Kulapavana

"All it takes is a few conspirators at the top"

Not in case of current NASA projects. You have NO idea how many hundreds of people are involved and how it is all interconnected and decentralized.

As to the Moon luminosity: lack of atmosphere allows high reflectivity. you should see the true luminosity of the Sun from upper layers of Earth atmosphere - it feels 10x brighter than on the surface: THIS is what the Moon reflects, not what we see from the ground.

"Let's not be like the Christians who feel they have to fit science in their creation theories"

Let us also not be like Christian creationists with their blind acceptace that Universe was created in 6 days and our planet is 5000 years old. Srila Prabhupada placed great emphasis on scientific presentation of Vedic knowledge.

you have faith in the power of your intellect, we have faith in our acharyas. neither one is blind (at least I hope your's is not blind /images/graemlins/wink.gif)

use your common sense. what are the symptoms of each yuga? look around you and decide what yuga we are in.

based on pretty much all Vedic scriptures we are now in the age of Kali. that is related to both the astral calendar and practical experience (symptoms of Kali are clearly visible). Technically we are still in the yuga-sandhya period (overlap of the yugas) and some symptoms of Dvapara yuga are still visible as well.

"somebody from another planet sent a probe here, you are saying we would not be able to percieve it"

depens where they are coming from. when demigods come here from higher planets they see us but we cant perceive them unless they choose to reveal themselves. same is actually true for demons coming from lower planets (both lower and higher planets are actually more subtle than Earthly system). however, there are parts of Bhu-mandala (Earthly system) which are not part of planet Earth as we know it, and visitors from that region (once they enter our time/space) would be visible to us.

As to the landings on the Moon: it is certainly very possible that US astronauts did land on the Moon. I have some doubts, but I would give it a 95% probability.

see the thread on Mars landing on World Review forum here for some additional comments. basically some devotees dont understand these issues and make statements which don't really present the Vedic version.

To think that thousands of people are somehow willingly a part of some massive conspiracy here is very, very naive. Also, there is no contradiction with the shastra, you just need to understand the what shastra says when it speaks about other worlds and planets. When Bhagavatam speaks of gardens on the Sun do you think you can drink their water? for you in this body it would all be fire. in the same way you go to the Moon, or Mars and only see rocks. you can even see much detail of the Moon surface from the Earth, including spectral analysis of Moon composition. You will not see gardens and cities there because they exist on a different plane of existence, or different time/space continuum.

(and btw. 10 foot girrafes are quite common on Earth, when they are young /images/graemlins/wink.gif )

the isssue of this thread has nothing to do with conspiracy theories (are Jews the brahmanas of the West). to repeat myself:

it is not important what color of clothes the ruling elite wears, but what is in their hearts. how do you know what is in someone's heart? you watch their actions. demons act one way, devotees another. in the same way (by observing their activities) one determines who is a brahmana, and who is a candala.

There are certainly Jews who can be seen as brahmanas (look at our movement for starters) but many others are very obviously of entirely different nature. My previous post had the aim of placing things in perspective and balancing the thread.

Blanket statements like: "Jews are the brahmanas of the West" or "Jews are the source of our problems" are silly and childish. I understand your attachment to your race shiva, but your attachment to the truth should be greater. The role of Jews in the world is not a black and white issue, and it is certainly NOT all white. If you cant see that, we are both wasting time discussing such issues. (on my part I respond to such points not for you, but for the benefit of others who may happen to read our posts)

actually even most demigods have no idea how the Universe works, what to speak of us human pea brains /images/graemlins/wink.gif most of us don't even understand time, even as we experience it every day. the concept of many worlds (or time/space continums) existing paralel to our world is now accepted by many scientists as well as transcendentalists.

"I accept a subtle counterpart or component exists for all we see on this gross material plane. Is that what you mean?"

Our body has both subtle and gross components, and that how it is set up on the "earthly" plane of existence. Other worlds (called lower and higher, but actually much more divided than these two groups) intersect with our world and are more "subtle" than "physical". With our senses we see their "shadow" in our world, like for example ghosts: they are a "shadow" in our world and we are a "shadow" to them also. Their time is different, and their space is different. Actually most of the time we perceive them with our mind, not our senses. Same goes for the higher planets and higher beings. There is water on the Moon planet in this higher time-space continuum, but it is not H2O. This is a very complex subject, but I hope it clears it up a little.

that is a very nice quote. thank you prabhu.

if you truly did not want Krishna to help you, you would not be posting here. sometimes pain (self inflicted or otherwise) helps us to see the reality of this life and inspire us to make effort to become more involved in spiritual process. demons are those who oppose Krishna. just being confused or attached does not make you one of them. get loaded on maha-prasadam, chant a few rounds and you'll be fine! /images/graemlins/wink.gif

the probe landed on the planet Mars reflection in our time-space continuum, or in other words: on shadow of real Mars in our world, same goes for the landings on Moon.

