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The docs are most definitely forged. The evidence is strongly compelling.

While I'm not convinced of the authenticity, either, the docs have in no way been proven forged; there is a plausible explanation for all of the questions about the documents. Then, circumstantially, we can ask two questions (keeping in mind these are supposedly poor forgeries):

1. What would anyone gain by forging these documents?
   
   • CBS? Bad publicity, loss of credibility of their news. I can't imagine they'd run the story without fairly compelling evidence for the story.
   
   
   • Kerry? Complete loss of credibility; the risk is too high. I imagine they were happy about the documents, but not the perpetrators
   
   
   • Some democrat activist? Most plausible reason, but then we return to the point about CBS. Why would they run with such a story?


2. The White House has at no point denied the accuracy of the content of the documents, and even their answers about the authenticity of the documents has been circumlocutory; I don't think there have been any statements that have outright called them forgeries. Laura Bush came the closest when she said, and I quote: "I think they're probably forgeries".

But all that's beside the point. The problem is that GWB and his cabinet are disingenious leaders who will cause a huge problem. I half-wish they'll win so all his supporters will feel the effect. Then again, I'd like to keep my job.

As a sidenote, did you know that Mohammed Atta said at one time that the Lewinski-scandal was a conspiracy by the conservatives to oust the democrat government (who were more in favour of independent Palestine)? That would suggest that having Republican leaders is probably a bad idea*.

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*This statement made in reference to Dick Cheney's assertions.

(Comment added by muir on Wed Sep 15 15:40:56 2004)

The reason I bring up the question 'Why would CBS run with the story' is that the only motive I can conceive for them running it with falsified documents is to bring up the service record again. This would, however, be possible to do by just saying they have allegedly authentic documents, which would fire up a debate -they did have other evidence as well, as you may remember. I see no point in taking this huge risk with (again supposedly obviously poor) forgeries. It could of course be that they just dug a hole too deep.

...which also applies to accidents and self-inflicted wounds.

I cannot find any Christian scholar who has made those claims. Where's it come from?

Moses came after Noah. Therefore the commandment 'thou shalt not murder' supercedes any previous orders.

Bad argument. It is the same commandment, and capaital punishment is again part of Mosaic Law. It is again repeated in (Mathew 5).

There are about a half dozen Biblical arguments against the death penalty. I don't find any of them sustainable.
Find a Unitarian and you'll find the hypocritical rationalizations your looking for.

What would anyone gain by forging these documents?

Wrong question. Who would gain by trashing one of the candidates in an election? The other candidate of course.

Why the hell are you guys bitching back and forth about religion as a basis for policy? Here's a quite that I think trumps the Bible entirely:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion....


In my view, religion is not a valid means in and of itself to justify any policy, whether it be the death penalty or otherwise. We what happens in these religious theocracies that do use religion as a basis for policy....

Wrong question. Who would gain by trashing one of the candidates in an election? The other candidate of course.


Actually, you're both full of crap. Unless you have any evidence of involvement by the Kerry campaign-- or any Democratic organization for that matter-- then you have no business making frivolous accusations just because you want to make Kerry look bad.

Fact of the matter is, CBS has been accused time and time again of showing a conservative Republican bias. During the Super Bowl, they refused to air a MoveOn.org ad on the grounds that it criticized Bush, yet they had no problem airing ads that supported Bush's Iraq War policy. Later on, someone made a docu-drama miniseries about Ronald Reagan that was sheduled to air on CBS. Neo-conservative nutjobs didn't like the fact that it didn't portray him in the typical glorified light. After objections were raised by their Republican friends, CBS decided not to air the miniseries, and instead aired it on some premium channel owned by the same parent company so that hardly anyone would see it.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that CBS has suddenly done a 180-degree turn and now magically has a liberal bias simply because they reported something that you don't like.


Fact of the matter is, there is no conclusive evidence that the documents were forged. There is evidence calling there authenticity into question, but that's it. Just because you Republicans keep repeating that they're forged over and over and over again, doesn't make it so.

