsible for the savagery of Oct. 7 will share the global Most Wanted List with the leader of a democratic country fighting a war of self-defense.
The ICJ and ICC are nothing but letters that spell antisemitism, along with BLM and DEI. Neither court has any jurisdiction over Israel. The endgame is Israel’s global isolation. The Jewish state has been in this position before; the Jewish people have been scapegoated and blood-libeled for thousands of years the world over. Yet another reason why a Jewish homeland, with a fearsome army, is so morally imperative—as if another reason was necessary.
International law is toothless. The United States and Israel purposefully refused to sign the Rome Statute in 1998, which created the ICC. To Bill Clinton’s credit, he knew that submitting to the court’s dubious jurisdiction would entail American officials forever apologizing for American exceptionalism, and risking incarceration by kangaroos not from Australia. Israeli prime ministers would have to ship them babka cakes with tiny saws baked in.
The arrest warrants were not a surprise. Amal Clooney, yes, the wife of George, was one of the three “experts” that advised the ICC to equate Western democracy with Islamic terror. Apparently her antisemitism runs so deep, she hasn’t learned much from her husband’s film career—she is unable to distinguish between good and bad guys.
Actually, hating Israel is one of her specialties as a “human rights lawyer.” In 2014, she was assigned a similar task by a U.N. commission investigating Israel after its last major war with Hamas. At the time she was engaged to Clooney. Doubtless his publicist pleaded with her to step down, and she did.
Nowadays, everyone feels more secure in their antisemitism. Why should she pass up an opportunity to demonize Israel and trivialize the barbarism of Hamas?
A man in love will do, and believe, anything, it seems. Danny Ocean, that quintessential con artist portrayed by George Clooney, always so heads-up, may have been hoodwinked into believing all kinds of nonsense about Israeli war crimes and passive Palestinians uprooted from a mythical nation called Palestine.
All of Hollywood—Jews and non-Jews alike—have been largely indifferent to what happened to Israelis on Oct. 7. The entertainment industry, generally, lives in terror of social media backlash placing paydays at risk. Wonder Woman, alone, remains fearless.
Clooney and his wife might, actually, share different views. If not, he is free to join the chorus of morally bankrupt A-listers chanting, “From the River to the Sea.”
'Ocean’s Eleven' may yet become 'From the River to the Sea' - JNS.org

All of us here have likely seen some terribly racist language that some Zionists have used when talking about Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims. Yet, I've come to realize, that a lot of people in the pro-Palestine movement actually partake in a lot of the same rhetoric, just with a different flavor. While some Zionists/Israel supporters make Palestinians out to be these awful, terroristic animals who can't be trusted not to commit terror attacks; some pro-Palestine leftists make them out to be these helpless animals who have no agency and can't be trusted to not commit terror attacks, but it's okay if they do because it's just their culture!
Some of the language I saw used to defend Hamas after 10/7 is actually disgustingly barbaric, and when I first saw it, all I could feel was anger that people were defending Hamas, but I can't believe it took me so long to realize how infantilizing and gross the language some Hamas defenders were using was. Of course we saw some horrible language from far-right Zionists/Israeli officials, describing Palestinians as "animals", etc. But a lot of Hamas defenders were actually doing the same thing and not even realizing it. I saw some remarks like "You have to understand where the Palestinians are coming from. When you're an animal trapped in a cage by an abuser for 75 years, of course you're going to become rabid and aggressive!" Um, hold up....are we saying here that Palestinians have no more agency than wild animals?!
Another thing I see said pretty often is "You really think Hamas will be completely eradicated after this? All these children who've seen their parents murdered in front of them are going to become the next generation of Hamas terrorists!" Ummmm, there have been other wars and genocides throughout history where children went through hell like that, including some going on right now. Do we say about any other group that we're worried that they're going to "grow up to be terrorists"? Or are you just saying that because deep down, you think Muslims are more pre-dispositioned to be terrorists?
And I've seen this language not even just in regards to the Hamas attacks, but with basically any bad decision Palestinians/Arabs have made throughout history. Here are some examples:
In response to basically any Palestinian terrorist attack throughout history: "Well, what do you expect? Their land was taken from them!" Now let me just say, I know that Palestinian grievances go way beyond just losing their land, but let's assume that, in the language of these self-righteous white leftists, the grievances are simply because they lost their land in 1948. Apparently, these white leftists think that Palestinians having lost land means that they have absolutely no moral agency to not commit terror attacks against civilians who weren't in any way personally involved in taking their land decades ago? Do they think that Palestinians are these land-hungry animals who are so attached to their land that they think it's acceptable to literally kill other people over it?
In response to talking about how Arab countries expelled all of their Jewish populations following the establishment of Israel: "Well, that was a result of Zionism! Of course if there was a Jewish state created in another part of the Middle East that took land away from other Arabs, the Arab countries would get mad and expel their Jewish populations!" Okay, what? Are we seriously saying that Arab countries kicking out their Jewish populations was ACCEPTABLE because of the creation of Israel? Like, it's a totally normal and not-at-all Xenophobic/antisemitic thing to just, get mad about something happening somewhere else in the Arab world and punish all of your Jewish residents for it? If they were that willing to expel their Jews at the drop of a hat for ANY reason, then they never really respected their Jews in the first place.