"Among devotees no doubt, but what of the bulk of us who have no such vision"

I consider both of us to be devotees, along with most of other members of Lord Caitanya missions. I was hinting at devotees making a distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and many who claim to be his followers. If you study the history of early Christianity this distinction becomes very, very clear.

All this is not intended to offend Christians (real or imaginary) but only to present a different perspective on Hindu-Christian relations.

one of the biggest problems Krishna devotees face is that for one "Jesus bhakta" there are 100's of "Christians" who consider us to be heathens or even devil worshippers. Thus it is hard for many of us to have much sympathy for such misguided "followers of Jesus". Still, respect for Jesus of Nazareth is very much a universal thing among devotees.

Anyway, it is better to stick one's chosen tradition instead of trying to invent a new one.

dont even get me started on the kirtan "melodies" /images/graemlins/wink.gif

when people struggle to follow a difficult melody how can they concentrate on the Holy Name?

...or when all you can hear from 20 feet away is wild mridunga and cartals smashing and some mumbling without distinctive vibration of the Holy Name... how can anybody taste the nectar in this type of chanting?

out of respect certain devotee names are invoked during pranamas and are usually repeated only once (3 times for Panchatattva Mantra). the term "chanting" refers to repeated invocations, and in that sense we should stick to chanting Hare Krishna.

btw: it is VERY frustrating when in many of our temples less than 50% of congregational chanting is done with Maha Mantra, even when non-devotee guests are present and obviously cant follow the other mantras or songs.

To summ it all up again: when chanting, go extra heavy on Maha Mantra and extra light on everything else /images/graemlins/wink.gif

our Acharyas told us to chant Hare Krishna. we serve and glorify them by carrying out their instructions, not by chanting their names.

and your post contributes to the subject of this thread how?

and to reply to your drivel: it is not important what color of clothes the ruling elite wears, but what is in their hearts. how do you know what is in someone's heart? you watch their actions. demons act one way, devotees another. in the same way (by observing their activities) one determines who is a brahmana, and who is a candala.

it takes far more grains to feed the animals meat-eaters demand than vegetarians consume, so vegetarianism is still less violent alternative.

ultimately it is about your consciousnes: if you desire to eat meat you are just like animals, and all your arguments are simply meant to justify your animalistic taste

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and eating squirrel brains

Source: Lancet 350, Number 9078

Published: September 30, 1997

Author: Joseph R Berger, Erick Weisman, Beverly Weisman

Spongiform encephalopathies have been reported in a variety of large and small mammals.1 While conducting a study of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in south Florida, one of us (JRB) observed an affected patient who was originally a native of Kentucky and had a history of eating squirrel brains. Dietary transmission of prion diseases has been documented experimentally in animals2 and in human beings who are cannibals.3 Several case reports have suggested the possibility of transmission of CJD by consumption of brains of wild animals.4 These observations, together with recent concerns about the transmission of a unique encephalopathy in man believed to be related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy5 led us to examine the possible association of eating squirrel brains with CJD in rural Kentucky, where eating squirrel and other small game is not uncommon.

Culinary preparations include scrambling the brains with eggs or putting them in a meat and vegetable stew referred to as "burgoo". A history of eating squirrel brains was obtained from family members of all five patients with probable or definite CJD seen over 3,5 years in a neurocognitive clinic in western Kentucky. Two women and three men aged from 56 to 78 years (mean 68.2 years) were affected. None were related and each lived in a different town. Eating squirrel brains was reported among 12 of 42 patients with Parkinson's disease seen in the same clinic and 27 of 100 age-matched controls without neurological disease living in western Kentucky. Ataxia early in the course of the disease was seen in four of the patients with CJD and myoclonus and periodic complexes on the electroencephalogram were seen in all.

Death occurred within 1 year in four, whereas, survival exceeded 3 years from the onset of symptoms in one patient. Analysis of codon 129 of the prion protein gene was not done. This observation will require confirmation by studies of larger populations, and a search for a scrapie agent in the brains of squirrels, which have not heretofore been reported as having spongiform encephalopathies. In the meantime caution might be exercised in the ingestion of this arboreal rodent.