My theory is that CBS wanted to break the story in time for their 60 Minutes airing, so they cut corners and rushed during the vetting process, which is further evidenced by the fact that they didn't take some preliminary objections seriously. Had they been responsible about it, they would have vetted them and refrained from airing the documents until the inconsistencies were resolved and it could be determined conclusively as to their authenticity. Fact is, they still had more than enough evidence (that hasn't been called into question) to run that 60 Minutes show without the few memos by that one guy that have been called into question.

The Republicans are only jumping on this to distract people from the fact that more and more mounting evidence shows that Bush lied about his service in the National Guard.

Why the hell are you guys bitching back and forth about religion as a basis for policy?

Admit it. You scored 510 on your SAT for reading comprehension.

Looks like I forgot my <winknudge> tags :)

I cannot find any Christian scholar who has made those claims. Where's it come from?

It comes from the commandment itself. It clearly, and without any prejudice, states that any man who spills the blood of man (not even 'another man', just 'man') is subject to have their blood spilled in turn. Therefore, if I cut my finger with a knife, my blood must be spilled etc. Similarly, if Bob kills Joe and then Tim executes Bob, according to the commandment Tim must now be executed and then in turn his executor etc. It also doesn't address a situation where someone is killed by e.g. poisoning so no blood gets spilled.

Moses came after Noah. Therefore the commandment 'thou shalt not murder' supercedes any previous orders.

Bad argument. It is the same commandment, and capaital punishment is again part of Mosaic Law.

It's in no way a bad argument. Logically, any succeeding order addressing the same topic will supercede the previous one.

I'm not sure what you're referring to by Matthew 5? 21-22? Nothing there supports death penalty; however, this interesting bit emerges: "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.". Looks like we won't be reunited with our loved ones after all.

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What would anyone gain by forging these documents?

Wrong question. Who would gain by trashing one of the candidates in an election? The other candidate of course.

Tsk, tsk. The significant bit was that this is supposedly an obvious forgery (it took, what, 15 minutes for the first claim to emerge). What would anyone have to gain by forging these documents? If CBS had forged the documents, they would have done a better job (like for example order a 70's typewriter). The Kerry campaign can't have been stupid enough to do it -the risk would be too great.

60 minutes seems to have some interesting points today.

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My theory is that CBS wanted to break the story in time for their 60 Minutes airing.

CBS closely coordinated their political attack ad with the DNC's attack ads which they stupidly started running this week. The forged memos came from the Kerry campaign. Rather and a bunch of CBS people's careers are over. This is the democrat's Watergate. You can scream and handwave to distract all you want from the forged documents. It's all over. Bush landslide.

The Kerry campaign can't have been stupid enough to do it.

I disagree. Yes they are that stupid.

The Kerry campaign can't have been stupid enough to do it.

I disagree. Yes they are that stupid.

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It comes from the commandment itself. It clearly, and without any prejudice...

No. Literalist semantic arguments using modern English are inherently prejudiced. It isn't recognized by any Jewish or Christian tradition as a valid approach to analysis. Your interpretation of 'Whoever sheds the blood of man' as excepting those who use poison is clue enough you aren't interested in a genuine exegesis. That won't even get you through Plato, Aristotle, Augustine or Descartes let alone the Bible.

However if by chance you are then I'd recommend the following for starters: http://www.textweek.com/pentateuch/gen7_8_9.htm
You'll find rabbinic analysis, Geneva notes, Calvin's commentary, Wesleys's commentary, and many others.

Logically, any succeeding order addressing the same topic will supercede the previous one.

If you mean by supercede 'to set aside' then no. If you mean 'replace' then yes. The commandment against murder and capital punishment for murder are in both Noachide and Mosaic law. They did not change.

On the last, I was referring to Mat 5:17-20. Or if you prefer something more direct in support of NT capital punishment then see Mat 15:3-4.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that CBS has suddenly done a 180-degree turn and now magically has a liberal bias simply because they reported something that you don't like.