In response to terrorist attacks/massacres leading up to the creation of Israel, like the Hebron Massacre: "Well, of course they were going to react that way, foreign Zionists were coming in and talking about taking their land!" Okay, are we straight-up excusing anti-immigration attitudes here? No matter how much anyone says that "It wasn't just that they were immigrating, it's that they wanted to create a Jewish state!", that should not excuse the massacring of every Jew who seeks refuge in the land, many of whom weren't directly involved in a Zionist movement and were just fleeing for their lives. Not to mention that the Hebron Massacre in particular targeted Jews who literally already lived in the land and weren't coming from Europe. I've legit seen someone say "Well, if people of an ethnic group come in with a proclamation to create a state on your land, it's a natural reaction to get violent towards other members of that ethnic group, even if they weren't directly involved" Um, no?!! What?! If right-wingers are spreading conspiracy theories that Muslim immigrants are "trying to spread Sharia law" in Western countries, is it a "natural reaction" to just kill any Muslim you see? NO. WTF are these excuses?!
It's just ridiculous. Far leftists, especially the white ones, seem to use Palestinians as pawns in their social justice game and make them seem like they are helpless animals who have never made a bad decision in their lives, but if they did, it was justified because that's just how they are. And these same people will say things about how "Jews didn't learn their lesson from the Holocaust", therefore it's not okay for Jews/Israelis to make any bad decisions despite the fact that we have been horribly oppressed throughout history.

“We preach Christ crucified.” — 1 Corinthians 1:23
In the verse preceding our text, Paul writes, “Jews demand miraculous signs.” They said, “Moses performed miracles; let us see miracles performed, and then we will believe,” forgetting that all the miracles that Moses did were completely eclipsed by those which Jesus did while he was on the earth as the God-man. Then there were certain Judaizing teachers who, in order to win the Jews, preached circumcision, exalted the Passover, and endeavored to prove that Judaism might still exist side by side with Christianity, and that the old rites might still be practiced by the followers of Christ. So Paul, who was “all things to all men so that by all possible means he might save some,” put his foot down, and said, in effect, “Whatever others may do, we preach Christ crucified; we dare not, we cannot, and we will not alter the great subject matter of our preaching, Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Then he added, “and Greeks look for wisdom.” Corinth was the very eye of Greece, and the Corinthian Greeks sought after what they regarded as wisdom; that is to say, the wisdom of this world, not the wisdom of God, which Paul preached. The Greeks also treasured the memory of the eloquence of Demosthenes and other famous public speakers, and they seemed to: think that true wisdom must be proclaimed with the graces of skillful elocution; but Paul writes to these Corinthian Greeks, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith would not be based in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Now, today, there are some who would be glad, if we would preach anything except Christ crucified. Perhaps the most dangerous among them are those who are continually crying out for intellectual preaching, by which they mean preaching which neither the heavens nor the preachers themselves can comprehend, the kind of preaching which has little or nothing to do with the scriptures, and which requires a dictionary rather than a Bible to explain it. These are the people who are continually running around, and asking, “Have you heard our minister? He gave us a wonderful sermon last Sunday morning; he quoted Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, and he gave us some charming pieces of poetry, in fact, it was overall an intellectual treat.” Yes, and I have usually found that such intellectual treats lead to the ruination of souls; that is not the kind of preaching that God generally blesses to the salvation of souls, and therefore, even though others may preach the philosophy of Plato or adopt the arguments of Aristotle, we preach Christ crucified,” the Christ who died for sinners, the people’s Christ, and “we preach Christ crucified” in simple language, in plain speech such which the common people can understand.
I am going to try to put our text into practice by telling you, first, what we preach; secondly, to whom we preach it; and, thirdly, how we are to preach it.
I. First of all, WHAT WE PREACH. Paul is the model for all preachers, and he says, “We preach Christ crucified.”
In order to preach the gospel fully, there must be a very clear description of the person of Christ, and we preach Christ as God
Yes, we preach Christ as God — not a man made into God, nor God degraded to the level of a man, nor something in between a man and God; but “the Absolute God of Heaven and Earth—The Triune God Himself,” one with his Father in every attribute, eternal, without beginning of days or end of life; omnipresent, everywhere at once; omnipotent, having all power in heaven and on earth; omniscient, knowing all things from eternity; the great Creator, Preserver, and Judge of all, in all things the equal and the exact image of the invisible God. If we error concerning the Deity of Christ, then we error everywhere. The gospel that does not preach a Divine Savior is no gospel at all; it is like a ship without a rudder, the first opposing wind that blows will drive it to destruction, and woe are the souls that are trusting to it! Only the shoulders of the almighty God can ever carry the enormous weight of human guilt and human need. We preach to you Christ the Son of Mary, once sleeping in his mother’s arms, yet the Infinite even while he was an infant; Christ the reputed Son of Joseph, working in the carpenter’s shop, yet all the while being the God who made the heavens and the earth; Christ, who had no place to lay his head, the despised and rejected of men, who is, nevertheless the Eternal God of the Universe; Christ nailed to the cross, bleeding from every pore, and dying on the cross, yet, living forever; Christ, suffering indescribable agonies, yet at the same time being the God at whose right hand there are eternal pleasures. If Christ had not been man, he could not have sympathized with you and me, nor could he have suffered in our place. How could he have been the covenant Head of the sons and daughters of Adam if he had not been made like them in every way, except that he was without sin? With that one exception, he was just, as we are, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, yet he was as truly God as he was man, the One of whom, Isaiah was inspired to prophesy, “He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” So, in preaching Christ crucified, we preach the glory of heaven combined with the beauty of earth, the perfection of humanity united with the glory and dignity of Deity.
Then, next, we must very clearly preach Christ as the Messiah, the One sent from God.
