Evangelists claim 'Noah's Ark' discovery on Turkish mountain

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers said Monday they believe they may have found Noah's Ark -- four thousand metres up a mountain in Turkey.

The team say they recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4,800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.
"It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it," Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah's Ark Ministries International told AFP.

The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals, he said.

The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds that one had never been found above 3,500 metres in the vicinity, Yeung said.

Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected while a major archaeological dig is conducted, Yeung added.
The biblical story says God decided to flood the earth after seeing how corrupt it had become, and told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.

After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain. Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants came aground.

Source: AFP

Noah's Ark: Christian Explorers Claim Noah's Ark Discovered in Turkey

This story doesn't pass my smell test, but it's certainly making religion headlines: a Chinese-Turkish group of Christian explorers from Noah's Ark Ministries International claims to have found the remains of Noah's Ark on Turkey's Mt. Ararat.

According to Abrahamic tradition, the massive wooden ship ferried Noah's family and pairs of all the animal species to safety during the great flood, which biblical scholars estimate occurred more than 4,000 years ago. (Deluge myths are found in many other religions, which some historians believe references the end of the last ice age.)

Catholic News Agency, Fox News, and The Daily Mail are among the outlets staying on top of this story. Beliefnet blogger Ben Witherington is also on the case, noting that he's heard it all before.

‘South Park’ Episode Altered due to Muslim Group’s Warning.

“South Park,” the Comedy Central series, is an animated show that tries its best to push buttons and the boundaries of free speech by mocking every high-profile target in sight, from Hollywood celebrities to religious figures. But its creators may have gotten more than they bargained for with two recent episodes that satirized the Prophet Muhammad — one that elicited an ominous message from an Islamic group based in New York, and one that was censored by the cable network that shows it.

Cognizant that Islam forbids the depiction of its holiest prophet, Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker showed their “South Park” characters agonizing over how to bring Muhammad to their fictional Colorado town. At first the character said to be Muhammad is confined to a U-Haul trailer, and is heard speaking but is not shown. Later in the episode the character is let out of the trailer, dressed in a bear costume.

The next day the “South Park” episode was criticized by the group Revolution Muslim in a post at its Web site, revolutionmuslim.com. The post, written by a member named Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, said the episode “outright insulted” the prophet, adding: “We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”

Mr. van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker and a critic of religions including Islam, was killed by an Islamic militant in Amsterdam in 2004 after he made a film that discussed the abuse of Muslim women in some Islamic societies.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Younus Abdullah Muhammad, a member of Revolution Muslim, repeated the group’s assertion that the post was a prediction rather than a threat. He said the post on the group’s blog “was intended in a principle that’s deeply rooted in the Islamic religion, which is called commanding the good and forbidding the evil.” He tied the group’s complaints about “South Park” to larger frustrations about American support for Israel and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Sex abuse in churches

The revelation of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests involving vulnerable children in their care has provoked a storm of protests in Europe, Australia, the United States and Latin America. The victims, many emotionally scarred for life, no longer content to suffer in silence, are coming out in large numbers to reveal a pattern of systematic abuse that has been going on since the 50s and perhaps even earlier.

 

The faithful in the Catholic Church feel betrayed beyond words that the one sanctuary upon which they pinned their hopes for a Christian life on earth and a glorious afterlife in paradise has been badly bruised. Many are questioning their role in a church that allows heinous sexual acts to be performed on minors by ordained priests. Some of the reports are disgusting; like the case of a serial paedophile priest in Wisconsin, United States who repeatedly violated 200 deaf and dumb children at a school under his care.

 

Pope Benedict XVI as head of the Catholic Church has been trying to contain the wrath caused by the disclosures of thousands of abused children many of whom are now adults. For the first time, the Pope has issued an apology meant for the Catholic Church of Ireland but in reality addressed to Christendom. In a pastoral letter the Pope expressed profound regret and sorrow to all those who have suffered grievous harm at the hands of the clergy. The Pope went on to say that, "It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity violated".

 

But the furore continues with many calling for punitive action against the offending priests and the bishops who shielded them from justice. Amidst the continuing row, top members of the Catholic Communion have rallied behind Pope Benedict and are doing their utmost to limit the damage caused by these sex scandals. There have been strident calls for reform as well.