Source: Guardian

Published: December 29, 2003 Author: Karen Armstrong

We can be certain of one thing in 2004. Unless there is some unimaginable breakthrough, we will see more religiously inspired terrorism. It often seems that we might be better off without religion. A cursory consideration of the crusades and persecutions of Christian history shows that religious violence is not confined to the Islamic world. If the different faiths really are committed to peace and goodwill, why do they inspire such hatred, and why are their scriptures so aggressive?

We dream of peace but slaughter our own kind, and from the very start our faith systems have reflected this tragic dualism. In the earliest religions, most gods were militant, including Yahweh, worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims. Humans were able to enjoy security only by fighting other groups, so they assumed there was also perpetual warfare in the divine world, in which the gods opposed the forces of disorder.

The world religions that developed during the first millennium BCE rejected this bellicose theology and preached empathy, compassion, even non-violence. But they all emerged in societies devastated by war, and this pervasive aggression seeped into their new scriptures. Judaism, for example, was born out of the wrenching experience of political annihilation, deportation and exile - a trauma that left its mark on the Hebrew Bible.

Some of the biblical writers responded to the violence in kind. Their God commands Moses and Joshua to massacre all the native inhabitants of the Promised Land. But others spoke of reconciliation and of respect for the stranger. They reminded the people of Israel that God was not reflexively on their side, and their own unjust and irresponsible behaviour had contributed to the disaster.

Jesus told his followers to love their enemies, but the New Testament was also affected by the turbulence of Palestine during the first century: the resentment of Roman occupation and escalating tension between Jews and Christians. Later, the emperor Domitian's persecution inspired the vengeful fantasies of the Book of Revelation.

The Koran also reflects the brutal tribal warfare that afflicted Arabia during the early 7th century. For five years, the Muslims were threatened with extermination and had to fight for their lives. The Koran tells Muslims how they should behave on the battlefield, but these militant passages always end with exhortations to reconciliation. Eventually, Muhammad brought peace to the peninsula by adopting an audacious policy of non-violence.

The scriptures all bear scars of their violent begetting, so it is easy for extremists to find texts that seem to give a seal of divine approval to hatred. War affects all aspects of human behaviour, so when conflict becomes chronic, it should be no surprise that religion is also infected. This is certainly what happened at the time of the Crusades.

In a similar way, the Christian right today has absorbed the endemic violence in American society: they oppose reform of the gun laws, for example, and support the death penalty. They never quote the Sermon on the Mount but base their xenophobic and aggressive theology on Revelation. Osama bin Laden is as just as selective in his use of scripture. Most of the Muslim extremism that troubles us today is the product of societies that have suffered prolonged, hopeless conflict: the Middle East, Palestine, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir.

Religion, like any human activity, can be abused. You can have bad religion, as you can have bad cooking, bad art and bad sex. From the very beginning, religion got sucked into conflicts that were originally secular. In the past, however, prophets and sages recalled their co-religionists to the prime duty of compassion.

Today, we need religious people to be proactive in reforming their own traditions away from extremism. It is not enough simply to condemn other people's violence. We need bishops, rabbis and imams to search for the seeds of aggression in their own scriptures, admit that their own faith has a history of hatred, and revise bigoted, self-serving textbooks. We should also question the efficacy of the current war against religious terror. By increasing violence in troubled regions, we contribute to the conditions that have always mobilised the faithful in their pernicious holy wars.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion. By Israel Shahak, with a foreword by Gore Vidal. Published by Pluto Press (London, 1994).

When the Roman historian Tacitus pointed out 19 centuries ago that the Jews are unique among the races of man in their intense hatred and contempt for all races but their own, he was only repeating what many other scholars had discovered before him. For the next 1,900 years other investigators came to similar conclusions, either from a study of the Jews' religious writings or from a study of the Jews' behavior toward non-Jews.

Notable among these was the Great Reformer, Martin Luther, who in 1543 wrote in Von den Jüden und Ihren Lügen :

Does not their Talmud say, and do not their rabbis write, that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is a sin if he kills a brother in Israel? It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob, as they do with their usury, from a heathen is a divine service. For they hold that they cannot be too hard on us nor sin against us, because they are of the noble blood and circumcised saints; we, however, are cursed goyim. And they are the masters of the world, and we are their servants, yea, their cattle....

Should someone think that I am saying too much, I am not saying too much, but much too little. For I see in their writings how they curse us goyim and wish us all evil in their schools and their prayers.