I don't know what planet you live on, but SeeBS has always been liberally biased for as long as I can remember, and Dan Rather himself has even said so once or twice many years back. So if you perceived them as having had a conservative bias, I wonder just how liberal you are. I knew you were liberal, but if you're so liberal you think SeeBS is conservative.....

No. Literalist semantic arguments using modern English are inherently prejudiced.

La pointe. The 'word of God' is unknowable after all this time, all these translations and all of the editing.

Your interpretation of 'Whoever sheds the blood of man' as excepting those who use poison is clue enough you aren't interested in a genuine exegesis.

Illustrative point for absurdity of attempt.

However, one would assume that the translation is fairly accurate since this is, after all, a fairly important bit (it couldn't be that a translator or commissioner elaborated just a bit on a holy text, could it?); if this is the case, the absence of any qualifiers is conspicuous. One would think that God were smart enough to make such a commandment unambiguous.

The passages in Matthew (I finally found the ones you meant) are debateably in support -but then countered elsewhere. What about Luce, Markos and Yohdhan, then?

"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, the YHVH your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Such a nice fellow, God. Apparently also not alone.

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CBS closely coordinated their political attack ad with the DNC's attack ads which they stupidly started running this week. The forged memos came from the Kerry campaign. Rather and a bunch of CBS people's careers are over. This is the democrat's Watergate. You can scream and handwave to distract all you want from the forged documents. It's all over. Bush landslide.


Lol you guys must be more desperate than I though if you actually believe that fantasy. Fact is, you're now making baseless claims just for the sake of it. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of coordination between CBS and the DNC. Also, keep in mind that the DNC has been releasing new ads almost on a weekly basis since just before Labor Day.

There is also absolutely no evidence that the memos came from the Kerry campaign. Hell, we can't even say for certain whether or not they're forged!


If you seriously believe this is your issue, I would be more than happy to support your endeavors to run on it. Why? Kerry landslide.

Dan Rather is not CBS. He just works for them. He is known to be a moderate Democrat outside the newsroom, but when the camera comes on he is very good at checking his personal beliefs at the door, just as most non-Fox journalists do.


I already stated some examples of CBS's conservative leanings. Also note that many of CBS's top news and media executives are major Bush campaign donors.

Except as I said, Dan Rather himself admitted it on camera years back. So that contradicts your entire claim. And once again, if you see SeeBS as conservative, you're far more liberal than I ever thought you were.

You also seem to be inherently opposed to the airing of any viewpoint which doesn't agree with the Democrats. Even if it were true that Fox had a conservative bias, that's not a crime in this country. Fox just last night did an interview in which a member of NPR was there on the panel and he got to say his piece just like the others. I forget the guy's name now, but even he agreed the documents were questionable and beleives SeeBS jumped the gun on breaking the story. I also agreed with his position that Dan Rather doesn't deserve to be the one to take the fall for the results of this, but it's very likely he will anyway since the network needs a scapegoat to cover up their own negligence.

Jesus specifically stopped the stoning of that woman. "Let he that is without sin cast the first stone," or something to that effect. He certainly did preach against it.

Illustrative point for absurdity of attempt.

'Those who remain on the boat shall be saved' - House boat owner and procrustean literalist finds new path to salvation!
Absurdity reflects more on the person holding to it than on the unambiguous Word.

Absurdity reflects more on the person holding to it than on the unambiguous Word.

Excuse me, but did you not just say that the English version cannot be idiomatically used? It's ambiguous. The only more or less reliable versions would be the untranslated arameic ones, and even those are second-hand knowledge and therefore not to be trusted implicitly.

Your unambiguity comes out of molding certain paragraphs to fit your ideology and ignoring the rest. Rationalization -and arrogant if you think you can know what the meaning was.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

You shall turn the other cheek.

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(Comment added by muir on Thu Sep 16 12:07:01 2004)

Let's paraphrase: believing in God is OK by me but believing that a millennia-old text is literal word of God is ignorant; meaning should be discerned from the text by interpretation and in doing so only the main thematic aspects should be accepted. In the case of the New Testament (or New Covenant, or Good News), the overwhelming subjects are humility, forgiveness and love.