It had long been foretold that a great Deliverer would come who would be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles,” and to be the glory of his people Israel, and Jesus of Nazareth was that promised Deliverer, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote about. He was sent from God to be the Savior of sinners. He did not take this responsibility on himself without authority, but he could truly say, “Here I am, I have come - it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God.” He became the Substitute for sinners, but this did not happen accidentally, but by divine decree, for we read, “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” An unordained priest, a prophet not sent from God, a king without divine authority would have only been a mockery; but our great High Priest was divinely anointed, our matchless Prophet was sent from God, and our king is King of kings and Lord of lords, rightly ruling as the eternal Son of the eternal Father.
Sinner, this truth should bring you hope and comfort, the Christ whom we preach is God’s Anointed; and what he does, he does by God’s appointment. When he says to you, “"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” he speaks for his Father as well as for himself, for he has the authorization of the Eternal to support his declaration. Therefore, come confidently to him, and put your trust in him.
After the preacher has laid a firm foundation by preaching the person of Christ and the Messiahship of Christ, he must then preach the work of Christ.
I can only give a brief summary of what would take all eternity to expound. We must preach to show how, in the everlasting covenant, Christ stood as the Security and Representative of his people; and how, in the fullness of time, he came down from his heavenly throne dressed in flesh; and how he first produced an active righteousness by the perfect obedience of his daily life, and in the end provided a passive righteousness by his sufferings and death on the cross. Beginning at the incarnation, going on to the great work of redemption telling of Christ’s burial, resurrection, ascension, intercession before his Father’s throne, and glorious second coming, we have a theme that angels might well covet, a theme that may arouse hope in the sinner’s heart. But it is especially Christ crucified whom we are to preach. His wounds and bruises remind us that we must tell you that “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” It is at Calvary that salvation is to be found; where Jesus bowed his head, and gave up his spirit, he overcame the powers of darkness, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
There is one word that every true servant of Christ must be able to speak very distinctly; and that word is substitution. I believe that substitution is the keyword to all true theology; — Christ standing in the place of sinners, and numbered with the transgressors because of their transgressions, not his own — Christ paying our debts, and discharging all our liabilities. This truth involves, of course, our taking Christ’s place as he took ours, so that all believers are beloved, accepted, made heirs of God, and in due time will be glorified with Christ forever.
My fellow ministers, whatever you fail to preach, be sure to make your listeners always clearly understand that there is a divine and all-sufficient Substitute for sinners, and that everyone who puts their trust in him will be eternally saved.
When we preach Christ, we must also preach his offices. We must preach him as the one great High Priest who always lives to make intercession for us. We must preach him as the Prophet whose words are divine, and therefore comes to us with an authority that, cannot be set aside. And we must remember that we must always preach him as King, putting the crown of praise on his royal head, and claiming from his people the unfaltering allegiance and loyalty of their hearts, and the undivided service of their lives.
We must also preach the qualifications of Christ for his offices.
Is he a Husband? We must tell how loving and how tender he is. Is he a Shepherd? We must proclaim his patience, his power, his perseverance, and we must especially tell of his self-sacrificing love in laying down his life for his sheep. Is he a Savior? We must show how he is able to save completely those who come to God through him. We must talk a great deal about the gentleness that will not break the bruised reed, nor snuff out the smoldering wick. We must delight to speak of Christ as bending over the broken in heart, and wrapping up their wounds, and having his ear always ready to hear the cry of a contrite spirit. It is the character of Christ that is the magnet that attracts sinners to himself, and on this blessed theme one might go on speaking forever. When Rutherford was talking off the beauties of the Christ whom he loved so dearly, one of his listeners was forced to cry out, “Now, sir, you are on the right string, keep to that,” and, indeed, this is a theme that might stir the person with a speech defect to speak with power, and make those who are mute to be eloquent for Christ. Oh, how glorious is our blessed Lord! We must say, “Yes, he is altogether lovely.” We cannot exaggerate his excellence and charms, and it must be our constant aim to paint such a portrait of him that sinners may fall in love with him, and trust him to save them with his great salvation.
We must be careful that we always preach Christ as the sinner’s only hope.
In the olden days, there were certain fools who sought after a universal remedy for all diseases, but their search was in vain. All the advertisements of quack medicines that ever deceived silly people will never convince sensible persons that a universal remedy for all the diseases to which flesh is subject to has never been nor ever will be discovered. Yet there is a remedy for the diseases of the soul, and that remedy is Christ. Whatever your disease may be — the raging fever of lust, the shivering fever of doubts and fears, or the cruel infection of despair — Jesus Christ can heal you. Whatever form sin may take — whether it is the blind eye, or the deaf ear, or the hard, stony heart, or the dull, seared conscience — there is a medicine in the veins of Jesus that we may well call the divine cure-all. No case that was ever submitted to Christ has baffled his skill, and he is still “mighty to save.” We must be very clear in telling the sinner that there is no hope for him anywhere else but in Christ. Nine out of ten of the arrows in a minister’s quiver ought to be shot at the sinner’s good works, for these are his worst enemies. That “deadly doing” that needs to be cast “down at Jesus’ feet,” — that trying to be or to feel something in order that they may save themselves — this is the curse of many. O sinner, if, from the crown, of your head to the soles of your feet, there is no sound part in you, but you are full of wounds; and bruises, and putrefying sores, yet, if you will only believe in Jesus, he will make you completely whole, and you will go on your way as a sinner saved by grace.
We must also preach Christ as the Christian’s only joy.