The Jews responded to Luther like they responded to all the others. They put him down as just another "hater," blinded by religious bigotry. And today that's still the Jews' standard answer to everyone who says or writes anything about them except the most fawning praise.

When British newsman William Cash, Los Angeles correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph , reported late last year in a magazine article the simple fact that the executives in Hollywood's motion picture industry are nearly all Jews, they shrieked at him, "Hater!" and denied his fact. When spokesmen for the National Alliance, America's premier patriotic organization, discuss on the group's radio programs the Jewish control of the news and entertainment media or Jewish backing for gun confiscation or for racial mixing, the Jews also denounce them as "haters," and a call goes out to prohibit "hate" on the airwaves.

Thus, Israel Shahak's book is all the more important for being a document by a knowledgeable Jew--a Jewish "insider"--about the beliefs and behavior of his fellow Jews. Born in Warsaw in 1933, Shahak spent a portion of his childhood in the concentration camp in Belsen, from which he immigrated to Palestine in 1945. He grew up in Israel, served in the Israeli military, and became a chemistry professor. Like all Israelis, he became fluent in Hebrew. He also became acclimated to the peculiar moral atmosphere of Israeli society: a combination of overweening arrogance and deceit, a mixture of pugnacious self-righteousness and duplicity.

Unlike his fellow Israelis, however, Professor Shahak is deeply troubled by this peculiar atmosphere. Whereas the Jews around him take it for granted that the goyim on whom they depend for economic, military, and diplomatic support are too stupid ever to figure out what the Jews think about them and say about them behind their backs and plan to do to them when they can, and too sheeplike ever to take effective action if they do figure it out, he worries. He remembers that the Romans figured it out, and they consequently sacked Jerusalem and chased the Jews out of Palestine. He remembers that the Germans figured it out, and that's why he became an involuntary tenant in a concentration camp. He's worried that if his fellow Jews continue behaving as they always have, they will get themselves into some really serious trouble--again.

In particular, Professor Shahak is concerned about the behavior of those of his race who adhere to Judaism. He is not one of these himself, and so he is able to look with some degree of objectivity at the mixture of superstition, Jewish chauvinism, and hatred of non-Jews which makes up the Jewish religion and its sacred writings. He deplores traditional Jewish teachings, not only because of the danger that some new Martin Luther will come along and spill the beans to the Gentiles, but because of the spiritually debilitating effect these teachings have had on the Jews themselves. Of the world of medieval Jewry in Europe, the world of the ghetto and the shtetl which modern Jewish writers refer to in euphoric tones as a world of quaint tradition and piety, Shahak says: "It was a world sunk in the most abject superstition, fanaticism, and ignorance . . . ."

He cites a number of specific instances of the ways in which Jewish religious authorities have kept their flocks under control. In general, the rabbis have taught their fellow Jews that their Gentile neighbors are spiritually and morally unclean; that they are subhuman, on a level with the beasts of the field; and that they hate Jews and must be hated in return. Jews are taught that the Christian religion is a religion fit only for animals, and that its founder, Jesus, was the son of a prostitute and is presently immersed in a pit of boiling excrement in hell.

Among the Hassidim (Hebrew for "pious ones") all of these teachings are kept current. Shahak points out that a central thesis of the Hassidic doctrine is that only Jews are human beings, and that the universe was created for them alone. Non-Jews were created only to be used by Jews. Although this teaching about the subhumanity of Gentiles is most open and explicit among the bearded, sidelocked, black-hatted Orthodox Jews that one sees in Jewish strongholds such as New York City, it comes from the core of Jewish tradition and is accepted to a greater or lesser degree by all pious Jews. It is, for example, a specific tenet of the Jewish Defense League and is cited in the membership handbook for that group.

Especially frustrating to Professor Shahak is the clever deception which his fellow Jews use to conceal the true nature of Judaism from their Gentile neighbors. Regarding the veil of false piety which conceals from Gentile eyes the malevolent doctrine of the Hassidim, he writes: "A chief deceiver in this case, and a good example of the power of deception, was Martin Buber. His numerous works eulogizing the whole Hassidic movement (including Habbad) never so much as hint at the real doctrines of Hassidism concerning non-Jews." Buber (1878-1965) promoted Hassidism in Germany during the rise of the National Socialists--in fact, until 1938, when he left for Palestine--and Shahak considers Buber's efforts, despite their deceptiveness, at least partly responsible for the National Socialist reaction to the Jews. There were, after all, plenty of National Socialists perceptive enough to see through the veil. One of these was Adolf Hitler's early comrade, the editor and playwright Dietrich Eckart, whose booklet Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin is especially revealing in this regard (available in English translation from National Vanguard Books for $5.00, postpaid).