(Comment added by muir on Thu Sep 16 12:14:24 2004)

Further elaborating: The Old Testament's similarly distilled themes are vindication, worship and strict adherence. Now, as the Good News is a later text, the simplest interpretation is that Yeshua was sent to Earth to correct the mistakes in interpretation of the word of God that the Jewish had made -the further assumption would be that the word would have been modified to suit the era it was given, in text and tradition, for maximum effectiveness and Yeshua was to offer the reinterpretation to suit the new era.

Excuse me, but did you not just say that the English version cannot be idiomatically used?

No, in fact I said completely the opposite. You don't literally parse or semantically analyze idiomatic expressions. If you don't understand the idiom (in this example 'shed blood') then you consult primary source material and contemporary commentary. And no, the translations are quite suitable to the task of communicating the meaning clearly to the contemporaries for which they were made.

...meaning should be discerned from the text by interpretation and in doing so only the main thematic aspects should be accepted...

No, not if you wanted a Christian argument against the death penalty you don't. That the anti-death penalty position is only propped up by asserting vague broad themes is evidence of that distance. The Christian arguments are not made on the terms of athiests, agnostics and deists as it would be hypocrisy to accept conditions that deny one of the primary tenets of the religion itself.

Rememember that was the so-called 'hypocrisy' which prompted this discussion. It's an inversion of the meaning.

And once again, if you see SeeBS as conservative, you're far more liberal than I ever thought you were.


You completely ignored the fact I made that their top news and media executives are Bush campaign contributors, that they pulled a Reagon mini-series after objections from the far-right, and that they refused to air an anti-Bush ad during the superbowl while not holding the Bush campaign to the same standard. Instead, you're just repeating tired old talking points without addressing the obvious facts at hand.


Also, I never said that Fox News' extreme neo-conservative bias is a crime, nor should it be. Despite the neo-con agenda, there is freedom of expression in this country. Likewise, I have the freedom to express my disdain for the misleading, biased, sensationalized reporting of Faux News.


Btw, while I don't regularly watch that biased filth, I have watched Faux News on occasion just for kicks. Anyone who doesn't see their obvious, unethical bias is either a moron or someone who shares that neo-con bias.

-the documents are NOT most definitely forged. Far from it.

The Daily Show (mouthpiece of the Republican party) had a clip tonight of her saying she didn't type it. Oh well.

The Daily Show (mouthpiece of the Republican party)

Dumbest thing I've heard recently.

Excuse me, but did you not just say that the English version cannot be idiomatically used?

No, in fact I said completely the opposite. You don't literally parse or semantically analyze idiomatic expressions.

Ah, misreading on your part. Idiomatic in my context refers to the contemporary reader.

You said that the sentence must be analyzed in context -as you just reaffirmed. The analysis varies based on the analyzer. Therefore, the message, both in the English and the idiomatic (here, original) form and meaning is ambiguous to contemporaries. Unknowable.

And no, the translations are quite suitable to the task of communicating the meaning clearly to the contemporaries for which they were made.

Obviously they're not, since we're disagreeing on the meaning. Ergo, they are ambiguous.

...meaning should be discerned from the text by interpretation and in doing so only the main thematic aspects should be accepted...

No, not if you wanted a Christian argument against the death penalty you don't.

Emphasis mine. You're absolutely right. The only way to find support for the death penalty in the Good News is to take not the overwhelming themes but individual paragraphs and sayings and consider them without context -for example, the aforementioned Matthew sections, though clear in text, are debateable because of the nature of Yeshua's parable.

The Christian arguments are not made on the terms of athiests, agnostics and deists as it would be hypocrisy to accept conditions that deny one of the primary tenets of the religion itself.

That the Bible is the literal Word of God? I doubt you're capable of accepting everything and living by it. Was the world created in seven days? Is the earth flat?

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