 

There is no compulsion to become a priest of any church or denomination. Those who aspire to religious leadership must abide by their vows. The high status enjoyed by priests in society is owed to a popular perception that as reverend gentlemen they subscribe to a higher standard of purity and holiness than is found among secular authorities. When they succumb to the base instincts of common criminals, not only do they undermine the faith the congregation reposes in them, they weaken and in some cases destroy the citadel upon which their power and respect are based. Reverend Fathers being representatives of the good shepherd have a duty to lead their flock unto righteousness and salvation.

 

Although world searchlight is currently on the Roman Catholic Church, it must not be assumed that the other Christian churches are immune from the maladies that afflict the Catholic Congregation. Deviant behaviour of a sexual nature exists in all the churches. They are mitigated somewhat in those instances where priests are allowed to marry. Even so, cases of adultery, may be not paedophilia, abound in other non-Catholic institutions. It will be in order for every church to do a sexual audit of the clergy to determine how far they are clean and to take appropriate remedial action where necessary.

 

In Nigeria, priests of all denominations are often more well off than the majority of their followers. Their needs are provided for by an impoverished but willing congregation of worshippers. Many of the poor, suffering from hardship and unemployment troop to churches as an escape from hopelessness and in a fervent desire to achieve the good life now and a better one hereafter. For the children of these poor people to be abused by priests to whom they have shown total allegiance, confessed their sins, asked for penance, is callous and reprehensible. The men of God must ensure that they do not create trauma and doubt among the meek and the lowly for whom the church is everything.

 

The Vatican should use the opportunity of current controversies to objectively look at its practices with a view to exploring in which areas changes could be made. It is clear that the veil of secrecy, payoffs and transfers hitherto resorted to in cases of sexual abuse can no longer be sustained. For instance, American dioceses following this policy of secrecy have paid more than $2.7 billion in settlements and other costs since 1950.

 

The Catholic Church must provide decisive leadership. It should strive to be more open and should not hesitate to report sexual perverts to law enforcement. The lack of punishment of previous offenders has encouraged more priests to desecrate their frock and disobey the church's teaching on morality. Ultimately the leaders of more than one billion Catholics owe it to themselves to insist on the truth and on accountability. It is a known fact that fewer persons are inclined to join the priesthood nowadays. However, reducing numbers should not mean a fall in standards. On the contrary, with these unsavoury revelations, the recruitment standard for priests should be raised. In addition to cant and creed, they should be schooled in the development of human character and the discipline to overcome temptation.

  

Source: NRG Guardian

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• Vatican blasts anti-Catholic 'hate' campaign

Vatican blasts anti-Catholic 'hate' campaign

By FRANCES D'EMILIO

The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

Herranz didn't identify the lobbies but "defense of life" is Vatican shorthand for anti-abortion efforts.

Also arguing that Benedict's promotion of conservative family models had provoked the so-called attacks was the Vatican's dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano.

"By now, it's a cultural contrast," Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. "The pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church."

Also rallying to Benedict's side was Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who heads the Vatican City State's governing apparatus.

The pope "has done all that he could have" against sex abuse by clergy of minors, Lajolo said on Vatican radio, decrying what he described as a campaign of "hatred against the Catholic church."

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based minister in the United Church of Christ who is faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, described the cardinals' comments as "diversionary counterattacks" that are an affront both to the victims of clergy abuse and to gays and lesbians.

"It makes me heartsick," she said.

Sex abuse allegations, as well as accusations of cover-ups by diocesan bishops and Vatican officials, have swept across Europe in recent weeks. Benedict has been criticized for not halting the actions of abusive priests when he was a Vatican cardinal and earlier while he was the archbishop of Munich in his native Germany.

The mainland European scandals -- in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland -- are erupting after decades of abuse cases in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other areas.

In Germany, nearly 2,700 people called the church's sexual abuse hot line in the first three days it was operating, a Catholic church spokesman said Tuesday.A team of psychologists and other experts have spoken with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said.

"Most callers reported cases of sexual abuse," he told The Associated Press.

Benedict has ignored victims' demands that he accept responsibility for what they say is his own personal and institutional responsibility for failing to swiftly kick abusive priests out of the priesthood, or at least keep them away from children.

But he has been protected by a vanguard of senior Vatican prelates who are fending off what they contend is an orchestrated attempt to attack the leader of the world's more than 1 billion Catholics.

The Vatican No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, rebuffed questions about the pontiff's silence on the topic, indicating that Benedict was standing firm.