Another example of Jewish deception given by Professor Shahak concerns the etymology of the Yiddish word for a Gentile girl, shiksa . He cites the popular English-language book The Joys of Yiddish (New York, 1968), by Leo Rosten, which tells its readers that shiksa comes from the Hebrew word sheqetz , meaning "blemish." Writes Shahak, "This is a barefaced lie, as every speaker of Hebrew knows. The Megiddo Modern Hebrew-English Dictionary, published in Israel, correctly defines sheqetz as follows: `unclean animal; loathsome creature, abomination . . . .'"

Professor Shahak writes with passion. He evidently feels that liberating Jews everywhere from the shackles of their misanthropic superstitions and freeing Israeli state policy in particular from the stifling influence of Judaism is a matter of some urgency. He focuses our attention especially on the inherent hatefulness of Judaism with citations from a number of Jewish religious writings.

This has been a favorite activity of anti-Jewish writers for centuries, who have belabored us with the Talmud's insulting and hostile comments about Gentiles. The inaccessibility to Gentiles of many of the Hebrew texts, however, together with the deception veiling them, has made Talmudic exegesis a problematic task for all Gentiles with less scholarship or determination than that of Martin Luther. For this reason one must exercise considerable discretion in quoting from many anti-Jewish writings: translations are often questionable, and references are often garbled.

Professor Shahak does not have these limitations: he knows where to look; he understands the secret meanings of all of the deceptive euphemisms; and he gives us clear and reliable translations. In a chapter titled "The Laws against Non-Jews," he writes:

. . . [T]he Halakhah, that is the legal system of classical Judaism--as practiced by practically all Jews from the 9th century to the end of the 18th and as maintained to this very day in the form of Orthodox Judaism--is based primarily on the Babylonian Talmud. However, because of the unwieldy complexity of the legal disputations recorded in the Talmud, more manageable codifications of talmudic law became necessary . . . . The most authoritative code, widely used to date as a handbook, is the Shulhan 'Arukh . . . .

He then cites the teaching of this code regarding homicide:

According to the Jewish religion, the murder of a Jew is a capital offense and one of the three most heinous sins (the other two being idolatry and adultery). Jewish religious courts and secular authorities are commanded to punish, even beyond the limits of the ordinary administration of justice, anyone guilty of murdering a Jew. . . . When the victim is a Gentile, the position is quite different. A Jew who murders a Gentile is guilty only of a sin against the laws of Heaven, not punishable by a court. To cause indirectly the death of a Gentile is no sin at all.

Thus, one of the two most important commentators on the Shulhan 'Arukh explains that when it comes to a Gentile, "one must not lift one's hand to harm him, but one may harm him indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder after he had fallen into a crevice . . . there is no prohibition here, because it was not done directly." . . .

A Gentile murderer who happens to be under Jewish jurisdiction must be executed whether the victim was Jewish or not. However, if the victim was Gentile and the murderer converts to Judaism, he is not punished.

Then Shahak gives us a rabbi's answer to an Israeli soldier who has asked whether or not it is proper to kill Arab women and children. In his answer the rabbi quotes from the Talmud: "The best of the Gentiles--kill him; the best of snakes--dash out its brains."

Perhaps even more offensive are the Jewish beliefs on sexual matters. Shahak writes:

Sexual intercourse between a married Jewish woman and any man other than her husband is a capital offense for both parties, and one of the three most heinous sins. The status of Gentile women is very different. The Halakhah presumes all Gentiles to be utterly promiscuous and the verse "whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue [of semen] is like the issue of horses" is applied to them. . . . Therefore, the concept of adultery does not apply to intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman; rather the Talmud equates such intercourse to the sin of bestiality. . . .

According to the Talmudic Encyclopedia : "He who has carnal knowledge of the wife of a Gentile is not liable to the death penalty, for it is written: `thy fellow's wife' rather than the alien's wife . . . and although a married Gentile woman is forbidden to the Gentiles, in any case a Jew is exempted."

This does not imply that sexual intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman is permitted--quite the contrary. But the main punishment is inflicted on the Gentile woman; she must be executed, even if she was raped by the Jew: "If a Jew has coitus with a Gentile woman, whether she be a child of three or an adult, whether married or unmarried, and even if he is a minor aged only nine years and one day--because he had willful coitus with her she must be killed, as is the case with a beast, because through her a Jew got into trouble."

