American Power

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Why Talk of the 'Abrahamic' Faiths is an Ecumenical Farce

From Raymond Ibrahim, at FrontPage Magazine, "Spearheaded by Pope Francis":

What if you had a deceased grandfather whom you were particularly fond of, and out of the blue, a stranger says: “Hey, that’s my grandpa!” Then—lest you think this stranger is somehow trying to ingratiate himself with you—he adds: “And everything you thought you knew about grandpa is wrong! Here, let me tell you what he really said and did throughout his life.” The stranger then proceeds to inform you that much of the good things you had long attributed to your grandfather were, not just false, but the exact opposite of what he is now attributing to your grandfather—much of which you find immensely disturbing.
Would that endear this stranger to you? Every proponent of the so-called “Abrahamic Faiths” apparently thinks so.
I will explain, but first let’s define “Abrahamism”: because the patriarch Abraham is an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three religions, according to this position, share a commonality that should bridge gaps and foster growth between them.
Pope Francis is one of the chief proponents of this view. Speaking of his recent participation at an interfaith conference in Bahrain, he said his purpose was to create “fraternal alliances” with Muslims “in the name of our Father Abraham.”
Even so, Abrahamism is hardly limited to octogenarian theologians; it’s entrenched in mainstream American discourse. Thus, even the Huffington Post (rather ludicrously) claims that “Muhammad clearly rejected elitism and racism and demanded that Muslims see their Abrahamic brothers and sisters as equals before God.” In fact, Muhammad and his Allah called for perpetual war on Christians and Jews, until they either embraced Islam or lived in humbled submission to their Muslim conquerors (Koran 9:29).
That, of course, did not stop former Secretary of State John Kerry from beating on a mosque drum and calling Muslims to prayer during his visit to Indonesia—before gushing: “It has been a special honor to visit this remarkable place of worship. We are all bound to one God and the Abrahamic faiths tie us together in love for our fellow man and honor for the same God.”
After a Muslim from an Oklahoma City mosque decapitated a woman, “an official from Washington D.C. flew in to Oklahoma to present a special thank you to the Muslim congregation,” lest they feel too guilty over their coreligionist’s actions. He read them a message from former President Barack Obama: “Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice.”
Needless to say, Obama himself has often spoken of “the shared Abrahamic roots of three of the world’s major religions.”
Meanwhile, few people seem to have given this Abrahamic business much thought: How is one people’s appropriation of another people’s heritage—which is precisely what Abrahamism is all about—supposed to help the two peoples get along?
For starters, Islam does not represent biblical characters the way they are presented in the Bible, the oldest book in existence that mentions them. Christians accept the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, as it is. They do not add, take away, or distort the accounts of the patriarchs that Jews also rely on.
Conversely, while also relying on the figures of the Old and New Testaments—primarily for the weight of antiquity and authority attached to their names—Islam completely recasts them to fit its own agendas.
One need only look to the topic at hand for proof: Abraham.
Jews and Christians focus on different aspects of Abraham—the former see him as their patriarch in the flesh, the latter as their patriarch in faith or in spirit (e.g., Gal 3:6)—but they both rely on the same verbatim account of Abraham as found in Genesis.
In the Muslim account, however, not only does Abraham (Ibrahim) quit his country on God’s promise that he will make him “a great nation” (Gen. 12), but he exemplifies the hate Muslims are obligated to have for all non-Muslims: “You have a good example in Abraham and those who followed him,” Allah informs Muslims in Koran 60:4; “for they said to their people, ‘We disown you and the idols that you worship besides Allah. We renounce you: enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah alone.’”
In fact, Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse that all “radical” Muslims—from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State—cite as proof that Muslims “must be hostile to the infidel—even if he is liberal and kind to you” (to quote the revered Sheikh Ibn Taymiyya, The Al-Qaeda Reader, p. 84).
Thus, immediately after quoting 60:4, Osama bin Laden once wrote:
So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility, and an internal hate from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [a dhimmi], or if the Muslims are [at that point in time] weak and incapable [of spreading sharia law to the world]. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the hearts, this is great apostasy [The Al-Qaeda Reader, p. 43].
Such is the mutilation Patriarch Abraham has undergone in Islam. Not only is he not a source of commonality between Muslims on the one hand and Jews and Christians on the other; he is the chief figure to justify “enmity and hate … between us until you believe in Allah alone.”
Islam’s appropriation of Abraham has led to other, more concrete problems, of the sort one can expect when a stranger appears and says that the home you live in was actually bequeathed to him by your supposedly “shared” grandfather. Although the Jews claimed the Holy Land as their birthright for well over a millennium before Muhammad and Islam came along, Jerusalem is now special to Muslims partially because they also claim Abraham and other biblical figures.
As a result, statements like the following from mainline Christian groups such as the Presbyterian Church USA are common: “[PCUSA] strongly condemns the U.S. President’s [Trump’s] decision to single out Jerusalem as a Jewish capital. Jerusalem is the spiritual heart of three Abrahamic faiths …”
The Muslim appropriation and mutilation of revered biblical figures is a source of problems, not solutions. When, as another example, Islam’s Jesus—Isa—returns, he will smash all crosses (because they signify His death and resurrection, which Islam vehemently denies), abrogate the jizya (or dhimmi status, meaning Christians must either become Muslim or die) and slaughter all the pigs to boot. Again, not exactly a great shared source of “commonality” for Christians and Muslims.
It is only the secular mindset, which cannot comprehend beyond the surface fact that three religions claim the same figures—and so they must all eventually “be friends”—that does not and never will get it. All the more shame, then, that supposed Christian leaders, such as Pope Francis, rely on such “logic.”