We wanted Christ as a life preserver when we were sinking in the waves of sin, but we want him to be our food and our drink now that he has brought us safely to land. When we were sick because of sin, we wanted Christ as medicine; but now that he has restored our soul, we want him as our continual nourishment. There is no need that a Christian ever has which Christ cannot fully supply, and there is nothing in Christ, which is not completely useful to a Christian. You know that some things that we have are good, but they are not completely of service to us. For instance, fruit is good, but there is the skin to be peeled off, and the seed to be thrown away; but when Christ gives himself to us, we may take all of him, and enjoy him to our heart’s content. Everything Christ is, and everything Christ has, is ours. Therefore, Christian, make a covenant with your hand that you will hold on to Christ’s cross as your only confidence, make a covenant with your eyes that you will look nowhere for light but to the Sun of righteousness; make a covenant with your whole being that it will be crucified with Christ, and then be taken up to heaven to live and reign with him forever.
II. Now, secondly, TO WHOM ARE WE TO PREACH THIS?
Possibly, one brother says, “You ought to preach Christ to the elect.” But how are we to know which ones are the elect? I read a sermon, some time ago, in which the minister said, “I have been preaching to the living in Zion; the rest of you are dead, and I have nothing to say to you. The elect has been given eternal life, and the rest of you are blinded.” Preachers of that sort have life to preach to the living, and medicine to prescribe for those who are healthy, but what is the good of that? Imagine Peter standing up with the eleven on the day of Pentecost, and saying to the crowd gathered around them, “I don’t know how many of you who are here are elect but I have to say to you that the election have received eternal life, and the rest are blinded.” How many would have been converted and added to the church through such a message as that? Now Peter was at that time filled with the Spirit, and it was by divine inspiration that he preached Christ crucified; to everyone of that mixed multitude, and then, when they were cut to the heart, and cried out, “Brothers, what shall we do?” he was equally inspired when he answered, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
I intend to do as Peter did, for I regard Christ’s commission to his disciples as binding upon us today: “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” I cannot tell whether every creature in all creation to whom I preach is elect or not, but it is my business to preach the gospel to everyone I can reach, resting assured that all of them whom God has chosen to eternal life will certainly accept it. When a certain minister asked the Duke of Wellington, “Do you think it is of any use preaching the gospel to the Hindus?” he simply replied, “What are your marching orders?” As a soldier, the duke believed in obeying orders; and when the minister answered that, the orders were to, “Preach the good news to all creation,” the duke said, “Then your duty is quite clear; obey your Master’s orders, and don’t trouble yourself about anybody else’s opinions.”
The main business of a true minister is to preach the gospel to sinners and he is never so happy as when he is preaching to those who know themselves to be sinners.
When he is preaching to those who are self-righteous; he is in great trouble about the effect of his message, for he fears that it may prove to be the smell of death to them; but when he meets with those who sorrowfully confess that they are guilty, lost, and wretched, then he rejoices in hope of blessed results from his preaching. He feels that he is now among fish that will soon take the bait, so he drops his line into the river, and soon has the joy of bringing many to land. He knows that bread is always sweetest to hungry men, and that even bitter medicine will be eagerly swallowed by the main who its very ill and who longs to be cured. He understands that it is the naked that want to be clothed, and the penniless that clamor for charity. O sinners, if you realize that you are wicked and vile, full of all kinds of evil, with nothing of your own that is worthy to be called good, and if you are longing to be delivered from every kind of evil, and to be made holy as God is holy, I am glad that my Master has given me in his Word such a message as this for you, “If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive you your sins and purify you from all unrighteousness.”
Still, a true minister of Christ will not confine his preaching to sinners who are aware of their guilt, but he will preach the gospel to sinners of all ages.
To the young, whose lives have not yet been defiled by the vices of age, he preaches Christ crucified as the children’s Savior, and he is indeed glad when the boys and the girls trust in Jesus, and are saved. To you who have reached middle age, he preaches Christ crucified as the ointment for every wound, the comfort for every care, and he is thankful when you also are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. To the aged and the elderly, to the feeble, to those on the very verge of the grave, he still preaches Christ crucified, if he could find a sinner who had reached the age of Methuselah, he would have the same gospel to preach to him for he knows that there is no Savior but the crucified Christ of Calvary, and he also knows that, old or young, or in-between, all who trust Christ are immediately saved, and saved forever.
And just as he preaches Christ to sinners of every age, he also preaches Christ to sinners of every rank.
He has nothing better than Christ to preach to kings, queens, princes, presidents, and other nobles and he has nothing less than Christ to preach to peasants, laborers, or paupers; Christ crucified for the highly educated, and Christ crucified equally for the ignorant and illiterate.
He also preaches Christ to every kind of sinner, even to the atheist, the man who says there is no God, and he calls him to believe and live.
He preaches Christ to the openly profane; when they pause for a while in their swearing, he tells them of that great promise which God has declared, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” We preach Christ to the prostitutes on the street, and oh, how joyfully have many of them received Christ and how gladly have they found cleansing from their foul stains in Jesus’ precious blood! We preach, Christ to the drunkard, for we believe that nothing but the grace of God can rescue him from his degradation and sin, and we have seen many such sinners saved and made new creations by the gospel. The preaching of Christ crucified, the lifting up of the dying Son of God “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness,” has enough power to turn the whole world upside down, and to change innumerable sinners into saints, so we plan to keep on preaching Christ to every kind of sinner.
We do not intend to leave out one sinner, not even you, my friend, who think you are left out, or ought to be left out. We know that there is a book of life in heaven, and that no more names can be written in it; they were all recorded before the creation of the world when the Father gave to Christ those who are to be eternally his. We cannot fly up to heaven to read the names that are written there, but we believe the list contains millions upon millions of names of those who have not yet trusted in Christ, so we plan to keep on preaching Christ to sinners of every age, of every rank, of every kind, of every degree of wickedness and depravity, and we believe that there is “still is room in heaven,” for there is mercy for the wretched, there is forgiveness for the guilty who will come and trust in Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
III. Now, lastly, HOW ARE WE TO PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED?
I think, first, we ought to preach Christ very boldly.