The Talmud's overriding concern with matters of money and property mirror that of the Jews, and Professor Shahak offers a number of hair-splitting examples of Jewish beliefs on the subject and the way in which distinctions are made between the property of Jews and Gentiles, and between Jewish dealings with another Jew and with a Gentile. Two of these examples will suffice here:

If a Jew finds property whose probable owner is Jewish, the finder is strictly enjoined to make a positive effort to return his find by advertising it publicly. In contrast, the Talmud and all the early rabbinical authorities not only allow a Jewish finder to appropriate an article lost by a Gentile, but actually forbid him or her to return it. . . .

It is forbidden to defraud a Jew by selling or buying at an unreasonable price. However, "Fraud does not apply to Gentiles, for it is written: `Do not defraud each man his brother' . . . ."

Shahak points out that "the Halakhah interprets all such idioms [as `each man his brother' or `neighbor'] as referring exclusively to one's fellow Jew."

How have the Jews managed to keep teachings of this sort concealed from the Gentiles among whom they live? The truth of the matter is that they have not always been able to do so. Luther was not the only Christian scholar who learned Hebrew, peered into the Talmud, and was horrified by what he saw. Sometimes the Jews were able to bribe the Christian authorities to overlook such things, but throughout the later Middle Ages there were prohibitions and burnings of talmudic literature by outraged popes and bishops.

The Jews developed a clever system of double bookkeeping to circumvent such "persecution." They modified or deleted the offending passages from new editions of the Talmud, and they made up a separate compendium--Talmudic Omissions , or in Hebrew Hesronot Shas --which circulated surreptitiously among the rabbis. In Israel today, feeling cocky enough to dispense with most such deceptions, the Jews are putting the passages which formerly had been omitted or modified back into the latest editions of the Talmud or the Shulhan 'Arukh in their original form. They are still careful with translations into Gentile tongues, however. Professor Shahak gives an example:

In 1962 a part of the Maimonidean Code . . . the so-called Book of Knowledge , which contains the most basic rules of Jewish faith and practice, was published in Jerusalem in a bilingual edition, with the English translation facing the Hebrew text. The latter has been restored to its original purity, and the command to exterminate Jewish infidels appears in it in full: "It is a duty to exterminate them with one's own hands." In the English translation this is somewhat softened to: "It is a duty to take active measures to destroy them." But then the Hebrew text goes on to specify the prime examples of "infidels" who must be exterminated: "Such as Jesus of Nazareth and his pupils, and Tzadoq and Baitos [the founders of the Sadducean sect] and their pupils, may the name of the wicked rot." Not one word of this appears in the English text on the facing page (78a). And, even more significant, in spite of the wide circulation of this book among scholars in the English-speaking countries, not one of them has, as far as I know, protested against this glaring deception.

Professor Shahak is too naive. If he ventured out of Israel more and came to know Christian scholars better, he would understand what a pathetic and Politically Correct rabble they have become. There is not the slightest spark of Martin Luther left in the lot of them. Traitors to their own people as well as to their religion, they smile and genuflect at every insult from the Jews and are capable of feeling indignation only when the Jews receive some slight. The Jews are able to enlist them by the regiment to denounce in unison as "hate" any criticism of Jewish policies or doctrines, but they turn a blind eye to the virulent hatred which permeates Judaism and motivates the great majority of Jews, religious as well as secular.

Israel Shahak is a rare Jew indeed, and his book is essential reading for anyone interested in the problem of the Jews.

there are many species of bananas in the world which implies substantial genetic diversity. the commercially grown hybrid varieties may come and go (after all, this is Kali yuga and growing food is supposed to get more and more difficult) but I would not worry too much about banana shortage crisis in the near future /images/graemlins/wink.gif

the amount of groundwater in the earth's crust is actually quite low if compared to the surface water reserves. there simply is not enough water on earth planet to lift a boat this high up. most likely the biblical story of Noah has origins in other oral traditions and depicts a local (as opposed to world-wide) event, possibly related to violent formation of Black Sea.

I have read about this project. even if they managed to produce sufficiently long carbon nanotube structures, they would not be strong enough to withstand the dynamic loads from high winds alone. I also seem to remember a story in one of the Puranas about asuras building a stairway to the higher planets and getting smashed by Indra /images/graemlins/wink.gif