Friday, November 25, 2022

It's Here: Black Friday!

See, Black Friday Deals: Gifts for Everyone.

Also, Carhartt Men's Full Swing Relaxed Fit Washed Duck Insulated Traditional Coat.

Shop Today

At Amazon, Today's Deals: New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

Still more, KIND Breakfast Bars, Peanut Butter, Gluten Free, 1.8 Ounce, 32 Count.

And, TRONSBOO 2-Pack Car Escape Hammer 3-in-1 Emergency Escape Safety Hammer with Car Glass Window Breaker and Seat Belt Cutter Emergency Escape Tool (Red).

Plus, Danner Men's Mountain Light II 5" Gore-Tex Hiking Boot.

BONUS: SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Thanksgiving Deal: Sony 65 Inch 4K Ultra HD LED Smart TV with Dolby Vision

Three-hundred off on this puppy!

At Amazon, Sony 65 Inch 4K Ultra HD TV X80K Series: LED Smart Google TV with Dolby Vision HDR KD65X80K- 2022 Model.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! And thank you for shopping through my Amazon links.

Katie Pavlich

She's awesome.

She'll blast you out of your boots if you try to take her turkey!

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

John K. Amanchukwu, Eraced

At Amazon, John K. Amanchukwu, Eraced: Uncovering the Lies of Critical Race Theory and Abortion.

Corporate Consolidation in Publishing Industry Downshifts After Penguin's Bid to Acquire Simon & Schuster Collapses

Even Stephen King was against the merger, which was very likely to hurt the little people in the publishing world, those who don't have the enormous influence and market share as The Shining author.

At the New York Times, "A Huge Merger’s Collapse Breaks a Pattern of Consolidation in Publishing":