I remember a young man going into a pulpit, to address a small congregation, and he began by saying that he hoped they would pardon his youth, and forgive his impertinence in coming to speak to them. Some foolish old gentleman said, “What a humble person that young man is to talk like that!” but another, who was wiser though he was younger, said, “What a dishonor to his Lord and Master! If God sent him with a message to those people, what does it matter whether he is young or old! Such artificial modesty as that is out of place in the pulpit.” I think that second man was right, and the first one wrong. A true minister of the gospel is an ambassador for Christ, and do our ambassadors go to foreign courts with apologies for carrying messages from their ruler? It would be a gross insult to the governments of these countries if they showed such humility as that in their official capacity. Let ministers of the gospel keep their modesty for other occasions when it should be manifested, but don’t let them dishonor their Master and discredit his message as that silly young man did. When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, or stutter, or hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any reason to be ashamed. If a minister is not sure about his message, let him keep quiet until he is sure about it; but we believe, and therefore we speak with conviction. If I have not proved the power of the gospel in my own heart and life, then I am a vile impostor to be standing in this pulpit to preach that gospel to others, but since I know most assuredly that I am saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and since I feel certain that I have been divinely called to preach his gospel — Will I, then, because of the fear of feeble man restrain the Spirit’s course? Or undaunted in my life and word be a true witness for my Lord?
But while we preach Christ boldly, we must also preach him with love.
There must be great love in our proclamation of the truth. We must not hesitate to point out to sinners the state of ruin to which sin has brought them, and we must clearly set before them the divinely-appointed remedy; but we must mingle a mother’s tenderness with a father’s sternness. Paul was like both, mother and father in a spiritual sense, in his ministry. He wrote to the Galatians, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you;” and to the Corinthians he wrote, “In Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel,” and every true minister of Christ can sympathize with him in both those experiences. Yes, sinners, we do indeed love you; often, our heart is almost broken with the longing we have to see you saved. We wish we could preach to you with Baxter’s tearful eye; no, rather, with the Savior’s melting heart and all-consuming zeal.
Then, next, we must preach Christ only.
With Paul, every true minister must be able to say to his listeners, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The preacher must never mix up anything else with the gospel. Every time he preaches, he must still have the same old theme, “Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Christ is the Alpha of the gospel, and he is the Omega too; the first letter of the gospel alphabet, and the last letter, and all the letters in between. It must be Christ, Christ, CHRIST from beginning to end. There must be no “doing works” or anything else, mixed up with Christ. There must be no shoddy materials used as we build on Christ, the one foundation that, is laid once for all.
The preacher must also be sure that he preaches Christ very simply.
He must break up his big words and long sentences, and pray against the temptation to use them. It is usually the short, dagger-like sentence that does the work best. A true servant of Christ must never try to let the people see how well he can preach; he must never go out of his way to drag a pretty piece of poetry in his sermon, nor to introduce some fine quotations from the classics. He must employ a simple, homely style, or such a style as God has given him and he must preach Christ so plainly that his listeners cannot only understand him, but that they cannot misunderstand him even if they try to do so.
Now as the time has gone, I must close, by saying that we must try to preach Christ savingly.
O sinners, I pray that you would trust Christ this very moment! Do you realize how great your danger is? Unconverted soul, you are standing as it were, over the mouth of hell, on a single plank, and that plank is rotten! Man, woman, you may be in thy grave, before another Sunday dawns and then, if unsaved you will be in hell! Beware lest you are taken out of this earth without salvation in Christ, for, if that happens to you, then know that will be no ransom that can prevent your soul from going down to the pit. Oh sinner, see your need of Christ, and grab hold of him, by faith. No one but Christ can save you. Christ is the Way; you may go about all your days trying to find another entrance to heaven, but you will not find it for this is the only one. Why will you not come to God by Christ? Why are you so ungrateful as to despise the patient mercy of God? Won’t you let the goodness of God lead you to repent? Will Christ die for sinners, and yet will you, O sinner, turn away from him who alone can give you life? If you will only trust him, he will save you; your sins, which are many, will all be forgiven; you will be adopted into the family of God, and in due time you will find yourself in heaven and be there for all eternity. If you want to be happy, if you want to enjoy the peace that is beyond all understanding if you want to have two heavens — a heaven below and a heaven above — then trust in Jesus, trust in Jesus this very moment. Do not leave this building unsaved. One believing look will bring you salvation, for —
“There is life for a look at the Crucified One; There is life at this moment for thee; Then look, sinner — look to Jesus, and be saved, — To him who was nailed to the tree.”.
Look to Jesus, look to him now; may the Holy Spirit enable you to look and live, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Understanding Collective Hatred
https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/66340172/j.1530-2415.2002.00026.x20210420-5928-1egd3lg-libre.pdf?1618946199=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DUnderstanding_Collective_Hatred.pdf&Expires=1716705798&Signature=Dw90nyKu4kdPJM13DW3aWtixPameHEE4i7Of40uyNcal5uhJpxci5w1I9aXh5XHMW5fIfQqA8StNBey2jqh-dlonF633sEUNrDgOxCN7oeo2yfhDhdfVez7GSnaCakhEzW8Xd9UaILHhuBOZZJOAgiSByx72ovkeqtJ~U3AQC8vae1XeMS-l3MEVHvXnAbRetpixRWUb1xMAZ-D8p2aZ~gD7mWvCHGXo~rPywhCUPxuABonHC8-LnSNEvZlWbdTuXPRuRbFsLTJI0J15kh6fs~1Ziky-pLhl3sKWpS2t6mvE9m5pt3WY3tYFVEJ41XcNYkQTU~uzGRn7eUuUHyfuPw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
Collective hatred emerges where successfully negotiated existences and successfully integrated identities would otherwise be. Somewhere the mechanisms of negotiation and integration are broken.