"He's a strong pope," he told reporters after arriving Tuesday in Chile. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as calling Benedict a "great prophet of the Third Millennium."

Bertone, now the Holy See's secretary of state but formerly Benedict's deputy when the future pope, then-called Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican's morals office, has himself been swept up in the scandals.

During a May 1998 meeting at the Vatican, Bertone told Wisconsin bishops to halt a church trial against an ailing priest who was accused of sexually abusing 200 deaf children, according to a Vatican transcript. The priest died soon afterward.

"It's not true, it's not true! We have documented the opposite," ANSA quoted Bertone as saying in Chile. "Let's not talk about this topic now, because otherwise we'll be here all day verifying precisely the action taken by me and by his eminence."

On Easter, the most important day in the Catholic faith, the Vatican broke with tradition and began its service in St. Peter's Square with a ringing defense of Benedict delivered by Cardinal Sodano.

The Vatican newspaper quoted Sodano on Tuesday as saying the church is "certainly" suffering because of pedophile priests but he asserted that "Benedict XVI has apologized several times."

"But it's not Christ's fault if Judas betrayed" him, Sodano said. "It's not a bishop's fault if one of his priests is stained by grave wrongdoing. And certainly the pontiff is not responsible."

"Behind the unjust attacks on the pope are visions of the family and of life that run contrary to the Gospel," Sodano said. "Now the accusation of pedophile is being brandished against the church."

He noted that past popes have also been criticized, including the "offensive against Pius XII for his conduct during the last World War as well as that against Paul VI" for his encyclical against birth control, the cardinal said.

Pius has been accused by Jewish groups and some scholars as not having done enough to save Jews from the Holocaust, although the Vatican contends he used behind-the-scene diplomacy to help them. Benedict has hailed Pius as a "great" pontiff, who is being considered for possible beatification.

Vatican Radio, presenting listeners with some of the most vehement counterattacks yet, depicted the church as a victim.

"There are those who fear the media campaign of anti-Catholic hatred can degenerate," Vatican Radio said.

It noted anti-Catholic graffiti on walls of a church outside Viterbo, a town near Rome, and reminded listeners that a bishop was attacked by a man during Easter Mass in Muenster, Germany. The bishop fought back with an incense bowl.

The radio likened the recent campaign to the persecution suffered by early Christian martyrs. "The crowds, incited by the slanders of the powerful, would lynch the Christians," the radio said.

In Munich, meanwhile, an independent lawyer hired by the Catholic church wrapped up his investigation of abuse allegations at the southern Ettal monastery.

"The investigation clearly shows a system of abuse that lasted for decades," Thomas Pfister told The Associated Press.

There were some cases of sexual abuse at Ettal but most victims who came forward were physically abused and most cases took place before 1990, Pfister said in a telephone interview.

The lawyer declined to elaborate as his final report will be published next week.

Associated Press Writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report.

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• Sex abuse in churches

Sectarian violence in Jos

JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Clashes between Islamic pastoralists and Christian villagers killed more than 100 people near the central Nigerian city of Jos Sunday, where sectarian violence left hundreds dead in January, witnesses said.

The latest unrest in volatile central Nigeria comes at a difficult time, with acting President Goodluck Jonathan trying to assert his authority and the oil producing country's ailing leader Umaru Yar'Adua too sick to govern.

Villagers in Dogo Nahawa, just south of Jos, said Hausa-Fulani pastoralists from the surrounding hills attacked at about 3 a.m. (9 p.m. EST), shooting into the air before slashing those who came out of their homes with machetes.

"The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes," said Dogo Nahawa resident Peter Jang, women crying behind him.

A Reuters witness who visited the village counted around 100 bodies piled in the open air. Pam Dantong, medical director of Plateau State Hospital in Jos, showed reporters 18 corpses that had been brought from the village, some of them charred.

Officials said other bodies had been taken to a second hospital in the state capital.

Gregory Yenlong, spokesman for Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang, said as many as 500 people may have been killed but there was no independent confirmation of this.

Four days of sectarian clashes in January between mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes killed hundreds of people in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, which lies at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.

Jonathan deployed hundreds of troops and police to quell January's unrest, in which community leaders put the death toll at more than 400. Official police figures estimated the death toll from the clashes two months ago at 326.

Yenlong said the state government may consider extending a dusk-to-dawn curfew still in place after January's unrest.

POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY

It was not immediately clear what triggered the latest unrest, but thousands have died in religious and ethnic violence in central Nigeria over the past 10 years.