The deal to acquire Simon & Schuster would have made the buyer, Penguin Random House, even larger, and reduced the number of big publishers in the U.S. to four.
After two years of regulatory scrutiny and heated speculation in the publishing world, after a hard-fought court battle and hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses, Penguin Random House’s deal to buy Simon & Schuster officially collapsed on Monday.
The unraveling of this agreement stopped the largest publisher in the United States from growing substantially larger. It also paused consolidation in an industry that has been profoundly reshaped by mergers and acquisitions, with little regulatory intervention.
The implosion of the deal came three weeks after a federal judge ruled against Penguin Random House in an antitrust trial, blocking the sale from going forward on the grounds that the merger would be bad for competition and harmful to authors. In order to appeal the Oct. 31 ruling, Penguin Random House needed Paramount Global, Simon & Schuster’s parent company, to extend the purchase agreement, which expires on Tuesday. Instead, Paramount decided to terminate the deal, leaving Penguin Random House out of legal options and obligated to pay them a termination fee of $200 million.
“Penguin Random House remains convinced that it is the best home for Simon & Schuster’s employees and authors,” Penguin Random House said in a statement. “We believe the judge’s ruling is wrong and planned to appeal the decision, confident we could make a compelling and persuasive argument to reverse the lower court ruling on appeal. However, we have to accept Paramount’s decision not to move forward.” The outcome of the trial came as a shock to many in publishing, who have watched the number of big firms dwindle to five, even as those five — Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette and Simon & Schuster — got larger by buying small and midsize publishing houses. Many feared that the further reduction in the number of big publishing houses to four would leave authors and literary agents with fewer buyers for their books, and would make it even harder for smaller publishers to compete. Many were especially wary of Penguin Random House — already by far the largest publisher in the United States — getting even bigger by absorbing a rival. Penguin Random House has about 100 imprints; together they publish more than 2,000 titles a year. The merger would have given it Simon & Schuster’s approximately 50 imprints, as well as the company’s vast and valuable backlist of older titles.
As it turned out, the Justice Department and the judge who heard the case had similar concerns and blocked the deal, an outcome that some authors and industry organizations celebrated as a necessary check on consolidation.
“The market is already too consolidated,” said Mary Rasenberger, chief executive of the Authors Guild, an advocacy group for writers that opposed the purchase. “A healthy publishing ecosystem is one that has many publishers with different tastes and interests and degrees of risk they’re willing to assume.”
This extends a period of uncertainty at Simon & Schuster, but it is one they are in a good position to navigate. The company’s recent performance has been strong, even as the results have sagged at other major publishers. Its profits for the first nine months of the year were up 29 percent compared to the same time last year, putting it on its way to a having a record-breaking year...

Lots to Be Thankful for This Thanksgiving (VIDEO)

It's Laura Ingraham, still the best opinion commentator on Fox:

'Democrats need to get the same treatment. Tit for tat/mutual assured destruction is the only way they'll learn...'

From Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "Marjorie Taylor Greene says her legal bill is $700,000. ""Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) reelection was such a sure thing that she was projected the winner as polls closed on Election Day, but that didn’t stop liberal groups from challenging her right to be on the ballot. In addition to facing a well-financed upstart challenger in a race she won 66%-34%, she faced a challenge to having her name on the ballot by a group that labeled her an insurrectionist for defending some of those jailed in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots'."

Colorado Club Shooting Suspect is Non-Binary

Well, that fucked up the left's "right-wing hate" narrative, the motherfuckers. This was an LBGTQIA+ nightclub, and the smears were just too irresistible for the vile, demonic left.

At Twitchy, "Stephanie Ruhle didn’t let new info about Club Q shooter disrupt her narrative about ‘the far Right’."

Also, "Watch Alisyn Camerota’s brain break as she reports that CO shooter is ‘non-binary’."

Main story at the New York Post, "Colorado Springs shooting suspect Anderson Aldrich is nonbinary: lawyers."

Elon Musk: I Agreed to Let a Group of Leftwing Censors Advise Twitter on Content Moderation If They Agreed Not to Conspire to Pressure Advertisers to Boycott Twitter to Kill the Site. I Did That, But Then They Pressured Advertisers to Drop Me Anyway.

At AoSHQ, "A few weeks ago, conservatives were disappointed when Elon Musk announced Twitter would be consulting with leftwing censorship groups such as the noxious Southern Poverty Grifting Center, I mean Law Center, and the Democrat front group the ADL. A couple of days ago, the head of the ADL complained that Twitter had restored Donald Trump's twitter account. Donald Trump -- who has Jewish grandchildren. And then he asked, 'Is it time for Twitter to go?'"

Are Store Shortages and Empty Shelves On Purpose?

At Issues & Insights, "As Shortages Persist Under Biden, It’s Time To Ask: Is This On Purpose?"

Did the United States suddenly become a socialist basket case? It’s hard not to come to that conclusion after reading about the endless shortages plaguing the nation. Each of which President Joe Biden either seems clueless to resolve or determined to make worse.
Let’s start with the biggest one: the shortage of diesel fuel. While Biden was busy draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to tamp down gas prices before the midterm elections, the real worry was that supplies of diesel fuel have been running short.
Two years after the short-lived COVID lockdowns ended, diesel inventories continued to trend downward to their lowest levels since 2008. The cost for a gallon of diesel fuel is 46% higher than it was a year ago, according to AAA, and now costs more than $5 a gallon.
That affects every corner of the economy because, while passenger cars mostly use regular gasoline, diesel powers just about everything else that makes the economy move, and many homes, especially in the northeast, rely on heating oil – a related product – to keep their families from freezing to death...

RTWT.