This article claims that collective hatred signifies a failure to mediate between similarity and difference, closeness and separation, isolation and connectedness, at the same time that national and religious groups aspire to be included and be recognized as part of humanity.
Hatred is an emotional practice that maintains intimate social relations when understanding breaks down between two groups struggling to define their boundaries and identities.
Specifically, I argue that hatred is an emotional practice that maintains intimate social relations when understanding breaks down between two groups struggling to define their boundaries and identities. When one cannot act without the other, yet deep misunderstandings prevail, hatred takes the form of “safe relations.”
In this sense, hatred expresses the simultaneous need for contact and the recognition of its failure.
views that conceive of hatred as a form of affiliation when all other forms of intimacy are too painful, threatening, or humiliating (Bollas, 1984; Lichtenberg & Shapard, 2000). There are people, according to Gabbard (2000), who prefer to be hated or to hate rather than be ignored or abandoned. In this sense, hatred expresses the simultaneous need for contact and the recognition of its failure.
A disturbing and bizarre shaming and passing hate only to then try to pull them back in suggests a pattern very similar to envy shown on hatred where the envious will level someone down to where they feel less threatened and only then try to speak to someone. So they will be very hateful and then call back in, showing shared circuitry between envy and collective hatred. In this case the Jewish people that were able to transcend obliterative envy were hated for their ability to transcend it and pushed out of the community…ironically in envy for that as well. But then called in if they wanted to join back in full hate again.
The following citations focus on the most commonly employed method of punishment used by the (right-wing, mostly religious) writers of the letters, that is, the mechanism of exclusion from the collective: “You don’t belong to the Jewish people. You don’t belong to our community.” “You are not of Jewish seed. We have decided to warn you to leave the country immediately for an Arab country. There you will find your Muslim brothers and sisters.” “May your name and memory be erased.” “To Yossi Sarid [a CRM leader] Muhammad Hitler. It is a shame that the Nazis did not burn and exterminate you in the Holocaust.” “With your dirty mouth you are destroying the State of the Jewish people.” Interestingly, while the letters included many threats and curses and were extremely aggressive and hateful, they also called members of the CRM to remedy their ways and return “home” to the collective: “Turn back, turn back, O maid of Shulem [from the Song of Songs, in reference to Shulamit Aloni, the party leader], and you will praise the Lord in the eyes of all the people of Israel and then you will be truly happy. The Gates of Repentance are not yet closed.” “Shame on you! Repent while it is not too late. So long as the candle of the soul burns, you can still change your ways.” “Where is your self respect? What depths have you reached? Come out from the gutter now.” In the eyes of the haters (mostly religious men), the members of the CRM were perceived, at the same time, as part of the collective and as enemies, both outsiders and insiders
Power and control resulted in hate if independent, but then trying to bring them back when beat down to install more successful power and control can be seen; therefore hate is an attempt to reestablish power and control in this case.
i.e., Jewish but anti-religious, Zionist yet pro-Palestinian. As a result, the haters aimed their hatred at the attainment of two main goals: to punish, excluding the members of the CRM from the collective (you are not one of us); and to persuade, calling the members of the CRM to repent and convert in order to be welcomed back into the collective (“Turn back, turn back, O maid of Shulem.”)
Hatred occurs when both parties are not able to achieve independence of identity, but communication breaks down. Just because one side feels hatred doesn’t mean the other side does though; hatred in this definition means both are literally unable to be independent. If one is independent, the hatefulness will bump up against complete lack of energy return (no hatred back) and exhaust itself eventually.
Postulates 2 and 3 – Hatred arises when communication between two groups breaks down, and the gap between their ideas, beliefs, values, and moral standing is unbridgeable. Yet, (3) the two groups depend on each other in order to define their identity and collective boundaries.
The constant threat to the land and the land as self creates an identity as one as land, facilitating feelings of both superiority (having the land) and fear (losing the land)
The threat to the “land,” internalized as the threat to their own selves, facilitated feelings of both superiority and fear, which together often produce hatred (Barbalat, 1998).
“Deep emotional acting” was seen a lot where collective hate was present
. Conflicting attitudes, embedded in the polyvocality of the secular Zionist discourse, provoked “deep emotional acting” (Hochscild, 1983), which blended fear and anger, but also understanding (“we were also terrorists once”) and sensitivity (“they want their own State”). Recognizing their ambivalence, the secular girls felt that “no matter how different the Palestinians are, they also share mutual experiences and needs with the Jews simply by the virtue of being human” (Yanay, 1996).
Inability to integrate the other as unto their own terms can be a way to be unable for one group to establish an identity outside of terms of the other.
In their case, the Palestinians were perceived as neither part of the collective nor separated from it. In the girls’ eyes, they only existed in relation to Jewish needs and fears.
Unresolvable envy often leads to collective hatred and with it hate crime. A threatening desire is at the heart of envy, it is experienced to be intolerable. Hatred is a way for one in this state to bond to that which they are constantly measuring themselves up against in the envious position without risking ego.
