The ostensible "Holy Land" - considered holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims - stretches from Egypt to Syria. Before we get started, lets define the word Holy: "exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness." The antithesis of war and bloodshed, wouldn't you say?
The geographical area purported to be consecrated is made up of the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, including the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. It is synonymous with both the biblical land of Israel and historical Palestine. This ersatz terra firma also refers to a territory corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan, parts of southern Lebanon, and southwestern Syria.
Pious adherents believe there to be nowhere on earth more sanctified than this segment of the Middle East. In this pseudo sacred space, monotheistic believers are certain that the supreme ruler of the universe entered into a relationship with the human race (never mind the other sextillions of sentient, thinking beings that occupy the universe).
In this Middle Eastern territory known as the Holy Land, lies the ruins of planet earth's oldest civilizations. Located at the junction of Africa, Asia and Europe, the area also serves as a corridor between East and West - a much-trampled and fought over prize for conquering armies. Billions of innocent people have lost their lives on this "holy ground."
For Christians, the Land of Israel is considered holy because of its association with the birth, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, regarded as the Savior or Messiah, and because it is the land of his people, the Jews (according to the Bible).
Jerusalem is where the plagiarized character Jesus lived, proclaimed his Gospel, performed miracles, was crucified and rose from the dead. His story is one in a long line of recycled myths borrowed from pagan folklore, such as the myth of Serapis, Horus, Dionysus, Mithras and a host of other pre-Christian saviors. The followers of Jesus venerated places associated with him [with the Roman story], foremost among them the cave at Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre.
In the Quran, the term Arabic: الأرض المقدسة (Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah, English: "Holy Land") is used in a passage about Musa (Moses) proclaiming to the Children of Israel: "O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." (Surah 5:21) The Quran also refers to the land as being 'Blessed'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land
Amazon Review of "The First Crusade" by Thomas Asbridge:
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In The First Crusade, Thomas Asbridge offers a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes, and barbarity on a vast scale. Beginning with the electrifying speech delivered by Pope Urban II on the last Tuesday of November in the year 1095, readers will follow the more than 100,000 men who took up the call from their mobilization in Europe (where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews), to their arrival in Constanstinople, an exotic, opulent city--ten times the size of any city in Europe--that bedazzled the Europeans. Featured in vivid detail are the siege of Nicaea and the pivotal battle for Antioch, the single most important military engagement of the entire expedition, where the crusaders, in desparate straits, routed a larger and better equipped Muslim army. Through all this, the crusaders were driven on by intense religious devotion, convinced that their struggle would earn them the reward of eternal paradise in Heaven. But when a hardened core finally reached Jerusalem in 1099 they unleahsed an unholy wave of brutality, slaughtering thousands of Muslims--men, women, and children--all in the name of Christianity.
The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two world religions on a course toward deep-seated animosity and enduring enmity. The chilling reverberations of this earth-shattering clash still echo in the world today.
Please tell me, what's 'holy' about a territory that has been fought over, an area that has seen billions of innocent people slaughtered since the First Crusade in 1095? That's not a rhetorical question, please tell me what's holy about this macabre 'holy land'? The oxymoron of oxymoron's.
If this territory is holy, then so should the top 10 most dangerous cities in the world be deemed sacrosanct.
- Caracas, Venezuela
- Acapulco, Mexico
- San Pedro Sula, Honduras
- Distrito Central, Honduras
- Victoria, Mexico
- Maturín, Venezuela
- San Salvador, El Salvador
- Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela
- Valencia, Venezuela
- Natal, Brazil
In the USA, Baltimore, MD and St. Louis, MO are #26 and #14 respectively on the list of most dangerous cities in the world. Today and historically, travel in the holy land is extremely risky due to the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Historically, there has never been a region of the world that comes close to the barbarity of this area so absurdly dubbed, The Holy Land.
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Jesse Williams acceptance speech for his BET Humanitarian Award was captivating. His reference to the "Hereafter" being a "Hustle," was the inspiration for this article.
We reside in a world where 34,000 children a day die from poverty and preventable diseases. Two-thirds of the world earns less than $2 per day, and one-fifth of the world is under-fed or starving to death. Why should "Believers" have to wait for an apocryphal 'Hereafter'?
Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews (including 1.5 million children) by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/holocaust-encyclopedia
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest movement of people in history. Between 10 and 15 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic between 1500 and 1900. But this figure grossly understates the actual number of Africans enslaved, killed, or displaced as a result of the slave trade. At least 2 million Africans--10 to 15 percent--died during the infamous "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic. Another 15 to 30 percent died during the march to or confinement along the coast. Altogether, for every 100 slaves who reached the New World, another 40 had died in Africa or during the Middle Passage.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=446
Nuclear Attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Within the first two to four months following the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings had killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
Deadliest Wars
- World War II: 40-85 million deaths; 1939-1945 (Worldwide)
- Mongol Conquest: 40-70 million deaths; 1206-1324 (Eurasia)
- Three Kingdoms War: 36-40 million deaths; 184-280 (China)
- Spanish Conquest of Mexico: 24.3 million deaths; 1519-1632 (Mexico)
- World War I/Great War: 40 million deaths; 1914-1918 (Worldwide)
- Chinese Civil War: 8 million deaths; 1927-1949 (China)
- Russian Civil War: 5-9 million deaths; 1917-1922 (Russia)
- Thirty Years' War: 3-11.5 million deaths; 1618-1648 (Europe)
- War in Afghanistan: 1.24-2 million deaths; 1978-present (Afghanistan)
- War on Terror: 272,000-2 million deaths; 2001-present (Worldwide)
The huge impropriety of the distribution of wealth across the globe is orchestrated by the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican. The Vatican hoards the world's wealth, profits from it on the stock market, and has the unmitigated gall to base their pious rhetoric on giving - you giving your money to them. The privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, and Central Banks around the world are methods used by International Banking Cartels, and a few of the most influential families in the world.