"This is an act of inhumanity," said Da Buba Gyang, the traditional ruler of the Christian Berom ethnic group in Jos.

The tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands with migrants and settlers from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north.

The instability underscores the fragility of Africa's most populous nation as it approaches the campaign period for 2011 elections with uncertainty over who is in charge.

Yar'Adua returned from three months in a Saudi hospital, where he was being treated for a heart condition, a week and a half ago but has still not been seen in public. Presidency sources say he remains in a mobile intensive care unit.

Fears of a debilitating power struggle between Yar'Adua's inner circle, keen to maintain its grip on power, and Jonathan sprang up in the OPEC member state of 140 million people when the 58-year-old leader was brought back late at night.

Jonathan has moved quickly to reassert his authority, chairing his first cabinet meeting since Yar'Adua's return.

Jos: From Tin City to Massacre City

By Taiwo Olawale

Once again, Jos, the Plateau State capital, is up in flames. This is the second time in as many months that the town would be engulfed in deadly ethno-religious strife since the beginning of this year. The once popular tin city is fast becoming Nigeria’s riot city. But it was not always like this.

Jos used to be one of the most peaceful and tourism friendly cities in Nigeria. The city used to be the model of ethno-religious tolerance in the country. These days, however, it is becoming one of the weakest links in the country’s fragile ethno-religious balance. Though most people would trace the genesis of the problems to the April 12, 1994 riots that all but tore the Plateau State capital apart, some believe the genesis lies in the 1991 creation of Jos North Local Government Area by military President Ibrahim Babangida.

One thing that is certain, however, is that the reasons for the present crisis are traceable to the January 2010 riots. These are themselves traceable to the 2008, 2001 and 1994 riots. And, the underlying reason for all ‘the reasons’ “that may be given is that Jos is in the lethal grip of desperate ‘power mongers” who are bent on seizing control of the political future of the city.

These “power mongers” hide under religion and ethnicity to kill and maim fellow Nigerians. And, as usual with such scenarios, they have ready tools in the army of hungry and frustrated citizens living in the slums of the city. They also have co-conspirators in high places as well as in all segments of society who see what is happening as a war between “us and them.”

The First Riots
The April 12, 1994 riot was the first deadly one witnessed in Jos. The remote and immediate causes of the riots have remained the same ever since. According to the Whitepaper on the Hon. Justice J. Aribiton Fiberesima Commission of Enquiry set up to investigate the crisis, the most discernable cause of the riot was the “Recurrent friction for many years between the Berom, Anaguta, and Afizere tribes on the one hand, and the Hausa-Fulani tribes on the other hand.”

The report noted that, “Each part lays claim to Jos.  The Berom, Anaguta, and Afizere claim that they are the indisputable indigenous people of Jos, that the Hausa-Fulani are settlers, strangers, who migrated into Jos for various reasons which include commerce, employment and repair of fortune.  But the Hausa-Fulani contend that they, as owners of Jos, had had the privilege of producing the rulers of the town since way back in 1902.”
The appointment of a council boss became the tinder box that lit up the city of Jos in a 12 hour orgy of violence on the 12th of April.

Then, September 2001
An uneasy calm reigned until September 7th 2001 when violence erupted again. The same tension that existed before 1994 was the remote cause. This time round, however, the riots took a more frightening dimension as religion crept onto the agenda and the orgy of violence continued for five terrifying days.

November 2008 Riots 
The immediate cause, as in 1994, had to do with local government politics. There were disputes over council elections and for two days from November 28, Jos was on fire. Lives and properties were destroyed in the senseless orgy of violence.
January 2010
Riots broke out again on Sunday, January 17. This time around, the immediate cause arose directly from the 2008 riots. A man who had returned to rebuild his home was said to have been attacked and the madness began all over.

Now, another Riot
Just yesterday, another riot broke out. Women and children are among the casualties. In fact, a traditional ruler was quoted as saying the latest riots are evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. But, even while a federal government commission of enquiry is still trying to unravel the causes of the 2008 riots, Jos has witnessed two fresh riots.

When the dust clears after yesterday’s unrest, the remote and immediate causes would, no doubt, be traced to the same reasons identified after the 1994 riots. There would be a lot of blame-sharing and finger-pointing. But would this be the last riot? Will those who should take action do so? When would the madness on the Plateau end, soon?

Source:www.thisdayonline.com