The most devastating terrorist act in American history coincides with a deep sense of ambivalence about the United States throughout the Muslim world (and not only there). Admiration and envy commingle with resentment and outright hatred.” However, the article overlooked the fact that both admiration and envy represent (psychologically and politically) a threatening desire—unthinkable and intolerable—to be the same; and that both admiration and envy (the lack of differentiation between difference and similarity)—ambivalent sentiments in themselves—force hatred as a safe bond.

A Homily Prepared For Sunday May 26, 2024
The Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel
John 3:1–17
1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily,I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered,Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
10 Jesus answered and said unto him,Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
11Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
12If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
13And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Commentary on Today’s Gospel Selection;
John 3:16 is undoubtedly one of the most memorized verses in the Bible, so much so that minsters frequently preach on that verse alone and in doing so ignore the first 15 verses that add a deep and rich understanding of the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees.
Verses one and two establish the identity of this man, Nicodemus, an important member of the Pharisaic cult, almost certainly a member of the Sanhedrin, and that—apparently fearful of being seen by his peers—he comes to Jesus under the darkness of night.
John also tells us another important aspect of the situation between Jesus and the pharisees, in that he uses the plural “we know” implying that Nicodemus is not alone, but other Pharisees are aware that no human could do the things that Jesus did, unless he was from God.
Bigotry, also is a part of this animosity on the part of some the Pharisees, as we read in John 7:50-52; when Nicodemus tried to defend Jesus before the counsel, some—with a voice full of spite and hate—asked him rhetorically if he was from Galilee as was Jesus. “They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. ” The men of Jerusalem were elitists, believing that their city alone was the center of the Jewish world. While Jerusalem was indeed the home of the Temple location, they thought that they were better than others of their kind who lived elsewhere, especially Galilee, which they looked down upon that land and its inhabitants.
The story in chapter 3, that of the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus, takes on a format that is typical of John’s Gospel, in that A person asks a question, Jesus gives a hard-to-understand answer. The person misunderstands and Jesus answers even more cryptically after which a discourse or teaching by Jesus, follows.
John 3:1–17 establishes some very fundamental doctrines that make up the foundation of Christianity, beliefs that are common to most denominations:

1. You must be born again (v. 3)
2. and born of the water and spirit (v. 5)
3. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (v. 8)
4. “but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”
5. “...even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (vs. 14b-15)
6. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

To be born again, is to make a fundamental change in yourself, to resolve to live a life in keeping with God’s Holy Word. To make every attempt to live a life free of sin.
There are three possible understandings of water in verse 5: purification—procreation (birth/rebirth)—or Christian baptism.
However, it is not necessary to choose one of the three meanings to the exclusion of the other two. Jesus’ reference to water and Spirit has its roots in Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God promised to sprinkle the people with water to make them clean and to put a new spirit—God’s spirit—within them. Water and spirit also have strong baptismal overtones. In baptism we die and are resurrected—born again—born from above. At baptism we also receive the Spirit (Romans 6:1-11; Acts 2:38). This serves as an important point of demarcation, a ritual that demonstrates to the individual, the community and to God, that the old way of the person is dead, and the person is born anew.
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” The context suggests that “wind” is the proper translation for the first occurrence of the word and “spirit” for the second. Jesus uses the wind as an analogy for the spirit of God. We cannot see, control, or fully understand wind, but we can see how it bends the branches of a tree. So it is with God’s spirit—invisible, mysterious, and beyond our control, but discernable by its effects.
“but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” Jesus makes it clear that he speaks with authority about heavenly things. He was with God in the beginning (1:1). He was present at the creation, and participated in the creation (1:3). He came into the world (1:9-10), and became flesh (1:14). No one has seen God, but Jesus has made him known (1:18).
“...even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus reminds us of the scene from Numbers 21:4-9, and every Jewish child knows it. The Israelites sinned by grumbling against God for bringing them out of Egypt into the wilderness. God punished them with a plague of fiery serpents, killing many Israelites. The Israelites confessed their sin and begged for mercy, so God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and hold it aloft on a pole. Whoever looked up at the bronze serpent was saved from the fiery serpents—given new life—born anew. Likewise Jesus is telling us that when we look at him on the cross as the great Paschal sacrifice; believing that he was raised up on the third day, conquering death. By believing in his life death and resurrection, Jesus tells us, that we will not perish but have everlasting life.
Believing in him is reiterated in verse 16, along with the acknowledgment that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
These verses establish the basic core of the Christian belief system, and this passage John 3:1-17 is chosen in liturgical year b for this day, the first Sunday after Pentecost, known as Trinity Sunday.
Perhaps this passage was chosen for this day, because we see in these seventeen verses, Jesus making references to the Son of God, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. These three entities make up the basis for a doctrine that although it is not common to all Christian denominations, it helps to understand the nature of the relationship of God, Jesus, and the Spirit.
There is a popular myth today that the doctrine of the Trinity was invented in the fourth century at the Council of Nicaea. This is not true. In the first centuries of the church, Christians were already teaching the fundamental doctrines they found in Scripture. Scripture teaches that there is one—and only one—God. Scripture also teaches that the Father is God. Scripture teaches that the Son is God and that the Holy Spirit is God. Furthermore, Scripture teaches that the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, that the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and that the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. Anybody who held these basic propositions of Scripture held to the foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity. Over the centuries, there arose those whose teaching denied or distorted one or more of those biblical teachings. The Council of Nicaea was called to respond to one such teaching—the teaching of Arius, who had denied that the Son is God. The Nicene Creed provided boundaries to ensure that the church teaches everything Scripture affirms.