Throughout history, these families have done whatever it took to achieve their goals. History’s most devastating wars and financial crises were orchestrated by these influential families. Governments, standing armies and sitting presidents have and always will be pawns played by the financially elite to manipulate humanity.
Remain submissive, wait on a Savior, and the Church promises you "Golden Streets" and "Eternity with the Christian God" or "Eternity with Allah" in the "Hereafter."
Caucasoid Domination
Comedian Louis CK, in his stand-up 2008 Netflix special entitled, "Chewed Up," quipped:
"I'm a very lucky guy, I got a lot going for me, I'm healthy, relatively young, I'm white - thank God for that sh#t boy. That is a huge leg up, are you kidding me? Oh, god, I love being white, I really do.. Seriously, if you're not white, you're missing out, cause this sh#t is thoroughly good."
"Let me be clear, I'm not saying that white people are better, I'm saying that being white is clearly better, who could even argue. If it were an option, I would re-up every year - 'oh yea, I'll take white again, absolutely.. I've been enjoying that, I'm going to stick with white - Thank you!' "
"Here's how great it is to be white, I could get in a time machine and go to any time, and it would be f##king awesome when I get there." That is exclusively a white priviledge. Black people can't f##k with time machines. A black guy and a time machine is like, 'hey, anything before 1980, no thank you, I don't want to go'. " But I [white person] can go to any time... (to continue, see video top-right).
Caucasoid world domination is successful primarily because of controlling the money supply via Central Banks and the United States Federal Reserve. Mayer Rothschild stated in the late 1700's, "Give me control of a nation's money supply and I care not who makes its laws."War and religion are tools used by those in power to subjugate, manipulate, and deceive the masses.
"Hereafter" is defined as: (1) after this in sequence or in time... (2) in some future time or state. From a religious perspective, the word pertains to going to 'Heaven or Hell' after one's physical demise. These fabricated places are all part of a Roman story lifted from Egyptian mythology.
If at our core, we are pure energy, and there is no body after your physical death, how would all the 'pain and suffering' described in various holy books be applicable to a sentient being after his or her death? The story is not feasible, it's not logical and it is total balderdash.
In closing, let's look at one scripture in the biblical story of Balaam. Numbers 22:28: Then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth, and it said to Balaam, "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?"
Did a donkey actually speak? Definitely not. Many of the holy books, specifically the Bible and the Quran, are replete with anthropomorphisms and mythical tales, ascribed to an invisible, punishing, vindictive, jealous deity (be it God or Allah). A deity who plays favorites, has a chosen people, and will punish you eternally (with no body), in horrific ways, if you do not believe in his existence.
The Hereafter is a hustle!
It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.
But when we look for a moment at the world, we find that each nation has its "sacred records"—its religion, and its ideas of worship. Certainly all cannot be right; and as it would require a lifetime to investigate the claims of these various systems, it is hardly fair to damn a man forever, simply because he happens to believe the wrong one. All these religions were produced by barbarians.
Civilized nations have contented themselves with changing the religions of their barbaric ancestors, but they have made none. Nearly all these religions are intensely selfish. Each one was made by some contemptible little nation that regarded itself as of almost infinite importance, and looked upon the other nations as beneath the notice of their god. In all these countries it was a crime to deny the sacred records, to laugh at the priests, to speak disrespectfully of the gods, to fail to divide your substance with the lazy hypocrites who managed your affairs in the next world upon condition that you would support them in this.
In the olden time these theological people who quartered themselves upon the honest and industrious, were called soothsayers, seers, charmers, prophets, enchanters, sorcerers, wizards, astrologers, and impostors, but now, they are known as clergymen.
We are no exception to the general rule, and consequently have our sacred books as well as the rest. Of course, it is claimed by many of our people that our books are the only true ones, the only ones that the real God ever wrote, or had anything whatever to do with. They insist that all other sacred books were written by hypocrites and impostors; that the Jews were the only people that God ever had any personal intercourse with, and that all other prophets and seers were inspired only by impudence and mendacity.
It seems somewhat strange that God should have chosen a barbarous and unknown people who had little or nothing to do with the other nations of the earth, as his messengers to the rest of mankind. It is not easy to account for an infinite God making people so low in the scale of intellect as to require a revelation. Neither is it easy to perceive why, if a revelation was necessary for all, it was made only to a few.
Of course, I know that it is extremely wicked to suggest these thoughts, and that ignorance is the only armor that can effectually protect you from the wrath of God. I am aware that investigators with all their genius, never find the road to heaven; that those who look where they are going are sure to miss it, and that only those who voluntarily put out their eyes and implicitly depend upon blindness can surely keep the narrow path.
Whoever reads our sacred book is compelled to believe it or suffer forever the torments of the lost. We are told that we have the privilege of examining it for ourselves; but this privilege is only extended to us on the condition that we believe it whether it appears reasonable or not.
We may disagree with others as much as we please upon the meaning of all passages in the bible, but we must not deny the truth of a single word. We must believe that the book is inspired. If we obey its every precept without believing in its inspiration we will be damned just as certainly as though we disobeyed its every word. We have no right to weigh it in the scales of reason—to test it by the laws of nature, or the facts of observation and experience. To do this, we are told, is to put ourselves above the word of God, and sit in judgment on the works of our creator.