The Nicene creed, is simply a teaching tool to help people understand the nature of the Trinity.
The doctrine of the Trinity, along with the doctrine of the incarnation, is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. This means that it exceeds the ability of finite human minds to fully grasp.
The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. The Bible speaks of the Father as God (Philippians 1:2), Jesus as God (Titus 2:13), and the Holy Spirit as God (Acts 5:3–4). Are these just three different ways of looking at God, or simply ways of referring to three different roles that God plays? The answer must be no, because the Bible also indicates that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons.
For example, since the Father sent the Son into the world (John 3:16), he cannot be the same person as the Son. Likewise, after the Son returned to the Father (John 16:10), the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world (John 14:26; Acts 2:33). Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be distinct from the Father and the Son.
In the baptism of Jesus, we see the Father speaking from heaven and the Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove as Jesus comes out of the water (Mark 1:10–11). John 1:1 affirms that Jesus is God and, at the same time, that he was “with God,” thereby indicating that Jesus is a distinct Person from God the Father (see also John 1:18). And in John 16:13–15, we see that although there is a close unity between the three persons, the Holy Spirit is also distinct from the Father and the Son.
The fact that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons means, in other words, that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Jesus is God, but he is not the Father or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, but he is not the Son or the Father. They are different Persons, not three different ways of looking at God.
The personhood of each member of the Trinity means that each Person has a distinct center of consciousness. Thus, they relate to each other personally — the Father regards himself as “I” while he regards the Son and Holy Spirit as “you.” Likewise, the Son regards himself as “I,” but the Father and the Holy Spirit as “you.”
Often it is objected, “If Jesus is God, then he must have prayed to himself while he was on earth.” But the answer to this objection lies in simply applying what we have already seen. While Jesus and the Father are both God, they are different Persons. Thus, Jesus prayed to God the Father without praying to himself. In fact, it is precisely the continuing dialogue between the Father and the Son (Matthew 3:17; 17:5; John 5:19; 11:41–42; 17:1ff) that furnishes the best evidence that they are distinct Persons with distinct centers of consciousness.
Sometimes the Personhood of the Father and Son is appreciated, but the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is neglected. Sometimes the Spirit is treated more like a “force” than a Person. But the Holy Spirit is not an “it,” but a “he” (see John 14:26; 16:7–15; Acts 8:16). The fact that the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an impersonal force (like gravity), is also shown by the fact that he speaks (Hebrews 3:7), reasons (Acts 15:28), thinks and understands (1 Corinthians 2:10–11), wills (1 Corinthians 12:11), feels (Ephesians 4:30), and gives personal fellowship (2 Corinthians 13:14). These are all qualities of personhood.
In addition to these texts, the others we mentioned above make clear that the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Personhood of the Son and the Father. They are three real persons, not three roles God plays.
Another serious error people have made is to think that the Father became the Son, who then became the Holy Spirit. Contrary to this, the passages we have seen imply that God always was and always will be three Persons. There was never a time when one of the Persons of the Godhead did not exist. They are all eternal.
While the three members of the Trinity are distinct, this does not mean that any is inferior to the other. Instead, they are all identical in attributes. They are equal in power, love, mercy, justice, holiness, knowledge, and all other qualities.
Each Person is fully God. If God is three Persons, does this mean that each Person is “one third” of God? Does the Trinity mean that God is divided into three parts?
The doctrine of the Trinity does not divide God into three parts. The Bible is clear that all three Persons are each one-hundred-percent God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God. For example, Colossians 2:9 says of Christ, “in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” We should not think of God as a “pie” cut into three pieces, each piece representing a Person. This would make each Person less than fully God and thus not God at all. Rather, “the being of each Person is equal to the whole being of God” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1994, page 255). The divine essence is not something that is divided between the three persons, but is fully in all three persons without being divided into “parts.”
Thus, the Son is not one-third of the being of God; he is all of the being of God. The Father is not one-third of the being of God; he is all of the being of God. And likewise with the Holy Spirit. Thus, as Wayne Grudem writes, “When we speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the Father alone, the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone” (Ibid., 252).
There is only one God. If each Person of the Trinity is distinct and yet fully God, then should we conclude that there is more than one God? Obviously we cannot, for Scripture is clear that there is only one God: “There is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:21–22; see also Isaiah 44:6–8; Exodus 15:11; Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:4–5; 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:2; 1 Kings 8:60).
Having seen that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, that they are each fully God, and that there is nonetheless only one God, we must conclude that all three Persons are the same God. In other words, there is one God who exists as three distinct Persons.
If there is one passage which most clearly brings all of this together, it is Matthew 28:19: “Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” First, notice that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinguished as distinct Persons. We baptize into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Second, notice that each Person must be deity because they are all placed on the same level. In fact, would Jesus have us baptize in the name of a mere creature? Surely not. Therefore each of the Persons into whose name we are to be baptized must be deity. Third, notice that although the three divine Persons are distinct, we are baptized into their name (singular), not names (plural). The three Persons are distinct, yet only constitute one name. This can only be if they share one essence.
I included this explanation of the Trinity, not just because this day is set aside as a means to commemorate the Trinity, but because I frequently get comments from readers that belong to denominations which do not recognize the doctrine as it is not found in scripture. But yet without the doctrine, Christianity is no longer monotheism but polytheism, no better than the Pagan systems that profess multiple Gods.
I suppose, for some, it is not necessary to believe in this doctrine, per se, but yet it is important to understand the relationship between God the Father, Jesus the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit.
Benediction:
Grant, Lord God, to all who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ, that, as we have put away the old life of sin, so we may be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and live in righteousness and true holiness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen